In trying to win, has Dewhurst lost a friend?

AUSTIN — Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst may have bought some future political advantage this week at the cost of a friendship.

The political gain is with fellow Republicans who want to require that registered voters present photo IDs proving their citizenship before voting.

The friend is Sen. John Whitmire — a Houston Democrat and the longest serving member of the Senate, often referred to as the dean. He has been a staunch Dewhurst ally and hunting buddy.

Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, fought to get a voter identification bill to the Senate floor. Whitmire opposed it, and the dispute turned nasty.

On Tuesday, Whitmire protested when Dewhurst said he missed a vote on bringing the GOP-backed voter ID bill to the floor.

Whitmire said he was "working the floor" but present when the vote was called. "Right is right, and wrong is wrong," Whitmire said hitting his desk and cursing for punctuation. "You don't have to win this this way."

Dewhurst threatened to kick Whitmire out of the Senate chamber. "Dean, you're going to compose yourself or you are going to leave the floor."

The motion to debate the bill failed.

Dewhurst added fuel to the fire the next day when he blasted an e-mail across the Capitol saying Whitmire "gamed the voting process," then tried to make himself the victim.

The tone was highly uncharacteristic for the diplomatic Dewhurst. The lieutenant governor said staff sent the letter without his approval, and retracted portions of it.

Hot topic on both sides

Voter identification legislation has always been a hot-button issue. It's even hotter this year because of Democratic gains in 2006, concern about illegal immigration and Dewhurst's political ambition. He has designs on the governor's seat, and he has been much more political this session as he tries to shore up support among the Republican base.

Republicans like the voter ID bill because they believe it will weaken Democrats, but can argue that it is a reasonable requirement.

People need identification to board planes, to rent an apartment, to buy Sudafed, they say.

None of those, however, is a constitutional right — voting is.

Republicans say the bill is needed to protect against voter fraud by people who cast ballots using false identification or stolen identity.

Democrats counter that Republicans grossly exaggerate the prevalence of voter fraud.

The Democrats fear that requiring identification will suppress turnout among two key constituencies — low-income minorities and the elderly — because they are more likely to be deterred from voting by additional requirements.

In his letter, Dewhurst cited "independent polls, like one recently conducted by Austin-based Baselice & Associates."

Mike Baselice isn't exactly independent. He is Gov. Rick Perry's pollster and most of his clients are Republicans.

Baselice conducted a poll the first week in April for an anonymous client on another subject. He says he threw the voter ID question in on his own, because it was a hot topic at the time. He provided the results to Republicans, who are now using it to support their cause.

The poll found 95 percent of Republicans, 91 percent of independents and 87 percent of Democrats support using photo IDs.

Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas, who trained Baselice, says it is easy to elicit that kind of response to a poll question.

Recalling Vo-Heflin race

Among Republicans it is an "article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections," Masset said. He doesn't agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote.

Remember that in the 2005 election contest between Hubert Vo and Talmadge Heflin, Heflin questioned more than 250 votes cast in the state House race.

But a Republican lawmaker who investigated the contest concluded that Heflin produced "no evidence of any intentional voter fraud" that would have affected the outcome. Vo's margin narrowed, but he won the election by at least 16 votes. Democrats maintain that Republicans' general claims of voter fraud are similarly overstated.

Dewhurst has declared the voter ID bill all but dead this session, but nothing is ever really dead until the deadline for passing bills expires. That's next Wednesday.

Let's see which version of Dewhurst — the diplomat or the partisan — we get in the next few days.

kristen.mack@chron.com