Marty Schladen

El Paso Times

AUSTIN — Whether border security measures are warranted — or even contemplated — in Big Bend National Park has become a flashpoint in Texas’ most closely watched congressional race.

As he tries to retake the District 23 seat that U.S. Rep. Will Hurd won from him in 2014, Democrat Pete Gallego is highlighting a border-security bill that Hurd co-sponsored shortly after he took office.

A political observer said that Gallego is using the bill, which didn’t become law, because it highlights the conflict Hurd faces in being a border congressman, but also a member of the national Republican Party.

“Hurd has a balancing act between Republicans, who rate (border security) as the highest priority, and Democrats and Latinos” who live along the border and are offended by lurid claims that it’s dangerous, said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus.

Gallego maintains that the bill, known as the “Secure our Borders First Act of 2015,” contemplates construction of new roads and Border Patrol infrastructure within a park that is known for its remoteness and solitude.

“The idea that you would give anybody the unfettered ability to bulldoze in Big Bend National Park is just wrong,” Gallego said in an interview last week.

The 800,000-acre national park draws 300,000 visitors a year, making tourism there an important economic driver in the center of a vast congressional district that stretches west from Hurd’s home of San Antonio, past Alpine, Gallego’s hometown, through much of El Paso County’s Lower Valley.

Gallego said that with agriculture waning in the district, residents are increasingly dependent on tourists who are drawn to places like Marfa, the McDonald Observatory and Big Bend.

The Secure Our Borders First Act is “evidence that Will doesn’t know the district,” Gallego said. “He doesn’t have any connection to it.”

For his part, Hurd said that Gallego is mischaracterizing the legislation by claiming that the security measures contemplated in it would all be in Big Bend National Park. Rather, Hurd’s staff said, they are for the Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector, which runs from Sierra Blanca east to Fort Stockton and north from the Mexican border through Oklahoma.

The bill calls for 192 miles of new roads and six miles of fencing and the three “forward operating bases” to be built. But Justin Hollis, Hurd’s campaign manager, said they could be built anywhere in the sector. Since the park already has infrastructure and much of the rest of the sector is remote, those facilities likely would be built elsewhere, he said.

"It's embarrassing that former Congressman Gallego, a man that represented West Texas, doesn't even know the difference between Big Bend National Park and the Big Bend Sector for U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” Hollis said in an email. “I would think that a ‘West Texan’ such as Pete would know the distinction of the park, which is in (Texas) and the Big Bend Sector, which encompasses the entire state of Oklahoma and parts of Texas. Ultimately, Pete Gallego is ‘Pants on Fire’ here. The bill would not authorize hundreds of miles of roads through the park or threaten natural habitats."

However, Gallego’s spokesman, Anthony Gutierrez, said the language of the bill itself shows that that it contemplates construction within the park.

Section 13 of the bill says that the U.S. secretary of the interior cannot impede the Border Patrol’s ability to build roads, barriers and “temporary tactical infrastructure” on federal lands within 100 miles of the Mexican border. It also says the bill gives Border Patrol no access to state or private lands.

Gutierrez said there is no other land in the Big Bend Sector owned by the federal government within 100 miles of the border and under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior other than Big Bend National Park.

The bill also exempts the Border Patrol from 14 federal laws, including the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Antiquities Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

“It would be unnecessary to waive all of the laws protecting Big Bend National Park if no impact to the park was intended,” Gutierrez said in an email.

Gallego is using the bill against Hurd to highlight Hurd’s ties to Republican stances that aren’t as popular along the border as in Iowa, Rottinghaus said. At the same time, the Democrat is underscoring his connection to the central part of District 23, he said.

“There’s a real value in being seen as protecting Big Bend,” Rottinghaus said.

Some experts have said that with a big federal buildup along the border over the past decade, the numbers don’t bear out claims that hordes are crossing illegally.

Hurd, a former CIA agent with service in the Middle East, has been careful to avoid overheated rhetoric. He’s worked hard to emphasize the importance of cross-border commerce to the district’s economy and he’s asked the U.S. State Department to stop issuing blanket travel warnings for Mexico.

“It's frustrating when we talk of Mexico as one place, when it's not,” Hurd said in a statement.

Referring to the sleepy Mexican town across from the sleepy Texas town of Presidio, Hurd has even mocked some of the more alarmist claims.

“I spent nine years as an undercover officer in the CIA," KPBS-FM in San Diego quoted him as saying. "So I’ve been in some pretty rough places. Ojinaga’s not one of them.”

But Rottinghaus said that still leaves him with the sticky problem of representing a border district in a party that believes the border is a problem.

“If the core of your party is going in the complete opposite direction of where the swing voters are in your district, that’s a problem,” Rottinghaus said.

Marty Schladen can be reached at 512-479-6606; mschladen@elpasotimes.com; @martyschladen on Twitter.