Female Mayor Steers Her City Through Texas’ Macho Culture

The nuns, police officers and social workers are all standing silent, listening to the mayor.

It’s a somber sidewalk ceremony: A handful of people pause to mourn domestic violence victims, women who were beaten to death in their Laredo homes.

Mayor Betty Flores keeps it short. She’s crying.

“I want to thank the men in my life, who’ve always protected me,” she says. “My father, my grandfather, my husband of 37 years. The men I’ve worked with.”

Betty Flores, who two years ago became the first female mayor to run this historically isolated, rough-living border city, is not a typical power broker. But her straight-shooting, no-nonsense practicality has proven effective--so much so that some see a future for her in Congress.

The 56-year-old mayor clatters through City Hall in heels and hose, peers from beneath her bangs during meetings of the all-male city council. This in an overgrown ranching outpost, where female leaders are still something of an anomaly.

“You still see some machismo, some men that want to sit back and see if she messes up,” says Edna Garcia, Flores’ younger sister. “I tell her, ‘When they’re staring at you, pull out your lipstick and put it on.’ ”

A Quiet Revolution

Her election was a quiet revolution from a hometown woman who was anything but a rebel.

Before Flores was mayor, she was a wife who asked her husband whether it was all right to change jobs, a high school dropout who gave birth to two children before her 20th birthday.

Flores never took college courses. She’s the eldest daughter of the late Eloy Garcia Sr., a World War II veteran and local official. It was he, friends say, who taught Flores about leadership, who introduced her to Laredo’s political scene and pulled the strings in her campaign.

On the day of his daughter’s 1998 election, the 75-year-old Garcia, battling cancer, rode an ambulance to the polls. He died a week after she was sworn into office.

As mayor, Flores flourished--despite a propensity for occasionally cheeky remarks.

She accused U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla of belittling her beloved hometown, called Gov. George W. Bush “tacky” and suggested Border Patrol agents give illegal immigrants “a bottle of water and send them on their way.”

Over lunch, Flores dwells on the Republic of the Rio Grande, Laredo’s short-lived 1840 attempt to declare independence from remote federal power. In those days, the federal capital in question was Mexico City.

“Back then we did it because they wouldn’t help us fight the Indians,” Flores says. “You know what? It’s time to do it again. We’re held hostage down here. They just say, ‘Oh, the border can take care of it; they’re used to it.’ ”

Flores wants more federal and state money to deal with border issues. She points to the vast traffic unleashed by free trade; to educational and economic obstacles; to her city’s strained infrastructure.

Laredo marks mile one of Interstate 35, the spinal cord of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Its position on the mighty corridor that runs from Duluth, Minn., to the Pan American Highway has made it the second fastest growing U.S. metro area, after Las Vegas.

“This is a time of explosive growth,” city manager Larry Dovalina says. “As a consequence, we have a very explosive mayor.”

Her temperament revealed itself early. After she was elected ninth-grade class president, a wisecracking classmate bemoaned the vote, and she bloodied his nose.

Later, when the Laredo Morning Times ran a snapshot of 15-year-old Betty, Tony Flores was smitten.

“I’m going to marry that girl,” the 18-year-old Tony told his mother.

She was 17 on her wedding day, and dropped out of school two credits shy of graduation. Two years later she was changing two sets of diapers.

She eventually took classes to polish off her diploma. As her children grew, she took jobs in banking, worked beside her husband and eventually ran a loan department.

The good times ended in 1986. The couple’s 19-year-old son, Tony Jr., was struck and killed by a drunken driver.

Betty Flores took refuge in long talks with her father. She joined Mothers Against Drunk Driving and spoke in schools for Ross Perot’s Texas War on Drugs.

“You’d think a woman who lost her son like that would just hide out,” Edna Garcia says. “But instead it was a major bang for her life.”

Politics followed. Flores was drawn to issues of food, shelter and child care--”the things that people care about.” She became a county affordable-housing officer, then a consumer advocate for the Federal Reserve Board.

A Rising Star

When former Mayor Saul Ramirez was tapped by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Flores finished his term. In a May 1998 election, she beat eight other candidates for a new four-year term.

She inherited a city notorious for corruption and insularity--a reputation that makes Flores bristle.

“There’s always been a stigma on South Texas, but I don’t think it’s any different from any place else,” she says. “I’m out there trying to show that there are a lot of good people down here.”

She’s a rising star now, a Latino Democrat who toppled a gender wall, a border politician who stands up for the region.

“She’ll definitely be a force to be reckoned with,” says Jorge Haynes, senior vice president of Laredo’s International Bank of Commerce. “A few years from now, she’s going to have an array of options--she’d be a very viable candidate for senator, for representative. Either one.”