Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN — An increasingly frustrated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is blaming House Speaker Tom Craddick for blocking funding needed to open a pharmacy school in South Texas, despite a new $15 million building and the state's shortage of pharmacists.

The feud between two of Texas' top Republicans extends to El Paso, where the state has committed $75 million to construct two medical school buildings.

Dewhurst said Craddick also has stalled $38.5 million in operating funds needed to keep the medical school on track to open in three years.

The pharmacy and medical schools would become the first professional schools in the state's 1,254-mile U.S.-Mexico border region.

"Those two facilities have not happened because of the lack of support from the speaker of the House," Dewhurst said.

Craddick spokeswoman Alexis DeLee said it's unfair to blame the speaker for the stalled projects.

"That's not what's going on here," she said.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cost the state millions of dollars, and state leaders don't know if a soon-to-be expected Texas Supreme Court ruling might obligate the state to significantly increase public education spending, DeLee said.

"We don't want to go ahead and spend money that we don't know we're going to have," she said.

Lawmakers agreed to fund the two border schools during the regular legislative session this spring until Craddick pulled the plug, long before the hurricanes hit.

The recommended $13 million to open the pharmacy school was cut at the same time that $13.5 million was moved to open an OB/GYN program in Craddick's hometown of Midland. That program was not rated as highly as the pharmacy school by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

DeLee has denied the funding changes were connected.

Texas A&M-Kingsville needs $10 million to open the Irma Rangel School of Pharmacy, which was ready to enroll its first 70-student class more than a year ago.

"It's outrageous that we should have taxpayers' money spent on a state-of-the-art, first-class pharmacy center and not put students and faculty in it when we have a shortage of pharmacists in Texas today," Dewhurst said.

South Texas had only 49 pharmacists per 100,000 people, compared with 74 pharmacists per 100,000 people statewide, according to a 2003 study by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy.

Money for both the pharmacy and medical schools is available from a $655 million pot of vetoes that Gov. Rick Perry made in June. Perry and Dewhurst both support funding for the two border professional schools.

But the money cannot be appropriated without approval by the Legislative Budget Board, which Dewhurst and Craddick chair.

Craddick, who declined comment for this report, did not respond to two mid-October letters from Dewhurst urging a budget board meeting.

DeLee said the speaker responded Wednesday, repeating his concerns about appropriating money during times of uncertainty.

Beyond the escalating tensions between the two Republican leaders is the despair felt on the Texas A&M-Kingsville campus after university officials had to cancel a Nov. 16-17 visit by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education.

It marks the second time university President Rumaldo Juarez had to cancel the visit to his campus. Those canceled visitations cause more than embarrassment, he said.

"The more times we do this, the more credibility we lose," he said.

The university also cannot successfully recruit faculty without a funding commitment, Juarez said, adding that he has "grave concerns that a major investment by the state is about to go down the drain."

Dewhurst expressed concern that the state's treatment of the border projects could give Republicans a black eye among Hispanics and border residents.

"The last thing I want is a misimpression in people's minds that Republicans aren't interested in helping the border area and Hispanics when I can assure you that the truth is that we are," Dewhurst said.

Dewhurst is correct, said Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, chairman of the House Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

"In the long run, this is very bad for the Republican Party. It's a blemish on their record with Hispanics, and it's particularly galling that people running for office proclaim the importance of education and when they have a chance to put their money where their mouth is, they refuse to do it," he said.

Legislators and lobbyists familiar with Craddick contend he wants to "punish" El Paso because its delegation routinely opposes his priorities, and that he remains unreceptive to the pharmacy project because of a chilly relationship he had with the school's namesake, Irma Rangel, the Legislature's first Latina.

The former House Higher Education chairwoman died of cancer more than two years ago.

"The difficulty is that Tom Craddick doesn't always say what he thinks, whereas Irma Rangel always said what she thought. It's a very jarring contrast, a big difference in styles, so my impression is that relationship was never particularly warm," Gallego said.

Suggestions that Craddick holds any animus toward El Paso or the former Kingsville lawmaker are false, DeLee said.

Students and faculty at the prospective pharmacy school are unsure what to make of the legislative flap.

Indra K. Reddy, professor and dean of the Irma Rangel College of Pharmacy, said students "are anxious and very nervous as time is running out, but are very hopeful of a positive outcome."

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, credits Perry and Dewhurst for making the border schools a priority.

"Hispanic Texas is the most uninsured, yet least medically served, community in the U.S.," he said. "If the leadership lets Craddick block funding, then expect Hispanics to take note when it's time to vote."