Marilyn's Love Child by JFK LETTER to READERS

GIB QUITS HOUSE TO HUNT BIGF

A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES FEBRUARY 14, 1992 $1.50 Bill Clinton: Marilyn's Love Child by JFK LETTER To READERS

Greetings, o most beloved, noble, sorely- euphemism for drunk pols — "the ruddy-faced missed and best of all readers in the world, representative." this is ol' M.I. comin' at you after an absence of The old rules, which I still believe in, frustrate 16 years. Dugger conned me into.coming back reporters because of the hypocrisy factor. All for a shot as Guest Editor on account of me being male pols run for office with one arm draped slightly unemployed at the moment, and I STILL around "the little woman," blathering for all say being editor of the Texas Observer is the they're worth about "family values" and "the A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES best job in American journalism. Still doesn't importance of the family." Some actually are We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to pay squat either. wonderful family men (Paul Tsongas comes to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all You may have noticed I decided to take the mind) and others aren't. There's a temptation to interests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation Observer tabloid this issue: hell, everyone else expose the hypocrites, but the press gets itself of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own is doing it, why not the T.O.? What a swell cou- into a terrible bind if it goes that route. If conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater ple of weeks for journalistic ethics this has been. Clinton's sex life is a story, so is Bob Kerrey's, to the ignoble in the human spirit. We were privileged to watch our professional and so is Jerry Brown's, and then, just to be non- Writers are responsible for their own work, but not colleagues grilling Gennifer Flowers: "Did he partisan, we have dredge up the old stories about for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree use condoms?" "Were there any threesomes?" George Bush's mistress. While we're mucking with them because this is a journal of free voices. Why didn't they just cut to the chase and ask around in that headline-producing slime, the SINCE 1954 if Clinton is a good lay? problems of a country dead in the water — with But in the wake of our recent wallow in the economy stalled, the cities rotting, and the Publisher: Ronnie Dugger self-righteous condemnation of gutter journal- schools failing to teach — never get addressed. Guest Editor: Molly Ivins Associate Editor: James Cullen ism (with my humble self spear-carrying in Better to let the hypocrites go in peace. Managing Editor: Brett Campbell the ranks for all I was worth), the press now The press has in recent years become.besot- Layout and Design: Diana Paciocco needs to step carefully indeed — not into Bill ted with its self-appointed mission to examine Copy Editors: Roxanne Bogucka, Amy Root Mexico City Correspondent: Barbara Belejack Clinton's private life, but into his public actions. "the character issue" among candidates. But there Editorial Intern: Roddy de la Garza It's one thing for him to have an affair with a is no observable relationship between moral rec- Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Warren Burnett, Jo Clifton, Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, woman who spells Jennifer with a G; it's anoth- titude and public efficacy: Jimmy Carter is, I James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Ellen Hosmer, Steven er to put this woman on the state payroll. I don't believe, as moral a man as we've elected to the Kellman, Michael King, Mary Lenz, Tom McClellan, care if they were just pen-pals, the people of presidency: but at the end of his first term, the Bryce Milligan, Greg Moses, Debbie Nathan, Gary Pomerantz, Lawrence Walsh. Arkansas shouldn't have been paying the salary majority of our fellow citizens didn't think much Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; of a woman who was only the 9th best-qualified of him as a president. Lyndon Johnson was a Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerrville; Chandler on a list of 11 applicants for her job. That's a fairly foul specimen as a human being; but had Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, scandal. One doesn't toss it off because the press it not been for Vietnam, he would be remem- Houston; Ruperto,Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, has so embarrassed itself asking moronic ques- bered as one our greatest presidents. Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry tions of Jennifer with a G. One thing the Clinton megillah has done for L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Larry Nichols, the fellow with a grudge Texans is to answer the burning query of 1990 Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, who filed a lawsuit against Clinton last year, -- Should Ann Answer the Question? As Austin; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; clearly has an axe to grind — Clinton fired Dave McNeely noted, if the answer to either Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. Nichols from his job at the Arkansas question — have you ever committed adul- Development Finance Authority. From Nichols' tery? have you ever used an illegal drug? — had Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hint- lawsuit and other sources, one gathers the ADFA been "No," we would have heard it long ago. I erlang, Alan Pogue. was Clinton's personal fiefdom, and his use of was among those in '90 who thought Ann Contributing Artists: Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, it for both political and personal purposes bears Richards should have said, "Yeah, I smoked pot Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, close investigation. a couple of times, there it is, don't vote for me Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail The oldest of all rules for political reporters if you're horrified." I was wrong. Answering the Woods, Matt Wuerker. trying to get a take on how someone will per- question only leads the press to ask more ques- Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson form in higher public office is "look at the tions. "Where? When? Who with?" "Did he use Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom record." The private peccadillos of public offi- condoms?" "Were there any threesomes?" Executive Assistant: Gail Woods Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons cials have traditionally been considered fair game **** Development Consultant: Frances Barton only if (A) they wound up on the police blotter For this issue, I have re-instituted an old

SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year S27. two years $48. three years $69. Full-time (when Congressman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas Northcott-Ivins rule (we co-edited from 1970 to students $15 per year. Back issues S3 prepaid. Airmail. foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl.. was found by the D.C. police swanning about 1976) for putting out the T.O., a balance between 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current subscriber who finds in the reflecting pool in the company of a strip- Funs and Worthies. After wallowing in the state's the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. per professionally known as the Argentine political idiocy for a few pages, you then have THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-45 I 9/USPS 541300), C) 1992, is Firecracker, the press was entitled to a field day: to learn something that will be Good for You. published biweekly except for a three-week interval between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing Co., you can't expect us not to enjoy it when God After you've thoroughly depressed yourself by 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512)477:0746. Second- class postage paid at Austin. Texas. gives us a story like that) or (B) when some learning about how awful some important POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER. 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. private behavior begins to affect a politician's problem is, you then get to switch back to light performance in public life. When L. Mendel comedy in the Capitol. My old and new friends, A Member of the Rivers showed up reeling-drunk on the floor I only hope you enjoy reading this issue as much Association of • Alternative Newsweeklies of the House to blither, we should have writ- as we enjoyed putting it together. ten about it. In those days we had a genteel code — MOLLY IVINS

2 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 Lessarstimmtv 4 Gibber & Other ir ., bill TIXAS 111111P FEBRUARY 14, 1992 Misdemeanors VOLUME 84, No. 3 FEATURES BY MOLLY IVINS ing ramifistations." "It could have bad ramifistations in the hilterlands." "This problem is Gibber & Other Misdemeanors OD WE'RE GOING to miss House a two-headed sword: it could grow like .a By Molly Ivins 3 Speaker Gib Lewis. It's not often we mushing room." "We don't want to skim the Redistricting From D to R G get a target like that in public office cream off the crop here." "We'll run it up the By Molly Ivins 5 (come to think of it, it's not all that rare either flagpole and see if anyone salutes that booger." — look at our last governor, and the one before In Gibberish, anything unusual was "adnor- A Tribute to Rupert Koeninger that, and the one before that and By Ronnie Dugger 7 the one before that). The Gibber VIC HINTERIANG The Roots of Bush's Oil Policy has been providing peerless enter- By Edwin Rothschild 1 0 tainment at the Capitol for ten Labor Seeks Political Alternatives years now and his retirement By James Cullen 12 announcement Jan. 8 devastated The Long Struggle for Justice: fans of Texas legislative oddity. Doggett' s dissent on school finance 16 Despite the trying legal circumstances surrounding his retirement Hard Time for Border Rage (those pesky misdemeanor indict- By Debbie Nathan 18 ments to which he is so prone) the Shareholders Gripe About Gibber left with his head held high Executive Pay and a song in his heart. By Deborah Lutterbeck 20 In his Farewell Address to the press (the watchdog of democ- DEPARTMENTS racy) the Speaker spake thusly: Letter to Readers 2 "You've cost me a lot of money, Dialogue 6 a lot of time, a lot of embarrass- ment and probably a political Books & the Culture career." Singling out his home- Oliver Stone Does Dallas town newspaper El Gibber added, By Steven Kellman 22 "Why should I do anything for Afterword 15 the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Bill of Rights Needs Help which has repeatedly over the By James C. Harrington 23 years absolutely destroyed my Political Intelligence 24 ass? I mean, you all, Number One, got my ass indicted on a Cover: Design by Diana Paciocco, with apologies to goddamn speculative deal. You Elvis, JFK, Marilyn and Big foot have never shown me any goddamn consideration at all. Why should I show that goddamn newspaper any mal." If he was confused "There's a lot of uncer- their wheel chairs into the back of gallery. consideration at all? I mean, just think about tainty that's not clear in my mind." Economic The Speak read both resolutions and the procla- it. I don't need you son of a bitches and appar- diversity kept coming out as "economic ver- mation and didn't make hardly any mistakes — ently you all don't need me up there. I hate to satility." And the budget could be cut through we were all so proud. Then he looked up at be that blunt about it." "employee nutrition." the gallery and said, "And now, would y 'all The Gibber gave us so many moments to This may be apocryphal, but Lewis suppos- stand and be recognized?" . remember. Both his tongue and his syntax reg- edly once replied to a teacher who criticized his But Texas politicians who have difficulty ularly got so tangled that his language was syntax, "What sin tax? I'm not for any sin tax. expressing themselves are seldom, in my dubbed Gibberish and provided the state with I'm against all new taxes." experience, fools. Perhaps the most poignant wonderful divertissement. He once closed a ses- Then there was his immortal performance on moment I ever had with Lewis was the time sion by thanking the members for having extin- Disability Day, 1985: Disability Day is when he called me into his office late one sine die guished theirselfs. Upon being re-elected at the state of Texas honors its handicapped citi- night and asked if I would please stop making the beginning of another session, he told mem- zens for their efforts to get better access to pub- fun of the way he talks. "My mother," he said bers he was both grateful and "filled with lic buildings. We never appropriate a nickel for gently, "was an English teacher." I damn near humidity." the purpose, but we always honor their efforts. cried. It's not nice to make a proud man look When anxious to press forward with legis- So both houses just resoluted up a storm, the like a clown — but I could never resist his more lations, he would urge members to "disperse governor issued a proclamation and the Gibber creative manglings of the language. On the other with the objections." He once announced, "This presided over the joint session. Public access hand, I never mistook him for a fool either. is unparalyzed in the state's history." Other for the handicapped at the Capitol is not all that Those who know Lewis only through the Gibberisms: "This legislation has far-reach- great, but a bunch of them managed to wedge headlines' describing his indictments and ques- THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 3 tionable dealings must by now assume the man were then forced to undertake. is a hopeless sleazebag. Actually, he's a hel- The tactic is sinfully irresponsible, but it sure luva hard guy to dislike. If you met him, you'd makes life a lot easier for pols, and that's who This is Texas today. A state full of enjoy hangin' out with him: he's kind and kept re-electing Lewis speaker. Sunbelt boosters, strident anti-union- he's fun. I have always suspected he is a fun- The best I ever saw Gib Lewis do was in ists, oil and as companies, nuclear damentally decent, well-intentioned person. But the wake of sine die night of the 69th session, weapons and power plants, political I do not know how to account for his repeated 1985. The indigent health care bill died in the hucksters, underpaid workers and toxic violations of ethical conduct, whether they were waning moments of the session, killed by wastes, to mention a few. illegal or not. I used to describe him as "ethi- Republican Rep. Bill Ceverha of Dallas, a noto- cally-challenged" and once, in a fit of exas- rious meanie. Mark White called a special peration, observed that he has the ethical session for the next morning. The Senate sensitivity of a walnut. He just didn't get it. passed the bill in 30 minutes. The House, The trip to Ruidoso in 1984 on the racing with the governor's aides all over the floor, 4 lobbyists' tab. The trip to Pebble Beach on referred the bill to the Health Committee ii= it* the taxpayers' tab. The trip to South Africa as chaired by another Republican right-winger a guest of the South African government. Brad Wright. Gib Lewis came into the committee room and stood directly behind Wright, 490, s4 d -_ 31 N v„iit The time in 1986 he had reimburse his politi- 4 cal campaign fund for $25,000 he had "mis- like a rather menacing cigar-store Indian, as the . takenly" used to purchase stock for his committee took up one conservative amend- ..1 fik,.441,\.* company's retirement program. "Just one of ment after another. The message was clear — 4 aft those dumb things," said Gib, with one of his no Democrat was to vote for any of them at Alfred E. Neuman grins. The time he failed the expense of the Speaker's personal dis- 41.1-illt. ' - 414f to report his business interests held jointly with pleasure. „, MI5 . ii- IrA ile. .1,1. -- lobbyists because he "ran out room on the The Republicans then introduced a noxious 4kckg ' 1/0,.1 paper." The time he had Parks and Wildlife substitute bill on the floor and the good bill's stock his ranches with fish and game and sponsor, Jesse Oliver, moved to table. The IN then defended himself by saying, "I have been motion passed 73-71, but the Republicans called 246 - he'pin' Parks and Wildlife for 17 years: if they for verification and got a 71-71 tie. Gib Lewis BUT owe anybody a favor they owe me a favor." always wielded a mean gavel — he has bro- DO NOT , This is a prime example of the the Extenuatin'- ken them innumerable times — but I never heard DESPAIR! Circumstance School of Texas Political Ethics. him hit a lick as hard as he did that afternoon. Since I doubt Gib Lewis ever intended to be The vote was stuck at 71-71; the vote was corrupt, he was honestly indignant and hurt held open, arms were being twisted clean out nom, THE TEXAS when people accused him of it —shame-on- of their sockets but it was still tied. The Speaker, those-who-think-evil was his usual reaction. by custom and common sense, almost never server But by the end, there just weren't any more votes — it's bad form. Suddenly Lewis said, lop "The chair votes Aye" and whacked the gavel excuses. He was actually indicted in 1991 for the same damn thing he had to plead "no con- down so hard it sounded like the crack of test" on back in 1983 — failure to report. In '83 doom. And that's why poor people no longer TO SUBSCRIBE: • it was failure to disclose business interests he die on the streets outside clinics and hospitals held jointly with lobbyists —in '91 it was in this state. failure to report a gift of money from lobbyists. But aside from a very few such shining Even the D-U-M-B defense wouldn't work. I hours, Lewis's unprecedented 10-year tenure Name don't know why he did it. Anyone with his as Speaker was marked not so much by his eth- record who couldn't see that letting lobbyists ical bloopers as by a dated Texas concept of pay for an $800-a-night hotel room in Mexico what government is for — to create a healthy was going to look terrible, whether it was bidness climate. It was Lewis' habit, motivat- Address illegal or not, has, well, the ethical sensitivity ed by his desire to prevent "his" members from of a walnut. having to vote on anything tough, to work out In his own way, in his own context, in his accommodations in which all the affected own time, Gib Lewis was a good speaker. parties were represented. And by all, I mean City State Zip Which is to say, that by the values of a time every lobbyist with a stake in the outcome. It mercifully past, he was a fine "members' speak- was the era of the "done deal," lobbyists for cor- er." He was largely non-partisan, fair to porate special interests sitting down with the ❑ $27 enclosed for a one-year Republicans, fair to just about everybody. He elected representatives of the people on an equal subscription. tried to make sure the members didn't have to footing to hammer things out. In fact, the lob- vote on issues that would cost them political- byists often appeared to have more clout than ❑ Bill me for $27. ly — the stuff they really hate, like abortion. the legislators, so that the only party not rep- He did not invent, but he certainly carried to a resented in the back room was the public. That's fine art the tactic of dodging controversial why we so often got government of the monied and costly issues until whatever the problem special interests, by the monied special inter- was had festered so long the courts had to interests and for the monied special interests. And 307 West 7th, vene and declare whatever-it-was unconstitu- Gib Lewis honestly never saw anything wrong Austin, TX 78701 tional. This clever ploy enabled enabled all the with that process. He thought he was doing . pols to blame the damned old interfering fed- the right thing. eral judges for whatever costly remedies they He was wrong. ❑ 4 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 Redistricting From D to R

BY MOLLY IVINS

EDISTRICTING THE TEXAS LEGISLATURE has gone from SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fouled Up) to FUBAR (Fouled RUp Beyond All Recognition). It's an instructive little saga, com- bining the best elements of the Perils of Pauline and the Keystone Cops, and reminds us all once more that the greatest controlling force of history is human stupidity. The Lege started off briskly with, its decennial assignment to draw 150 House districts and 31 Senate districts that would divide the population of the state evenly, be compact and contiguous, not cross county lines or divide communities, be fair to Republicans and Democrats alike, give increased representation to underrepresented minority citizens and protect all incumbents. Fun! The House and the Senate both passed redistricting bills for themselves by the end of the regular session on May 29. The House bill was so-so and the Senate bill was dead meat. Texas redistricting bills must be submitted to the U.S. Justice Department for approval under the Voting Rights Extension Act, which is the punishment we got for screw- ing our own black and brown citizens for so many years — the feds don't trust us to draw fair lines on our own. And you can see why if you look at that first Senate plan. "Fatally flawed," said the all the redistricting experts quite solemnly. "Godawful," said everybody else. The original staff version of the bill gave Hispanics, our fastest-growing population, additional seats in the Senate — not everything they wanted, but close enough for government work. But then South Texas and San Antonio got hopelessly botched, in part because the Hispanics themselves couldn't get their act together. MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) was doing the ALAN POGUE heavy lifting on the bill, but no one from South Texas showed up to U.S. District Judge James Nowlin support it and in San Antonio, the Lebanon of Texas politics, some Hispanics actually opposed it for their own internecine reasons. In the absence of strong pressure to do the right thing, the Senate gave drew a plan that would. In a mad round of phoning and faxing, they way to the worst instincts of politicians and went the incumbent-pro- got the signatures together, notified Atty. General Dan Morales and tection route. went down to Ramirez' court to get an agreed judgment: MALDEF, Bob Bullock either wasn't paying attention or hadn't yet recovered the A.G., the Senate and the judge all signed off on it and it was shipped from the bitterness of the 1980 redistricting fight, in which he had a star- off to Justice. ring role. In any case, he didn't want to start a fight. Sens. Chet The House held new hearings on its now-unconstitutional plan, but Brooks and Bob Glasgow, redistricting chairmen, are equally guilty Redistricting Chairman Tommy Uher and Speaker Gib Lewis were of nonfeasance. Why the Senate bothered to protect Cyndi Krier of unwilling to go as far as MALDEF wanted; they got stubborn over a San Antonio, a Republican with a district that's 55 percent Hispanic, stupid matter of face and the thing stalled. So an enterprising group who was going off to run for county judge anyway, and Bill Sims of of House members — led by Libby Linebarger of San Marcos, Sam San Angelo, a right-wing Democrat, is unclear. Sims has the second- Russell of Mount Pleasant, Parker McCollough of Georgetown and most conservative voting record in the Senate, exceeded only by that Eddie Cavazos of Corpus — decided to copy the Senate's ploy. They kindly, right-wing nut-hatch John Leedom of Dallas. Both Krier and rounded up 79 signatures for a plan that gave Hispanics most of what Sims voted against a bill this session to prohibit employment discrim- they needed and met the constitutional requirements. This move showed ination and last session both voted against pesticide regulation, unem- considerable courage, since the Speaker was against it, and involved ployment comp, minimum wage and contracts for seasonal workers. a positively manic phone-and-fax orgy. The judge was ready to approve You can see why Hispanic voters would prefer other representation. the plan when the Republicans tied it all to the railroad tracks again. MALDEF, meantime, had filed suit in state district court in South The R's (in legislative parlance, Republicans and Democrats are R's Texas on the matter of the notorious undercount of minority citizens and D's and are so styled hereinafter) had gone off and filed their in the '90 census. U.S. Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher own suit with the Texas Supreme Court claiming this whole process (Commerce does the census) kept saying adjustments to the count would of amending legislation by phone without even calling a special ses- be announced by July 15, then on the 15th he announced they weren't sion was highly irregular. First the Supremes took a procedural vote on going to do squat, a stunning retreat from one-man, one-vote by bureau- whether to hear the case: Justices Raul Gonzalez and Jack Hightower, cratic fiat. Meantime, the state judge in South Texas, Mario Ramirez, both D's, joined the four R's on the court and accepted the case 6-3. had declared both the House and Senate plans unconstitutional and dis- Then Gonzalez again sided with the R's to undo what the House and criminatory under the Texas Constitution's Bill of Rights. Working on Senate had done for Hispanics, and may the thanks of grateful South the assumption that their plan would never pass U.S. Justice Department Texas voters be with him on his next electoral journey. muster either, 19 Democratic senators plus Bullock got together and For those pure-minded citizens inclined to pout over the possibility THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 5 that there is something unseemly about running around amending redis- would throw off the absentee ballots, not to be thought of. (In fact, tricting plans when the Lege isn't even in session, it should be point- filing had already proceeded under the agreed settlement plan and elec- ed out that the Supremes did not hold the process unconstitutional: tions could have come off without a hitch if it weren't for Nowlin.) indeed, they said it was O.K. as long as certain picky procedural Where the process got put in the ditch was the Supremes' decision rules were followed — and they ruled that the agreed settlements in that nixed the agreed settlement, which had been approved by the Justice Ramirez' court had not met those procedural requirements. In fact, Department. In the Blame Dissemination Department, some credit there is nothing about redistricting that is not political, the majesty of should go to MALDEF for overplaying its hand and to the attorney the law notwithstanding. general's office for foot-dragging, wimpery and generally failing to With that, the R's ginned up their lawsuit in the federal court of Judge play aggressive ball. And to both those parties for spending more James Nowlin, a former state rep and R activist who had testified for time fighting with each other than trying to get a decent redistricting the R's during the 1981 redistricting wars when he was already a sit- plan. The A.G.'s office and MALDEF achieved levels of acrimony that ting federal judge. The Fifth Circuit added two more R's for balance would have done credit to the Middle East. on a three-judge panel, Walter Smith of Waco, former McLennan The legal end-game now is to get Judge Nowlin recused, a process County Republican chair, and Will Garwood of Austin, whose Morales should have started months ago. The depositions have pro- impeccable R credentials include a momma who gave millions of duced some nice nuggets, for example, George Pierce's telephone calls dollars to 011ie North's contra operations. In testimony before this to Nowlin's unlistet home phone and Pierce's contention that impartial panel, the D's pretty well shot the R's case to pieces, but since Nowlin told him to draw the plan. Morales capped his performance they no longer had a redistricting plan of their own the judges decid- by firing David Richards and Rick Gray, the lawyers who got the agreed ed to draw one for them. settlement from Ramirez and approval from Justice. That in turn pro- This non-partisan gem, drawn by Republican Rep. George Pierce of voked an explosion in the Senate that seems, at long last, to have San Antonio, huddling with Judge Nowlin's clerks, is a remarkable convinced Morales that he's in the middle of a political war, not one example of the redistricting art. It takes a Senate that was 22 D's and of those polite civil suits that drags on for years. Until Morales got ener- 9 R's and makes it, lawsuits pending and the creeks don't rise, 16 R's gized about mid-January, otherwise sane people were heard yearning and 15 D's. Even if all the electoral cards don't fall the R's way, for the return of Jim Mattox. One of the few heroes in all this has since there are always conservative D's who vote with the R's, we're been the state's Democratic Party chair, Bob Slagle, who helped looking at effective Republican control of the Senate. And think forge Democratic unity on the agreed settlement plans. what fun that will be. George Pierce, you will be happy to learn, is run- We still face not just a Republican-dominated Senate for '93, but a ning for one of the new R Senate seats in San Antonio. Senate in a position to kill all efforts to improve redistricting plans Gov. Ann Richards called a special session Jan. 2. The House let the for the rest of the decade, in fact, a coup d'etat achieved less by Nowlin plan stand for '92, then passed their improved version for Republican brilliance than by Democratic stupidity. subsequent elections. The Senate finally drew a decent plan, but Nowlin's Who knows what Texans ever did to be cursed with such a dim set court was suddenly terribly solicitous about the electoral process — of marplots in public office, but it does raise the always timely ques- after all, filing deadline was Jan. 1, primaries March 10 and delays tion, "Is God Punishing Us?" 01

DIALOGUE

Use That Gold Mine Austin and spent a year working with CURE, more sense, but it appears Texas "progressives" I always subscribe and try to read the Texas the Richards campaign, and promoting a treat- and "liberals" are more centrist than radicals Observer for news that does not make print in ment center for indigent offender addicts. I that we need in this political climate. Thanks the Texas dailies. More recently I get reports got so disgusted with what I found at the to term limits here in California, we are los- on Central America and foreign affairs when Capitol, I just exploded in a rage that ended me. ing a good senator and a good assemblyman I'm looking to find who owns the Texas leg- up in prison. I know now to take another road, from Santa Barbara County. islature. For my continued support of and use but I was still young (activist speaking), and the Hasse R. Bunnelle of your publication, I would like to know who realities of politics really took me by surprise. Santa Barbara, Calif pays for the campaigns of Bruce Gibson, Since that time . I have been working hard Cyndi Krier, or Pete Laney You should have toward influencing prison reform....Even with Let Women Run the Country a gold mine in the files of the Texas Ethics meager resources I try to be a burr under the First let me express my thanks to you for Commission—now use it. saddle of those on our criminal justice com- having such a wonderfully good journal.... Lewis H. Earl mittees who think we can build our way out A male friend of mine recently said that we Post of this mess.... should turn over the running of the country to By the way, there are a number of other the women. They could get things done with- Social Rage inmates who now depend on my issue each out destroying everything in their paths. After Leads One to Prison month. They're "hooked on the truth" and it all, women raise families, plan budgets, have Without the Observer I don't know how I would makes me smile from ear to ear. to plan ahead for their families' futures. ever get the honest side of those issues facing Terence Hazel Running a country, with all its woes and us regular people. The Observer is my life- Huntsville problems, would not be so different from line. It is so sad how little most people really raising a family and running a household. Let's know and understand about how government Term Limits Axe Good Officials encourage women to run for office and then runs and how, by their apathy, they allow big I am glad to know you oppose term limits, which let's vote for them to save the country before business and corrupt politicians to take unfair the Bushites and other fascists approve. If we collapse! advantage of us they like it, there must be something wrong Peggy Snyder I was deeply involved in the activist scene in with the idea. I thought Frances Farenthold had Comfort A Closure for Rupert Koeninger

BY RONNIE DUGGER time seven years later, at 1927 Avenue I in that town, they built a low-slung, commodious house with redwood from the Pacific coast, Austin Douglas fir from Washington state, Southern pine, gum, and hard- OME INJUSTICES require a closure that only a death can woods from East Texas, limestone from Austin, and sand from Walker give. Nothing rights the wrong; the damage goes on and on. County. They were helped in the work by two high school boys, two S Finally, a death gives an high school teachers, three end to it. Rupert Koeninger's members of the college facul- death gave such a closure. ty, and one full-time carpenter. He was born in 1907 in a log By 1961, when Shivers was cabin on the line between Wise out but his appointees still dom- and Jack counties in northwest inated the board of regents at Texas. His mother was the Sam Houston State, Koen- daughter of a pioneer doctor in inger's department had five Jack County. His father, the son teachers and 174 undergradu- of an immigrant, had home- ate majors; three graduate steaded in Wise County and was majors had received their mas- a schoolteacher. In 1924 the ter's degrees from the depart- Koeningers moved their six chil- ment that year, and graduates dren to Plainview. They didn't had gone on to more advanced have enough money to send work at Smith College, Tulane, Rupert to college, so he finished the University of Texas, Wayland Baptist Junior College Washington University, by giving a promissory note for Louisiana State. People trained the tuition, earning his meals by his department were work- waiting tables and washing dish- ing in detention homes, proba- es at a boarding house, and tion and parole departments, sleeping in a coal bin on a pal- state and federal prisons, child let of quilts. By working in welfare, public welfare, Wyoming on snow-shoveling employment systems, the crews for the National Park Salvation Army, children's Service he saved enough money homes, homes for unwed to enter Texas Tech in Lubbock. Rupert Koeninger greeting a former student of his, mothers, industry and business, To meet his expenses there he Dan Rather and teaching. waited on tables, washed dish- One Saturday morning in the es, janitored, and took care of spring of 1961, the president the guinea pigs at the Elwood Hospital. He graduated in the summer of the college, whose name was Dr. Harmon Lowman, called Koeninger of 1929. into his office and told him he was fired. There were no written charges. Working on a trail crew in Glacier National Park in Montana, There was no hearing. When I tried to interview Lowman a year Koeninger heard of a vacancy in a high school in Fairview in the later, he was ill, and declined; the regents, who were not ill, never gave same state, hopped a freight to the town, and taught four years there. an explanation, either. Koeninger, though, said Lowman told him he While hitch-hiking from place to place for his vacation in 1933 he met, was out because of certain public activities, which Lowman recited: through the Y.W.C.A. in Lawrence, Kansas, an intelligent and high- a speech in 1955, a public exchange with right-wing Congressman John spirited young woman who also hailed from Texas, Ethel Childers. He Dowdy of Athens, a circular against the re-election of a judge, and was impressed with her, he told a friend, because she loved poetry, she remarks Koeninger had made during a showing of a film presented was interested in social causes, she was pretty, she could play the piano, by the local John Birch Society. and she could sew her own clothes. They married a year after they met. In the speech, Koeninger had not concealed, although he had not Koeninger received his M.A. in sociology at the University of Chicago declared, his belief that the 1954 Brown decision which ended and his Ph.D. in the same discipline from Ohio State University. He school segregation should be complied with. Koeninger belonged to taught around, at Marietta College, Ohio State, and Central Michigan the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation; Birchers com- University, and he received three post-doctoral awards: for a study of plained in Huntsville that he had attended an interracial meeting. In juvenile delinquency among high-school dropouts in Michigan, from 1960 he had publicly promoted the sale of poll taxes—in fact he had the General Education Board; for a study on helping low-income groups led the campus Young Democrats into setting up poll-tax booths at through education, from the Alfred E. Sloan Foundation; and for the grocery stores in town that were frequented by blacks—and this helping the Chippewa Indians in Central Michigan make more had mightily displeased the conservative local paper, the Huntsville money from their basket-making crafts, from the National Council of Item, and the county commissioners. In the spring of that same year • Christians and Jews. Koeninger asked Dowdy, during a program at which the congress- In 1947, just two years before the right-winger, Allan Shivers, became man's challenger for re-election also spoke, why Dowdy had not voted the governor of Texas, Koeninger became the chairman and the only to override a veto of a water pollution bill. Dowdy denied that he member of the sociology department at Sam Houston State, and Rupert had so failed to vote; Koeninger insisted that he had, and said later and Ethel moved their four children to Huntsville. In the summer- he was right. Koeninger and other teachers endorsed the opponent THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7 of a seated district judge whose daughter was married to a son of one of Texas. But they had been clubbed. Ethel's husband, their children's of the regents of the college. father, fired without reasons or hearing—they were dispossessed, oust- These were the events Harmon gave justifying the firing of ed, driven out of their home and forced to take up other ways and Chairman Koeninger. The precipitating episode, among those places. In time, their friends, making the best of it, made jokes about Lowman cited, was the showing of the movie, "Operation Abolition," the Koeningers' "adventures at the country campus," as they called during which the local Birch leader, W.H. Kellogg, said "you were Sam Houston State. But Ethel Koeninger told me, "We paid and either American or Communist" and the Nation, the Reporter, and paid and paid." the New Republic sympathized with communism. Koeninger, also in The firing of Rupert Koeninger because he was a good citizen plunged attendance, said that the film was propaganda and so was Kellogg's Sam Houston State into an institutional dark age of academic black- name-calling. listing. Students didn't come, professors left. In the town some chil- As I learned during my investigation of this case in 1962, C. dren turned outright against their parents for their parts in the Smith Ramsey, the chairman of the board of regents, who was the scandal, and families split bitterly, some never to fully recover. Like brother of the powerful former lieutenant governor, Railroad a night flower, the local John Birch Society withered and blew out of Commissioner Ben Ramsey, telephoned Kellogg and asked for his town into the surrounding forest where it belonged. account of the meeting. Ramsey did not telephone Koeninger and Rupert resumed teaching sociology at Texas Southern University ask him for his side, nor did any other regent, nor did Lowman. The in Houston. "I am very well received and am enjoying my work," he regents then fired Koeninger as they would fife a maid or a cook. said while he was there. "There is freedom, and the aura of a univer- "I am unable to tell my wife and the children," Koeninger wrote into his diary on May 7, 1961. "I did not sleep any last night. After it got daylight I went down to the garden and cut grass and weeds. About 10 o'clock, I could see my two neighbors under the oak trees. I told them what had happened....I told them plainly that I was hurt and heartsore about it; that I did not think this should happen even to a yellow dog; that I was afraid it was a hard uphill fight for which I had no stomach." That night, he told his wife, who said that two years earlier a member of the local John Birch Society had told her, "Your husband is too liberal, we run his kind off sooner or later, harass them until they get disgusted and quit, get them fired, or they get a better job elsewhere." On May 14 Koeninger told his daughter, who respond- ed loyally. On May 19 he ordered a busybody, who had his wife crying, out of their house. On May 22-23 he wrote in his diary: "My feelings are that it will be a long, hard, embar- rassing, humiliating task to have to go see all the board membeis. I have done no wrong. I am no criminal and yet my life's work is being taken away. `Those who kill the body must die—those who kill the spirit go free.'" Seven of Rupert's colleagues gathered with him in the home at 1927 Avenue I, which now he and his family would be leaving. Dr. William Painter, the chair- Rupert and Ethel Koeninger man of the college's chapter of the American Association of University Professors until he quit the school in protest of the Koeninger firing, said of that meeting: "You never saw a more sity prevails. I love my work." He became chairman of the department. desperate group. Eight of us. I tell you, I saw grown men shed tears Throughout the first half of the seventies the Koeningers lived in that night. The rest of them had been here with him 15 years. It was Michigan again while Rupert taught again at Central Michigan like a wake. They were actually crying. They were talking about giv- University. He had been director of classification for the Texas ing him a percentage of their salaries each month so that he would have Prison System for five of the years while he had also been teaching an income. Then one of them, who is a very high ranking man here, in Huntsville, and now one of his articles on penology was cited in said, 'I don't have any money, but I can borrow money and I'll pay the 1972 Supreme Court ruling which declared a moratorium on cap- off all your outstanding debts.' And he kept after him—'How much ital punishment. did you owe, Rupert?' He turned 'em all down." When Rupert was 68 he and their son Art took off in a car for Alaska, In an amendment to the public school teachers' pay bill in 1961, camping and cooking out along the way. Up there Art fell for a woman the Legislature instructed public school administrators not to "coerce and took up a life as a jeweler in Sitka, gradually contriving his any teacher to refrain from participating in political affairs in his house in the town out of a converted tin factory. Rupert had returned community, state, or nation," and an Attorney General's opinion home alone in the car, but for their 50th wedding anniversary he and held that the language protected teachers who ran for and held for polit- Ethel went back up there. They laid out two huge salmon and all the ical office as well those who campaigned for other candidates. But trimmings and invited people from all around to come—there were Rupert Koeninger and his family packed up and left Huntsville. even announcements on the radio. The Natives had almost never Koeninger's family advanced in their various chosen paths as fami- seen a couple who had lived long enough to have a 50th wedding lies of gifted and useful people do; Koeninger continued to do his work anniversary and so they came from all around, bringing bear meat, pos- and his good works, and he continued to be a good citizen, continu- sum, reindeer, and abundant vegetables. Texas had failed them, but ing, for example, to support the election of Senator Ralph Yarborough Alaska did not. 8 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 Neither did nature or Rupert's wife or his four children or his Last November Rupert went camping and fishing alone at the camper eleven grandchildren. Ralph Pease, a professor of English at Sam park at Pedernales State Park. Along toward evening he had pains Houston when Rupert was there, said that Rupert's work as a sum- and went to the ranger station. Although he said he could drive he mer ranger at five national parks had given him the chance to live was taken by EMS to the hospital in Austin. He had had a heart and hike in Yellowstone, Glacier, Mt. Rainier, and Rocky Mountain attack, but he seemed all right. His son Cliff said a nurse came in parks and on Mt. McKinley, and that ever after, what he loved doing and asked him, "What can I do for you? What would you like?" and best was fishing and hunting and climbing mountains. "He would Rupert's face broke into the wry smile that was characteristic of him take the children fishing and patiently hook up the worms—show them and he said, "Peace." A little later, he died. how to cast and then untangle the reel for them—he always made them After a little while, the Koeningers' daughter Freida, who is finish- think that their catch was a huge fish and that they had landed it all ing her Ph.D. in Spanish literature at the University of Texas, and a by themselves," Pease said. "He liked to take pictures of them hold- friend of hers, went out to the Pedernales to be where he had been ing their fish." last. "We saw these huge catfish in the river," Frieda said. "This big A man Pease tells about says that one weekend in early spring Rupert blue heron settled close to us by the river, and kind of watched us. In invited him to join the Koeninger family on a weekend excursion to about half an hour, we saw about fifteen deer. And these big catfish see the dogwood and redbud in bloom. "I honestly don't think I had right down there in the water—that heron flew around near us for ever noticed them before, and I had lived all my life in East Texas," half an hour." the fellow said. "But Dr. Koeninger wasn't content just to see them. "You took us out to the Reservation to meet your friends among He wanted to identify them and explain them to his children. He the Chippewa and into the swamps to find the black ash from which wanted to walk around them, to touch the blooms, to sit under the they showed us how to make the baskets," a former student of Rupert's branches. I saw then just how much he loved nature." in Central Michigan, Charles Westie, wrote to him, after he had died. Once when Pease was camping with Rupert at State Lake, a heron "You taught us that they were the first to use this part of the earth, sailed in gracefully and landed near them. "Thank you, Mr. Heron," and that we were the guests of these Native Americans. They made you Rupert said gleefully. When Rupert was 71 years old he hiked for seven one of them. This was more than 50 years ago. days through mountains along the Resurrection River in Alaska. "You sent us to the migrant labor camps to learn about the inhu- "He loved flowers and birds and funny hats and pretty girls and hiker's mane conditions created in them by Good Christians. You sent us to shoes and children and Indians and bear teeth and just about anything the state prisons and arranged for some of us to teach the prisoners you could name," Pease said. "He loved being a liberal. Some things some of the things that might make them better members of the he didn't like and he wasn't afraid to express his opinion about them— society. You sent some of us to the slums of big cities to learn about capital punishment, racial prejudice. With lesser things—like preten- the downtrodden." tious professors and ties—he showed a bemused acceptance." If Emerson was fatuous, and he was, in teaching us that for every Somewhat in the same way the University of Texas tried to make injustice there is an offsetting compensation, still, in Rupert Koeninger's it up to J. Frank Dobie for having forced him off their faculty, UT- life he had Ethel, his children, his grandchildren, and that was no divine Austin, as if apologizing for the wrong done Koeninger by its little-sis- accident, he had them because he was so good and did so much good ter university, made Rupert a docent at the Harry Ransom Center in and went on trying to do good all the time he wasn't fishing or lapi- 1980. Having written up his firing in the Observer, I had come to know dating or fuming at the moral madness or enjoying the glimpsed moral him and Ethel, but I did not see much of them, other than here and there promise of these years we live together. At the memorial service Ralph from time to time, until recent years. Their•son Cliff Koeninger, a Pease said, "Right now he's registering voters and looking for Democrats gifted architect, had deigned for them a strikingly beautiful and in heaven. He is where injustice is unheard of, where feelings are soaring home in South Austin. I was in and out of Austin a lot, and they easily expressed and always accepted, a place where nature is respect- told me one time to come stay, with them, and I did, and still do. They ed and where the fishing is always good." As those of us he left . call the room I sleep in "Ronnie's room," and they never complain that stood around the Koeningers' laden Thanksgiving table, Freida said, I usually come in at ten at night or midnight, or leave before dawn. "Dear God, Thank you for rocks and trees and flowers, for nature. "You remember," Ralph Pease said, "when you were a small child and Thank you for friends, for family, for love, for beauty, for art. Thank you would go to see your grandparents and how they were so happy you for life, for our wonderful lives. Thank you for this food. to see you? Remember how wonderful it felt to be greeted with such Amen." ❑ enthusiasm and affection every time? That's how Rupert and Ethel have always made their friends feel. No explanations were necessary. They're glad you're here." Rupert pulled catfish out of the Colorado at a special place on the David Duke Issue Reprints! river he liked to fish; I have eaten his catfish at the Koeningers' table. He had set up, in a room near the garage, his lapidary shop, where he Reprints of the Jan. 17 & 31 special issue on David Duke are on fashioned stones into smooth and glistening forms of many colors, and suspended them on leather thongs. I bought two of these off him and hand for immediate shipment— or for mailing to the persons you took them to my wife. He was always cheerful, even when he lost his designate — at the following rates, postage included: sight in one eye in the quarter of our orbal vision that lies, as he said, 1-4 copies $3.00 each 25-49 copies $2.00 each between 9 and 12 o'clock. He was with everything that anybody said, and he laughed, it seemed, more than anyone else—and the 5-9 copies $2.50 each 50-99 copies $1.75 each

Koeningers are a jolly bunch at table, laughing readily and so intelli- 10-24 copies...$2.25 each 100-249 copies $1.50 each gently that among them laughter is the same as thought. Rupert and I talked often about a book of Indian place names in For larger quantities, call Cliff Olofson at the Observer for the price: the United States which he was compiling, state by state. As Dr. Hugh (512) 477-0746. Cunningham, a professor of journalism at Sam Houston State, said, Rupert's wish to pay tribute to the American Indians he loved was Send your order and prepayment to: Texas Observer Reprints, expressed through this work, He meant it to be a thousand-page hardback reference book. Dan Rather, a student of his 40 years ago, 307 West 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701. agreed to write the introduction.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 9

etw,S.V.1.44,ora, .W7.1101:r 71.P.M1A .pat The Roots Of Bush's Oil Policy

BY EDWIN S. ROTHSCHILD "significant reductions in profits and cash flow." Despite an expected drop in U.S. production and "pressure to do Washington, D.C. something, especially from the independent oil producers who are S CRUDE OIL PRICES begin to collapse once again, most oil numerous, vociferous, and politically active," the Treasury Department analysts are pointing to "market fundamentals" as the expla- advised against interfering to protect domestic producers with an import Anation. The combination of warm weather and recession have fee or other price protection mechanism. While unconcerned about the indeed dampened demand and resulted in excess supply. While this impact on independent producers, the Reagan-Bush policymakers found analysis is accurate, it misses one important element — the role of Saudi that the oil price drop "should have no effect on oil refining and mar- Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers in keeping production high, keting sectors in the short run. Later, as sales increase due to economic despite changing market conditions. growth and lower oil product prices, these subsectors should see For the last six years, under the leadership of King Fand, Saudi oil higher profits." production policy has been closely linked to U.S. and Western eco- Although this became the administration's position, the Department nomic and political interests. More specifically, previously classified of State did not appear to share Treasury's views. A confidential government documents reveal that in early 1983 the Reagan-Bush State Department memorandum expressed serious reservations about administration devised a secret policy to support a sharp drop in the policy, especially the long-term consequences. "... lower prices world oil prices as a way to stimulate the U.S. and world economies. and increased economic activity will result in increased oil use [and] Coincidentally the lower oil prices stimulated Republican political will also discourage investment in new oil production...As a result, the prospects during election years. President George Bush, despite his free world could again be vulnerable to oil emergencies." Texas oil industry roots, not only supported and furthered this policy, At a closed hearing of the Senate Energy Committee in early 1983 but benefited from it in 1988 and may benefit from it again in 1992. a high-ranking Treasury official told producing state senators that, "The Government documents, including some made public under the Administration believes that a decline in oil prices is clearly to be Freedom of Information Act, and other reports show continuing efforts desired, with beneficial net effects." In the committee's subsequent of the Reagan and Bush administrations to keep oil prices low at the public hearing several days later, another administration official tes- expense of domestic producers. tified that "a relatively precipitous decline in oil prices to $20 a barrel would be manageable from an energy perspective." 'Good Judgment' Although the Reagan-Bush Administration may have expected mar- Saudi oil production has averaged close to 8.5 million barrels a day ketplace activity to result in lowering world oil prices, efforts by var- since November 1990, when the kingdom increased its output to replace ious governments and international oil companies in 1983 and 1984 embargoed Iraqi and Kuwaiti production. By keeping its production prevented significant price declines (prices in 1983 did drop about $5 high as consumption has dropped, Saudi Arabia, more than any other a barrel from $34 to $29). On August 1, 1984, for example, Sheik Zaki oil producing nation, precipitated a $5 per barrel decline in price that Yamani, the former Saudi Oil Minister, the British Secretary of Energy began at the end of October. In appreciation of Saudi Arabia's pro-U.S. and the major international oil companies successfully stopped pricing policy, the Bush Administration's deputy energy secretary, prices from falling and defended the $29 price. Two weeks later, W. Henson Moore (a former Louisiana Republican congressman, recent- Don Regan sent a memorandum to Energy Secretary Don Hodel advo- ly appointed to be the White House deputy chief of staff), told a reporter cating lower oil prices, saying that "we should resist any pressure on during his recent trip to the kingdom that Saudi resistance to raising us to prop up oil prices." prices "is something that from our economic point of view we appre- In October 1984 citing the prospect of lower oil prices, a confidential ciate" and it "reflects goold judgment on their part." The Saudis' State Department memo revealed that the Treasury Department "good judgment" on oil pricing policy was inspired by the Reagan reviewed its 1983 study and concluded "that lower oil prices would Administration when it became clear that without Saudi cooperation be good for the world economy, and that the problems such a devel- on production, world oil prices would remain too high, limiting oil con- opment might create for oil exporters do not present a threat to the sumption in the West and depressing production in the Persian Gulf. world trading or financial system." Realizing that the market had In early 1983 the Department of Treasury under then-Secretary Don not conformed to their expectations in 1983 and that U.S. allies Regan completed a major policy study on the implications of a fall in Saudi Arabia and Great Britain had worked to hold prices up, the world oil prices. That study concluded that an international oil price administration changed gears and began an all-out effort to "talk down" decline from $33 to $20 a barrel would benefit the United States. oil prices. This report provided the economic rationale for the Reagan-Bush admin- Energy Secretary Hodel, in a speech to a London oil conference said istration's decision to intervene in the oil market by persuading pointedly, "Are [oil] customers seeing prices that are low enough?" Saudi Arabia to sharply increase production in 1985-86. Treasury Several weeks later, in response to OPEC efforts to maintain oil advised that if Saudi Arabia and other countries "with available oil prices at the $29 per barrel level, Hodel took the highly public and reserves should step up their production and increase world output unusual step of sending telexes to major oil companies in the United by ... about 2.7 to 5.4 million barrels a day and cause the world price States criticizing OPEC's effort "to manipulate the market by setting to fall by about 40 percent, the overall effect on the United States would artificially high prices or by seeking to fashion arbitrary restrictions on be very beneficial." The Treasury document also accurately predict- production." ed that oil imports would rise after two to three years by 1.75 million barrels a day (they actually rose by 1.6 mb/d between 1985 and Sea Change 1987) and that "small independent producers" would experience Hodel's comments were viewed as a clear sea change in U.S. policy. Jean Syrota, a high-ranking French energy official told U.S. Embassy Edwin S. Rothschild is Energy Policy Director of Citizen Action, a con- officials that Hodel's comments were the first time a top U.S. energy sumer advocacy organization, in Washington, D.C. official had so specifically addressed the oil price issue. The U.S. 10 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 officials later reported to the State Department, "Without directly ident Reagan expressed concern about low oil prices and the impact saying it, Syrota implied that the US may be behind a move to drive on domestic producers and recognized the need for stability. oil prices down, or that US petroleum policy had otherwise changed in some significant way." 'Texas is Screaming' On February 11, 1985 Saudi Arabia's King Fand met with President The Administration sought to have its words interpreted as send- Reagan during the King's visit to the United States. The two leaders ing a message to the Saudis. But the Saudis weren't the real target. The talked about oil prices, the U.S. trade deficit and the problems caused flurry of public utterances by George Bush and other high adminis- by the dollar's strength. Specifically, the King wanted to know about tration officials were designed to mollify domestic producers. When the changed U.S. position on oil prices. During the King's visit asked about Bush's trip, one administration official candidly admit- Sheikh Yamani, met with Vice President Bush, Secretary of State ted to an oil industry journal that "Texas is screaming." Another senior George Shultz, Treasury Secretary James Baker and Energy Secre- administration official was even more forthright: "What's going on tary John Herrington. Before meeting with Yamani, Shultz received is a lot less than meets the eye. We never left the track we were on. a memorandum from Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy There was never any thought to change our energy policy. What we explaining that "Yamani will have met with Secretary of Energy have here is domestic politics at work." Herrington who will have discussed the oil market situation and To demonstrate the administration's duplicity on the matter one need urged the Saudis to follow more market-oriented pricing and produc- only have been present to hear Energy Secretary Herrington, just three tion policies." days after his highly publicized comments to the national press, give After these official meetings, the Saudis sat down to work out the a non-publicized speech at Harvard University praising the unleashing details of a market-oriented sales policy with the four major buyers of "the free market forces of supply and demand" which allowed crude of Saudi oil — Exxon, Chevron, Texaco and Mobil. The companies oil prices to plunge "from over $35 a barrel to just $10 to $15 a barrel proposed a "netback pricing" scheme that worked to lower prices today." Lower oil prices were great, said Herrington, because and increase production. "American drivers are paying 45 percent less for a gallon of gasoline, energy production is at an all-time high, and foreign oil imports are In Tandem down." And, said the Energy Secretary, "those are just a few of the In tandem with the policy to reduce oil prices the Treasury Department benefits we've gained from relying on the free market." Clearly, the under James Baker devised a dollar devaluation policy that was designed term "free market" had become a convenient facade to cover the Reagan- to expand U.S. exports and undermine congressional efforts to pass Bush administration's secret arrangement with the Saudis. protectionist legislation as well as lower oil prices in Europe and Japan. George Bush's highly visible trip to the Persian Gulf was designed Additionally, because the strong dollar was hurting the foreign oper- to have the Vice President state publicly the administration commit- ations of the international oil companies, devaluing the dollar was an ment to the "free market" and price stability. After his 2-hour meet- easy way to quickly increase their overseas profits. ing with King Fand, Bush told the press that they had agreed on the Finally, the dollar devaluation also helped Saudi Arabia because a need for stability in the oil market. Yet, according to a confidential large portion of its financial reserves were held in non-U.S. currencies. State Department memo, "Vice President Bush explained our energy As a secret State Department document revealed, even though Saudi policy emphasizing our belief that market forces could best set oil price oil revenues would fall significantly, the Saudis received "a major wind- and production levels." No mention of stability. fall due to the recent decline in the dollar." For 1985 alone the wind- And another State Department document reveals that at a crucial fall amounted to "as much as $10 billion."The State Department also meeting of the International Energy Agency, U.S. representatives noted that "Given announced U.S. exchange-rate policy, the Saudi not only advocated "free market" policies, but actively fought against Government probably expects to reap a similar benefit in 1986, proposals by some IEA-member countries, specifically Japan, for a albeit on a smaller scale." top-level meeting of IEA energy ministers aimed at stabilizing Knowing that the impact would create economic havoc among inde- world oil prices, arguing in an official statement that it would pendent U.S. oil producers who would mount a vehement protest, the "directly affect the market and encourage expectations that the mar- Reagan-Bush Administration was prepared with a public relations strat- ket can be controlled." According to this highly revealing declassi- egy to deflect any criticism and to ensure that the administration was fied cable, "... Separated by the Atlantic from domestic political seen as the innocent victim of Saudi actions, not the perpetrator of those considerations," the U.S. officials strongly reaffirmed the adminis- actions. As prices began collapsing in 1986, more and more indepen- tration's non-interventionist policy, going so far as to try to excise dents began to complain, just as the Treasury Department had predicted, from a draft IEA statement on the impact of lower oil prices any men- that the administration was not taking seriously the impact of the tion of "stability"—the very term used by George Bush in explain- price decline on the economy of Texas and other southwestern states. ing the purpose of his recent oil talks in Saudi Arabia. In addition, With the pressure mounting, the administration went public with its "The U.S. downplayed the impact of lower prices on the U.S. oil two-track position: concern about lower prices and support of the production in the near term. There will be only a limited decline in free market. oil and gas production as a result of lower oil prices, because in Although both President Reagan and Vice President Bush favored most cases marginal production costs are below the $10-$15 per the free market and lower oil prices, they also wanted the political sup- barrel range...Consequently, our energy security is not likely to dete- port of the independent producers. To demonstrate their concern, the riorate significantly over the next couple of years." White House first detailed Energy Secretary Herrington to give a speech The results of the price crash were nearly identical with the analy- on March 31 expressing concern about the "danger of lower oil sis prepared by the Department of Treasury in 1983. Major refiners prices for the U.S. oil industry." Just in case he hadn't been heard, benefitted, while independent producers were hurt. The economy Herrington repeated his message the next day before an energy obtained the benefit of lower oil prices at the cost of increasing imports industry meeting. Then on April 1 George Bush told a Washington press from the Persian Gulf and losing nearly 1 million barrels a day of conference prior to his high-visibility ten-day tour of the Persian domestic production. Gulf that, "stability in the market is a very important thing, and I will Specifically, the ex-Aramco partners (Exxon, Chevron. Texaco and be selling very hard in terms of our domestic interest...and thus the Mobil) used their access to lower cost Saudi (netback) crude oil dur- interest of our national security...I think it is essential that we talk about ing the first quarter of 1986 and their market power, both as purchasers stability and that we just not have a continued free fall like a parachutist of domestic crude and as refiner-marketers of gasoline and other prod- jumping without a parachute." And in two public appearances Pres- Continued on page 14 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 11 Labor looks for political alternatives

BY JAMES CULLEN of the United States of America I will serve you without regard to whether or not you can get in a Gulfstream and fly back to Washington, Austin D.C., and lobby the halls of Congress," he said, getting applause. NLY TWO OF 11 Democratic presidential candidates showed Clinton, one of the organizers of the Democratic Leadership Council, up at the Texas AFL-CIO political convention recently, and which has tried to moderate the party's image and steer it away from O as President George Bush's plunging approval ratings exposed "interest groups" such as organized labor, beamed onto the big his vulnerability, labor delegates were in no mood for a divisive fight screen to defend his credentials. "I've got the best civil rights record over the Democratic presidential nomination. in this selection. I've done more for education than anybody running. The media-anointed Democratic frontrunner, Arkansas Gov. Bill ... If you look at my record, if you look at my heritage, I'm a good Clinton, speaking via satellite from Washington, D.C., defended his Democrat, but I'm against brain-dead politics in both parties. We've record against attacks made in person the previous day by U.S. Sens. got to have the courage to change." Tom Harkin of Iowa and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. All three candidates He got applause with his call for a repeal of tax breaks for corpora- made their pitch for the politically connected labor activists who are tions that move factories overseas and with his statement that neither expected to compose 40 percent of Texas delegates to the Democratic Congress nor the President should receive pay raises until the pay of National Convention. ordinary working Americans starts to go up. (Of the other "major" Democratic candidates, former California Gov. Clinton also said he favors the free trade agreement in part because Jerry Brown and U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts declined it could help South Texas. "A rich country only grows richer when its to speak at the convention, union officials said. Convention officials trading partners grow richer," he said. "The difference between me refused to grant a hearing to Republican presidential candidate David and George Bush is that I don't want a trade agreement with Mexico in- Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader from Louisiana, but instead del- dependent of tough environmental and labor law standards and without egates heard from a Louisiana AFL-CIO official who exposed a health insurance plan that controls health care costs for all our peo- Duke's racist and anti-labor record.) ple and without a national worker training plan that guarantees that all Harkin clearly was the favorite of the 600 delegates to the Committee our workers are getting continuous training and without a national strat- on Political Education as he laced his speech with populist themes egy to get our economy involved in competing more effectively with and lines reminiscent of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim the Germans, the Japanese and the other rich countries of the world." Hightower. Calling himself the "only real Democrat running for president," No ugly ducks Harkin dismissed his rivals as "microwave Democrats ... hot and steam- Support from organized labor, with more than 215,000 members ing on the outside, cold on the inside." The Iowa senator quickly in Texas, is critical to Harkin's chances, but the state convention did stripped to his shirtsleeves as he warmed to his populist pitch. He noted not entertain an endorsement fight, deferring to the national AFL-CIO, that he voted against Bush's proposal to put a North American free which may endorse a candidate later if a consensus emerges. In the trade agreement on a fast track and said his motto is "Fair Trade, not meantime, local union members are free to support the candidate of Free Trade." their choice. Harkin appears to have broad across-the-board appeal, Positioning himself as the candidate closest to labor, Harkin noted but many labor delegates said they tended to support Clinton because his support for an anti-strikebreaker bill. While he would do away with they believe he is more electable. tax breaks for the rich and corporations and instead "make them Texas AFL-CIO President Joe Gunn said organized labor could live belly up to the bar and pay their fair share," Harkin said Clinton's with any of the three Democrats. "There's not an ugly duck in that pond," proposal for a middle-class tax break would amount to only $105 for he said. "I believe any one of the three can beat George Bush." , a family earning $20,000. He added that a family making $100,000 a Eldon Soileau, president of the Port Arthur-based Sabine Area Labor year would get $850. Council, echoed Gunn's remarks. "Labor is trying not to divide," he "Same old trickle down," Harkin said of Clinton's plan. "It's about said. Unions have been battered and busted over the past decade, time they learned you can't fertilize a tree from the top down. particularly in the union bastion of Southeast Texas, where non- You've got to stick it in the roots," he said to applause. union outsiders have been taking local construction jobs while local Kerrey got polite response to a speech that criticized Clinton as plants and businesses have scaled back their operations. Chevron recent- well as Bush in a speech that focused on the need for a national health ly announced it would cut 500 to 1,600 jobs at its Port Arthur refin- insurance program and defended his own lack of details. "In 1992 above ery. "We just can't stand anymore," he said. all other things I believe Americans don't need a detailed plan. Clinton has a spotty record with organized labor in Arkansas, as one Above all other things I believe Americans need courage and strength might expect of the governor of a right-to-work state, but Arkansas and the willingness to persevere all the way to the end," he said. He labor leaders such as Ralph Greene, president of the United Food and noted his support for labor issues such as parental leave, workplace Commercial Workers local 1583 in Little Rock, were on hand to assure safety, unemployment compensation benefits and an industrial policy their fellow unionists that Clinton generally was supportive of labor that rewards job creation, but he also addressed a higher calling: interests. "I am running for the Presidency of the United States of America The week after the labor meeting, Clinton struggled with questions because lives are at stake," he said. "Lives are being trampled in the about marital infidelity, fueled by a story in a sensationalist tabloid, rush toward increasing amounts of material goods. Children are but with the help of a statewide campaign organization led by Land being denied health care. Adults are being destroyed as we speak, sim- Commissioner Garry Mauro, Clinton has received endorsements from ply because we're indifferent." the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees The war wounds that cost him part of a leg turned his life around, and officials of the United Steelworkers in Texas, as well as more he said "In 1969, I had no political power. In 1969 there wasn't a politi- than one-half of the State Democratic Executive Committee members, cian in America I liked, let alone wrote a check for. I tell you as President five Texas congressmen and 48 state legislators. 12 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 The Arkansas governor also received the endorsement of the Mexican- largest teacher's union, nearly defeated the incumbent Republican Gov. American Democrats, sweeping 97 percent of the delegates at a Guy Hunt. recent convention in Laredo. Among the factors in the MAD endorse- Trumka noted that after David Duke's unexpectedly strong U.S. ment was his support of a free-trade agreement with Mexico, a pro- Senate race against incumbent Democratic Sen. J. Bennett Johnston posal that is unpopular with the labor federation, and the work by Clinton in 1990, research showed that racial issues were of less concern to and his wife, Hillary, in South Texas during George McGovern's pres- Duke supporters than their sense that government had abandoned them. idential campaign in 1972. By a 56-28 margin, the pollsters found Duke supporters blamed wealthy One of his supporters, longtime liberal Democratic National and big business interests for the squeeze on middle-class families. Committeewoman Billie Carr of Houston, said she likes to hear Harkin "As a matter of sheer political arithmetic," the pollsters concluded, talk about bringing back the New Deal, but she has known Clinton "these results suggest there is substantially more advantage for since the McGovern days, and she trusts the Arkansas governor and Democrats in championing the middle-class interests than in seeking believes he is more electable. to capture the anti-welfare, anti-minority message from David Duke." "Harkin is talking the old 'Happy Days are Here Again' theme "It should be little surprise that of the arguments used against from the 1930s and '40s, and as much as I like to hear it, that's not Duke in the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial contest it was the threat of additional job loss that appears to have moved middle- ALAN POGUE class white voters to support Democrat Edwin Edwards," Trumka wrote. "Ironically, the economic hardship that motivated many of Duke's white middle-class backers finally led many to vote for Edwards." Trumka also noted that, in the now-celebrated special election for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania this past fall, labor leaders dug in their heels behind Democrat Harris Wofford and his message of economic populism when many party professionals advocated a more cautious approach. Officials of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union have been working to put together a grassroots organization that could form the nucleus of a Labor Party, optimistically by the 1994 elections. Tony Mazzochi, assistant to the president of OCAW, has been polling memberships of various unions and found fairly consistent dissatisfaction with the current political setup. "In the 55-to-65 age group people tend to get a little more conventional, but the younger, the more abrupt the break with the existing political order," Mazzochi said. In the older age group, he said, "People still feel both Governor Bill Clinton on the big screen parties represent corporate interests, but you don't get as much as you would with a younger group." And the going to win us the election. We need a campaign for the 1990s," polls show women, people of color, residents of small towns in Texas Carr said. and cities in New Jersey essentially agree. Carr also noted that while Clinton received high marks from the news In January 1991, Labor Party Advocates was formed to organize media for a recent speech to the DNC in Chicago, she was impressed toward a labor party. It got its biggest push in August, when OCAW with the his organization. "As an organizer, I noticed that he has it endorsed the movement at its international convention in Denver. The all together," she said. For example, she noted that he got most of the movement will be non-electoral at first as it tries to change the questions in a question-and-answer session. Carr does not know that, nature of political debate in the established parties. in fact, Clinton's staff planted those questions, but she wouldn't "I think what we need is to change the framework of the debate. mind if they did. "That's just smart," she said. We're trapped in the terms that the corporations set and this campaign Kerrey has the support of Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, who believes the is a classic example.... No one is addressing the real economic con- Nebraska senator's war record (he won the Congressional Medal of cerns in this country. Rather than what needs to be done, they're Honor) and his focus on the need for a national health insurance pro- talking about some feeble tax programs." gram will help him as the primary approaches. The movement does not plan to endorse a candidate in this year's election, but it hopes to influence and provide support for whomev- Time for Labor Party? er is elected. Some labor leaders believe the time is ripe for development of a labor Unlike past third-party efforts, which were based largely on a party as an alternative to the two established parties. candidate's personal appeal, LPA is cultivating a grassroots organi- Richard L. Trumka, president of the United Mine Workers of America, zation. Mazzochi hopes to attract at least 10,000 union representa- believes the union movement at least should field more political can- tives, and he believes Texas is fertile ground because of the large didates and support a populist insurgency in the Democratic Party. In OCAW membership that showed strong support for the movement at an article in the winter issue of Dissent (a special issue on the future the convention. of labor in the United States) Trumka noted that in the midst of the "We want to build a party, and you've got to build a movement union's strike against the Pittston Coal Group, union activists suc- [first], he said. The movement is being built on the model of the British cessfully mounted a write-in campaign to defeat a 20-year incumbent Labor Party and the Canadian New Democratic Party, he said. of the Virginia House of Delegates who failed to support the union. "They had a series of clubs, and they dealt with issues long before they UMWA members also won elections to state legislatures in Alabama, got into the electoral arena." West Virginia and Illinois and Paul Hubbert, a leader of Alabama's "It's a question of building it from the bottom up and having a THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13 real democratic organization where the rank-and-file have control of their own destiny," he said. Oil Policy Under the current system, he said, "big money" controls" both the Continued from page 11 Democratic and Republican parties. "A candidate comes up with bucks, ucts, to increase their profits at the expense of their own branded lessee decides to run and it's a very self-selecting process. You see the money dealers and gasoline consumers. that flows in and it's the same corporate types. There are differences Pushing Saudi Arabia into an aggressive "price war" that trig- of nuance, and there are some good people, but certainly not the major- gered the most convulsive shock to the world oil market since the ity, nor will they be the majority," he said. "But if we had a force so-called "Arab Oil Embargo" of 1973, the Reagan-Bush adminis- that could really shape the agenda, maybe both parties would tration propelled substantial long-term changes in the domestic and respond to that." OCAW has 115,000 members, out of approximate- international oil industry and directly aided the western industrialized ly 18 million members of organized labor in the United States. "It's nations in their goal of achieving a 30% reduction in oil prices (even a constituency to organize from, but organizing them is a formidable more if you count the dollar devaluation brought about by U.S. and task," Mazzochi admitted. allied action). One of the Texas Labor Party Advocates is Glenn Erwin, president Domestically, the big drop in oil prices drove from the marketplace of OCAW local 4-449, found that he was typecast as a labor candi- hundreds, if not thousands, of domestic crude oil producers; it date anyway when he ran a 1990 campaign for mayor of Texas City, forced the shutting in or abandonment of stripper wells whose pro- where the local is based. Erwin, a novice in city politics, lost the race duction was estimated at 700,000 barrels per day (just in 1986) — to a banker who had been a city commissioner. But the experience con- lost production that was replaced by Aramco and other imports from vinced him that labor can and should make a difference in politics. Saudi Arabia. "I haven't left the Democratic Party, but the Labor Party needs to The price crash also triggered a collapse of the domestic banking bring forth the bread-and-butter issues and address mainstream issues industry, especially in Texas, and was a major contributor to under- like health care," he said. "All we try to do is represent people mining the state's economy, a blow from which it is still recovering. against multi-national corporations ... The bosses have two parties Saudi officials have denied that political considerations played a — it's time we have one." ❑ role in their oil production decisions, but President Bush stands Three Decades of JFK Observed ready to benefit once again from a grateful and generous King Fand, who recently told the New York Times that "A man of this A compilation of more than 90 pages of articles first published in caliber deserves to head the United States another time." Some the Texas Observer on President John Kennedy and his assassina- domestic oil producers may view this endorsement with some well- tion. Send $12 to Texas Observer, 307 W. 7th St., Austin 78701. founded suspicion. ❑

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14 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 A public service message from the American Income Life Insurance Co. — Waco, Texas — Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer (Advertisement) The D Words by Seymour Melman and Marcus Raskin

The 1992 election is already being defined as candi- the Pentagon vast resources to rebuild our country. dates join in avoiding three prohibited topics: Depression, But no candidate is taking on the military industrial Demilitarization and Democracy. complex. The hallmarks of depression are all around. Every large The federal government lacks any staff to explore, city has shanty towns like the "Hoovervilles" of the 1930s. design and implement demilitarization. The last U.S. pro- Real unemployment rates exceed fifteen percent, and posal for such a process was John F. Kennedy's in 1962; millions are left without income as jobless benefits are his "Blueprint for the Peace Race" can be a starting point used up. Water mains burst, roads and school build- for formulating demilitarization policy today. ings crumble, libraries are shut down and casualties in About six million Americans are directly employed by underfunded hospitals are a medical scandal. U.S. infant the Pentagon and its main contractors. To safeguard their mortality rates, poverty rates and illiteracy rates are among economic futures demilitarization must be paralleled by the world's worst for industrialized nations. These con- economic conversion for the military factories, bases and ditions mark a major new product of the American laboratories. Taking a lesson from the U.S. economy's economy: a growing castoff population left to be ignored. withdrawal from World War II, and allowing for the spe- The present depression is also marked by de-industri- cial conditions generated by the long Cold War, the alization, as entire American industries have been wiped principal requirements of a conversion policy become out with factories and surrounding communities made clear. These must include:1) advance planning at each into waste land. military facility for conversion to civilian markets, so the In the quest for easier and larger profits, managers changeover process can begin as soon as a Pentagon have cut industrial research and modernization of plant contract is severed; 2) local authority for organizing con- and equipment. There have been no such cuts for the version at each facility, to avoid ineffectual bureaucratic Pentagon, however, whose annual budgets exceed the control from distant Washington; 3) both management net profits of all U.S. corporations. The Pentagon's drain and working people must be enlisted in Alternative Use on capital resources and civilian de-industrialization have Committees, to harness knowledge and commitment for produced a tidal wave of U.S. production incompetence, preparing conversion to civilian tasks. A proposed law, chronic trade imbalance, a shrinking dollar, and has left House Resolution 441 from Rep. Ted Weiss (D-NY), con- cities and states without resources for public facilities and tains these and supporting measures. services. No presidential candidate has declared a clear posi- Amidst this persistent decay the traditional Keynesian tion on these issues. In the absence of real choices on medicine of increased government spending (as on vital national policies the decay will continue, and the defense) is mainly irrelevant as an anti-depressant. Larger electorate will be increasingly vulnerable to demagogy, consumer purchasing power can only have moderate such as appeals to ultra-nationalism and racial fears. employment effect since huge portions of what we buy At stake here is no abstract principle of political philos- are imported. ophy. Democracy ceases to function when politicians The Reagan-Bush administrations ushered in an offi- evade critical issues, when unyielding political institutions cial ideology of individual greed. Corporate and gov- earn wholesale distrust, and when government fosters ernment managers nurtured a public culture which unbridgeable economic inequality. abandoned care of bridges and children alike. The The 1992 election choices will be serious only if polit- damage from long neglect to the U.S. infrastructure is ical parties debate plans for escaping depression and massive, and repairing it would require a continuing cap- militarism, and heed the people long deprived of com- ital outlay of at least $150 billion a year. petent public services. This is essential for securing But the money is available. That sum is equivalent to real political freedom in the U.S. the annual U.S. military spending on the NATO alliance, though Western Europe no longer confronts any substantial military threat. An additional $82 billion can be Marcus Raskin is a co-founder and Distinguished Fellow readily gotten by reversing Reagan's lavish tax break at the Institute for Policy Studies; Seymour Melman is to the rich, and restoring 1979 income tax rates. Beyond Professor Emeritus of Industrial Engineering at Columbia that, a demilitarization process — orderly and interna- University. They are both members of the National tionally agreed — would release from the budgets of Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 15 School Finance: Justice Denied

BY LLOYD DOGGETT only at times deemed convenient and comfortable for members of this court; we must consistently and regularly enforce all of its terms. The On January 30, the Texas Supreme Court issued its long-awaited deci- damage the majority insists on today is not just to our children's edu- sion on the constitutionality of Senate Bill 351, which the Legislature cation but to the very credibility of our system of justice. enacted to redress the inequity between rich and poor school districts. The high court reversed lower-court decisions upholding the statute, The Long Struggle for Justice finding the new law unconstitutional because, among other reasons, it The history of this case is reflected in the efforts of Demetrio Rodriguez did not provide for voter approval of the newly created county educa- and the experiences of thousands of other concerned parents and stu- tion districts (CEDs), and because it ostensibly imposed a statewide dents from all regions and ethnic groups in Texas. In 1968, Mr. Rodriguez property tax. Despite its finding that the new law was invalid, the sought relief from the inequities of the state school finance system in court — in a move that stunned legal observers —permitted the state federal court....The bad news of today is that with its disposition the to collect the taxes imposed by the unconstitutional law through 1993. majority ensures that the benefits of the reform of the Texas school Justices Lloyd Doggett and Oscar Mauzy dissented from the major- finance system may not be fully enjoyed even by Mr. Rodriguez's great- ity opinion. We regret that we don't have the room to publish more of grand children. Nearly a quarter of a century after Demetrio Rodriguez Doggett's detailed, 84-page demolition of the logic and reasoning of began his journey for justice, the end is nowhere in sight. ... the majority opinion. What follows are edited excerpts of Doggett's angry but impeccably reasoned dissent in Carrollton -Farmer's Branch Judicial Entrapment by Advisory Opinion ISD v. Edgewood ISD and Alvarado ISD (hereinafter referred to as [After recounting the Court' s politically motivated retreat from its

Edgewood III), with editors' notes and summaries in italics. — B.C. unanimous first Edgewood decision (see "The Unasked Question" TO 4119191), Doggett reviews the language of the two Supreme Court ...A majority of this court has led the Legislature down the primrose Edgewood opinions.] path. Today's unconstitutional legislation is only yesterday's judicial [In its previous Edgewood opinions,] the majority's message to the vision; it is nothing more than the natural response to the majority's pre- Legislature concerning constitutionally permitted action was: vious encouragement of tax base consolidation. The Legislature, the 1.You have independent power to define the taxing authority of school Governor, and three separate Texas trial judges all followed accurate- districts; ly the prior judicial instructions; now the majority unjustifiably changes 2. Statewide recapture of local taxes is prohibited; the instructions. Its new opinion is a morass of contradictions and excus- 3. Property tax revenue may, consistent with the constraints of the es. I dissent. Texas Constitution, be recaptured locally — through redistribution The wrong inflicted on Texans today is aggravated by the majori- among school districts — so long as this is confined within the bound- ty's deliberate delay. Public announcement of this improper decision aries of the new school districts that are superimposed upon exist- could and should have been made long ago. ([footnote]:... Nor is it mere- ing districts; ly coincidental that this preconceived plan has finally been announced 4.Within reasonable limits, districts may supplement or enrich their edu- after the Legislature has come and gone from its special session and after cational resources with approval of additional taxes by local voters. the filing deadline for three seats on this court has expired.) With each As the majority envisioned, the Legislature attempted to draw the pre- passing day, the majority denied the legislative and executive.branch- cise type of reorganization recommended. Nor is it surprising that, after es an opportunity to respond to the new judicial instructions for diligent study of these prior writings, three Texas trial judges found assembling a constitutional school finance system. Surely school boards, the tax authorized by Senate Bill 351 constitutional, with Judge McCown teachers and administrators deserved a year without constant budgetary concluding specifically that "the Supreme Court has already approved uncertainty; surely the school children deserved better. Instead the major- tax-base consolidation." No one has been able to explain how the CEDs ity creates another election year crisis with an impact far beyond the created by Senate Bill 351 differ in slightest from the "new school education system alone. Taxpayers who awaited a clear indication of districts...given the authority to generate local property tax revenues for their obligations are astonishingly told that they have forfeited their ille- all other school districts within their boundaries," as specified in Edgewood gally collected 1991 taxes and must continue to pay unconstitutional //....After following the majority's road map, the Legislature is now told taxes into 1993. it has come to a dead end.... Disregarding constitutional provision permitting consolidation of The majority responds to this situation with contradictions and excus- school districts without a vote, the majority announces a new principle es. First we are told that the decision reached today could not have been — the privileged must be accorded a veto of any sharing of the state's "foreshadowed" or suggested beforehand. Indeed, the majority is cor- resources with the underprivileged.... rect in this particular, since today's decision adopts a view directly oppo- It was not always this way. In two prior opinions on this same case, site of that announced previously. But the the majority claims that the the court worked together to follow the rather clear command of the vote requirement had been "obviously contemplated" in its earlier writ- Constitution without regard to the political consequences of its decision. ing.Surely these two conflicting propositions cannot exist. Through compromise and consensus-building, the court spoke with one [The majority opinion claimed that the 14th footnote to Edgewood firm voice in what many have recognized as the most important case it H and language in a 1931 Supreme Court opinion, Love v. City of Dallas, has ever considered. Tragically, all this has been lost. signaled the voting requirement. Doggett proceeds to show how the In its last writing, the majority concluded that justice demanded too majority opinion misconstrues even those vague hints in order to arrive much. Reasoned constitutional determination gave way to political cal- at the supposed requirement that taxpayers approve increases by vote.] culation; precedent gave way to partisanship as an interpretive guide. There is but one mention of a voting requirement in Edgewood As the Supreme Court, our responsibility is to assure justice by uphold- Describing the circumstances under which further voter action would ing the supreme law of our state — our Constitution. We cannot pick and be mandated, it said plainly that the voters must be consulted if a local choose to apply only favored provisions; we cannot invoke its provisions district wished to supplement its resources. although indicating that

16 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992

.0°- -1 A V • A.- '11 - the Legislature was constitutionally empowered to implement tax base rule: convenience dictates that taxpayers must pay the tax which this consolidation, the majority did not indicate, in any way, an election pre- court just declared unconstitutional.... Those taxpayers [who] brought condition. Rather it directly resolved this matter in the negative.... this suit are now rewarded for their efforts and expense with the pro- [The dissent then exposes the majority opinion's duplicity in attempt- nouncement that they win, that from the outset they have been abso- ing to blame the Legislature for the failure of SB 351 by intentionally lutely correct that the tax complained of violates the fundamental charter mischaracterizing and taking out of context remarks by Sen. Carl Parker.] of this state, but nevertheless, "Keep paying." ... Why did the majority go to such lengths to strain and misconstrue The majority is more than willing to inflict this wholesale injury in the public record? Because it is determined to shift responsibility for order to avoid the unhappy results of their maneuvering. Despite its own handiwork to anyone except itself.... The only change has blusterings to the contrary, today's rejection of a refund for taxpayers been in the minds of the majority, as indicated by the doublespeak with is not so much to avoid chaos in school financing as to distract atten- which it unsuccessfully attempts to explain its own misdeed: 'We did tion from the broken promise of Edgewood II. By declaring the law not say that tax base consolidation could not be unconstitutional; all we they recommended unconstitutional yet refusing to enforce that dec- said was that it could be constitutional.' The majority entrapped the laration, the majority denies responsibility and diffuses resentment Legislature, and now it blames the victim. Unfortunately, the children for having created the crisis in the first place. of Texas are the ultimate victims of this entrapment.... In the name of avoiding its self-inflicted chaos, the majority has in fact only prolonged and intensified it. Inviting collateral attacks in Rewriting Article VII of the Texas Constitution federal court, the majority may offer only a brief respite before the state [Doggett shows how Article VII and a long line line of cases, cul- sinks into the quagmire of federal law.... minating in Edgewood II, grant the Legislature "broad discretion to While inviting chaos, the majority has also ensured inequity, not create school districts and define their taxing authority."] only for the school children of Texas, but also for the taxpayers. It is well- ....Every penny of taxes the Legislature proposes to reallocate with- established that when a tax statute is ruled unconstitutional, relief applies in the newly created CEDs has been authorized by local voters. In reach- retroactively.... This court has never allowed an unconstitutional tax to ing the result that another vote is required, the court ignores clear authority be collected without permitting the taxpayers to seek a retroactive refund. under the Constitution allowing the transfer of taxing authority from [Doggett cites pages of authorities for all these propositions, and school districts to the CEDs without further voter approval. Indeed, predicts a rash of taxpayer lawsuits in federal court.] in its desire to ensure a veto power for the privileged, the court ignores not just one, but two previous tax approvals — the vote amend- Conclusion ing the Texas Constitution in 1966 and the vote setting the tax rate in Today's opinion concedes that Senate Bill 351 represents progress individual districts. [Doggett describes how in 1966 voters amended in securing a school finance system that would assure Texas students the Constitution to obviate the need for voter approval of consolidat- equal educational opportunity....Nevertheless, SB 351 is condemned ing school districts, which have declined in number to about one- for utilizing the very method of taxation which the majority contem- sixth the number that existed 60 years ago.] plated in Edgewood II. With this alternative eliminated, counsel for the Section 3-b [of Article VII of the Constitution] eliminated the require- Appellant school districts have recognized that the only broad-based ment of subsequent elections, easing consolidation and other changes revenue source remaining under the present Constitution is an income for school districts.... Nevertheless, today's opinion abruptly dismiss- tax. A further indication of the majority's determination to nudge the es the applicability of this critical constitutional provision, by finding Legislature toward an income tax is the rather clear indication that that SB 351 neither changes the boundaries of any school district nor any attempt to revise property tax financing must be charted through consolidates whole school districts. ... [The court ignores] the statute a judicial minefield, with no map provided. Fully aware that its action that create each CED as a new "independent school district estab- today leaves only the option of an income tax as a major funding source, lished by the consolidation of the local school districts in its bound- the majority then washed its hands of any personal responsibility for aries." While recognizing that Senate Bill 351 works a bouridary change, this result, effectively telling the Legislature: choose any method you the majority labels the boundaries of the 188 CEDs as "imaginary," desire excepting that which we last urged upon you. The majority is so it can ignore them. These boundaries are no more or less real than absolutely correct that "an income tax is.not the only remedy;" rather those of any governmental unit, including the territorial limitations it is the only remedy the majority has left available to the Legislature. on school districts' governing power. Both can be drawn on a map. What will happen after today is a prolonged battle timed to coin- Residents within these boundaries can be identified without difficul- cide with an election year. ... The majority's remarkable willingness ty. The CEDs are not the Legislature's imaginary friend; everyone to abandon precedent so recently announced demonstrates not only dis- can see them but a majority of this court. regard for the law and indifference to the taxpayer, but also abandonment of the children of this state. Our school children have long suffered The "statewide property tax prohibition" from the failure of the school finance system. Today they suffer anew [The majority opinion cited the Constitution's prohibition on state from the failure of the justice system to deliver on the promise of the ad valorem taxes as an obstacle to reform.] Texas Constitution. The majority offers our children only delay, and There is undoubtedly a superficial appeal to the argument that, by they have already had plenty of that. A child who began the first requiring school districts to levy a tax that the State cannot itself impose, grade when this cause was originally filed in state court is already in the State has achieved directly what it cannot achieve indirectly.:.. high school and will probably have graduated before any new finance Absent from the majority's analysis is any consideration of whether the plan becomes effective. ...Tthe delay that will now ensue is attributable CEDs' levy serves a local purpose, a key factor in classifying the tax not only to the lengthy time frame provided for a legislative response, as state or local. .... [E]ducation has undeniably significant local ben- but in the unresolvable ambiguities created by today's opinion. If efits and has traditionally been viewed as a joint responsibility shared there was ever a case to prove the old maxim "justice delayed is jus- by state and local governments. The Texas Constitution clearly permits tice denied," this is it. the state share the burden of financing education with localities and the It was for the benefit of our children that the Constitution commanded power to determine most of the terms of that relationship. that education be efficient. It was for their benefit that Demetrio Rodriguez sought relief. It was for their benefit that we decided Edgewood I and "Prospective-Plus" Application //. But now, for the benefit of the privileged, the court turns a deaf ear Unwilling to live with the legal consequences of it s own improper both to the commanding voice of the law and to the whispered pleas action, the majority weaves a more tangled web by adopting a new of the children. ❑ THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 17

4•0~,±Aw....ork Hard Time for Border Rage

BY DEBBIE NATHAN April, Lambert was walking from downtown Juarez over a big bridge into downtown El Paso. It was a warm day and she had on El Paso cotton shorts and a sleeveless blouse. Neither garment had pockets. MAGINE MAKING A movie about a woman crossing an inter- At the checkpoint she passed Carrasco, who had been transferred from national bridge, flying into a psychotic rage and attacking four male Ysleta. He seemed to recognize Lambert. ICustoms agents. Imagine this character standing trial for the assaults "He asked me what I was doing up here," she says, "and told me and being convicted. to empty my purse." Now imagine who would play the part. She did, and Carrasco found nothing, but he emptied her purse again. Edith Piaf? Trying to cooperate, Lambert said, she opened her wallet and Such casting would be hardly less probable than what the federal retrieved a small envelope decorated with a cartoon of a little old government — and an El Paso jury — said happened between U.S. man and the Spanish words for "lottery" and "bingo." Customs Service agents and Alicia Rey Lambert, a middle-aged Hispanic "Lucky Dust," Lambert calls it. "My mother, who lives in Caseta, homemaker. is superstitious. She gets this stuff at the market in Mexico and At 5 feet, 2 inches and 102 pounds, Lambert looks as petite as the always wants me to carry it for good luck." frail French singer. With no previous brushes with the law, and with Carrasco immediately confiscated the packet, ordered her to fol- a reputation for being gentle and non-violent, she seems dead wrong low him and a woman agent, and told Lambert, "I haven't finished for a villain's role. To border rights activists (such as myself) her claim searching you yet." that officials beat her sounds more likely. The problem is, whatever "He had a grin on his face," she remembers. When she asked the happened occurred in a Customs office filled with federal agents. Unlike agents what they planned to do with her, neither answered. "They the Rodney King beating at the hands of Los Angeles police, there just kept looking at me. I was very scared. I thought [Carrasco] was weren't any civilians near Lambert with camcorders. So Lambert faces going to strip search me." one to four years in a federal prison. She was not being paranoid. Lambert's version of events goes back two years to the day when, El Paso and Juarez are a metroplex of some two million people, she says, a U.S. Customs inspector flirted with her as she was cross- and like Lambert, many of them constantly traverse the border. In 1990, ing into Ysleta, Texas. Customs counted 42 million such crossings. But many who regularly Ysleta, originally a Spanish mission on the Rio Grande, is now a make the trip describe it as an ordeal, with hour-long waits, interro- south El Paso exurb. Across from Ysleta is Zaragoza — a dusty pueblo gations and inspection of everything from cars to purses. Indeed, cross- that used to be given over to Prohibition-era booze clubs and cotton ing angst is so widespread that on local radio, an ad touting Juarez fields. Now it hosts storefront doctors vending prescription diet pills discount warehouse S.A.M.S. urges customers to avoid El Paso com- to chubby El Pasoans, as well as a twin-plant industrial park and every- petitor Sam's. "Stay here!" the announcer blares in Spanish. "Avoid thing that comes with it, such as belching commuter buses and card- long lines and dirty looks!" board shacks. Hispanic women's complaints seldom make it to the airwaves, how- Compared with downtown El Paso, crossing the border into ever. Many talk privately about being sexually harassed by male Ysleta has long been a laid back affair framed by marshy, Rio Immigration Service agents asking if they are married or have boyfriends. Grande greenery. There's a spanking new multi-lane bridge now, but One stylish young woman, a Juarez native now working as a Los Angeles the old one was much smaller, and if you crossed and did it often, TV newscaster, fled in rage and fear after an agent inspecting her papers chances are you would get to know the immigration and customs agents ordered her to stand and turn so he could ogle her backside. She and they would know you. never reported the incident; she was afraid she would lose her border Alicia Lambert was born in Caseta, an even smaller Mexican crossing permit. town downriver from Zaragoza and just across from Fabens, Texas. Her reaction was typical: many Mexicans and Mexican Americans After marrying truck driver Mike Lambert, she moved to Fabens and keep quiet about mistreatment for fear of jeopardizing their families' became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Still, she continued visiting Mexico ability to live, visit or work in the U.S. Further, Customs and other bor- to see relatives, get her hair cut, buy Spanish romance novels and stock der enforcement agencies do not publicize their complaint processes up on cheap cigarettes. Often she would cross back into Texas at Ysleta. (see "Agents of Abuse: Who is Monitoring the Border Patrol," TO One day, two years ago, while returning with a couple of cartons 12/21/90; also Political Intelligence, "Deplorable Customs," TO of cigarettes, she passed Customs inspector Ruben Carrasco, a beefy, 10/18/91). Those who complain may suffer reprisals. When aggrieved middle-aged man with a moustache. Carrasco told her she owed duty Juarez resident Francisco Jayme, for instance, asked a customs on the cartons. Then, Lambert remembers, he said he would let her supervisor how to report an incident of verbal abuse, the agent called go this time without paying. El Paso police to check if Jayme owed any traffic tickets. "OK," Lambert said, and walked on. Shame also keeps people silent, especially women. Some have "What!" she remembers Carrasco saying. "Aren't you going to told the Houston-based Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring say thank you?" Lambert said thanks. "Hey!" the agent persisted, "How Project (ILEMP) that they were forced to disrobe and squat for no appar- about a smile?" ent reason. U.S. Rep. Edward Roybal, D-Calif., member of a Treasury "Look," Lambert said, "if I have to do all this I'd rather pay the appropriations panel overseeing the Customs Service, has expressed tax." Carrasco seemed miffed, she remembers. Then, this past concern about such practices and asked the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to investigate. To her relief, Lambert wasn't strip-searched. And after inspector Debbie Nathan is an El Paso writer and immigration rights activist. Carrasco determined that her good luck powder was not cocaine, he A version of this article was originally distributed by Pacific News told her she could leave. But then, she says, as he held out her driv- Service. er's license, he started teasing her. When she reached for the license, 18 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 Carrasco kept pulling it back, grinning, offering it, then pulling it place where mega-cocaine-bust stories are almost as common as the back to his face. daily weather forecasts, and a major highway recently was renamed After finally managing to grab the license, Lambert says she after the Patriot missile, developed at Fort Bliss. angrily told the agent, "I'm going to report you and sue you." In such a place, what does reasonable doubt mean? Suddenly, she recalls, Carrasco screamed, "Call the cops! This woman Attorney Lopez tried to show the likelihood that agents involved tried to hit me." in the Lambert fracas had gotten together and cooked up a story. He Then, Lambert later testified, "three men ... threw me on the floor. showed that several powwowed before writing up reports — even They were beating me up, picking me up from my legs, hair and though they had been ordered not to. He showed that even so, the reports arms ... I started screaming and crying. One said, 'Shut up, you f-ing were often grossly contradictory. He got the government's internal Mexican!'" affairs investigator, who is supposed to be objective, to admit he thought Panicked, Lambert kicked, bit and scratched the agents. She was Lambert guilty because the customs agents, who said so, were "my wit- quickly restrained, and when the dust settled, the government nesses." charged her with assault against Carrasco and three other men whose Lopez got the government to talk; and, listened to carefully, its rhetoric combined weight equalled at least 500 pounds. made sexual harassment seem plausible. Men on the stand called Lambert Advised by her first two attorneys to forget the incident and (a 40-year-old with two teenage children) "the young lady." Acting accept a government plea bargain, Lambert refused. Though she had "like a 9-year-old having a tantrum," added Assistant U.S. Attorney never been an activist, she went to the local media with her story. Steve Jurecky. An unbelievably strong one, the agents said: "stiff She also made leaflets urging fellow Hispanics to stop letting them- like a cat." selves be treated like "some bug to be stepped on." Beneath this language, a distaff ear could hear another message: Following several TV appearances and stints at shopping malls about a woman in terror of rape. But attorney Lopez was tone deaf. and bridges with the leaflets, she was slapped with an indictment charg- Although 11 on the jury were women, he never let Lambert tell how ing that she had "forcibly assaulted, resisted, opposed, impeded, intim- agent Carrasco had asked her for a smile; nor did he try to educate them idated and interfered with" agent Carrasco and the three men she argues about women border crossers' fear of the strip search. did the same to her. In the end, the state called 12 officials who testified against the U.S. Attorneys refused to comment publicly about the indictment, defense's one — Lambert, with her lonely, sketchy story that none saying only that incidents of women assaulting immigration and cus- on the jury seemed to comprehend. toms officials on the border are "underreported" and "widespread along "We couldn't understand what made her so upset," one of the jurors, both the Mexican and Canadian borders." an Anglo, said after the trial. "I can't imagine three Customs agents But El Paso federal public defender Liz Rogers says it is rare for a — government people — attacking her for no reason. The juror woman to be charged with assaulting officers. Others say it is even added that she never crosses the border. Another concurred. "I used to, rarer when the woman is as tiny as Lambert. ILEMP director Maria years ago, before the economic troubles over there," she said. "But now Jimenez thinks it is far more common for Customs agents to abuse it's too scary." female civilians than vice versa: during a recent two-year period, her In his closing statement, prosecutor Jurecky hammered on Americans' group documented 48 such incidents, up and down the border. fear of mayhem evoked by images of evil and southern borders, ver- Jimenez believes Lambert's experience is but another such incident. sus the security symbolized by its thin blue federal line. She thinks Lambert got indicted "because she took the highly unusu- "No one has to tell you about the drugs that come through here," al step of speaking out." Jurecky said. In detaining Lambert and her Lucky Dust, inspector Following the indictment, the government offered another plea Carrasco was only "doing his job" to keep those drugs out. Further, bargain, that if she would admit guilt, she would get off with a $200 Lambert's questioning his behavior constituted an "attitude problem." fine and brief probation. She insisted on a trial, so ILEMP and local Not to mention her physical acts. For in this age of AIDS, Jurecky said, civil rights groups encouraged her to hire Marco Lopez, a San Diego, a woman's teeth and fingernails are deadly weapons. Calif., lawyer known for successfully defending men charged with The jury deliberated for about an hour before convicting Lambert. assaulting federal agents, and for suing agents accused of assaulting Under mandatory federal sentencing rules, she faces one to four immigrations. years in prison. She doesn't regret having chosen a trial. "I told the But it seemed neither Lopez nor the activists grasped how the war- truth," she says. "I did it for my community." on-drugs mentality — and war-think in general — can affect juries in Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 28. As she waits, border civil rights a border city where one-third of the people owe at least a part of their workers are wondering: "Who among our community will dare protest livelihood to law enforcement or the military. El Paso, after all, is a again?" ❑ Expose the government's DUKE ISSUE REPRINTS! biggest lie... With an Oswald or Reprints of the Jan. 17 & 31 special Garrison T-Shirt issue on David Duke are on hand Ts 100% Cotton $15.00 Sweats 90/10 $25.00 for immediate shipment— or for S,M,L,XL mailing to the persons you designate. Shipping included For further information see page 9 or Check / Money Order to: Star Bright call Cliff Olofson at the Observer. Box 13381 (512) 477-0746. Austin, TX 78711 "...the key Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery to the whole "I didn't shoot case is through Send your order and prepayment to: anybody, no sir.... StarBright the looking glass. Black is white. Texas Observer Reprints, 307 West I'm just a patsy!" White is black." 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THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 19 Protesting Pork in Executive Pay

BY DEBORAH LUTTERBECK sez-faire stripe who think Congress should do nothing. U.S. Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, is pushing for a change. With Sen. New York City Carl Levin, D-Mich. (neither ranked in the USA report, making $125,000 HE MEN'S MOVEMENT may seem primitive now, with a year each), Bryant has crafted the "Corporate Pay Responsibility titles like Iron John and Fire in the Belly, but imagine when busi- Act," which aims to rein in unruly CEO salaries by giving shareholders Tness literature catches up with feminism. Someday bookstore more checks against their directors and officers. "No one objects to shelves may display titles such as, Smart CEOs; Foolish Companies, salaries commensurate with performance, but it is shareholders — or Men Who Are Paid Too Much: And The Corporations that Hire . the owners of corporations — not a federal bureaucracy like the Them. But the future may be sooner than you think. Both the reces- [Securities and Exchange Commission] who could decide whether or sion and the President's ill-fated trip to Japan have focused the spot- not performance of executives should be rewarded with spectacular light on executive salaries — especially the seven- or eight-figure pay," said Bryant. "Shareholders should have the opportunity to hold paychecks paid to the executives of companies that are hemorrhag- the executives and directors accountable for poor corporate perfor- ing money. mance, as well as to reward outstanding management." . Who are some of these corporate caliphs? They come from just about As its stands, shareholders have little say. Under current law, any- every sector of the economy. In automobiles, there is Robert Stempel, one holding $1,000 worth of stock for at least a year can submit a chief executive officer of General Motors. He took home a hand- proposal to the corporation that must be put up for a shareholder some $2.18 million last year, a year capped by the December announce- vote. That is, of course, unless it falls into one of the SEC's excep- ment that 74,000 production workers would lose their jobs. . tions — such as corporate pay. Imagine a shareholder trying to The airline industry offers Steven Wolf, CEO of United Airlines. determine that. Executives treat such shareholder reviews like a pro- In 1990, he collected $18.3 million in total compensation. That was posal to put a rattlesnake in the petting zoo. for a year that saw profits fall by 71 percent. And let us not forget Time Just listen to Bruce Atwater, CEO of General Mills, 213th on the Warner's Steve Ross, the granddaddy of bonus boondogglers. In 1990, USA list with $3.5 million in compensation, who told a Senate com- he brought home $78 million, while his company bled $10 billion of mittee last year: "Shareholders and boards of directors have both the red ink. responsibility and the necessary power to correct these situations. Since Not just the companies showing huge losses have come under the it is the shareholders who are being directly disadvantaged, it is the microscope. The United Shareholders Association (USA), an advo- shareholders and not the Congress who should deal with this matter." cacy group, has found plenty of overpaid CEO's at companies that This , may look better in theory than in practice. show a profit. Take the oil and gas concern, Anadarko Petroleum in . On the other side is Edwin Seasons, a physician who leads the United Houston; its CEO, Robert Allison, earned the unwelcome distinction Shareholders Association. "In theory, shareholders elect a board of of being cited by USA as one of the nation's most overpaid corporate directors to represent their interests in corporate affairs. The board, chieftains. in turn, selects a management team to operate the company day-to- USA commissioned a study by Graef S. Chrystal, a compensation day," he said. In practice, the board of directors is appointed by man- expert with the University of California at Berkeley, whose econom- agement. And in good many major U.S. corporations the company's ic model compared CEO pay and performance, based on 1990 corpo- CEO is also chairman of the board, which means the CEO has rate records. In the USA survey, higher scores indicate greater abuse. tremendous say over who will sit on the board which sets his salary. Allison, whose total compensation, including salary, stock options and "That corporate managers essentially can award themselves huge other perks, was estimated at $1.76 million, ranked an impressive and undeserved pay packages with impunity is just one obvious symp- 804 out of 919 executives. tom of the lack of accountability in the top levels of our corpora- Other Texans who brought home more bacon in 1990 than, the the tions," Seasons told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Subcommittee shareholders' group felt they deserved included Robert W. Decherd, on Securities last fall. head of A.H. Belo, the media conglomerate whose holdings include But there are still those who say it ain't so. Paul Taylor, vice presi- the Dallas Morning News; Decherd, whose compensation was figured dent of Anadarko, is one of those people. Taylor (who didn't make at $1.99 million, was listed as number 849, while W. Ray Wallace, the USA list) said the current situation is "as close to a democratic pro- head of Trinity Industries, the Dallas-based steel manufacturer, was cess .as you are going to get." He adds that malcontent stockholders paid $2.1 million and ranked 805, and Darwin Smith, former CEO,of need not waste time with companies they don't like. "You can sell Kimberly Clark in Irving, was paid $5.84 million arid thestocks every day," he advised. In Houston, coming in at 863 was Robert L. Wprip, whose stew- "Love it or leave it" — might be a catchy title for an annual report. ardship of the funeral home and cemetery emporium, Service Corporation For those who would rather fight than switch must hope for encour- International, earned him $3.62 million. Robert, Palmer of Rowan agement from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Co. got $4.7 million to rank a stellar 908 and Joseph- Cani6n, former - So far, the official word from SEC Chairman Richard Breeden (who CEO of Compaq Computers, was paid $5.34 million to rank 865 in the makes $119,300 this year) has been that "the Commission is not pre- shareholder survey. pared to support the bill at this time, although Commission is currently It is not too surprising that a lot of people think there is something reviewing the adequacy of disclosures relating to executive compen- wrong with this picture. In Washington, there are two camps for change. sation." But some people who read the tea leaves of these matters believe One group wants shareholders to have more say in CEO pay. Another the chairman might be sympathetic to such a move. faction would like to do away with tax breaks that passively endorse Still, sympathy has its limits. And no one would ever think that high CEO price tags. Of course there are always plenty of the lais- any person affiliated with the Bush administration will look kindly on another measure being cooked-up by Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn. While Sabo may commend the shareholder initiative, he sees these Deborah Lutterbeck is an economics writer based in New .York. efforts as striking only "at the top salaries rather than the equity issue."

20 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 He plans a dual .attack. with "The Income Disparities Act of 1991," simply drive a class wedge into society. Pearl has plenty of company. which would prevent businesses from taking tax deductions for exec- And that kind of company will probably derail Sabo's bill. Sabo him- utive salaries that are more than 25 times higher than the salary of the self is not too optimistic. He says we will just have to see "if we are lowest-paid worker. ready for it in 1992." The corporate world certainly is not ready for In a letter to his colleagues, Sabo wrote, "I don't see why the tax- it, although Stephen Werling, with the University of Texas at San payer should have to subsidize those levels of pay through business tax Antonio's College of Business, believes the recent exposure of deductions." He thinks his method would benefit all workers. "While CEOs will probably result in some self-discipline. my proposal would not stop excessive salaries at the top, it would There are signs of this already. For example, William D. Ruckelshaus, end indirect support of them through the corporate income tax struc- CEO of the Houston-based waste management firm, Browning-Ferris, ture," he wrote. By tying the tax write-off to the difference between wrote his own prescription. In 1990, USA said his total compensa- the highest- and lowest-paid people, Sabo maintains his efforts will tion, including stock options and other perks, was worth $4.21 million. also encourage raising the lowest pay levels. While a Browning-Ferris spokesman disputed this figure, he said You can imagine what corporate America thinks of this plan. Ruckelshaus did award himself a $360,000 bonus that year, in which "Dribble," is how Tom Pearl, vice president with Chemical Securities the company lost $45 million. Last year, with profits up $65 million, Inc. described it. Pearl (unranked in the USA survey) speaks for Ruckelshaus waived his right to his bonus. Now who says a fox can't many of the highly-compensated when he says Sabo's effort would behave himself in the hen house? Cluck, cluck. ❑

Political Intelligence Rep. Bruce Gibson, D-Godley, a bill-fixer, as instead of his assistants. Gardner is an aggres- his new chief of staff may help him adapt to the Continued from page 24 sive, some would say abrasive lawyer, but new political reality. certainly an effective one. He said he'll prac- stocking scandal that led to a reorganization tice consumer law in Dallas. of the TPWD four years ago, as well as his recent ✓ GARDNER RESIGNS. In a surprising plea bargain on two misdemeanor charges. move, Attorney General Dan Morales forced ✓ THE TEXAS OBSERVER series on the resignation of his best-known deputy, assis- George W. Bush and Harken Energy Co. has ✓ WRONG HIGHTOWER. Incumbent tant AG Steven Gardner. Gardner, who head- been named one of the ten winners of the Texas Supreme Court Justice Jack Hightower ed the Dallas consumer protection office, had Project Censored awards, which are chosen may have signed onto too many Republican garnered national attention, including a pro- annually to recognize coverage of important court decisions, as far as the Texas AFL-CIO file in the Wall Street Journal last summer, stories the major media outlets "overlooked, is concerned, as the labor federation's for his aggressive pursuit of misleading cor- spiked, or just didn't seem to understand."The Committee on Political Education endorsed porate advertising. Some of his major cases project, judged by a distinguished panel of jour- challenger Paul Banner, a state district judge included prosecutions against cereal manu- nalists and academic figures, honored four pub- from Greenville, in the Democratic primary. facturers, Chrysler Corp., and Procter & Gamble. lications, including the Texas Observer, for their Texas Lawyer, a trade journal, reported that All parties were being closed-mouth about coverage of "The Bush family and its con- Hightower in 1991 aligned himself with three the dismissal, at least for the record. According flicts of interest." The Observer stories, "Global Republicans on the court, and had sided with to Wayne Slater, reporting the incident.in the Entanglements " (TO, 9/20/91, and "Oil in Chief Justice Tom Phillips, a Republican, 91 Dallas Morning News, one possible motive the Family "(TO, 7/12/91) were written by for- percent of the time, compared with 32-per- could have been Gardner's recent warning to mer editor David Armstrong. Another Observer cent agreement with Justice Oscar Mauzy, a makers of alcoholic beverages to avoid adver- article, "Have Badge, Will Travel (TO, labor-oriented Democrat. The labor group also tising that would encourage teenagers to drink. 10/18/91) was among 25 finalists for recogni- endorsed Mauzy, who is running for re-elec- Morales, Slater noted, has received at least tion, out of more than 700 entries. Also, A Ward tion; State District Judge Rose Spector, a San $60,000 from the liquor lobby. Or, the story County grand jury recently indicted Ronald Ray Antonio Democrat, for Place 2 against incum- speculated, Morales might have chafed at Tucker, a former undercover informant for bent Justice Eugene Cook, a Republican; Gardner's high-profile approach; the AG has the department, for allegedly skimming funds three Democratic incumbents for the Court of sought to focus media attention upon himself from one of the reverse-sting operations Criminal Appeals, judges Charles Baird, Morris Overstreet and Pete Benavides; and Lena Guerrero for the Texas Railroad Commission.

V LT. GOV. BOB BULLOCK surprised some this past month when he announced that he was reversing his stance on the need for an income tax and said he would oppose any new taxes PEOPLE during next year's legislative session, with. the possible exception of taxes required to Make a world of difference ! finance public schools. While Bullock has anoth- We're proud of our employees and their contributions to your er two years on his term, Republicans charged success and ours. Call us for quality printing, binding, mailing him with an election-year conversion to save and data processing services. Get to know the people at Futura. Democratic senators endangered by a federal- court-ordered redistricing plan that could give P.O. Box 17427 Austin, TX 78760.7427 the Senate an historic number of Republican's FUTURA next spring and shift the balance of power back COMMUNICATIONS. INC. 389-1500 to the conservatives. Bullock's choice df THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21 Oliver Does Dallas: Who Shot JFK? BY STEVEN G. KELLMAN Stone suggests that Kennedy—who won the women in Dallas, New Orleans, and presidency by accusing the Republicans of Washington, and of American society in the JFK allowing a "missile gap" and of feeble sup- last half of the 20th century. Directed by Oliver Stone port for Quemoy and Matsu against a JFK offers riveting performances by Tommy Communist menace—was on the verge of with- Lee Jones as Clay Shaw, the fey Louisiana busi- 44 T HE ONGOING PRINCIPLE for any drawing the 16,000 troops he had sent to nessman who was the only person ever prose- society, Mr. Garrison, is war," says X Vietnam, of reconciling with Castro, and of cuted for the murder of JFK; Sissy Spacek as (Donald Sutherland), the retired intel- inaugurating a golden age of peace and justice. Liz Garrison, the prosecutor's wife who pleads: ligence operative from whose deep throat That would have been bad for business, at least "I just want to raise our children and live a nor- emerges shocking revelations of official mis- the kind of business some might kill for. mal life"; Gary Oldman as a Lee Harvey Oswald chief. War Is Hell, proclaims the marquee of "Camelot in smithereens," gloats right-wing who insists he was set up as a "patsy"; Joe Pesci the Texas Theater, which is screening a film by maniac Guy Bannister (Ed Asner) when he as David Ferrie, the flamboyant Latin Quarter that name—along with Cry of Battle—when hears about the assassination. As if he wan- fairy who is either sensationally paranoid or Lee Harvey Oswald walks in after leaving dered in from Neverland on the set of else targeted for silencing. Jack Lemmon, Sally Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. As por- Spielberg's Hook, middle-aged Stone still Kirkland, Walter Matthau, Kevin Bacon and trayed in the film by Oliver Stone, the assas- believes in a Kennedy Camelot. John Candy, among others, offer remarkable sination of John F. Kennedy was a military It takes the energy, sagacity, and tenacity cameos. In a witty bit of casting, Jim Garrison operation, a successful coup d'etat whose model of a Talmudic schOlar to master all the intri- himself does a turn as Earl Warren. and motive both were war. cacies of The Assassination. The Warren But it is Costner's quixotic Garrison who is JFK begins with. footage of Dwight Commission Report alone runs to 26 volumes, the focus of the film, and his Quixote is less Eisenhower's valedictory warning against the and I would rather reread Proust. Just as it would Cervantes' lunatic than a white knight tilting tyranny of the military-industrial complex, and be presumptuous to pass judgment on the Big his lance at dragons with real teeth. It is his ver- it concludes with the toll of casualties in the Bang Theory after merely a year of college sion of the assassination that becomes a virtu- Vietnam conflict. Its thesis is that Kennedy was physics, I declare agnosticism toward the al film-within-a-film during the final 40 minutes. murdered before he could rein in the com- conflicting accounts of how and why John F. All of the rapidly crosscut and interpolated mandos and corporations eager for war in Kennedy died. The Warren Commission con- images, the experiences, fantasies, and theo- Southeast Asia and Cuba. JFK is the piece de cluded that Oswald was the sole assassin and ries that Stone weaves together throughout, cul- resistance of Stone's career, and many have that a single bullet finished off Kennedy and minate in the trial of Clay Shaw. We segue from been resisting its director's conviction that wounded John Connally. Costner's Garrison Garrison's courtroom narration to a dramati- the assassination of the 35th president of the calls the commission's work "one of the slop- zation of his words, and we return for the rous- United States is the key to understanding every- piest, most disorganized investigations I've ever ing peroration. Eyes moist and voice unsteady, thing that has happened since. seen," and JFK makes a credible case for believ- the prosecutor defies the sinister forces that The horror of Vietnam that Stone experienced ing him about that and for insisting that criti- would deprive us of essential knowledge. and depicted in Platoon; the divided, dispirit- cal documents sealed until 2029 be made "Individual human beings have to create jus- ed society to which Ron Kovic returns in accessible. In Abraham Zapruder's actual tice," he exhorts the jury, and the movie audi- Born on the Fourth of July; the Yankee impe- footage of the motorcade, rerun at crucial points ence. "Nothing as long as you live will ever rialism of Salvador; the violent bigotry of Talk throughout the film, the stricken president is be more important." Radio; the rampant greed of Wall Street; even seen falling back and to the left, a reaction The obvious precedent for Costner's perfor- the suicidal passion of the '60s in The Doors— that seems impossible if the bullet, too, came mance as crusading attorney who defies the estab- all were unleashed by the men who killed from the back, from the Texas School Book lishment is Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes Kennedy. JFK, which might more aptly have Depository, rather than the grassy knoll. to Washington. But an even more celebrated film been titled USA, is an attempt to make sense of "Does it really matter who shot from what lurks behind JFK. Stone is in quest of another the last three decades of American history. rooftop?" asks X. To appreciate JFK as a Rosebud, though the telltale sled might long since "Kennedy was the godfather of my genera- supreme achievement in agitprop, it does not. be burnt. Like Citizen Kane, JFK is a very tion," Stone repeats in the numerous interviews The fact that Richard III was not the misshapen American film, not merely as a study of indi- he has given to promote his new film, and JFK fiend depicted by Shakespeare, an apologist for vidual will. It is the product of a nation created is The Godfather of docudramas, a brilliant dis- the Tudor dynasty whose legitimacy depend- during the rational 18th century, in the confi- play of cinematic art. JFK is the absent father ed on discrediting York pretenders, does not dence that the truth will out. For every thorny in JFK, dead on the 22nd of November, which diminish the dramatic power of Richard III. thicket, there is a Rosebud, according to the is when Stone's dramatization begins. "We've Stone has described his film as "more of a 'why- Yankee faith. Elsewhere, monarchs, ministers, all become Hamlets in our country," says Jim done-it' than a 'who-done it,'" but it seems hard popes, and caudillos are obscurely poisoned, Garrison (Kevin Costner), the New Orleans to settle on "why" without knowing "who." No decapitated, defenestrated, or otherwise disap- D.A. who is the film's protagonist. The hand- dramatization, even one 188 minutes long, can peared. Children of the Enlightenment, some king was dead, and usurping his throne possibly resolve the mysteries behind the mur- Americans cannot abide the obfuscation of power. was a vulgar Texan tempting to imagine as der of JFK. But, whether or not the two prin- Though he laments the loss of innocence, Claudius—if not the murderer himself at least cipal sources for the screenplay by Stone and Stone is naive enough to believe that presidents in cahoots with killers. Zachary Sklar—Jim Garrison's On the Trail of simply do not vanish without explanation. JFK On the basis of scant, ambiguous evidence, the Assassins and Jim Marrs' The Plot That is an elegy for clarity, but it operates out of Killed Kennedy—are ever vindicated, JFK is a the fond fancy that the shadows flickering across Steven Kellman is a professor of comparative lit- powerful challenge to complacency. It is an a movie screen can shed light on the dark secrets erature at the University of Texas-San Antonio. enduring study in character: of motley men and of American history. 22 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992 200th Anniversary of the U.S. Bill of Rights: Reveille or Taps?

BY JAMES C. HARRINGTON amount of egregious police misconduct before tutions. If they do not support those liberties holding a municipality liable, even for actual vigorously enough, voters should use the bal- Austin damages. Slowly, but surely, the heavy doors lot box to help them find other employment. HIS PAST DECEMBER marked the of the federal courthouse are swinging shut. The appointment of federal judges should 200th anniversary of the adoption of Symptomatic of this trend is Chief Justice become more of an issue in presidential and Tthe U.S. Bill of Rights by the original William Rehnquist's recent speech on the senatorial elections. Senators can approve or thirteen states. Generally, we would have hoped anniversary of the Bill of Rights. The legacy he reject the president's nominees, but for some to celebrate a bi-centenary of such import far saw was confirmation of the court's right to reason the Senate seems to have abdicated and wide, with great pomp and circumstance. interpret the Constitution; he paid little atten- this traditional role, thus diminishing judicial Unfortunately, however, this time around, the tion to its proclamation of civil liberty. quality and allowing the creation of a more ide- festivities were rather muted because in many Watching the Supreme Court resolutely chip ologically polarized judiciary. respects we commemorated more what the Bill away at our hard-won freedoms is painful Individual citizens must recapture the Bill of of Rights might have been rather than what it enough, but it has also prevented the nation from Rights by speaking out, loudly and forcefully, actually has become. moving ahead and developing the principles in newspapers and at meetings of the city coun- Over the last decade, the steady hand of a mapped out in the Bill of Rights by our forebears. cil, school board, county commission and leg- reactionary Supreme Court has cut back the civil In many respects, too, we are falling behind islature, whenever government puts forward a rights and individual liberties that had begun in the development of international human rights proposition that limits our liberty, censors our finally to take root in the early 1960s. The law. Although Western nations respect our Bill culture or undermines equal opportunity. nation's high court, now dominated by Reagan- of Rights as the pioneer that it was, they have After all, defending and asserting the Bill Bush appointees chosen for pinched ideology, gone far beyond us in expanding protections. of Rights is a patriotic thing to do. Many undistinguished by scholarship, and driven by The charters of rights in most European coun- Americans have given life and limb for its a narrow agenda, routinely rules in favor of gov- tries are fashioned on models similar to the promise. We cannot afford to console ourselves ernment power over individual freedom on vir- United Nations Declaration of Rights, extend- by hoping that, even though the pendulum is tually every subject. ing guarantees of health care, education, employ- swinging to the right, when it goes too far it The high court has reversed the recent role ment, housing — rights that are not found in will swing back of its own weight. History of the federal courts to help make the playing the United States version. teaches otherwise. field a little more level for those suffering abuse Overall, through the years, the Supreme Court of their rights; the field is now tilted much more Rays of Hope has not championed civil liberty. It upheld inter- uphill than it was before. All is not gloom, however. Despite slack- state slavery laws, and "separate but equal" seg- During the last few years, for example, the ening federal protection of our rights, many state regation, it rendered the Fourteenth Amendment Justices on the Potomac gutted the 1866 Civil judges in Texas still courageously apply "the unto nothingness in the 19th Century and Rights Act, thereby curtailing remedies for general, great and essential principles of lib- then twisted it Into a vehicle to void econom- employment bias; upheld some use of coerced erty and free government" which are found in ic regulation in this century; the use of loyal- confessions despite the once-sacred Miranda the Texas Bill of Rights. Indeed, state courts ty oaths to break the labor movement, and rule; refused to recognize individual privacy as now perform a critical role in protecting the internment of Japanese Americans during World a fundamental right as they allowed the gov- American tradition of individual liberty. Texas, War II— these are but a few of the court's less- ernment to regulate the bedroom and narrowed for example, guards privacy as a fundamental than-honorable legacies. the right to die; permitted executions of men- right and is much more solicitous of minority Our task as citizens is to hold the courts tally retarded youth; restored to the police the persons under the state equal rights amendment, responsible to their duty as arbiters of freedom. power to arrest people on anonymous tips and a provision still not embedded in the federal Bill Americans, regardless of occupation and age, to detain citizens for 48 hours without a war- of Rights. must become drumbeaters for the Bill of Rights, rant; sanctioned random, suspicionless urine We should expect that of our courts. The holding accountable those whose job it is to pre- testing in the workplace; and destroyed the free authors of the Texas Constitution deliberately serve, defend and protect that sacred charter and speech and press rights of high school students. crafted a strong judicial system because they its ideals. We ourselves must grab the pendu- Not only is the list of diminished liberties expected judges to play a pivotal role in defend- lum and pull it back. becoming alarmingly long, but the Justices have ing civil freedoms, and they provided for the also devised new procedural hurdles that election of judges as a way of assuring that result. ANDERSON & COMPANY make it more difficult to get into court in the The delegates to the 1875 Texas Constitutional COFFEE TEA SPICES first place. For example, the Court has ruled that convention intentionally limited the power of TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE African Americans lack "standing" to complain the state executive and legislative branches AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 about tax breaks to colleges that discriminate because they feared the abuse of their liberty 512 453-1533 and it has required an almost insurmountable by those branches. Send me your list. During the election campaigns of candidates Name James C. Harrington is legal director of the for the judiciary, we should make the candi- Texas Civil Rights Project and author of The dates answerable for enforcing our civil rights, Street Texas Bill of Rights: A Commentary and Liti- requiring them to state their views on the Bill City Zip gation Manual. of Rights in both the federal and state consti-

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 23 Postmaster: If undeliverable, send Form 3579 to The Texas Observer, 307 West 7th, Austin, Texas 78701

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE

al Americans for Democratic Action reported ✓ GEORGE BUSH, the only President from rent crop of earnest, serious, careerist young Texas we've got, used his Texas persona dur- pols. He is running for the seat now held by on its heroes and villains recently, no Texans ing a mid-January campaign swing in New Peggy Rosson. were on the list of 20 congresspeople who have Hampshire. According to The New York Times, a perfect 100-percent voting record with the lib- "He suddenly began talking about tidness' and ✓ REMEMBER CLARENCE THOMAS, eral group. Five Texas- congressmen, all quoting country music lyrics at every stop. 'I who rose above his humble beginnings as a poor Republicans, made the list of 33 "villains" with would remind you of another country & west- black child in Georgia to become an apologist zero ratings during their careers. They are Bill ern song by the Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great for Republican benign neglect of civil rights Archer of Houston, Dick Armey of Lewisville, Bird Band — If you want to see a rainbow, during the Reagan Administration? There Larry Combest of Lubbock, Jack Fields of you've got to stand a little rain,' he told his audi- was hope that a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Humble and Sam Johnson of Dallas. ences." Right George. Remember the Goliad. Supreme Court would free Thomas to moderate his views, but the newest justice found him- ✓ NEW LINES, HARD TIMES. Campaign self solidly with the conservative majority in magazine reported six Texas congressmen, all ✓ GLEN MAXEY-the-first-openly-gay- member-of-the-Texas Legislature, as the news- three recent decisions. The court, on a 6-3 vote, Democrats, are vulnerable because of redis- papers always call him, faces primary opposition drove a wedge in the Voting Rights Act when tricting and the baggage they carry into their in his Austin district from Lulu Flores, an it allowed two Alabama counties to strip bud- new districts. They include John Bryant of Hispanic lawyer almost as liberal as Maxey. In get authority from newly-elected black com- Dallas, whose opposition to the Gulf War and an effort to differentiate her politics from his, missioners. The court's majority declared the support for the Civil Rights bill may alienate Flores told the Austin American-Statesman, 1965 law was "not an all-purpose anti-dis- voters; Martin Frost of Dallas, who may be "ide- "I am not going to die on the sword for princi- crimination statute." Another decision, which ologically inconsistent" with his new district; ple." God forbid. Thomas wrote, allows employers to keep Pete Geren of Fort Worth, who has a marginal union organizers off their property, including constituency; Greg Laughlin of Victoria, also parking lots; a third decision limits political asy- with a marginal constituency; Charles Wilson ✓ OUT IN THE WEST TEXAS TOWN OF EL PASO, good news! Who should be running lum for refugees fleeing military service in war- of Lufkin, whose flamboyant lifestyle is a con- for a state Senate seat in the Lege but Malcolm torn countries. George Bush must be proud. stant source of comment; and Mike Andrews McGregor, an Old Fort. (In order to qualify of Houston, who like Bryant, Frost and Geren for membership in the Old Forts, you have to ✓ WHAT WALLISVILLE RESERVOIR? lost many of the minority Democrats in his dis- have been a freedom-fighter in the Texas the Texas Water Commission asked as it sided trict. Lege, over 50 and not able to spell real well.) with environmentalists to delay an extension of McGregor last served in the Texas House in the water rights from the reservoir the U.S. Corps ✓ WILDLIFE AFTER STATEHOUSE? 60's and is now in his 60's himself. In the of Engineers is creating on the Trinity River Who better to look after the state's fish and game Bad Old Days, McGregor used to vote right for southeast of Houston. The state agency, which than a former Texas House speaker? Mike the most refreshingly simple reason — he could ordered additional environmental studies on the Leggett, outdoors writer for the Austin never figure out any reason not to: he had a safe, 33-year-old project, may stop the city of Houston American-Statesman, predicts Gib Lewis progressive district and didn't need lobby and the Trinity River Authority from using would come up as a potential appointee to the money. He is, on the whole, inclined to think the reservoir as a water source, but federal Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission when that the Constitution of the United States authorities indicated they will proceed with the three seats on the commission open up next deserves respect and that the people of Texas $65 million reservoir, which U.S. Rep, Jack February, right after the Fort Worth Democrat's are more important than the interests of the Brooks, D-Beaumont, has pushed through thick House term expires. Lewis, an avid hunter, Bituminous Coal Dealers or any other special and thin. Environmentalists fear the dam will reportedly has told friends a Parks and Wildlife interest. McGregor, a successful attorney, may stop the flow of fresh water that is needed to seat is the only government job that would inter- be the least angst-ridden liberal Texas has replenish marine life in Galveston Bay. est him after serving as speaker, and he has had ever produced. It would be great fun to see such a good relationship with Gov. Ann Richards. an easy-going old hand serving with the cur- ✓ NOBODY'S PERFECT. When the liber- Among the liabilities are his central role in a Continued on page 21 24 • FEBRUARY 14, 1992