na'KwA14.1\ "-NWIIM4Z" • I 4 ,,,a,m0MMSITats0k A Journal of Free Voices January 24, 1986 One Dollar HE KNOCK-DOWN-DRAG-OUT T ON TEXAS RURAL LEGAL AID HOW SOME LIBERALS DROPPED THE BALL ON TAX REFORM and why. JAMES RIDGEWAY THE STORY OF AUSTIN, PAST AND PRESENT Estevan Austin, guide. MICHAEL KING • EDITORIAL The Possibility of Democracy "Just a bunch of Yankee Jews down here to stir up trouble." —Hereford's then-City Manager Dudley Bayne on TRLA attorneys in Hereford (Dallas Morning News, 3/9/80) N 1970, President Richard Nixon's Office of Economic Opportunity renewed its funding for the California Rural TETxDB sERNTER I Legal Assistance (CRLA) program, describing it as among © The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1986 "the best legal service programs in the nation." CRLA had been responsible for seeing that farm laborers were paid Vol. 78, No. 2 74=-"Iff January 24, 1986 minimum wage and provided with minimal standards for Copyright 1986 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. working conditions; it had also provided for an expansion Material may not be reproduced without permission. of federal food programs in the state and forced the restoration PUBLISHER Ronnie Dugger of funding cuts in the state's Medicaid program. This kind EDITOR Geoffrey Rips of activity didn't sit well with then-Governor Ronald Reagan, ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Denison who called CRLA "ideological ambulance chasers" and vetoed CALENDAR EDITOR Chula Sims the O.E.O. funding for CRLA. O.E.O. appointed a panel LAYOUT: Dana Loy to investigate Reagan's reasons for the veto. Reagan's position EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Kathleen Fitzgerald was defended by his chief of staff, Edwin Meese, and by WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Vera Titunik his state O.E.O. director, a former public relations director EDITORIAL INTERNS: Hanno T. Beck for the John Birch Society. The panel found no basis for EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerr- Reagan's veto and allowed the O.E.O. to exercise its authority ville; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy to re-instate the funding for CRLA. But this was not the last Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- that legal services was to hear from Ronald Reagan. bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Dallas; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, That same year, members of the Texas Trial Lawyers Jr.. San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Association, concerned about endemic poverty and discrimina- Presley, Texarkana, Tx.; Susan Reid, Austin; A. R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; tion in the lower Rio Grande Valley, sought funding from Fred Schmidt, Tehachapi, Cal., Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. the O.E.O. to pay for legal representation for indigent clients CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Warren Burnett, Jo Clifton, Craig Clifford, Louis Dubose, John Henry Faulk, Ed Garcia, Bill Helmer, James Harrington, Jack Hop- in ten South Texas counties. Thus, Texas Rural Legal Aid per, Amy Johnson, Rick Piltz, Susan Raleigh, John Schwartz, Michael Ventura, was formed and came under the funding auspices of the Legal Lawrence Walsh. Services Corporation in 1974, when Nixon — on his way CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue, Russell Lee, Scott Van out of the White House — signed a bill into law creating Osdol, Alicia Daniel. this separate entity with a board appointed by the President. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Mark Antonuccio, Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Carlos In 1977, TRLA established a Farm Worker Division, using Lowry, Miles Mathis, Joe McDermott, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau. a grant from the Legal Services Corporation dedicated A journal of free voices specifically to providing services for migrant and seasonal We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find farm workers throughout the state. Under the auspices of this it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human program, TRLA opened offices in Laredo, El Paso, and values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of Hereford to serve farm workers outside TRLA's original democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power- service area in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Since 1978, ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. the Hereford office of TRLA has won over 98 percent of Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have its cases that have involved litigation. not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. Among its victories was a case in 1979 involving a public housing project in Castro County. The project, built with Managing Publisher Cliff Olofson federal 'subsidies, was run by a housing authority composed Advertising & Development Director Dana Loy entirely of growers, who used the project as a labor camp, Subscription Manager Stefan Wanstrom run by a former Texas Ranger. Eligibility for housing was Consultant Frances Barton determined by the work performed for the growers on the Editorial and Business Office board. A TRLA lawsuit resulted in the removal of the Texas 600 West 28th Street, #105, Austin, Texas 78705 (512) 477-0746 Ranger and an injunction barring the illegal practices of the housing authority. The Dallas Morning News (3/9/80) quoted The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519) is published biweekly except for a three-week inter- val between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing Truman Touchstone, Castro County Housing Authority Co., 600 West 28th Street, #105, Austin, Texas 78705, (512) 477-0746. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Secretary and vegetable grower: "They [the lawyers] say it Subscription rates, including 5 1/8% sales tax: one year $23, two years $42, three years don't meet health standards and isn't very elaborate. But it's $59. One year rate for full-time students, $15. Back issues $2 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group. not very expensive, either. You fix this place up enough for and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl.. 300 N. Zee) Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. white people to live in it, and you'd have to charge two or Copyright 1986 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may three hundred dollars a month. This is low income housing." not be reproduced without permission. In another case, TRLA filed suit for back wages for three POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 28th Street, #105, Austin, Texas 78705. generations of a family that worked in a feedlot in Hereford 2 JANUARY 24, 1986 for sub-minimum wage, one member having worked there abuse as we have with Texas Rural Legal Aid. The only way for 15 years. In 1981, they were awarded $31,211.95 we're going to stop it is get ahold of our congressman, our compensation for wages for the previous three years (as far senators and get their money stopped. ." back as the law allows). This was the largest agricultural wage settlement in Panhandle history. Other cases have resulted T TOOK a few years, but finally U.S. Rep. Larry Combest, in court orders ending discrimination in the Hereford School R-Lubbock, came along to do their bidding. Combest District and Castro County and ending racial segregation in I made TRLA a campaign issue in 1984. Last February, a federally subsidized housing project in Hereford. Combest asked for an investigation of TRLA. Not long These victories were won in the midst. of what could be thereafter an investigation by the General Accounting Office described as a less than friendly reception by local officials. began. In December 1985, Combest blamed TRLA for its Hereford's then-City Manager Dudley Bayne, for instance, role in the Hereford economy, where "a once bright future described the migrant worker as someone who "does not care has grown dim." He arranged for a delegation of Hereford where or how he lives. He does not want his children in honchos to appear before a meeting of the Legal Services school; he wants 'em left alone so he can use 'em in the Corporation board, convened coincidentally in El Paso on field, even if they're four years old, for whatever they can December 19 and 20. Through his aide, Combest told the do to make him a nickle." (Dallas Morning News, 3/9/80). board that TRLA has fomented racial tension and that Hereford authorities believe "serious violence is imminent if the ITH THE election of Ronald Reagan, these problems with TRLA exist." Also appearing before the board Panhandle officials and growers realized that they was Hereford mayor and potato grower Wes Fisher, who said W had an opportunity to rid their communities of the TRLA has "pitted Mexicans against Anglos." legal services scourge: From the first budget submitted by State Representative Al Luna, D-Houston, and Paul Reagan to Congress, his administration has sought to defund Moreno, D-El Paso, appeared in TRLA's defense. Luna told legal services in general and the rural legal service programs the board he thought that "maybe the TRLA has been too in particular. As James Ridgeway reported (TO, 10/11/85), successful in doing what Congress intended them to do. That's the Legal Services Corporation initiated intense "monitoring" why this is happening." He cautioned the panel that the of TRLA, CRLA, and legal services in North Carolina and elimination of legal representation through TRLA to farmwork- Maryland last year.