ustxtxb_obs_1969_01_10_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

legislature be permitted to change systems. REPRESENTATIVE Br au n, Houston, will reintroduce his two antipollution bills which passed the house in 1967 but died in the senate. The bills permit the criminal prosecution of corporations for pollution. “We’re not trying to put corporate presidents in jail or close up plants,” Braun says. “What we’re after is a means of getting corporations into criminal courts” for acts of pollution for which a private citizen would be prosecuted. Current state law provides for injunctions to be issued against corporations but not criminal prosecution. Braun says he believes there still is strong house support for his two bills and that there is growing support in the senate. Other conservation bills coming up will include a measure banning the sale or owned submerged lands, islands and estuaries along the Gulf Coast pending a study of how to proceed in conserving these resources. Senator Schwartz, Galveston, tells the Observer “there is a need for some long-range legislative planning for these resources to preserve them and their ecology from Brownsville to Port Arthur.” He says the expanding state population now threatens these and that the openness of Texas beaches needs to be preserved. A citizens committee and several legislators have been working on this matter. Schwartz also plans to introduce a bill that would authorize money to keep Texas beaches clean. The proposed $10 billion state water plan will be before the legislators this spring. Smith and Barnes have pledged their support in implementing the plan that was ‘presented recently by the Water Development Board. The plan is a revised version of an earlier proposal, announced in 1966, that was battered by criticism of East Texans who were wary that too much of their abundant water would be sluiced off elsewhere and of West Texans who were concerned because the plan didn’t propose an adequate irrigation water supply to replace current underground supplies, which are expected to run out in 1985. Hearings were held after the 1966 plan was released, to attempt to reconcile these reservations; the newly released plan is an attempt to damp down earlier criticisms. Approval for the plan, which would be financed with state, local and federal money, would be submitted to state voters in the 1970 general elections. if the legislature approves. The legislature is expected to submit to voters a constitutional amendment that would permit local option elections on liquor by the drink. Representative Ogg will seek to extend the drinking closing time to 2 a.m. as a boost, he says, to Berry will be back with his biennial proposal to permit parimutuel horse race betting. Berry this year says he’ll try for a constitutional amendment that would permit local option elections in Bexar and Harris counties. He chose those two counties, Berry says, “because they both showed preference for it in the referendum” in 1962 which Berry proposed. Legislators have been studying state election laws since last session. A committee will recommend letting voters register up to five weeks or so before both primary and general elections; creation of a central election agency \(instead of having the secretary of state’s office handle elections, strength to state conventions on the votes cast for all gubernatorial candidates in primaries, rather than for the party nominee in general elections; extending by one hour the voting day, to close at 8 p.m., instead of 7; elimination of all paper ballots in favor of voting machines; allowing voters to take written material into polling places so long as the material is not displayed. Rep. Curtis Graves, Houston, plans to introduce a bill that would permit candidates’ names to be numbered on ballots, evidently for the convenience of illiterate voters. There is some talk of trying to pass a bill that would do away with the unit rule in precinct, county and state conventions. Despite the general impression that the 1968 national Democratic convention settled this, there is some doubt in some minds about this. Erwin, who attended the national Demo convention as the committeeman from Texas, was quoted recently in a University of Texas publication as saying that “We still have the unit rule. All that was voted by the convention was that the national convention would not enforce the unit rule. That is, if some delegate chose to disregard the decisions of those people who sent him there and who elected him, the national convention will not require that person to obey those instructions, as they have done for a hundred years prior to that time. The action of the last convention has no effect on the use of the unit rule in precinct, county or state conventions in Texas ….” FOUR “LAW and order” bills will be submitted for consideration by Atty. Gen. Crawford Martin, aimed at strengthening officials’ hands in cases of riots. Martin during last summer’s special legislative session asked Connally to place the measures before the lawmakers but Connally did not. Smith supports the bills and will see that they are considered this year. The law changes would permit officers in towns outside a riot area to rush to the support of local police; authorize 72-hour curfews on the sale of ammunition, gasoline or liquor; ‘ban trespassing on public property; outlaw disturbance of public meetings; and make it a felony to interfere with policemen, firemen, ambulance drivers, doctors or nurses in a riot area. After the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas there was begun a local effort to preserve the Texas School Book Depository Bldg. as a national historical shrine [Obs., April 15, 1966]. The idea never got much support among Dallas leaders, however, and the matter eventually was dropped. Now, newly elected Senator McKool of Dallas has said he will introduce legislation authorizing the state to buy the depository building, which is owned by conservative oilman D. Harold Byrd, for use as a museum, wherein would be displayed photos and written accounts of what happened the day of the assassination, as well as clothing worn by some of the principals. Other Dallas legislators appear lukewarm to the McKool proposal. Women’s Rights EQUALITY FOR women will again be the target of the genteel movement marshalled, mainly, by the Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. The primary BPW goal this year is submission to voters of a constitutional amendment that would declare it basic state policy that legal discrimination as between the sexes is out. The necessary legislation passed the senate.in 1967 but failed in the house by one vote of achieving the necessary two-thirds approval. Sen. William Moore, Bryan, who has carried such a bill the last four sessions, and Representative Braun will push the measures in their respective houses. Mrs. Hermine Tobolosky, Dallas, tells the Observer that the BPW has been largely responsible for 32 bills in recent years dealing with sexual equality before the law; she believes that several “bad laws” were altered because of the organization’s efforts in the Capitol. Only one law not to the liking of the BPW got through in 1967, Mrs. Tobolosky says, the omission of women from the civil rights act. She hopes that will be corrected this year. Other interests of the BPW in 1969, Mrs. Toboloskv says, include a bill to permit married women to establish their own domicile. She explains that a number of Texas women, on marrying men not from Texas, have been charged outof-state tuition at Texas colleges even though they may never have been out’ of the state. Also, the “equal shooting rights” bill \(Obs., will be brought up again; present Texas law permits a man to shoot his wife’s paramour in the bedroom but a woman can’t shoot her husband’s lover in similar circumstances. Mrs. Tobolosky says the law should be changed so that, regardless of who does the shooting, and regardless of who is shot in a triangle situation, the assailant will be prosecuted the same. “After all,” she says, “it doesn’t matter to the person who was shot whether he is dead by the hand of a man or a woman.” G.O.