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instead of requesting that Congress repeal it. “I think you’ve been very slow,” Clements told White. “You have dillydallied around for 18 months on this issue. We wanted some action; 18 months later we get it.” White said his office acted as quickly as possible to challenge the tax. Lt. Gov. Hobby questioned a section of Clements’ substitute proposal that “instructed” White to file the suit. Hobby said the council did not have the power to tell the attorney general to do anything. “We’re not instructing,” Clements said sarcastically. “We’re begging.” Hobby and Speaker Bill Clayton came up with a compromise resolution deleting Clements’ “instructions” to White and White’s prodding of Reagan. The compromise asked White to continue his court fight and urged Congress to repeal the tax. The Governor said he recommended Dallas County Commissioner Roy Orr for a job as regional director of the U.S. Labor Department. The appointment of Orr, the former state Democratic party chairman and supporter of President Carter in 1980, angered many Dallas-area Republicans, who felt a loyal Reagan supporter should have received the job. Orr apparently helped his own cause with Republicans when he joined GOP county commissioners in approving a redistricting plan that could make his own Southwest Dallas district a Republican area. Another Dallas County Republican, Jim Collins, apparently got finessed on the floor of the House last week. He left the floor for three minutes to talk with two Texas reporters, Mark Nelson of the Dallas Morning News and Charles Richards of the Associated Press, but that was all the time opponents of his anti-busing amendment needed. While he was talking to reporters, debate ended on the Justice Department appropriations bill Collins was planning to amend. He got back inside in time to vote on the bill, but not to offer his amendment prohibiting the Justice Department from using its funds to file or join suits that would require a student to be bused to a school other than the one nearest the student’s home. “I’ve been here eight terms and I’ve never seen anybody who wouldn’t give you a chance,” he said. “It’s devious. The whole thing’s been devious. The liberals will do everything they can.” The reporters assured Collins no one had put them up to getting him off the floor. Rumors persist that Speaker Bill Clayton will drop out of the land commissioner’s race to take over the $90,000-a year position as chairman of the Lower Colorado River Authority. Both Clayton and the LCRA people say no, but the job would keep Clayton in Austin, the salary is good, he’d still be dealing with water, and it could keep him in the spotlight for a later race for governor. Clayton postponed a tentative Labor Day announcement of his race for land commissioner. He will wait until mid-November. Bob Armstrong is giving up the land commissioner’s position after 12 years in office. Meanwhile Speaker Clayton has appointed Donna Mobley, the Common Cause lobbyist who pushed for reform of Texas campaign finance laws, to serve on the Public Servant Standards of Conduct Advisory Committee. The 15member panel was created by the Legislature at Clayton’s insistence to issue guidelines on Texas campaign finance laws and to propose an overhaul of the state’s ethics laws. John Hill dropped by the office on his way to Italy for a ten-day vacation with Mrs. Hill. It will be another month or so, he said, before he decides about the governor’s race. “I just wanted to say to the folks” he said, in reference to Bob Armstrong and other potential candidates, “that whatever they want to do, go ahead and do. I don’t want anyone to feel later on that I’ve double-crossed them. I’m not trying to be coy, but I just don’t know yet what I’m going to do.” “Whoever the Democratic candidate is,” he added, “what we need is a governor who will be supportive of state government and its employees. I think Governor Clements has been somewhat hostile. “You have to consider the mood of the times. There’s change, I can feel that. But I don’t know where the change is gong to lead to. Who can say how things will be in February when we all have to commit ourselves.?” Washington Items Everyone knows Sen. John Tower, R.-Tx., is right-wing, but right even of Reagan? On defense spending, yes. Reagan’s press-trumpeted consideration of cutting the military budget turned out to be an all-out victory for the military spenders led by Defense Secretary Weinberger; Reagan’s decision to cut defense spending $2 billion in 1982, a three-year total of only $13 billion, is widely perceived as a victory for the Pentagon over Budget Director David Stockman. Tower’s reaction? With the $13 billion cut, the Pentagon will have “less in the way of defense capability than even Jimmy Carter projected.” This was so patently rhetorical, Time remarked about it bluntly, “That was clearly not true.” For every new oil dollar given Democratic candidates in 1980, six went to Republican candidates, according to a study of 94 oil PACs by the Boston Globe. Oil committees more than doubled their contributions between 1978 and 1980 and backed many more challengers than old-line business PACs. received the most oil PAC money last year are all GOP freshmen,” The Globe Senate freshmen receiving significant contributions last year, only two voted against the industry on a close 49-to-47 vote not to table an oil amendment to the tax bill in July. . . .” Texas, of course, is the nation’s leading oil producing state and headquarters for major international oil firms and many oil service companies. John Connally and wife Nellie turned up at a posh Washington party at Blair House across from the White House. The Washington Post, after noting that there were eleven limousines lined up outside Blair House for the occasion, reported that the Connallys “recently bought an apartment in Shoreham West and will be dividing their time between here and Houston on ‘business.’ ” Texan John Henry Faulk’s Cousin Ed has been holding forth, according to another Post about Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Explaining Haig’s interest in El Salvador, Cousin Ed told Faulk: “He knows that El Salvador is on the Pacific and Cuba is on the Atlantic. Some moonlit night there’s no tellin’ but a bunch of those El Salvadoreans’ll git in a canoe and come slipping up the West Coast at the same time these Cubans slip up on the East, and hell, they’ll have us surrounded. ‘Surrender or die!’ they’ll say, and we’ll be helpless. Alexander Haig has studied geography, Johnny. He understands all of that, and you don’t.” “The Miracle of the KILLER BEES” by Robert Heard. Honey Hill Publishing Co., 1022 Bonham Terrace, Austin, Texas 78704, $7.95 plus $1.03 tax and shipping. Good books in every field JENKINS PUBLISHING CO. The Pemberton Press John H. Jenkins, Publisher Box 2085 111 Austin 78768 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15