ustxtxb_obs_1957_04_16_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

LABOR HAS RESPITE, TPA HIT THE SKIDS Rep. Barefoot Sanders has introduced a pro-trucks measure to increase the legal truck load limits from the present 58,420 pounds to 78,000 pounds \(enstiffens the penalties for noncompliance. By coincidence, the first day the bill was placed on the suspension calendar for debate by Speaker Carr, the truckers were having a luncheon downtown for the members and visiting truck company owners. \(Rep. Bill Elliott, Pasadena, said he wished he had “seen them The trucks are now very potent in the legislature, thanks to the work of Jim Taylor, executive Secretary of the Texas Motor Transportation Assn., and his two aides, ex-Rep, Jim Sparks \(who and ex-Sen. ‘Weaver Moore \(who, The trucking interests s t and ready to help friendly legislators in their summer campaigns, and as a partial result, as a lobbyist told the Observer, “I believe they could drive a truck right onto the floor of either house and unload it.” That remains to be seen, and one man watching very closely is Kenneth McCalla, the chief railroad lobbyist. McCalla’s battery of runners is the largest in the Austin lobby. He has a strategy conference with them in the morning; then they fan out and -report back to him like Indian .scouts. Much of the time you find ‘McCalla himself playing g i n -rummy at the Austin Club \(with Homer Leonard, Emmett Morse. Star Feed and Fertilizer Co. of Nacogdoches. Occasionally ‘t h e members of the club discuss pine trees peculiar to East Texas, but nearly all the time the subject One of his men, Naul Sandall, has been segregation strategy. A was drenched with very hot lobbyist, Pat Smith, has been water in the naturopath investi working from the Driskill on be gation. ‘It turned out, as Observer half of the white citizens’ coun readers will recall, that James E. ! cils. Cox, the representative from I \(The East Texans threatened Conroe, was sleeping in a room to block a bill by Rep. Malcolm paid for by Sandall on occasion, McGregor when he voted against and that after Cox told Sandall elation provided transportation and meals for the members who wished to attend the funeral at Nacogdoches. The matter was mentioned on the floor of the House, and the next day Rep. W. S. Heatly had passed without objection a resolution thanking the association for its help. Rep. Harrington said that the bus association was helping with part of the transportation cost of last weekend’s legislative junket to Port Arthur, but J. Manley Head, secretary of the association and its lobbyist with Carl Phin”On. this trip I had asked them to do what they could, because the association is in such bad trouble moneywise. We are not \(The bus companies had a very successful 1955 session, winning a bus registration fee cut of about $400,000 a year. During a Senate filibuster against the cut, Head sent food to a committee room `behind the Senate chamber, and it was partaken of with relish by many of the senators, including the food was picked up by Lone Grocers are all worked up over Rep. Alonzo Jamison, who introduced the REA bill late in the session, hopes for a compromise , instead of an open floor fight over REA. Rep. –Leroy Saul, of Kress, offers a four-point con-1 cession “on the four things they way. Vern Sanford, said they had to have.” Sen. secretary of TPA, says Charles Herring got his pro-REA I lobbied bill out of state affairs Monday, publishers but drastically revised. in Austin. William A. Brown of Powell, Rauhut, McGinnis, and Reavley is the lobbyist for REA. Elmo Osborn, general manager of Texas Electric Co-operatives, Inc., does some legislative work. Also backing up the REA have been Gene Leach and Walter Hammond of the Farm Bureau and Alex Dickie of the Farmers Union. Leading the opposition to the REA bill are the assembled utildays at the Driskill Hotel. Assn., and Jerome Sneed speaks ities lobbyists and the firm of Tuesday of last week the bill for for some mutual companies. Looney, Clark, and Moorhead. Jack Harris, a lobbyist here for 25 or 30 years and one of the most highly paid members of the special interest corps, lives very quietly and tends strictly to legislation that affects his clients, the four companies of Texas UtilitiesTexas Electric Service, Texas Power and Light, Houston Power and Light, and Dallas Power and Light. He testified against the REA bill in committee hearings. Rarely do Everett Looney or his compadre, Ed Clark, testify before committees, b u t they thought the REA matter important enough to justify Looney’s appearance before both House and Senate committees. Bennett Smith of Community Public Service also appeared in the House hearing. \(Another Community Public Service spokesman: Lufor West Texas Utilities, told the Observer he is not precisely against the bill but is interested in it. Prospects do not look at all good for the bill. An important Insurance lobbyist representing many life companies, Texas and out-of-state, Judge W. W. Heath of Austin is legislators who an insurance lawyer, a former rammed segregation county judge of Grimes County, legislation through the House have formed what they call the “East Texas Club,” which meets Tues HB 25 by Talasek and SB 177 by Aikin to require any items sold below cost on sale to be offered to any customer \(including other This is called the “sales limitation act” and is backed by. Jack Shelton, the Retail Grocers Assn.’s lobbyist this session. It came out of Senate state affairs 14-3 over the objections of Dick Craig, lobbyist for Weingarten in Houston, Wyatt’s in Dallas, Handy Andy in San Antonio, and H.E.B. in South Texas, which want to continue to have the to offer “loss leader” items to attract customers. and a former assistant attorney general under William McGraw. Stanley Hornsby represents the Texas Legal Reserve Officials Swirling around the business of lending money for profit is one of /the most tempestuous and unorthodox groups of lobbyists in the city. Vernon Lemens and exRep. Scott Sayers both work here for the Texas Small Loan Assn., which numbers among its members many of the high-rate small lenders. Sam Hanna, fast-working lobbyist for Beneficial and Pacific Finance, has joined Lemens and Sayers in opposition to Rep. Tony Korioth’s bill to put a 36 percent limit on total annual charges on small oans. The bill was in effect killed by a recent House vote. Grogan Lord, who has a lending company in Austin, was in the gallery at the time. Berl E. Godfrey is ordinarily in town to protect lenders who use the investment certificate plan as a supplement for income on loans, but he has not been in evidence this session. Clarence Helmer represents Household Finance, a national lending institution which has recently opened an office in Dallas and which favors curbs on the high-rate small lenders. Many offiicals have called for the repeal of Chapter 7 of the insurance code, which authorizes the U. S. Trust & Guaranty type operation. Arthur Klein represents a Chapter 7 company, Great Western Loan and Trust of San Antonio, which, quite naturally, is opposed to the repeal of Chapter 7. E. M. Stevens, the company president, never stints the loan of his private airplane to public against it. A strange silence has greeted HB 83 by Rep. H. J. Blanchard, Lubbock. 1t prohibits ;nepotism and political activity by any officer or employee of the Texas Employers’ Insurance Assn., which the state set up to handle workmen’s comp insurance other companies would not accept. The bill would require the quasi-public company to divorce itself from Employers’ Casualty Co. and would prohibit any directors from serving. both companies. B. J. Pitman lobbies for the in The Loan Lobby surance association ible rates bill were the Texas Inofficials surance Advisory Assn., the Assn. where. of Texas Fire and Casualty Companies, and a portion of the Assn. of Texas Agents. Vernon Coe of Dallas, attorney for the National Board of Fire Underwriters; Paul Benbrook, vice-president of Gus Wortham’s American General Insurance Co. of Houston; and T. R. Mansfield, Gulf InsurCo. of Dallas, worked ante crisis in the affairs of the Texas newspaper publishers, rural electric co-ops. A re acting through the Texas Press cent Texas Supreme Court Assn., got together a group of ruling restricted the REA to 1 special interest bills which, if areas strictly rural. The REA I passed, would substantially inis seeking to amend the Texas crease newspapers’ income. act of 1937 to permit co-ops to ; Pegged onthe current scandals, operate in urban areas that were I the bills would have required exrural when the service was inI tensive publication \(in newspafirms and government entities. somedecrease in state taxes on movie tickets. He dispenses free movie passes to those who want them. The law firm he is associated with in Dallas represents Safe The utility lobbyists have way Stores, Budweiser, Falstaff, had to be more active this ‘ and other major clients. time than before because of al Utilities vs. REA who need a ride he had been offered a $5,000 bribe, Sandall tipped Cox off that the tape recording of a bribe conversation had been turned over to Speaker Carr. Sandall represents Missouri Pacific. McCalla’s eight other aides this time are Percy Bailey, Santa Fe; Harley Carder, T&NO; Harry Goodwin, Fort Worth and Denver; Lawrence D. Henderson, Texas and Pacific; E. C. McGuire, Katy; I. G. Robertson, T&NO; B. P. Taylor, Panhandle & Santa Fe; and A. C. Whittle, Rock Island and Pacific. \(Everett Hutchinson was on McCalla’s team in 1953, but he was subsequently appointed to the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission through the efforts of then-Sen. Price Daniel, whose campaign he manThe Texas Motor Bus Assn. is usually willing to help out the legislators on transportation problems. This session, when Rep. Charles Heitman died, the asso Liberals Control YD’s; Berlin Is Re-elected DALLAS Edgar Berlin, Beaumont, was re-elected president of the Texas Young Democrati as the liberal faction maintained control by a wide majority. Other officers elected were Houston Clinton, Jr., vice president, Clyde Johnson, secretary, and Ann Klempt, treasurer. Principal speakers at the sessions were Mrs. R. D. Randolph, Texas Democratic National Committeewoman, and Attorney General Will Wilson. A detailed story of the convention will be carried in next week’s Observer. one of their bills; they discussed opposing Rep. Barefoot Sanders’s trucking bill because of Sanders’ stand on. the racial bills. Monday the trucking bill passed to second reading with the support of the Lady’Lobbyist More business spokesmen were stirred up by the Secrest-Talasek bills to permit flexible rating by casualty companies than by any other issue this session. Working for the change for the National Assn. of ‘Independent Insurers were ex-Sen. Keith Kelly of Fort Worth and Mrs. Mina Wagonseller, attractive widow of the late Sen. W a y n e Wagonseller of Bowie. Working against the measure full-stride was the law firm of Looney, Clark, and Moorhead. In addition, ex-Sen. Johnnie B. Rogers, representing some insurance companies, a n d Gus some Texas mutual agents, were against it. With the flexible rating bill on the emergency operating table, the Keith Kelly group had to go to work against a bill by Sen. Floyd Bradshaw, Weatherford, to require fire insurance companies to get Insurance Commission approval before they can deviate from the commission’s promulgated rates. This would give the fixed-rate companies a chance to knock out such competition. The bill was kept off the floor by 1118 refusal to take it up in the Senate Monday, but its support from the same anti-flexible rate group, including Ed Clark, may lead to a nod from Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey. Groups also opposed to the flex Publishers’ Fluke Former Speaker W. 0. Reed of Dallas is a law partner of Robert L. Black, who, in turn, is brother of U. S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark. Reed, a somewhat reserved man, represents the theater interests here. This session he obtained for them a I AUSTIN The Pool bill for a special runcff election in the U. S. Senate race was fouled this session in a crossing of the interests of ex Gov. Allan Shivers and Gov. Price Daniel. Shivers was not interested in the bill and is understood to have encouraged Senate opposition to it when Daniel hesitated about some of his outgoing appointments., Neither did Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey, who has always been close to Shivers, do anything for the bill. Ed Clark, a close friend of Ramsey’s, is said to have ben opposed to it, and Posh Oltorf, a Washington agent THE TEXAS OBSERVER Although 12 “TPA bills” have been introduced, only onea measure guaranteeing reporters their present right to attend political conventionshas made headexecutive he has not for the bills, but that the have. One of the most active freelances this session is ex-Rep. Pearce Johnson of Austin. Johnson has opposed the plan for municipal parking lots on behalf of the Texas Parking Assn., which resents the prospect of municipal competition. He spoke against the urban renewal bill in the House ‘.’on the basis of the closing of downtown streets” involved in the Gruen plan for the City of Fort Worth, which he said would adversely affect parking lots and garages. He represents the Independent Garagemen’s Assn., for which he has successfully opposed state licensing requirements, and he works to see that the Texas Trading Stamp Assn. people are not put out of business. Johnson himself operates a parking lot in downtown Austin. He said it belongs to the Driskill Hotel; the hotel belongs to Herman Brown. Johnson says he ob