ustxtxb_obs_1959_05_30_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

h , Independent-Liberal Weekly Newspaper 41- ‘ e’S ” %. 4.0\( -‘ c 1 9# 1 ijaniel’s Tax Bill Passed Observer We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. TEXAS, MAY ,30, 1959 10c per copy No. 8 FINGERING AN ISSUE AUSTIN The question of just who and how representatives were “wrapped around the Governor’s finger” was publicly explored in. the course of House debate on the governor’s tax package. Rep. Ray Bartram of New Braunfels fingered the issue when he sought to reduce Gov. Daniel’ liquor tax boost from $2.40 per gallon to $1.55. The present rate is $1.40. Bartram enjoined’ all representatives who are “not wrapped around the Governor’s finger” to vote for his amendment. With Gov. Daniel and his family watching from the balcony, Rep. Bill Hollowell. Grand Saline, fired back, “I would much rather be wrapped around the Govern or’s finger than around the fingers of the liquor lobby.” “Well, you may have your choice,” rejoined Bartram as the House roared. Rep. Bob Eckhardt asked, “Ray, you’re not accusing me of being wrapped around the Gov er no r’s, finger?” “No Bob,” said Bartram, “you’re not wrapped around anybody’s finger.” In an aside, Eckhardt allowed he was “a member of the Price Daniel team, Henry Gonzalez division.” Joe Cannon of Mexia had the last word. “I’m wrapped around the finger of my constituents, and they want a fair tax program. The Governor is the only one who has come forward with such a program.” Bartram’s amendment was voted down, and there was no further discussion. Carr Forces Try To Reduce The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. THOREAU T Vol. 51 AUSTIN With senators predicting off-hand that there will be a second special session, since they won’t be able to agree with the House on Gov. Daniel’s tax program, the response of the Senate state affairs committee to two of Daniel’s deficit-retiring programs this week was more than an omen. ernor’s book-juggling bill to reduce the deficit to the Attorney General for a ruling on constitu10-8 vote, any decision on the franchise tax increase until the whole tax bill is before them. “There goes the session,” said Sen. Doyle Willis, Fort Worth. Sen. Crawford Martin, Hillsboro, has introduced, as the Senate sponsor, the Governor’s modified abandoned accounts ‘bill. Sen. A. M. Aikin, Paris, is handling the bookkeeping bill, and Sen. Charles Herring, Austin, the franchise tax increase. Thus Gov. Daniel’s supporters in the Senate have begun to multiply. But the tax bill will be written by conferees named by Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey and Speaker Waggoner Carra compromise between what each chamber approves. The appropriations bill, in fact, is being finally drafted now by conservative-dominated conferees named by these two officials. They are Sens. Fly, Lane, Bradshaw, Roberts, and Martin and Reps. Heatly, Huebner, Latimer, Dewey, and Osborn. Scripps-Howard reporter Ernest Bailey generated a little AUSTIN Thirty-two hours and ten minutes after Speaker Waggoner Carr laid out for debate the tax plan of his revenue and tax committee, the House this week passed and sent to the Senate Governor Daniel’s $150 million biennial tax package as a substitute for the tax committee proposal. The vote on final passage Thursday was a surprisingly strong 71-56. The House engrossed the bill, 77-66, in a long and heated night session Wednesday. The House’s decision to pass H. B. 7, sponsored by Rep. George Hinson of Mineola, marked a victory for Daniel in his four month public feud with the oil and gas lobby and this legislative feud with the tax committee appointed by Carr. The resulting package of natural gas, corporation franchise, public utility and selective sales taxes represents a roughly equal balance between corporate and consumer levies; the tax committee’s various proposals contained 80 to 90 per cent sales taxes. The two-day battle in the House involved four major macommittee to pass its $100 million more heat under the Senate when he reported that Sen. Dorsey Hardeman flew to Marfa in a plane owned ‘by Frontier -Stamps Co., Lubbock, although he would have had to act on a trading stamp tax had it passed the House \(as said Hardeman would be billed for the trip. Hardeman subsequently said to Bailey, “I don’t want to talk to you. You sit at the press table. You don’t have to talk to me a damn bit.” Did Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey have anything to say about the gas company plane junket the preceding week? “Nothing.” The House received a resolution to curb such practices, which the resolution said might seem improper to the public. Hardeman was busy on the Senate floor condemning the Supreme Court’s decision permitting health inspectors to inspect homes without search warrants. The House approved and sent to the Senate the resolution to set up a conservative election law study commission. Gov . Daniel asked certification of two bills pre-school English training and the pre-school education for the deaf billsas to the availability of funds to finance them. The House heard George Yea, ambassador of the Chinese Republic, maintain that Formosa must continue as “a ‘beacon of freedom.” The House and Senate expressed praise for John Foster Dulles. The State Republican Party, through a committee, called “the feeble 56th” a “do-nothing legislature” which neglected budget, taxes, water, and election reform Business package of selective sales taxes, blocked by House liberals and with the Governor’s package plan, which attained its first plateau of success Wednesday night a ruling by Speaker Carr which delayed final consideration of the Governor’s bill Thursday while the Senate wag still in session, resulting in a seven-hour hiatus during which the upper chamber adjourned for a long weekend, developments which combined to create a six-day gap between House passage and. Senate conbrief but tense struggle Thursday on final House passage of the Daniel package, ending at 6:25 p.m. with victory for the Governor. Carr’s one victory in the four skirmishes was an important one. By limiting the time the Senate will have to work on the tax measure in the 30-day called session, the Speaker’s ruling made a second special session more likely. Touched off Thursday morning’ when Carr informed the House but batted 100 percent to “help Lyndon” as it groveled “at the feet of this master politician.” Rep. Bob Eckhardt completed his bill to preserve beaches for public use and expects Gov. Daniel to open the session to the subject. Eckhardt also re-proposed his gas and oil taxes as a means for financing education spending. Rep. Criss Cole, Houston, has warned Gov. Daniel that unless he submits, and the legislature passes, small loan legislation limiting total interest charges, “the proposed constitutional amendment will go down at the polls.” he could not lay the Daniel bill out for final consideration because it had not been “physically engrossed”that is, typed and proof-read by House clerksthe incident produced the only major outburst of temper during the two days of debate. Carr’s interpretation of the rules was bluntly, at times caustically, challenged by conservatives James Cotton of Weatherford, Jim Bates of Edinburgh, and Ben Lewis of Dallas and by liberals Don Kennard of Fort Worth, Malcolm McGregor of El Paso, and Zeke Zbranek of Daisetta. Lewis, the only one of the six who wasn’t backing Daniel’s package, said he objected because “I think we ought to lay these bills out day by day and not discriminate whether you’re for a bill or against it … I believe you’re doing the Governor and the rest of the people of Texas wrong.” The other five representatives dueled with Carr on the parliamentary question involved, citing other precedents where ‘ no such rule concerning clerical work was invoked. The Speaker, conseling with his parliamentarian Read Granbery, f ielded all objections. Granbery later told the ,Observer the procedure was “routine” and was not brought to the House’s , attention frequently because the question was rarely controversial. The vote of 71-56 on final passage did not include the votes of 18 members, nine present and nine absent, who paired. Thus, the actual sentiment of the House on final passage was 80 ayes and 65 noes, five not voting. Such a result was not freely predicted 32 hours earlier when the tax battle of the 56th legislature, round two, began. Under the ground rules for consideration of the two rival billsDaniel’s and the tax committee’s the Daniel program was to be taken up first, section by section, and “perfected” by amendments. Then, before voting on the Governor’s program, the House was to take up the tax committee’s bill and “perfect” it, whereupon the first major test vote would come on the latter bill. If it failed the House could then vote on the Daniel program. As matters developed, the Daniel bill survived almost all efforts by tax committee conservatives to amend it; the tax committee bill, . in turn, was riddled with amendments and finally tabled; another full round of amendments were offered against the Daniel bill, all of which were beaten down. Carr refused’ to accept motions to cut off debate, and a mood of tense humor settled upon the assembly. \(“This is the fourth ‘last’ amendment, how many times at bat do they get?” ten hours of debate, the Speaker announced he had no more amendments on his desk, and the Daniel package was engrossed shOrtly before midnight, 77-66. Defense of Oil, Gas The argument en route to this decision was marked by blunt statements in defense of the oil and gas industry by Reps. H. J. “Doc” Blanchard of Lubbock and Rep. George Cook of Odessa. “If you don’t realize it,” said Cook, “you’re messing with the king bee industry of Texas. You are going to screw this up more than you can undo the rest of your life … we’re not playing with something like cigarettes, you’re tampering with dynamite, and the oil and gas industry is the brunt of the whole joke.” Speaking three times against the severance beneficiary natural gas tax in the Daniel bill, Blanchard said: “This tax will greatly curtail the gas industry in Texas. If you want to run them out of business; then go ahead, but I think you are going to have to answer for it.” His amendment cutting the severance beneficiary tax on the long line gas transmission companies from five per cent to three per cent failed, 7368. “You’re going to ruin the oil and gas industry, and I hold each one of you who votes for this personally responsible too.” Another Blanchard amendment raising the bill’s tax on producers from five to six per cent and cutting the tax on the transmission companies from five per cent to two per cent was voted down, 74-69. built Texas. If you want to ruin Texas, then go ahead. I have never been able to understand why the fact that a group makes a little money, some people think they ought to be taxed out of existence … You think some of these auto owners you’ve taxed will be hot, you just wait until these big gas boys come in to see you next May at election time,” Blanchard concluded. Conservative argument against Daniel’s natural gas tax plan be \(Continued DOT STANCE ON JOHNSON IS DELAYED DOT leaders score Johnson; Holleman says labor does not join remarks; Yarborough urges DOT expand. Page 3. DOT’s resolutions approve farm worker improvements, housing and employment nondiscrimination. Page 8. AUSTIN Labor delegates to the third annual Democrats of Texas convention banded together to prevent any official criticism of Senator Lyndon Johnson, but his favorite sonship nevertheless sustained direct slams from top DOT officials in their prepared speeches. In effect the DOT decided not to decide about Johnson until later. Jerry Holleman, president of Texas AFL-CIO, let it be known that were Johnson to be criticized in a formal resolution, the labor delegates would split off and seek to defeat the resolution. To avoid this split, and also to avoid the chances of lashback against a formal Johnson criticism this early, the delegates contented themselves with en The Senate: A New Arena Taxes, But Fail