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not the place to amend the appropriations bill, the oil pooling bill, the education bill, and the equal rights for women legislation. “If this is not the place, I’d like to know where is the place,” he said. “This thing is not supposed to be a mechanized greased track, this is supposed to be a place where we can deliberate on these things,” he said. “We are dealing with human beings who are in great need. Texas is far and away the lowest state in payments to the aged among states with an industrial base. We don’t belong with Mississippi and Arkansas.” The old who are poor, Wilson said, “don’t have any TMA or TSTA down here to help them. Members, think about it.” TMA is the Texas Manufacturers’ Assn. in the Austin short-hand; TSTA is. the Texas State Teachers’ Assn. The House tabled the increase in old age assistance by a vote of 74 to 60. 1 H OLLOWELL THEN made a try to get the state’s stipend to the totally and permanently disabled increased. $60 a month is the maximum; the average is $57.16 a month. Hollowell wanted to give “the bedfast invalid” a raise of $8 a month at a cost of about $1 million a year. He noted these invalids are “not even eligible” for vendor medical care under the state Kerr-Mills program. “You’re dealing here with people that are paralyzed. You are dealing here with people that are bedfast. So my friends if you can sit here with a clear conscience and vote no to these people, then that’s your business.” Moving to kill the increase, Heatly said only, “There isn’t a great deal of difference between this amendment and the previous one.” “There is no one in this state who is more helpless than these people,” Hollowell rejoined. “You know how strongly I feel about the old folks; but this is more important than the old people. These people are invalids.” Hollowell’s second welfare spending amendment was tabled, 8646. 2 He did not offer any other amendments along this line. Rep. Maurice Pipkin, Brownsville, has a bill pending which would relax the definition of”permanently and totally disabled” somewhat to let persons slightly less than totally disabled qualify for state aid. They cannot now. Later Hollowell said Governor Connally had “turned his back on the old people of Texas” by failing to lead the fight for higher welfare checks. Asked about this at a press conference, Connally said, “I’ve noted that one way to get newspaper coverage is to jump on the governor.” R.D. THE RECORD VOTES Voting to table Hollowell’s amendment for the agedthat is, voting against the $8.50 a month increase for them were Arledge, Atwell, Atwood, Berry, Blaine, Blankenship, Bonilla, Brown, Cahoon, Cain, Canales, Carpenter, Cavness, Clayton, Cory, Cowden, Cowles, Crain; Dickson, Edwards, Field, Finney, Fletcher, Fondren, Garrison, George, Gibbens, Guffey, Haines, Hale, Hallmark, Harding, Heatly, Hendryx, Holmes, Ivy, Jones of Lubbock, Jones of Abilene, Jungmichel, Klager, Knapp, Ligarde, Longoria; McDonald of Edinburg, McKissack, McLaughlin, Mann, Miller of Harris, Mobley, Moyer, Murray, Mutscher, Neugent, Parsley, Pickens, Pipkin, Richards, Satterwhite, both Shannons of Fort Worth, Simpson, Slack, Slider, Solomon, Stroud, Thompson, Thurmond, Townsend, Traeger, Wade, Wayne, Whatley, and Wright. Present, not voting: Caldwell, Cole, Connally, Crews, Lack, McDonald of Henderson, Sherman, and Woods. Not voting: Barnes, Burgess, Foreman, Hightower, Hinson, Jamison, Scoggins, Wieting. All other members voted in favor of the increase. Voting for the increase for the totally Allen, Beckham, Bernal, Birkner, Brooks, Cahoon, Cherry, Doke, Duggan, Dungan, Eckhardt, Green, Haring, Harris, Harrison, Hawkins, Haynes, Hefton, Hollowell, Isaacks, Johnson of Temple; Johnson of Houston, Kilpatrick, Lee, Lewis, McDonald of Edinburg, Mcllhany, Markgraf, Miller of Burkeville, Montoya, Muniz, Newman, Parker, Peeler, Quilliam, Richardson, Schiller, Smith, Stewart, Traeger, Vale, Weldon, Wheeler, Whitfield and Wilson. Present, not voting: Caldwell, Cole, Connally, Crews, Lack, McDonald of Henderson, Sherman, Woods. Not voting: Barnes, Burgess, Foreman, Grover, Hinson, Jamison, McLaughlin, Scoggins, Thurmond, Wieting. All other members of the House voted to kill the proposed increase. Ausiin The second major piece of legislation enacted in the Texas legislature this year after the superboardis the forced oil pooling bill. This authorizes the Texas Railroad Cmsn. that regulates the oil industry to require landowners to join in a group of landowners to form a “unit” to drill for oil or for gas. Every attempt to amend it on the House floor was defeated. Rep. Wayne Gibbens, Breckenridge, the House sponsor, frequently accusing critics of the bill of being emotional, based his defense of it on its value for the conservation of oil and gas and on its endorsement by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners’ Assn. and the major oil companies formally organized into the MidContinent Oil and Gas Co. Some of the attempts to amend it were aimed at its provisions specifying the maximum oil well unit of 160 acres and the maximum gas unit of 640 acres. Rep. Renal Rosson of Snyder argued that since the present oil well spacing is 40 acres, a 160-acre unit maximum would force little landowners to give up bargaining power with major oil companies. Rosson tried, too, to give landowners longer than the bill’s 30 days to appeal a commission order to the courts. Rep. Bob Eckhardt, Houston, tried to require the –Christianson-Leberman Rep. Bill Hollowell, Grand Saline “You’re dealing here with people that are paralyzed. You are dealing here with people that are bedfast.” commission to establish criteria for its decisions; he and Rep. Dewitt Hale, Corpus Christi, also proposed to permit a full reconsideration of the issues in a decision on appeal, rather than a limited consideration. “There’s something about the bill that puts a little knot down in your stomach,” said Rep. Felix McDonald of Edinburg, offering an amendment to require the commission to give royalty interests to landowners forced into a pool. \(If they do not bear part of the cost of drilling and oil is a close 67-64 vote the House refused McDonald’s proposal, as it rejected, less narrowly, every other amendment. Then it was that Rep. Bill Hollowell, Grand Saline, assaulted the bill. He’d been thinking of introducing legislation to confer deity on the Texas Railroad Cmsn., he said. “I don’t care what you’ve promised some lobbyist that made a contribution to your campaign, I hope you will vote against this bill,” he said. It passed, 96-39. 1 Subsequently Hollowell wrote home: “Briefly it [the pooling law] provides that if someone seeks to lease your land and they do not offer you what you consider to be a fair price, they can go to the Texas Railroad Cmsn. and get an order March 5, 1965 9 THE LEGISLATURE’S OTHER BUSINESS