ustxtxb_obs_1967_05_26_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

to the teachers’ pay raises? Scoggins said he wasn’t sure of that either. The Republicans insisted on a record vote on each amendment they offered. This raised some hackles. One member asked Scoggins if he realized that it cost .$75 to operate the electronic board for each record vote? “No, it’s $87,” Gene Hendryx, Alpine, corrected. The Republicans several times had just three votestheir own. But several other times they raised as many as 25 votes to change the bill. OTHER AMENDMENTS were offered by various members, but most of these were not basic challenges to the bill such as those raised by the Republicans. There was some background grumbling, however. For instance the House’s pollution figher, Rep. Rex Brauri, Houston, was amazed about the $25,420 called for to Redistricting WH finance the operations of the Air Pollution Cdritrol Board, of which nearly $10,000 is estimated to be federal money. The Cmsn. on Alcoholism, by comparison, is to get $428,954 under the House proposal. Industrial safety bill sponsors expressed dismay at the $50,000 appropriation for administration of that new program. It is lately heard that this figure will be doubl7 ed, but there are those who doubt that even $100,000 would be sufficient for meaningful implementation of the act. The House budget provides raises for Atty. Gen. Crawford Martin \(from $22,500 from $17,An amendment by George Richardson of Keller would exclude registered lobbyists from serving as the executive secretary of the Board of Dental Examiners. The lobbyist for the Texas Dental Assn. now is the full-time secretary of the board, drawing $5,000 from the state. The job is to be made a part-time dtity, with a $9,000 salary. Richardson’s amendment was beaten down, 117-16. The governor is to have his salary upped to $40,000 from the present $25,000; his executive assistant to $22,500 from $16,500; and the salaries of classified positions hi the executive department will total $359;038 from $225,166. To maintain and operate the airplane $125,000 is budgeted. The day’s best attempt at levity was provided by Rep. Elmer Tarbox, Lubbock, who made a “parliamentary inquiry,” wondering out loud why the average cost per pupil at Tarleton State is $924, at Texas Tech is $1,076, and at Texas Southern University is $904, but at Texas A&M is $1,856; “Why,” Tarbox asked, “does it take twice as much to educate Aggies?” 0 GETS THE TIGER? Austin The legislature in 1965 passed a Congressional redistricting act that was later ruled unacceptable by a federal court. There was too much variation from the average population that, ideally, each of the state’s 23 districts should have-416, 508, arrived at by dividing the state’s 1960 population by 23. The Court’s decision also holds that districts should be contiguous, compact, and adjacent. The Senate last week passed a bill that would not require any of the 23 incumbents to run against each other. The measure is, however, different from one being pushed by House leaders, and a conference committee almost certainly will be necessary, to work out the differences. Probably the central issue in such a con-‘ ference would be the district of Cong. Olin Teague, College Station, whose district, under the Senate bill , would extend from the southern portion of Tarrant and Dallas counties to the Gulf Coast county of Brazoria. Teague’s district is an obvious target for redistricting because of its unusual shapeit extends from just north of Houston into the southern portions of Dallas and Tarrant counties. It appeared, earlier in the session, that Teague would lose the northern part of his district, but then Dallas business leaders began voicing their objection to this, since Teague is the vice-chairman of the House Science and Aeronautics Committee and Dallas has an increasingly important segment of its economy tied up in aerospace work. The county’s 14 House members began to let it be known that they would hold out for retaining some part of Teague’s district in their county. As for Harris county, it was , earlter ,said that Speaker Ben Barnes would respect the wishes’of the majority of that county’s 19 House members on Congressional redistricting. Thirteen of the members submitted a statement supporting no change whatever in their county and that appeared to be that, since, accopling to the 1960 census, the Harris Congressional districts are almost exactly right,-near the 416,508 norm. THEN, this month, the pot began to boil. It appeared that Teague would be left part of Dallas county under the Senate’s redistricting, but not in the House’s, where Barnes and others said that such a strung-out district would probably not be found to comply with the court’s criterion of compactness. And, it developed, the six conservative House members from the district of Cong. Bob Casey, Houston, began pushing for shifting a few votes here and there in their county. The idea was to solidify the six conservatives’ positions, and that of Casey’s, by moving some Republican voters from Bush’s district into Casey’s, some conservative Democrats from Casey’s district into Eckhardt’s, and some Negro voters from Eckhardt’s district into Bush’s. The idea was to strengthen the conservative D e m o c r at s’ position in Casey’s district, which is rather evenly divided at present between liberal and conservative voters; and to reduce the number of Bush’s and Eckhardt’s most devoted supporters by putting some of them into districts where they would be in the decided minority. Barnes, reminded of his pledge to stand by whatever the majority of the Harris county delegation wanted, said he had made that pledge in talking about the case keeping the present arrangement of having legislators there run in one of three Congressional districts. Thus, it was possible that some changes might be made in Harris county’ after all. About this time the 14-member Dallas county delegation began to suspect that they might not be able, to keep Teague in part of their ‘county. And another complication arose. They became unhappy when an amendment was added to a bill which the Dallas delegation regards as a local measure, the Trinity River Navigation Act. A Barnes aide, Rep. Bill Clayton, Springlake, amended the bill in committee to exempt trucks from ad valorem taxes that would be imposed by the Trinity River Authority. The unhappiness of the Harris and Dallas county delegations came to the attention of the House membership. on May 10. Usually it is merely a matter of routine in the House to achieve the four-fifths vote required to pass a bill on second and But with a number of the . Dallas and Houston legislators in revolt more than 30 members were voting no to this . procedural step. This move, if not stopped, would have tied the House up during the crucial closing weeks, a time when many bills close to the hearts of the various, members were still unpassed. “Notice how quiet it gets,” Dallas Rep. John Field said with a smile as more than 30 red lights glared down at the House from the electronic voting board. Barnes began making inquiries on the floor: what’s wrong? That took care of altering the Harris May 26, 1967 3