ustxtxb_obs_1971_05_07_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

This month’s Rule 29, Sec. 2 Petty Nitpicker Award goes to Rep. Tom Holmes of Granbury for his continuing efforts to get all reporters kicked off the House floor. A reliable source informs us that the origin of Representative Holmes’ pique with the press is that a reporter interrupted Holmes while he was telling a joke to another member. Exit the First Amendment. Rep. Don Cavness of Austin has also been chiming in with, “Point of order, Mr. Speaker,” whenever the fourth estate ventures to soil the carpet in mid-chamber, thus also earning a Friend of the Free Press citation. Utility bill in trouble Utilities regulation may have had it for another session. Sen. Charles Wilson, who this year limited his bid for regulation to telephone companies, fell three votes short of the 21 votes he needed to take up debate on the bill. Senate rules require a two-thirds vote of the senators present and voting to consider a bill that is not at the top of the Senate calendar. There is little chance that the utilities regulation will reach the top of the calendar. The 12 who opposed the measure are Beckworth of Gladewater, Blanchard of Lubbock, Creighton of Mineral Wells, Grover of Houston, Hall of Rockwall, Harris of Dallas, Hightower of Vernon, Kothmann of San Antonio, Ratliff of Stamford, Sherman of Amarillo, Snelson of Midland and Watson of Waco. Charles Herring of Austin abstained. By an equally narrow margin of 5 to 4, the Senate Public Health Committee okayed a bill legalizing physician-performed abortions for consenting women more than 16 years old. Sen. Tom Creighton of Mineral Wells, who is co-sponsoring the measure with Sen. Don Kennard of Fort Worth, said they have firm commitments from 16 senators to vote for the bill. That’s enough votes to pass the measure, but not enough to bring it up for consideration. If the Legislature fails to pass an abortion bill this session, the state will remain without an abortion law on its books. Last year a federal court ruled that Texas’ strict anti-abortion law is too vague to be constitutional. The Senate State Affairs Committee narrowly approved and sent to the floor a bill establishing a state board to regulate pesticides. The 8-7 vote came after a Houston printing executive described how his 27-month-old daughter died after touching a tiny amount of a garden pesticide sold over the counter in garden supply shops. Pop. On April 22, former State Rep. Tony Korioth told the Senate The Texas Observer Nominations Committee that he had arranged a three-day executive job for one Richard L. Penn so Penn could qualify for a $19,000-a-year job on the Industrial Accidents Board, the members of which are appointed by the governor. One of the qualifications for the post is that the candidate must be an employer. So Korioth set up a three-day job for Penn so Penn could meet that qualification. Penn is the husband of Preston Smith’s secretary. In further happy testimony, it was learned that one Harold Dudley, aide to Preston Smith, had approached Korioth and asked him to set up the short-lived job for Penn. The governor has since named Dudley to a $25,000-a-year post as Texas employment commissioner. The Observer last year \(Dec. 11, Bentsen reported more than $215,000 in campaign contributions from mysterious committees with names like TAPE, TEXPAC, CITIGO and Citizens . for Lloyd Bentsen. Such committees provided convenient funnels for contributions from individuals and organizations wishing to avoid public association with a political campaign. It now comes to light that CITIGO, which gave Bentsen at least $1,500, is the political arm of Ling-Temco-Vought. The acronym stands for Citizens for Good Government. LTV last year was number five in federal defense contracts nationwide. The Associated Press discovered LTV’s campaign kitty while trying to trace a $2,000 donation from F. Mann, Dallas, to House Republican leader Gerald Ford of Michigan. The listing was traced to Forbes Mann, president of LTV Aerospace Corp., who delivered the check to Ford personally. Both Ford and an LTV official said the money came from its executive fund,, CITIGO. CITIGO gave about $100,000 to politicians last year. About a third of the executives at LTV, LTV Aerospace and LTV Electrosystems contribute voluntarily to the fund, an executive said. The Federal Corrupt Practices Act requires “any committee, association or organization” giving to US House or Senate contests in two or more states to submit to Congress an itemized list of donations. LTV did not volunteer such a list. Corporations are forbidden to donate to political campaigns. Winner of the runoff mayoral election in Dallas last week was Wes ‘Wise, a city councilman and former sports announcer, who defeated the Establishment candidate Avery Mays. Wise, who trailed Mays in the general election, was originally considered the underdog in the runoff. Wise is a well-spoken fellow, as one might expect from his former vocation, and the Dallas Opposition has some hopes for him as he is not straitly aligned with the conservative Citizens Council oligarchy. RY may run There is now a general belief in liberal political circles that Ralph Yarborough will probably run for governor next year. He has been speaking publicly often and reportedly has been maintaining a goodly pace of political activity on the telephone. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and The Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs on the U.T.-Austin campus will be dedicated at 11 a.m. May. 22. The Observer has yet to receive its invitation to this grand event, but we have been privileged to see a copy of same. The name on the envelope is elegantly done in longhand. The engraved invitation, complete with a gold-embossed UT seal, measures a modest 9 3%” x 6 1/2″. Secretary of the Treasury John Connally would like Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, to run for governor, according to Barnes in a recent interview in The Washington Post. Barnes says his running for governor would make things easier for Connally, since Connally would not be in a bind if Barnes was nominated for senator and then came up against GOP Sen. John Tower. There will also be pressure on Barnes to run for governor because of conservative sources’ desire to keep Yarborough from winning. Possibly the reports that George Bush, Nixon’s UN ambassador, might come back and run for governor in ’72 have, in part, some of the same energies behind them. In the Post interview, Barnes said, “The thing [Connally] would like would be for me to run for governor. That would help preserve his power base in Texas politics and it would spare him the embarrassment of choosing between me and Tower. But I can tell you this, and I can guarantee it. If I run against John Tower, Connally will be backing me. I don’t mean necessarily he’d be making public speeches for me, becau .se I wouldn’t ask him to do that. But he’d raise money for me, his law firm would lend me people and his organization would be for me.” Speaking with the Post’s David Broder, Barnes said, “I think I could do more for Texas as senator than governor. I’d like to be involved in national Democratic affairs. I’ve grown up in the Legislature and I don’t mind putting my reputation on the line on a vote. If I went to the Senate at 34, I could be the Democratic leader by the time I’m 50, and frankly, I’d like that.” Broder reported, “Barnes said, and most Texas political observers agree, that he would have little opposition for the nomination if he goes against Tower. His Establishment support is solid and . . . he has maintained close communication with some of the labor and minority-group leaders in the state.”