ustxtxb_obs_1973_02_02_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

BUSINESS STAFF Sarah Boardman Joe Espinosa Jr. C. R. Olofson David Sharpe The Observer is published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., biweekly from Austin, Texas. Entered as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Single copy, 25c. One year, $7.00; two years, $13.00; three years. $18.00; plus, for Texas addresses, 5% sales tax. Foreign, except APO/FPO, 50c additional per year_ Airmail, bulk orders, and group rates on request. Microfilmed by Microfilming Corporation of America, 21 Harristown. Road, Glen Rock, N.J. 07452. Change of Address: Please give old and new address, including zip codes; and allow two weeks. Postmaster: Send form 3579 to; Texas Observer, 600 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701. .411101.11111111111.11.111.101111111.111.111.11.511o ,,.-ikoatwow–, pray for a big group of freshmen legislators. Daniel had worked out a fine reform platform: he was pledged to dump Bill Heatly as appropriations chairman, to completely reform the House rules, to a tough ethics code, full financial disclosure, open government, limited seniority and lots more. Daniel was pushing for everything every civics book will tell you makes for good government and a few things more that you know are needed if you’ve watched Gus Mutscher operate. On March 15, 1972, Mutscher was convicted of conspiracy to accept a bribe and Daniel knew he would get his whopping freshman class. Suddenly everyone was mad for reform, it was the only issue. But then Preston Smith called another special session in early April. Disaster. Mutscher had to resign, of course, and that meant a new speaker and Daniel didn’t have the votes. Rayford Price was lining them up, fast. His election would almost surely kill Daniel’s chances: he could stake out his claim as a reformer at once and co-opt the incoming freshmen. Daniel’s people were desperate to find an interim speaker’s candidate, somebody to hold down the fort until they could get the incoming reformers lined up. Daniel’s people were joined by some independents and some old Mutschermen scrabbling for a footing. There were frantic, late :night meetings, anything to stave off Rayford Price. The group put up Rep. DeWitt Hale of Corpus, a man much respected for his knowledge of the rules and of judicial matters but who had unquestionably gone along with Mutscher during the 62nd session. But it was just for the interim, you understand, Hale was to resign at the start of the 63rd. Rayford Price pulled off a brilliant stroke: he made a deal with the Republicans and got ten votes right there. The Republicans got a good deal, too. But Daniel wouldn’t deal, see? Then the liberals got kinky. Hale would keep Heatly and they all hated Heatly and for heaven’s sake how could the old Dirty Thirty vote to keep Heatly, even if only for the interim? Damn fool purists, muttered Daniel’s people. CARLTON CARL talked to his friend Bob Bullock and Bullock talked to his friend Bill Heatly, in fact, talked him into resigning the night before the new speaker was to be elected. A deal, the paranoid libs said, they’ve cut a deal, and Rayford Price’s people fanned the rumors. At least some of the negotiations are known. Heatly told Bullock to tell Daniel he would resign if Daniel, when elected, would name him vice-chairman of appropriations. Daniel said no. Heatly tried again: he wanted on the appropriations committee \(a position which was later given him automatically under the conference committee and on the legislative budget board. Daniel’s people say Daniel never made that deal or any other, that he never said yes, no or boo to Heatly’s second offer. Would Heatly have resigned without any assurances? When you look at it, did he really have any choice? He knew Rayford Price wouldn’t keep him in his old job. Maybe the best, maybe the only shot he had was to do Daniel’s people a favor and hope . that Daniel would remember it for whatever it was worth. Maybe Heatly wasn’t in any position to ask for promises. The He’atly move backfired with the liberals, but then the prissy souls started gumming up the works in other directions. With votes flaking all over the lot, the lobby putting on phenomenal pressure, rumors, double commitments in the middle of all this, Farenthold stands up and proposes that they have an open vote. Open vote! One seldom sees people actually tearing their hair,but that did it to the Daniel people. Of course Sissy is right, damrnit, of course there should be an open vote, there will be an open vote after We get Price, Jr., elected but dammit, dammit, dammit, we’re still working with Mutscher’s House of Representatives and THE LOBBY IS SITTING IN THE GALLERIES, YOU DUMMIES. The lobby sure was, and it was an election year and a lot of those ‘ representatives on the floor were in deep, deep political trouble and if there’s one thing the lobby has that those bogs needed it was lots and lots of money. John Hannah, in a last ditch effort, made an eloquent speech during which he pointed with outstretched arm at those benign gentlemen smiling down on the proceedings. But Farenthold, for once in her career, won. She won without some true-blue libs, who were prepared to make a short-term sacrifice of principle in order to stave off yet another lobbyists’ speaker, and she won with a lot of lobby-controlled goons who, for once, were just delighted to vote with Ms. Driven Snow. If the pure libs had felt betrayed by Daniel earlier on the redistricting question, it was now their turn to earn a double-dose of bitterness from the Daniel people. Not only had some of them made a possibly EDITOR Kaye Northcott CO-EDITOR Molly Ivirts ASSOCIATE EDITOR John Ferguson EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger REVIEW EDITOR Steve Barthelme Contributing Editors: Winston Bode, Bill Brainmer, Gary Cartwright, Sue Horn Estes, Joe Frantz, Larry Goodwyn, Harris Green, Bill Hamilton, Bill Helmer, Dave Hickey, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Earnest Klipple, Larry Lee, Al. Melinger, Robert -L. Montgomery, Willie Morris, Bill Porterfield, Jambs Presley,Charles Ramsdell, Buck Ramsey, John RogerS, Mary. Beth Rogers, Roger Shattuck, Edwin Shrake, Dan Stravin, John P. Sullivan. Tom Sutherland. We will serve no group or party but will heW ha ,td to the truth as, we find it and the right as we see We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human valus `above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none big our own conscience, and never will we overlook or ; misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or. cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. . . The ditor has exclusive ‘control’ over editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with her. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not _necessarily imply that she agrees with them, because this is a journal of free voices. Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the Austin ForumAdvocate. Editorial and -Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 600 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone 477-0746. 7461 THE TEXAS OBSERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co. 1973 Ronnie Dugger, Publisher A window to the South A journal of free voices Vol. LXV, No. 2 Feb. 2, 1973 1