ustxtxb_obs_1973_04_27_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

nitty-gritty organizing, the group hopes to avoid attracting ego-trippers and “being taken over by outside groups before we can get a good start.” For “outside groups” read labor. The history of Texas labor and liberal groups has not exactly been fraught with harmony. At this point, there’s not enough to TD for anyone to bother to take over. Of more serious concern to some of complete absence of blacks and chicanos. Some had, it turns out, been invited, but failed to show. But the prevailing sentiment seemed to follow Carr’s argument, “We liberals are always accused of being ready to organize everyone but ourselves. It’s time we stopped volunteering to go down and organize the Fifth Ward [black area of Houston] . They’ve got their own act together. It’s time we started working on our own neighbors. We’ll be glad to form coalitions with any other group for any purpose where we have a common interest, but first let’s get ourselves organized so we can offer them something worth joining up with.” The basic idea is to get clubs across the state patterned after the Harris County Democrats and the more recent successful organizing efforts in Fort Bend County. Local liberals are free to organize themselves within their counties as they see fit. They will then clump together into regional groups and into a state steering committee with representatives elected from local clubs. Endorsements and positions on issues will be cleared both up from the locals and down from the steering committee. By now, Texas liberals tend to be as cynical as anyone else about their own state organizations. It cannot be reported that everybody was sugar-sweet and beatific at the TD’s organizing meeting. The radicals are still snotty about liberals, old stalwarts still make some people urp and self-important neophytes still annoy old hands. But everyone seemed impelled toward more than usual amity by a sense of urgency. In 1974, statewide offices will be up for four years instead of two and there is a growing feeling that what happens in ’76 may decide the future of democracy in this country. In the face of such considerations, the old liberal squabbles lost a lot of their punch. M.I. New CCA Council In what may have been the last all-at-large Dallas city council election, the “new” CCA took over domination of the council from the “old” CCA. The Citizen’s Charter Association, everyone’s idea of The Establishment, went to great pains this year to point out how “people-oriented” it was. It even let .its candidates run their own races, in addition to the “top ten” group campaign. It selected its candidates in a public meeting, though there was a good deal of behind-the-scenes maneuvering. It chose a Mexican-American, two blacks and two women \(the last two groups split three When the returns were in, CCA candidates had won seven seats, were in run-offs for two more, and suffered only one head-to-head defeat. Fred Zeder, who gave up his Place 10 seat to run against maverick Gary Weber for Place 4, lost by about 5-4. Wes Wise amazed no one by pulling 84 percent in the mayor’s race \(the CCA didn’t bother endorsing a candidate Charles H. Storey, L. A. Murr and Charles incumbents Jerry Gilmore and George Allen \(currently the only black on the women, Adlene Harrison and Lucy Patterson, take big leads into their run-offs \(Patterson against Clay Smothers, the black Wallace man, in Dallas’ first all-black In San Antonio, attention focused on the mayor’s race between Good candidate Roy Barrera and GGL drop-out Charles Becker. After the first round, Becker was leading by 163 votes. Barrera will need not only a run-off victory in his race, but also enough GGL victories to 6 The Texas Observer Political Intelligence control the nine-seat city council. The GGL’ers had three victories under their belts, with four run-offs to be decided \(GGL candidates led in three of those Connally-appointed secretary of state, should lose to Becker, that would be upset enow: don’t bet on the GGL losing control of the council. Incumbents prevail councilmen were returned to office Six incumbent Austin city in city elections. Councilman Dick Nichols faces a close runoff with Bob Binder, a Vietnam vet and a former U.T.-Austin student president. Voters turned down amendments to increase the council to 11 members, six to be chosen from single-member districts; to boost the pay of council members from $10 to $100 weekly; and to return street The only clear-cut victory for Austin liberals was Jeff Friedman’s trouncing of his main opponent Bob Gray, an unusually obtuse conservative who ran at the behest of his next-door neighbor, Mayor Roy Butler. Gray called Friedman “the voice of the radical element in Austin.” As Gray explained in his newspaper advertisements, “These people move in and out of town causing unrest and discord and living off the city at the same time. They are for nude bathing, legalized drugs and abolishing the Texas Rangers. They represent the views of very few Austinites liberal, moderate or conservative. These Austinites can and do work together for the benefit of our city. No one can work with the radicals.” Friedman, 28, said his reelection should teach certain unnamed fellow councilmen to keep their noses in their own races. El Paso, et al In El Paso, the downtown-Establish ment-cum-nostalgia-craze won a resounding triumph. El Paso politics \(we strange. State noted with grudging wonderment that El Pasoans will spend more money and energy on a city council race than on one for the U.S. congress. In El Paso, they run on slates and each place on the council is specifically allotted special duties, e.g., parks and recreation, streets and sanitation, airport and finance, etc. The victorious slate this year was headed by Fred Hervey, who served as mayor of El Paso from 1951 to 1954. Hervey, also a former president of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce, has fingers in many, many pies. He is best known for the Hervey restaurant chain, but is also into drive-in banking, insurance, real estate, and the newspaper and radio business. Hervey, 63, married for the fifth time a few months ago, but one of the many charms of El Paso is that folks don’t get uptight about that kind of thing out there. Hervey, who started in politics as a Democrat, is now coming on as “Mr. Republican” and is rumored to have amibtions for higher political office. He judiciously balanced his known support for a John Birch Society front organization by including three chicanos on his slate. He was opposed by another Establishment slate headed by Alderman Hector Bencomo, one ex-cop, age 25, who tried to