ustxtxb_obs_1974_05_24_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

Mandate… Counties, the only two where she gleaned majorities. Despite the fact that Farenthold’s law suit tied up a great chunk of the governor’s campaign kitty, he still outspent her five to one. As of April 24, he had spent $485,000 to her $90,000. And the governor let slip to reporters that he has spent more than a million dollars of his own money during his three gubernatorial campaigns. This time he loaned himself $335,000 for the primary. During the last week of the campaign, Briscoe was asked at a press conference if he favors a ceiling on campaign spending and limitations on candidates’ contributions to their own campaigns. “I think this is something that we definitely need to consider,” he answered. “I think I would probably be one of the most interested in that.” Farenthold was tired to the point of being punch drunk by the end of the campaign, but the guy’s comments on campaign funds seriously ticked her off. She told a gathering at Lee Junior College in Baytown, “I think I was almost shaken this morning when I read the paper and I didn’t think there was much in Texas politics that could shake me any more. And that was when I saw where Dolph Briscoe came out for campaign reform. This man is a walking, fumbling, muttering example of the problem. . .. He’s actually raised less from the people of Texas than I have,” she said. Most of Farenthold’s contributions were under $100, but there were a few biggies $6,000 from the J. R. Partens of Madisonville, $1,000 from Farenthold kinswoman Mary Pat Dougherty of Beeville, $1,000 from George McAlmon of El Paso, $3,000 from Pedro Velez Flores of San Antonio and $5,000 from Ada Rogers Wilson of Corpus Christi. Briscoe’s major campaign windfalls included $5,000 from Harmon Schepps of Dallas, $2,500 from W. B. Osborn, Jr., of San Antonio, $3,000 from Leonard Rauch of Houston, $1,000 from Sen. Lloyd Bentsen’s dad, Lloyd Bentsen, Sr., $2,399 from Bernard G. Johnson of Houston and $2,100 from T. 0. Connell of Killeen. During the last month of the reporting period alone, Briscoe gave $200,000 to Glenn Advertising of Dallas for newspaper, radio and TV promotion. The state Farenthold campaign scraped together about $11,000 for radio advertising in Houston and Dallas and some TV spots ran the last five days on at least one station in Dallas. A four-minute film documentary on Farenthold and a one-minute TV spot never reached the air because of lack of funds. Her legions of unpaid or underpaid campaigners mainly tried to get to voters through personal contact and mental telepathy. Briscoe stumped the state in a thirty-year-old Lockheed Lodestar, accompanied by a retinue of highly paid campaign aides, professional public relations men and at least two security guards. Farenthold traveled by Amtrak, commercial airplanes and by car. Her state-wide staff was crammed into a frame building on 15th Street in Austin. The sardine-like situation made it impossible, for workers to find a quiet place to write or think or make the necessary phone calls. It was a laboratory culture for growing animosities. Media director Bill Anderson and research-man Bill Aleshire had serious differences of opinion with Creekmore Fath, Farenthold’s campaign manager. One weekend the two Bills resigned. They came back to work on Monday, but they had at least one more knock-down drag-out with Fath the Saturday before the election. It was not a happy situation at campaign central. The morale of the Farenthold troops was not improved by the liberal office holders who began snaking off at the earliest whiffs of defeat. State Sen. Babe ,Schwartz helped Briscoe out in Galveston. In Houston, black State Rep. Anthony Hall and State Sen. Bob Gammage appeared at gatherings with Briscoe. Hall told the Black Professional an d Businessmen’s Organization that early last session he realized that all of his pet legislation had to Sissy: Not defeated … delayed. be signed by Briscoe. “That makes it an extra special pleasure that I stand up here, because I’ve got some bills I want passed and I want signed. It’s as simple as that,” Hall said. Hall added that he was sort of joking, but he had gotten to the nitty gritty of the problem faced by liberal legislators. From the beginning, Briscoe seemed a lead pipe cinch to be reelected. They had to choose between Sissy and practical politics. Senator Gammage appeared at a breakfast with Briscoe and explained he originally had been apprehensive of the governor because he didn’t know him. Then one day, Gammage said, Briscoe “reached out and took me by the arm and dragged me in [his office] and said, ‘I want to know about the problems of your district.’ ” Gammage said the governor “made sure all elements in our society have a voice in the system.” State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, the only black woman representing Harris County, remained neutral in the campaign, but some of the other Houston libs who had been courted by Briscoe went all out for Farenthold. Black State Rep. Mickey Leland escorted Briscoe on a tour of Houston’s Fifth Ward last year, but he joined Craig Washington in being Farenthold’s Harris County campaign co-ordinators. Leland, Washington and State Rep. Ben Reyes all split with the governor over the question of redistricting. Early this year a three-judge federal panel approved single member legislative districts for Austin, Waco, Corpus Christi, Lubbock and some other medium sized Texas cities that still elect legislators at large. The new districts would have brought at least three new blacks and three new brown legislators to the Texas House. Briscoe got the state attorney general to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay and it was granted. Other Houstonians who stuck with Sissy were City Comptroller Leonel Castillo, State Rep. Nick Nichols and State Rep. Ron Waters. The’ Harris County Council of Organizations, a black group that does effective work at the polls, endorsed Briscoe and snubbed Washington \(Washington did just fine without their One consolation for liberals is that progressive incumbents did about as well as other incumbents. There are libs who consider Farenthold’s defeat a setback for progressivism in general; others are saying that nothing was lost except an election. It seems that, despite the impressiveness of the Briscoe vote in the gubernatorial race, the governor did not get the kind of party mandate he hoped for \(see following re-election will make in state government and in national party politics remains to be seen. K.N., J.F. May 24, 19 74 3