ustxtxb_obs_1974_10_04_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 600 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone 477-0746. 746110’7,-F roll-call vote on the floor. In the second challenge, a coalition of liberals and Wallace supporters from Dallas’ District 8 were claiming that a near-riot and walkout at their May convention had resulted in a delegation topheavy with conservatives and a second faction of Wallaceites. Like the women, the challengers from what they called “the bloody 8th” lost on Monday. But the permanent credentials committee awarded them six additional at-large delegates, and the full convention concurred. The district voted conservative anyway preferring Guest to Castillo and choosing Manuel DeBusk, the rightist Dallas County party chairman, as one of its Kansas City delegates. A third challenge was brought by conservatives from Carr’s own District 7 who claimed that Carr and Sen. Bob Gammage had given their 15 at-large places to pseudo-conservatives. Gammage professed to be insulted at being lumped with Carr; whatever the truth about collusion between the two, the conservatives ended up getting the 15 seats and the libs maintained their control. COLIN CARL, the liberal Austin SDEC member, came out of the Monday with a prediction that there would be “bloodletting” on the convention floor the next day. Later that afternoon, even a moderate like Carrin Patman was seething over the conduct of another Guest-appointed committee. This second panel had been set to work some six weeks earlier to review proposals for rules changes in advance of the convention. \(The idea of conducting such business in time to provide convention delegates with adequate background on the questions they decide is a favorite of party reformers. Somehow it never seems to come out that held a public hearing in Austin to take testimony on the subject of rules. Another meeting was called for Sunday night, Sept. 15, only 36 hours before the convention opened. Patman was asked to prepare a list of rule changes necessary to bring Texas party rules into compliance with national rules for 1976, and did so. At the Sunday meeting, Patman presented the list she had drawn up, along with some rule changes she considered technical and non-controversial. Humberto Quintanilla, the moderate-to-liberal SDEC member from District 19 in San Antonio, introduced some proposed changes of his own. The committee, after discussing the two submissions, decided to postpone its decision until the next day, on the wholly reasonable grounds that each member should have time to read the proposals more carefully. The Monday meeting was called during a short recess of the SDEC session. With the need for haste more than obvious to everyone, Emma Nugent, a Briscoe supporter from East Texas, read her colleagues on the committee a one-page statement. No copies were available. “On the recommendation of Gov. Dolph Briscoe,” Nugent said, she moved that the convention make only three rule changes: one allowing the appointment of two vice-chairpersons for minority and youth affairs, one making it easier for the SDEC to change party rules between conventions and one requiring that future proposals for rules changes be submitted to the SDEC in writing. Patman, Quintanilla and Rep. Anthony Hall of Houston protested the substance of the motion and the manner in which it was made. The chairman told Patman that if the majority of the committee voted for the motion he couldn’t very well twist their arms just because the governor happened to agree with it. Patman summoned up what humor she had left and said, “Oh come on. Try.” The motion was approved, 5-3. Patman was almost glad that the permanent rules committee never made its report to the convention. The committee held a chaotic meeting on Tuesday night and made several changes in the Briscoe-Nugent proposal, adjourned at least twice and listened to at least three alternate proposals before deciding to report out the substance of Monday’s gubernatorial submission. In the confusion of the convention’s end, no report at all was presented to the convention. The lack of a resolutions committee report was the result of a less complex series of events \(see “Observations” this vehicle for raising issues. When press people arrived at the auditorium on Tuesday morning, they found copies of the platform already printed and ready for excerpting, long before the platform committee even met. As it turned out, the product of the committee bore a striking resemblance to what the governor thus recommended to it. But there were some changes. Most notably, the platform committee killed a statement calling for wiretapping by the state. \(That was the second time in a week that Briscoe’s enthusiasm for electronic surveillance had been rebuffed. The Southern Governor’s Contributing Editors: Steve Barthelme, Bill Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Joe Frantz, Larry Goodwyn, 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, James Presley, Buck Ramsey, John Rogers, Mary Beth Rogers, Roger Shattuck, Edwin Shrake, Dan Strawn, John P. Sullivan, Tom Sutherland. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but 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 editor has exclusive control over the 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. Published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., biweekly except for a three week interval between issues twice a year, in July and January; 25 issues per year. 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, sog. One year, $8.00; two years, $14.00; three yeard, $19.00; plus, for Texas addresses, 5% sales tax. Foreign, except APO/FPO. 50 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. THE TEXAS OBSERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co. 1974 Ronnie Dugger, Publisher A window to the South A journal of free voices Vol. LXVI, No. 19 Oct. 4,1974 corporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the Austin ForumAdvocate. EDITOR CO-EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR EDITOR AT LARGE Kaye Northcott Molly Ivins John Ferguson Ronnie Dugger BUSINESS STAFF Joe Espinosa Jr. C. R. Olofson Keith Stanford