ustxtxb_obs_1974_11_29_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

citizens’ group responsible for a good part of last session’s reform legislation. Hannah is remembered from his tenure in the House as a member of the Dirty Thirty, as part of the braintrust that got Price Daniel, Jr., elected speaker, and for his struggle to get some money for East Texas Indians. In 1969, Hannah had the then-unheard of temerity actually to challenge Rep. Bill Heatly’s appropriations bill on behalf of the Indians. Hannah is considered a sensible liberal and a man who understands the Texas political game. He was used to fight like hell for his side, but was also far readier than many other liberals of his vintage in the House to make heavy compromises in order to save something for his side. He has been serving since 1972 as district attorney of Angelina County and thus presumably has acquired some law’n’order credentials. Bell sued Mother Bell! Southwest Ma has been sued for $26 million by plaintiff’s who allege that she is guilty of “corporate rapacities,” harassment, bugging, keeping slush funds, improperly influencing public officials, using corporate funds for political contributions, and overcharging customers. It sounds as though it had all been cooked up by Ralph Nader, but in fact the suit is being brought a former Bell executive and the family of a second executive who committed suicide on Oct. 17. T. 0. Gravitt, who had been Bell’s top man in Texas, killed himself at his Dallas home after an internal Bell Co. investigation. James Ashley, who had worked with Gravitt, was fired as a result of the internal investigation on the same day Gravitt killed himself. Gravitt’s family says he was hounded to death by Bell. The suit says Bell accused the two men of accepting kickbacks and misappropriating money: the suit specifically denies any such actions by either of the two and sues for slander, libel, and defamation. The Gravitts and Ashley say the investigation was the result of professional jealousy and started when Bell became aware that the two men were resisting practices they felt were “deceitful and grossly unfair to the public.” According to the Houston Chronicle, U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen “has taken to packing his press conferences with staff members who listen attentively and laugh heartily at his jokes.” The Chronk’s Washington bureau pointed out that about. half the audience for Bentsen’s announcement of a proposal for tax credits for people who save up for their kids’ educations was composed of staffers from his office and from the Senate Finance 12 The Texas Observer Committee, which counts Bentsen as a member. Then again, maybe those were just employees eager to hear the Senate’s second-ranking Democratic presidential prospect. According to Louisiana’s Governor Edwards, Bentsen’s chances are second only to those of Washington’s Sen. Henry Jackson. Twenty years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision mandated an end to segregated public schools, a Houston Independent School District committee report claims that district is “still largely segregated.” A 35-member human relations committee told the Houston school board that racial polarization is increasing in the district and that “for all we hear about desegragation, integration, and a unified school system, it should be made clear that none of these exists to any real degree,” despite what the report called “bright spots” in individual racial relations in Houston schools. Over the strenuous objections of the state PTA board, delegates to the Texas PTA convention in Corpus Christi passed a resolution urging the Legislature to rescind the Equal Rights Amendment. The vote was 659 for and 571 against. The resolution did not specify whether the delegates wanted to rescind the amendment to the state constitution or whether they wanted to take back Texas’ ratification of the proposed amendment to the U.S. constitution. Debate circled round the old unisex toilets bugaboo \(see Obs., resolution, which was drafted by the Texas City delegation, contended that the ERA would nullify laws that “secure the care and protection of our children and youth,” require boys and girls to share restrooms and locker rooms and be in coed athletic programs “which can be damaging to our girls physically and cause mental stress,” force schools to hire homosexuals, and alter the attitudes of children through textbook revisions. In actuality, the state and national ERA amendments simply prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. Accidental bugging? The government has submitted an “eyes -only ” exhibit of evidence involving former Gov. John Connally to U.S. Dist. Judge George Hart, who had ordered federal prosecutors in Connally’s bribery case to disclose any evidence which had been illegally obtained. An affidavit submitted with the exhibit maintained that the material had been obtained legally by the FBI when, on one occasion, Connally was “overheard” by legitimate “national security electronic surveillance authorized by the President of the United States, acting through the attorney general to gather foreign intelligence information.” The affidavit did not disclose the circumstances under which Connally was “overheard,” though it indicated the sealed exhibit did. Nor did the affidavit establish whether the evidence which it accompanied was relevant to the charges against Connally. It did claim that Connally had not been the target of surveillance by any of 10 government security agencies, including the FBI, which the prosecutors had contacted. Argument on pre-trial motions, including Connally’s motion for change of venue \(from Washington, D.C., to San Nov. 22. In the meantime, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of. Appeals has stayed a lower court order which appointed three special prosecutors to pursue an indictment against Jake Jacobsen, who could be a key witness against Connally. The special prosecutors had been appointed by U.S. Dist. Judge Robert Hill of Dallas after Justice Department prosecutors sought to have the Jacobsen indictment \(for alleged misapplication of savings and loan part of a deal to obtain Jacobsen’s testimony against Connally. Jacobsen, an Austin attorney and former lobbyist for Associated Milk Producers, Inc., is expected to testify that he gave Connally $10,000 in return for Connally’s help in getting federal milk price supports raised. The appellate court’s decision does not overturn Judge Hill’s appointment of the special prosecutors, though it does delay their going to work in the case. The ruling will not interfere with the special prosecutors’ participation in appellate review of the order itself. What’s this? Harold Scarlett, The Houston Post’s environmental reporter, siding with Shell against the Environmental Protection Agency? Well, almost. Scarlett reports that the EPA made a complete mess of its attempt to monitor on-ship incineration of chemical wastes aboard Shell’s borrowed German vessel. The result was a public hearing at which representatives of Gulf Coast states attacked both the EPA, for its failure to come up with anything like a reliable evaluation of the technique, and Shell, for allegedly cheating on its own reports on the process. Scarlett’s own conclusion: “Before the EPA put an embargo on the dumping of the wastes, and before the Vulcanus [the incinerator ship] came along, the Shell chemical plant in Deer Park since 1952 had dumped more than 300,000 tons of the same wastes, unburned and untreated, into the Gulf of Mexico .. . [The experimental burning-at-sea] had pioneered a new method of disposing of U.S. industrial wastes, and had done it with considerable efficiency and no detectable environmental harm”