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officer. There’s speculation that White may want to run for state attorney general, in which case his sensational blasts against the act could be a bid to get the political support of the folks who staff the courthouses across the state. The word from other southern states that have been under the Voting Rights Act for the past ten years is that the fed’s scrutiny is not particularly onerous. But some Capitol observers voice fears of a backlash. They fear that White’s continuing intransigence may goad the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department into giving Texas an unusually hard time concerning its election laws. Mondo impeachment The “historic” impeachment trial of . Dist. Judge 0. P. Carillo got off to a slow start. On the first morning, senators stood at ease for 45 minutes waiting for Carrillo, whose Cadillac was having radiator trouble. The afternoon session, scheduled to start at 2 p.m., didn’t get underway until 2:22 p.m. because so many senators were late. At 2:22 Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby was all ready to swear them in \(everybody had out that Sen. Glenn Kothmann was missing. Senate Secretary Charles Schnabel found him in the back hall, escorted him into the chamber, and the show finally got on the road. Sort of. It took about three hours to adopt the rules for the proceeding, because so many senators were anxious to show off their impartiality and their lawyerly skills. \(And speaking of impartiality, why hasn’t Sen. John Traeger of Seguin recused himself or whatever a senator does when there are questions as to his ability to give someone a fair impeachment verdict? Traeger twice defeated Judge Carrillo’s brother, former State Rep. Oscar Carrillo, in contests over Traeger’s South Texas district. In fact, George Parr’s decision to support Traeger rather than Carrillo in the 1974 race is generally believed to be one of the reasons that the Parrs and the Carrillos split the Arthur Mitchell, one of Carrillo’s high-powered attorneys, filed a 150-page answer to the House’s 10-count impeachment resolution. Mitchell also moved to disqualify Atty. Gen. John Hill and his staff from aiding House prosecutor Terry Doyle during the trial. The senators turned down Mitchell’s motion 23-7. Then they adjourned until Sept. 29, at which time Carrillo’s income tax evasion trial in Corpus Christi is expected to be finished. The September Washington Monthly . lists Texas Atty. Gen. John Hill as a “State Government All-Star.” Writer Richard Hall opines that state government “is again becoming fashionable” and he attempts to list “a Who Who of the best in state government.” “Hill retains some ties to the John Connally wing of Texas politics, but he has not shied away from battles with Southwestern Bell and other leading utilities,” Hall writes. A national Sierra Club newsletter calls an amendment to the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bob Poage would give the Department of Agriculture virtual veto power over EPA pesticide decisions and extend for one year deadlines for implementing regulatory programs under the act. The Sierra Club maintains that the Ag Department has consistently sided with agrichemical interests when they come in conflict with efforts to protect health and the environment. Cases in point are the department’s legal intervention in behalf of DDT, aldrin, and dieldrin, all of which were subsequently banned by the EPA. Meanwhile, according to Capitol Hill News Service, Sen. John Tower has written a letter to EPA Administrator Russell Train opposing the recent EPA rulings prohibiting the use of insecticides chlordane and heptachlor. The chemicals are widely used to prevent insect damage to corn, wheat, flax, peanuts, and other crops. Tower estimated that without chlordane alone the losses to U.S. corn crops would be millions of bushels per year. If Tower discussed possible human losses due to cancer in his letter to Train, the news service didn’t mention it. concedes that the “survival of whales is certainly not a burning issue” in his part of Texas, but he and fellow Congressman Japan and the Soviet Union for their continued exploitation of the whale. “Whales are God’s creatures, as we all are,” Wilson says, “and whenever one species of creatures becomes extinct, we all are diminished.” Wilson is cosponsoring legislation that calls for an immediate embargo on the products of foreign companies engaged in commercial whaling. Pickle, among others, has signed a letter to President Gerald Ford urging him to intensify administration efforts to protect “these great creatures.” Non-union strikers The Texas regional office of the United Farmworkers sent out a newsletter emphasizing that the South Texas melon strike organized by former UFW staffer Tony Orendain \(Obs., June are not members of the UFW. They are not affiliated with the UFW. They do not maintain the UFW commitment to nonviolence which is so much a part of the UFW beliefs,” the statement says. In light of the new California Agricultural Labor Relations Act that allows farmworkers to vote on their union affiliation, the Texas UFW is recommending that supporters of the farmworkers movement concentrate on Cesar Chavez’ fight against the Teamsters in California rather than on Orendain’s strike. “We believe that farmworker interests nationwide will best be served if such action as Orendain has shown is kept to a minimum while the entire Union works toward the central goal,” the statement concludes. 1976 looks like a good year to elect a consumer advocate \(or at least someone who is not openly an oil industry and there could be an impressive line of contenders for the seat that Commissioner Ben Ramsey may or may not be vacating. Ramsy is 71, which is a fairly advanced age from which to embark upon another six-year term as commissioner, but some pol-watchers predict he’ll-run again. Houston liberal attorney Terry O’Rourke has already announced and State Reps. Lane Denton of Waco and Dave Finney of Fort Worth are seriously contemplating the race. Denton is a certified lib of the Dirty Thirty school. Finney is a sometime-progressive who has worked with the majors in the past. He carried the oil field unitization bill in 1973, which earned him the animosity of the independent oil men. No word yet on whom the conservatives might support, but if this winter turns out to be as hard on oil Bob Wieland Rep. Lane Denton and gas customers as it is expected to be, most any credible RR Commission candidate is going to do some serious genuflecting in the direction of disgruntled consumers. 1973 unfunded medical school construction = $250 million = cost excess on M-60 Sheridan tank. from The Permanent War Economy, Seymour Melman. Sept. 19, 1975 7 VwriAIWOOMMOSNOWillk.Afteda .