ustxtxb_obs_1978_09_08_50_00020-00000_000.pdf

Page 9

by

ANDEINON & COMPANY COFFEE TEA SPICES TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 512 453-1533 Send me your list. Name Street City Zip In the business of repro. duction, the quality of the copy is commensurate with the quality of the original. Let us improve the appearance of your copies by preparing quality originals or by showing you how to. Fither way you save at Ginny’s. GINNY’S COPYING SERVICE Providing Professional Graphic Services and Consultation for today’s Reproduction “–Methods t Mt servi ce -ur0;14. Good books in every, field JENKINS PUBLISHING CO. The Pemberton Press John H. Jenkins, Publisher Box 2085 \(0 Austin 78768 I HALF PRJCJE RECORDS MAG AZ IN ES IN DALLAS: 4528 McKINNEY AVE. 209 S. AKARD, downtown RICHARDSON: 508 LOCKWOOD FARMERS BRANCH SHOPPING CTR. SW CORNER, VALLEY VIEW IN WACO: 25TH & COLUMBUS AUSTIN: 1514 LAVACA 6103 BURNET RD. IN FORT WORTH: 6301 CAMP BOWIE BLVD. Fine Food Draught Beer Outdoor Patio THORP SPRINGS PRESS is in the forefront of publishing Texas fiction. BOOMER’S GOLD a novel of border Texas as a boom town by Jack Walker, $10 SUGARLAND a tale of Texas prisons by Paul Foreman, $7.50 forthcoming: THE COLLECTED STORIES OF AMADO MURO Write for catalog: THORP SPRINGS PRESS 3414 Robinson Avenue Austin, Texas 78722 1 Audit. . . from page 11 even reporting it, if you go about it the right way. Corporate offerings are prohibited only if they cover expenses the state doesn’t ordinarily reimburse; if the state would pick up the tab for, say, a trip home to the district to hobnob with constituents, a legislator is perfectly free to take the trip at the expense of his favorite lobbyist. The rationale seems to be that if the state would pay for it anyway, no pecuniary benefit flows to the officeholder from the special-interest contributor, and no harm is done. The distinction may be lost on the average citizen concerned about close ties between public officials and well-heeled private interests with a stake in government decisions, but it’s good enough for the secretary of statein a March 1978 directive to officeholders, Steven Oaks officially Lieutenant Governor Hobby sums up the prevailing complacency about legally sanctioned traffic with special-interest contributors when he says: “Every officeholder I have ever heard of has had funds of this sort.” informed incumbents that the practice is permissible. And that, precisely, is the problem, according to the staunchest critics of the Texas laws on political fundraising and influence-buying”Our law is not bad compared to other states’,” says State Rep. Lance Lalor. “The problem is lack of enforcement.” Lalor, a member of the House elections committee and the only representative to propose comprehensive reform of the election code in 1977, contends that under present law and policy, the function of the secretary of state’s office is limited to perfunctory regulation of filing deadlines. Even if its staff were of a mind to, the secretary of state’s enforcement division could not take direct action against violators of the reporting and disclosure law; all cases against state officials must be referred to the attorney general or to the Travis County district attorney. What’s more, a case can’t even be referred if the evidence comes to light during a campaign for officewhich is when violations are likely to turn up thanks to the probing of officeholders’ opponents. Of course, all this assumes a will to enforce the law in the first place, and, at least in the recent past, such an assump 20 SEPTEMBER 8, 1978