ustxtxb_obs_1981_03_13_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

THE TEXAS kaA ,..t’eai&a:NW-30maft. S ERVER A Journal of Free Voices March 13, 1981 75 0 A Challenge to Clements Tough Talk and Nothing Else Texas Senate Photo The senator from Austin and the 14th district, Lloyd Doggett, who takes on the Governor and discusses the Texas legislature in this issue. By Lloyd Doggett The author is the state senator from Austin and the 14th district. He graduated first in his class in business administration at UT-Austin and was associate editor of the Texas Law Review while obtaining his law degree there. He has served in the Senate since 1973, distinguishing himself there as a fighting progressive. In 1977 he sponsored the Texas Sunset Act, requiring legislative renewal or abolition of state agencies. A practicing attorney, he is also a member of the national board of Consumers Union, which is the publisher of Consumer Reports, the non-profit magazine that objectively evaluates commercial products. This article is adapted from a speech responding to the Governor’s “state of the state” address to the legislature. Austin In January Governor William Clements delivered what he entitled a “state of the state” address, but perhaps it could be more appropriately called a misstatement of the state address. The Governor once again finds it necessary to mask his unfulfilled campaign promises with more generalities and nonsoludons. Certainly it is incumbent upon those of us who are Democrats to seek areas of cooperation with the Governor wherever there are opportunities to move ahead. But we owe him no honeymoon. He has had two years as the chief executive officer of the state, and we have little to show for it. As usual when .he speaks, there was more good rhetoric than good sense in the Governor’s address, which suffered from errors of both commission and omission. What a Dallas TimesHerald commentary noted last June remains true: “So far, with withering campaign promises, Governor Clements has yet to establish a pragmatic program or show insight into the state’s problems that would give Republicans much to crow about.” He remains committed to misleading the people into believing his phony campaign promises can be fulfilled. His own $7 million election campaign bombarded us wish the alleged news that years of free-spending state government led by the likes of Dolph Briscoe, Preston Smith, and John Connally had produced rampant waste. These are the same folks whose family members are now being appointed to one state board after another. Out of the air candidate Clements pulled the figure 25,000, and then he said