ustxtxb_obs_1981_03_20_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

30%! See page 3 1,===011=41=ng Ti ETg13 SERVER March 20, 1981 75 0 A Journal of Free Voices An Observer . . . . Discusston allimilimilimicillicillimililiniume Clements Answers On Bird Dogs, 30%, Idiots, $1.10 a Day, The Clayton Plan, Mexican Workers, Spying, Promises, Taxes, I&R, Wiretapping, and a Special Session Austin Jon Ford, the Governor’s press secretary, lean downright craggy of features from his daily regimen of jogging, came into the reception room and told the Observer staffer and photographer Ronald Cortis the governor had just arrived by car at the Capitol outside at the street level Ford looked out the window and down, trying to espy the official limousine. It was 2 o’clock, muggy inside in the heavy early-spring clothes one has to wear when calling on the governor of Texas. Ford went back to his office to await the governor’s buzz and escort the Observer people in. A large class of high school students were ushered into the wide, highceilinged reception room. The whitebloused guide told them this, and that over there, Daniel Boone’s original desk here, armchairs for cockfights, you wheel and straddle them backwards when the fight begins and you place your bets over the backs of them a gift from Spain. The Observer team moved from the heavy table they were backsliding on to avoid becoming part of the tour. Buttoning his blue blazer, Ford ap peared: it was time. He led through ante-offices the Observer men, followed by his assistant Mark Heckmann and the governor’s personal assistant, Ray Huffhines, both trim junior-executive type young men of the kind you often see -Ronald Collis Governor William Clements of Texas, gesturing as he makes a point during a recorded discussion with the Observer. The Governor’s Wiretap Bill By Mary Lenz Austin Movie fans familiar with that blue and purple mass they called “The Blob” may have reason to call it to mind as they contemplate the current status of Governor Clements’ wiretapping bill. Like the Blob, wiretapping in the Clements bill is starting out small scale. But like kids in movie theaters everywhere who suspected the purple glurp would spread to alarming proportions, civil libertarians say there’s no stopping wiretaps once they get going. At the end of the movie Blob fighters were able to capture the sinister substance, contain it and drop it into the icy wastelands of Antarctica much as the powers that be in the 67th legislature The Clayton Plan LOCK UP SURPLUSES’ BILLIONS? By Al Watkins Austin House Speaker Billy Clayton is asking the voters to give him a blank check that could conceivably lead to tax increases and cuts in vital social services. In return, he promises to repay the state’s bondholders, build 26 new reservoirs, and squirrel away an undetermined amount of money which can only be appropriated by a four-fifths vote of the legislature. All this should be done, Clayton says, in the name of state planning, tax relief, and prudent financial management. But an Observer inquiry discloses that his proposal also involves some of the most adroit fiscal sleight of hand ever witnessed in Texas. At first, Clayton’s proposed constitutional amendment, H.J.R. 33, sounds rather innocuous. He simply wants to deposit the state surplus in three new funds in the state treasury. Since he claims this money is left over after the legislature has financed all essential services, he wants .to reserve it for needed water projects and repayment of the state’s outstanding bonds.