ustxtxb_obs_1981_05_15_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

Photo by Ronald Cortes Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby makes a point during a two-hour discussion of state and national political questions. Hobby on the Issues TEr May 15, 1981 A Journal .of Free Voices 75 Hispanic Drive Falters Houston, where is he president of the Houston Post, is another matter, but Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby’s Austin world is the second floor of the Senate wing of the Capitol. Here, as he has done since 1973, he presides over the Senate when it is in session, and he conducts the lieutenant governor’s powerful business from his commodious and highceilinged, but simple and sun-lit office, which looks out onto the green Capitol grounds through the large windows in the pink limestone. When the legislature is in session Hobby takes leave from the Post. Often of an afternoon, when the Senate is not in session, but some committee hearing is droning on in the Senate chamber, the lieutenant governor may wander in from the direction of his office, look over what’s going on, chatting now and again as anyone may accost him for the purpose, and then, just wheeling around, go on back into his office. He is not in a hurry. Born son of a governor, his mother the publisher of the V11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 An Observer Discussion Post, he is used to power and wealth. Usually he is hand-in-glove with dominant economic interests, but Sen. Carl Parker of Port Arthur said last week, “There’s a lot more to him than people think. He has a conscience, and he’s a fair man.” The state government’s highest elected Democratic official speaks rather slowly, and he thinks, one may guess, in a pace of deliberation that might befit such a patrician; yet when he is relaxed he is not stiff but is informal and amiable. This discussion, in which the Observer person was Dugger, continued for two hours and ten minutes, with photographer Ronald Cortes snapping pictures of Hobby throughout. There has been some editing for brevity. By Mike Nassour McAllen In the last few years, opposition to the entrenched Anglo political establishment in McAllen has grown from a disorganized group of firemen and farmworkers into a force that has nearly elected the first Mexican-American commission in the city’s history. The Rio Grande Valley, of which McAllen is the psychological center, is breathless. The fact now, however, is that the strongest challenge to an unbroken series of Anglo mayors in McAllen has been beaten back. The incumbent mayor Othal Brand had been challenged by Doctor Ramiro Casso. The doctor led a three-person field in the April election, but he and a running mate for city commission, Doctor George Gonzalez, lost to Brand by margins of about 900 votes in the May 9 runoff. A third candidate on the Casso slate, Richard Salinas, was elected commissioner in April, showing that a Mexican-American who is identified with groups outside the Rio Grande Valley power structure \(such as the United Farm Workers, who helped with the advances that might be made in voter registration and education, the more conservative Anglo vote still turns out in greater numbers than the Hispanic vote. This is especially true when the Anglo voters are told the Mexican-Americans are trying to “take over” their town. Brand has been painted by both enemies and friends as an example of the old-style, South Texas patron. A selfmade millionaire and wealthy landowner, he is a political machine all rolled into one person. His political experience in McAllen \(he has run in eight