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r 1 Political Intelligence uma..4111111111111111111 ing in San Antonio, made headway in the legislature, and was clubbed to death by Gov. Clements’ statement he would veto it. On Clements, Slagle, John White; Mauro Announces; the ‘Hit Lists’ v Since 1975, when the legislature cut its budget to zero, the state Occupational Safety Board has had no enforcement powers. The excuse at the time was the establishment of the federal job-safety agency, OSHA, a prime Reagan target in 1980. But now the new figures are shaming state officials even Gov. Clements, who has appointed an advisory committee to see what can be done. Since ’75, injured worker claims are up 32%. In 1979, 1,064 Texans died in connection with their occupations, the highest number of any state, even though California had nine million more people than Texas. Texas in 1979 was third in the nation in on-the-job injuries with a total of 391,619 of them. About 15,000 people are being invited to a $1,000-a-person dinner in Dallas on June 18 to retire Gov. Clements’ remaining $1,185,000 campaign debt. His political organization, based in Austin, has retired the rest of his original $4.8 million in interest on the bank notes. V Without exception, every special election Gov. Clements has called this year he has called for a Tuesday, when people who work have a harder time voting than they would on a Saturday. Mike Workman, a political consultant who worked for Democrats in a couple of the special elections, brings this to our attention. The role of Sen. Peyton McKnight, Tyler, in bucking Clements, Hobby, et al., to fight the wiretapping bill may be better understood in light of his desire to run for governor as a Democrat. A wealthy oilman who flies his own airplane, an independent conservative, McKnight wants to run and thinks he might be able to raise enough money to front up to Clements. Hispanic and labor spokesmen are speaking out now against the ReaganClements guest worker program [see TO 3/20/81]. “Legalized slavery,” LUCAC national executive director Tony Bonilla calls it. “We should take care of U.S. farm workers first,” especially when U.S. farmworkers have so few protections. Hispanic leaders will 16 MAY 29, 1981 confer with Mexican President Lopez Portillo, having been told by other Mexican officials that they are under pressure from the White House to go along with the program. State labor chief Harry Hubbard has also spoken out, and the vice president of the railway and airline workers, in Houston, said Clements “is more interested in providing an escape valve for Mexico than jobs for Texans.” I Three more defections from the conservative Texas Democrats: Rep. George Pierce of San Antonio; Rep. Ray Keller of Duncanville, south Dallas; and the only black judge in Dallas, county criminal court judge Berlaind Brashear, appointed in 1977 by the Democratic county commissioners \(who vowed to representatives bring the GOP total in the Texas House to 38 \(compared to 22 Clements said, “The Republican Party is the true home of conservatives in Texas.” I A notion of moving the primaries back two months, from May-June to JulyAugust, surfaced suddenly at a State Democratic Executive Committee meet Here’s An Idea Austin The senators were assembled, waiting for a decisive committee hearing on the wiretapping bill .to begin. Reporters and spectators occupied most of the seats in the small committee room at the back of the Senate chamber. Suddenly at the hearing table Sen. Carl Parker of Port Arthur in his booming voice said to the Observer reporter, seated on the first row of the seats: “I’ve finally found an organization that Waggoner Can can suitably head: Formerly Indicted But Not Convicted Texas Officials.” John Connally will be the vicepresident and Billy Clayton the secretary-treasurer, Parker added. The idea was pushed hard by Texas labor chief Harry Hubbard in confidential communications. Liberals divided, some favoring it, others believing it would devastate volunteer campaign forces to run the primary into the summer. The SDEC passed the idea 43-20 and the Texas House did, too, 93-51, before Clements killed it. Bob Slagle, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, reached at his law office in Sherman concerning reports of the contretemps over his rejection of Gene Evans for party treasurer, granted that Texas AFL-CIO president Harry Hubbard had pressed him hard to name Evans, but denied he held it against Evans that he had been for Luther Jones John Hill for governor in 1978 \(against Slagle’s candidate then, incumbent He likes Evans, Slagle says, but he adds, “I told Harry I thought Gene would have trouble raising the big dollars.” In addition, Slaglc i says, he objected to Hubbard that at ca s t year’s state Democratic convention, Evans, as part of a deal Slagle suspects the Jones group had cut with -the conservatives, nominated Dick Arlington, a conservative, for party treasurer. Slagle told Hubbard Evans made anti-liberal and anti-labor remarks in the course of nominating Arlington. It is not fair criticism, Slagle says, that he opposed Evans as a Luther Jones-Hill man. He points out that the chairman of the budget and finance subcommittee on the State Democratic Executive Committee, Charles Scarborough of Abilene, was for Jones and Hill. Many of Slagle’s key backers for chairman had also been for Hill for governor, the chairman adds. Hubbard vetoed a candidate Slagle was floating for treasurer, and Slagle then came up with Lowell Lebermann of Austin, whom he cleared with Hubbard, Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, and Hill, as well as sons of the black and brown caucuses. “It was always my intention that Hill would be consulted before the choice was made,” Slagle told the Observer. “I basically operate through consensus politics I always have . . . I’m not out to gut anyone.” Both Hubbard and Hobby were pleased with the choice of Lebermann, Slagle added. “I’m not mad at John Hill about anything,” Slagle said. “He may be our Democratic nominee next year and if he is I’ll break my back working for him.”