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Life Insurance and Annuities Martin Elfant, CLU 4223 Richmond, Suite 213, Houston, TX 77027 Stith OFCANADA would predict the presiding officer will rule it out of order because it’s a taxation and revenue bill which must originate in the House. I believe their ploy is, if they could get a bill out of the Senate, at this point they would settle for a bill allowing parimutuel betting in rural outhouses, anything to get it out.” Maley, who heads an organization headquartered in Dallas called the AntiCrime Council of Texas, predicted that if the Senate sends back an amended bill, Speaker Gib Lewis would look for a more sympathetic committee. “The Urban Affairs Committee has its feet set in concrete,” he said. “They know they’re dead there, particularly after that stunt Berlanga pulled” [his alleged threat to Wolens]. Berlanga told the Dallas Times Herald he was not inclined to seek a new committee and that he would rather try to convince the urban affairs panel to let voters decide the issue. “The greatest drawback is that you are involved in politics. The politicians can destroy you.” Vincent Bartimo Maley has had his own problems with Urban Affairs, particularly with committee chairman George Pierce, a cosponsor of the horseracing bill. In March, Maley refused to answer committee questions about his finances, and Pierce said state records showed Maley reported no contributions or expenses generated by his lobbying against legalized horse race gambling. The Urban Affairs Committee voted 13-1 to give Pierce the power to subpoena Maley’s financial and telephone records. Maley told Pierce he had “nothing to hide” and released a financial report showing that all contributions were in the form of a $10,000 loan from the Anti-Crime Council of Texas. The funds, he said, were accumulated over the past two years in the form of a $5,000 contribution from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, $2,500 from the Texas United Methodist Church, and smaller contributions from individuals. Two thousand dollars of the money were in amounts of $25 or less, which do not have to be reported. “Surely you will not suggest that any of the $25 contributions were from out-ofstate racetracks,” Maley wrote Pierce. “Having complied with your ‘request’ for this information,” Maley’s letter continued, “I must tell you that I highly resent your demand for it. “Your action flies in the face of the American system of justice. Because `somebody’ has ‘alleged that we might have received funds from out-of-state racetracks,’ you have demanded that we prove otherwise, even though nobody has inferred that there is a scrap of evidence to substantiate that charge. “A question, Mr. Pierce, a serious rather than a rhetorical one. If I charge that the mafia is putting money into the campaign of the pari-mutuel gambling interests . . . will you ask for the authority to subpoena the pari-mutuel backers, and their records, for the purpose of demanding that they prove that they have not received any mafia money?” Pierce wasn’t satisfied. The letter, he wrote Maley, “raises even more questions about you, the Anti-Crime Council of Texas and Texans Against Gambling.” \(Texans Against Gambling is Requesting that Maley voluntarily file more detailed records with the committee, Pierce wrote that “the core questions, asked of you by the committee, still remain to be answered: Who constitutes the Anti-Crime Council of Texas and Texans Against Gambling; who has retained you; and/or on whose behalf are you acting; and are out-ofstate interests involved as you carry on your activities in Austin and statewide?” Maley, who told the Observer the Anti-Crime Council was founded in 1968 specifically to oppose pari-mutuel gambling in Texas, submitted the more detailed records. Pierce released Maley’s telephone records, obtained under subpoena, revealing his calls to the business office of the owner of a Louisiana horseracing track. Pierce said the records showed Maley had made eighteen calls in recent months to the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. in Youngstown, Ohio. DeBartolo and his family own 92 % of Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., Pierce said. “He [Maley] obviously has got some sort of connection. What it is, I don’t know,” Pierce said. He also said he may turn the records over to the House Investigating Committee and the district attorney. Maley admitted calling race tracks around the nation for information. He said he had a spy in the DeBartolo Corp. who was telling him about the financial trouble race tracks are having. “I really thought the McCarthy era was dead forever, where people can be smeared by accusations and insinuation,” Maley said. “But it appears to be alive and well in Texas.” Maley’s flap with Pierce temporarily obscured the issues anti-gambling forces have been raising. On the question of pari-mutuel tax revenue, for instance, they contend that $30 million in taxes the first year the Texas Horseracing Association’s lowest projection would constitute 2/10ths of one percent of the current budget. The Horseracing Association’s high figure, $120 million per year, would gross only 8/10ths of one percent of the current budget. On the crime issue, they charge that illegal gambling is more widespread in states where gambling is illegal, that organized crime moves into areas where gambling is legalized, and that parimutuel race tracks are hangouts for mobsters. They also insist that parimutuel windows cannot compete with illegal bookies, who often depend in a variety of ways on organized crime, and that legalization of gambling leads to the corruption of public officials. \(“We see nothing so valuable in pari-mutuel gambling as to merit putting Texas public officials to a test that few in other One of the more curious pieces of literature Texans Against Gambling distributes is a copy of a guest column in the Houston Chronicle \(July 20, Louisiana Downs. “We run Louisiana Downs very strictly, but it takes an outlay of $600,000 a year on security alone to keep this a clean place,” Bartimo wrote. “We run strictly a firstclass operation, and if you aren’t willing to make that kind of financial commitment just for security, you shouldn’t be involved in horseracing.” Bartimo wrote that he had advised the owner of Louisiana Downs to sell his three race tracks because “it’s just too hard to keep clean.” Admitting that some may question his motives since legalized pari-mutuel gambling in Texas would decimate Louisiana tracks, he wrote, “If I were completely in control of a state, there’s no way in this world I would let in 4 APRIL 22, 1983