ustxtxb_obs_1984_05_18_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

off vote will be even lower. It will hinge on those firmly committed to Doggett or Hance. In Doggett’s favor is the fact that there are hotly-contested run-offs in El Paso, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin. Hance will benefit from a run-off for his Congressional seat. An informal poll of Observer readership reveals that you are more likely to vote in a run-off than readers of other Texas magazines. Make sure you do. This is a race in which you can determine the outcome in favor of Lloyd Doggett. And for the Krueger supporters among you, there is only one way to go in this election against Ronald Reagan’s policies, which have been supported by Hance. Lloyd Doggett can be a senator in a class with Ralph Yarborough and Sam Houston. Or even better. He’s got years to operate and finely-tuned legislative skills. He also has the best chance of beating Phil Gramm and of leading the defeat of Ronald Reagan in Texas. Kent Hance could not run against Reagan’s policies without running against himself. To the polls! As Yogi also says, “Our future is ahead of us.” G. R. Austin STNP Update IN AN ACT OF COURAGE, Austin City Council members Roger Duncan and Sally Shipman on May 10 reversed their previous votes on the issuance of $605 million worth of bonds for Austin’s share in the South Texas Nuclear Project. In the council’s final vote on the matter, Duncan and Shipman voted against issuing the bonds without voter approval, as is required by the city charter \(TO, that a bond election should be held since $97 million in voterapproved bonds had been freed from court action since the original March 1 vote on the issue. This $97 million would give the city time to hold an election without fear of default or emergency rate hikes. Duncan and Shipman were, however, outvoted, 5-2, by Mayor Ron Mullen and other council members on a motion to issue the $605 million without voter approval. Following the vote, Duncan and Shipman were criticized by Mullen for trying to save their political hides by calling for a bond election. He was echoed by an editorial in the Austin American-Statesman. The real hide-saving was, of course, performed by Mullen and those voting against elections. Duncan and Shipman had the courage to buck the large investment bankers and utility corporations, who have been trying to call the shots for Austin city government, and to come down on the side of those who believe that citizens should control their government. It is a sad day when a call for democratic elections becomes a courageous stand. In Austin city politics, that day has come. G. R. OBSERVATIONS Curious Something odd, something strange, happened when officials of the Bexar County elections administration tried to telephone in the official results in the May 5th primary to the Secretary of State’s office in Austin. The persons answering the phone in the Secretary of State’s office kept saying that the official returns they were being given didn’t match the returns they already had. At one point Brenda Scherrer in the San Antonio office asked the Secretary of State’s office where they were getting their returns since Scherrer’s office was the only source of the official returns, but the official in the Secretary of State’s office did not answer her question. elections adminstrator, told me in San Antonio that about a quarter after one Sunday morning after the Saturday election, they had the complete tabulation printout for the county and phoned the Secretary of State to turn in the figures. “Oh, we already have them,’ .’ they were told! Gomez was so angry he ordered Scherrer to hang up. She says that both their hands were on the phone when it was slammed down. The puzzle continued later the same morning. The Secretary of State’s office corrected its “final” Bexar County figures from the night before to the detriment of Doggett’s lead over Krueger by 2,260 votes. . But where did these “final final” figures come from? Gomez told me that no one in his office gave the Secretary of State’s office the official final returns until about 1:30 Sunday afternoon, when Gomez did so. “Strange,” said Marilyn Jones, the Bexar County Democratic chairperson. No one I talked to in San Antonio knew where the Secretary of State’s office was getting election returns so reliable that it was rejecting the official returns from the office of Elections Administrator Tony Gomez. No doubt there’s a perfectly good explanation for all this, but at press time we had not yet obtained it from the Secretary of State’s office. Out of Step? Jim Ryan of Bedford has been elected Republican chairman of Tarrant County. As a result, the entire paid staff of the county’s GOP is resigning. Jack Z. Smith of the Star-Telegram reported that Ryan believes: The nation needs an unlimited military budget “because you never know when you’ll need it.” Every “able and competent American male” over 21 “should be required to have a gun and be prepared to use it in defense of his home and country.” All Americans should pay a flat 9% federal income tax. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is “just a charity organization in which anyone who is the right color or speaks the wrong language can get into a free house, or get half their rent paid.” Those who are resigning apparently did not check first with President Ronald Reagan, who would agree with most if not all of these positions. R.D. THE TEXAS OBSERVER