ustxtxb_obs_1984_07_13_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

White and Hobby. The same goes for the Texas Federation of Teachers, the most progressive of the teacher organizations and now the favorite of the governor and the legislative leadership. Does this mean White, Hobby, and Lewis will now campaign for collective bargaining rights for teachers? An intriguing prospect is the possibility of partisan divisions in the House. Gib Lewis, who had previously exhibited party blindness in doling out committee chairs and other favors, must have noticed the fact that the House Republicans voted as a nearly solid bloc against both the education and tax legislation. Could this be the start of new alignments of power in the House? In a House divided along party lines, the influence of the Mexican American and Black caucuses, combined with Anglo progressives, would be enhanced. G. R. The Right’s Huff FOLLOWING the House passage of the education bill, several organizations concerned with “parents’ rights” rallied on the Capitol steps. Robin Lewis, who described herself as a Dallas housewife told the gathering, “We’re kind of glad they did it. Now we have it in black and white.” She went on to complain about busing, claiming it causes low test scores “because these children spend two hours more away from their parents.” Lewis addressed a crowd of white men and women, many with kids, most wearing yellow “TFIT” or green “Parents Prerogative” badges. Before the crowd dispersed in order to lobby individual legislators, a preacher offered a prayer: “Dear Lord Jesus. We call upon you to help keep it an elected board. ” This is the key issue of the fundamentalist protest of the education bill. Through Education Commissioner Rayrnon Bynum and Board Chair Joe Kelly Butler, the fundamentalist right has been able to exercise some control over Texas textbooks and curriculum. But these groups are also concerned about the “discipline-management” aspect of the bill and about pre-kindergarten classes for in her twenties wore a badge saying, “Pro Elected Board,” and a button proclaiming, “Pro Life, Pro Family, Pro Reagan.” The Traditional Families in Texas group was organized around the education issue after Robin Lewis received a phone call from LaNeil Wright of the Texas Eagle Forum in Dallas, alerting her to the hearings in the Capitol. The Texas Eagle Forum is the state chapter of Phyllis Schlafly s national organization, whose agenda includes opposition to abortion and the ERA. In addition, the TFIT crusade has been followed by Dr. James Dobson, a fundamentalist nationwide radio show host. According to Mel Gabler, these organizations have no direct connection to his work. But it is clear that the main interest these fundamentalist groups have in preserving an elected board lies in the preservation of the Gablers’ influence on that body’s deliberations. Gabler told the Observer that it’s “taken years before the elected board paid attention to citizens. Our board in the last several years has moved to where they listen to citizen viewpoints. Not only us. A number of different women’s lib organizations, too. They’ve listened to all strata of Texas citizens. . . . We don’t know what kind of board will be appointed. . . . I don’t believe they’ll ever do it [return to an elected board in four years]. Your whole trouble in education is the education establishment has given us at least 20 years of consistent downgrading. [That establishment consists of] the Texas Education Agency, the Bureau of Education in Washington, the NEA. Our board has been very unfairly attacked. An appointed board I’m afraid they’ll never listen to people. ” Gabler continued, “People like Perot picked up false newspaper articles and said the board was embarrassing us. ” This is a recurrent theme among the fundamentalist opponents of the education plan. They are bewildered by the actions of H. Ross Perot. They think he has been fooled. They thought he was one of them. They are terribly disillusioned. G. R. Legislature Satisfies Highway Lobby Austin MANY OF THE highway lobbyists this session wore a button that said simply, “THUMP THUMP.” “Thump, thump” is the sound of a car hitting a pothole, explained Eugene Robbins, president of the Texas Good Roads group. Robbins was with the legislators most steps of the way, reminding them, in their brief moments of respite from worrying about education problems, that they were called upon to fix the roads, too. The legislators, distracted as they were, responded with a sort of “Yeah, yeah, the roads, the roads,” and funded the highway department with an extra $444 million dollars for the next year, considerably more than the Governor had suggested in his proposed tax plan when he called the special session. 8 JULY 13, 1984 The highway monies were included in Rep. Stan Schlueter’s tax bill which raised the gasoline tax by five cents a gallon, increased the motor vehicle . registration fees by $25, and increased the sales tax on motor vehicles by one percent. This was designed to bring in $1.06 billion over the next to do away with the complicated mechanism that guarantees a certain amount of highway money from the state’s general revenue, based on an inflation index. The highway department will get as much as $265 million at the end of this year from the general revenue but will depend on user fees and dedicated funds after that. The highway department supports the move since it gives the department a more predictable source of money and doesn’t require highways to go up against “people money” in the appropriations process. There were a few signs of the beginning of caution in the