ustxtxb_obs_1987_01_09_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

= —-L—–: _ –. ____ TOE F.:….””. ….= ….t es ,S . HE PEOPL _ , s ” A .z. = 1141 -12 Z-. -.C–, PR1E1V , . ..ALA III I OM 1 I I Ill I I E1 14 / _,_ . . …., worlo :EZs. __ —–.——7-1’l . li p, 11 ‘ ….– ..___. -,,… ,., . . .___ . __ _ .. _ _ _ _ . . . ,, . :::-.-…1.. I I? In I 1 ‘I II I ii 4 IN …,__________ ……. =— -/:..__:-_ __ = __…._ ________ _ TETXDB Anti ‘ sERvER ‘ . The Texas Observer Publishibg Co.. 1987 ; . ‘Vol. 79, No. 1 ,-,. January 9, 1987 , Copyright 1987 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material. may not be reproduced without permission. PUBLISHER Ronnie Dugger EDITOR Geoffrey Rips ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Denison EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Kathleen Fitzgerald LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Valerie Fowler CALENDAR: Kathleen Fitzgerald EDITORIAL INTERN: Isolda Ortega . WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Richard Ryan . POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE: Dana Loy EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerr ville; Chandler Davidson, HoustOn; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Houston: Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam bridge. Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham. N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, III.:..Molly lvins, Dallas; Larry L. King, Washington. D.C.; Maury Maverick. Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Fred Schmidt. Fredericksburg, Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Bill Adler, Warren Burnett, Jo Clifton, Craig Clifford. Louis Dubose. John Henry Faulk, Ed Garcia. Bill Helmer, James Har rington. Jack Hopper, Amy Johnson, Michael King, Dana Loy, Rick Piltz, Gary Pomerantz, Susan Raleigh. John Schwartz, Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh. CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue, Alicia Daniel. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Mark Antonuccio, Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Jeff Danziger. Beth Epstein,’ Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Carlos Lowry. Miles Mathis. Joe McDermott, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau. . A journal of free voices We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. Managing Publisher Cliff Olofson Subscription Manager Stefan Wanstrom Office Manager Joe Espinosa Jr. Publishing Consultant Frances Barton Development Consultant Hanno T. Beck 77u , Texas Observer is published biweekly except for a three-week inter paid at Austin. Texas. Subscription rates, including 5 1/8% sales tax: one year 523, two years S42. three years S59. One year rate for full-time students. S15. Back issues S2 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zecb Road. Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright 1987 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may not he reproduced without permission. POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 28th Street, #105. Austin, Texas 78705. EDITORIAL 15’r In Which the Present Editor Bids an Affectionate Adios N MY FIRST DAY here at the Observer, Joe Holley took me to have some barbecue with John Duncan, then director of the Texas Civil Liberties Union, and Sam Dawson, who was watching the Capitol for the steelworkers. It was December 1982, and I had returned from six years in New York City, working for a bunch of literary swells, in order to take the job as Joe’s associate editor. When Sam Dawson told us that a certain officeholder “was not bent over double with intellect,” I knew I was home. The Democratic wave of 1982 had just swept Bill Clements out of office and people like Ann Richards, Jim Mattox, and Jim Hightower in. Those were heady days. The Observer’s landlord, Dave Richards, was closing up his law practice to go work with the Attorney General, followed by part of the ACLU,. if such a thing could be believed, and a bunch of consumer advocates. \(They did, however, still seem to believe in eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth, state-sponsored murder Observer’s own Jim Hightower was sitting on top of that populist moment, bringing the Nacogdoches Youth Choir to enliven the dead air of the Capitol rotunda and opening to small farmers and consumers the doors of what had previously been the Texas Department of AgribUsiness. Even Mark White was talking about putting women yea, even “housewives” on the Public Utility Commission. From my distant, perch in New York City, it seemed that Texas had single-handedly turned the Reagan revolution on its ear. As my wife and I drove our belongings home from the land of the pointy-headed intellectuals, we pushed our U-Haul for all its 45 .mph speed was worth through the Appalachians and the hills of Tennessee, anxious lest they start the second Texas revolution without us. But that December day, seated around a picnic table, it was difficult to find a great deal of optimism in the wisdom imparted by the West Texas libertarian and the Houston labor lobbyist. The preceding legislative session had included the passage of the Clements-Ross Perot War on Drugs package with its array of 4th Amendment violations and intrusions. Just prior to the November elections, the legislature had met in special session, over the nearly inert body of the Governor, in order to rescue the state from spiraling debts it was incurring due to interest from loans taken to continue operating the Texas Employment Commission. We had an incoming House Speaker who was a gum-label millionaire best known for his wild game hunting and his corporate conservatism. The Lieutenant Governor was in the early stages of his transformation from standard-bearer for the conservative Democratic aristocracy \(that had dominated state politics since civil-libertarian millionaire, who had presided over the passage of the War on Drugs program and had spawned the creation of the Killer Bees by his intransigence, but who had also 2 JANUARY