ustxtxb_obs_1989_03_10_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

alienated some in the progressive community by voting the wrong way on the tort reform issue last session. Maldonado used that one vote against Cuellar and brought a few big guns like Attorney General Jim Mattox to campaign with him. Cuellar, a Weslaco convenience store owner, seems determined to hang on to his seat and might not be as vulnerable the second time around. V ANOTHER VALLEY race would pit Edinburg Democratic Rep. Alex Moreno against Brownsville Senator Hector Uribe. A race against Moreno could prove difficult for Uribe. There’s no big difference in political philosophy here but Moreno is highly regarded and has helped design and implement the Valley Interfaith legislative agenda. Interfaith, a grassroots organization, does not endorse candidates. But they’re the most important political organi complete personal and business insurance ALICE ANDERSON AGENCY 808-A East 46th P.O. Box 4666, Austin 78765 East Dallas Printing Company Full Service Union Printing 211 S. Peak Dallas, Tx 75226 \(TARItPN “Best Lodging Location for Fishermen & Beachgoers” Group Discounts P.O. Box 8 Port Aransas, TX 78373 Send for Free Gulf & Bay Fishing Information zation in the Valley and many of their members are familiar with Moreno and can be expected to support his candidacy. Moreno also maintains an active law practice in his home district while Uribe spends most of his time in Austin. ‘Uribe last year launched a campaign for a seat on the Supreme Court, only to withdraw when he learned that a Senate vote on a judicial pay raise precluded him from holding a seat on the Court. V DEMOCRATIC REP. Paul Moreno has officially entered a four-candidate El Paso mayor’s race and an outright victory in the May 6 election could mean that he will not finish the session. Moreno, considered by some to be an idealistic progressive and by others an cranky back-of-thechamber obstructionist, enters a race that includes one incumbent city council member, Suzie Azar, and Mary Haynes, who resigned from the county commission in January to enter the mayor’s race. Moreno, an attorney, has served in the legislature since 1975. He is well known in El Paso and is a good bet to make it at least as far as a runoff in the mayoral election. Even before Moreno opened his campaign headquarters on February 24, the mayor’s campaign had become the best political story in El Paso this because County Judge Luther Jones appointed his 25-year-old secretary to the county commission seat vacated by mayoral candidate Haynes. “I have a contentious court,” Jones said, defending the appointment of Martie Georges who has only lived in El Paso for two years. Some political oddsmakers are predicting that the appointment will cost Jones his job and that a Republican will next occupy the seat temporarily held by Georges, according to Lou Hudson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. V DALLAS CONGRESSMAN John Bryant said that he will not decide on his future political plans until late in the spring or perhaps summer. Bryant, who spoke to the Democratic Forum in Austin, then made a San Antonio fundraiser, said he will be preoccupied with his foreign ownership disclosure legislation and with the impeachment of federal Judge Alstace Hastings. Bryant will serve as the prosecutor of the Hastings proceedings in the Senate. Bryant also described as “unseemly” the beginning of a political campaign so soon after being elected to the office he now holds. “I was just reelected to Congress and the session just began,” Bryant said, when asked about possible plans to run against Republican Senator Phil Gramm. Bryant’s assessment of the perpetual political campaign seems on target and just a moral register higher than what other “prospective” candidates are offering up. But should he decide to run against Gramm later, Bryant might find the field crowded, as Fort Worth state Senator Hugh Parmer is moving toward mid-March decision on a U.S. Senate race. Nonetheless, Bryant is talking a Senatorial agenda: the trade deficit, foreign ownership, reduction in expenditures on foreign defense commitment, the Bush budget, and raids on the Social Security Trust Fund. “A guy who proposes a line item veto ought to propose a line item budget,” Bryant said of Bush’s budget proposal. According to Bryant, a real budget would be about the thickness of the Houston phone book. Bush’s budget was less than 200 pages long. V STATE REP. Al Edwards, the Houston Democrat who made news with his proposal to have drug dealers’ fingers removed as punishment, went on the Morton Downey TV show in February. Opposite Edwards was Houston defense lawyer Brian Wice who, according to his account in the Texas Lawyer, told Edwards, “If grandstanding were a felony, you’d be doing ten-to-life.” I A RARE TOUCH of public candor from Texas AFL-CIO president Harry Hubbard in the February issue of the Texas AFL-CIO newsletter. . . Hubbard writes that he is grateful for his 23 years of participation in labor leadership in this state, and continues, “However, realizing that most success came when everyone involved had the freedom to work in a united program without regard to personal politics, I have announced that I shall retire upon adjournment of the Texas AFL-CIO convention on July 29, 1989.” Hubbard recalls that he told labor delegates before he was elected president of the AFL-CIO in 1973 that he would step aside after one term “if this labor movement is still as. divided as it is right now.” Though he made it far beyond one term, Hubbard now acknowledges that the divisive power struggle of 1987, in which he supported a challenge to Joe Gunn’s reelection as Secretary-Treasurer, must be put behind them. Hubbard notes that he has offered Gunn his support as Gunn seeks to become president of the union. V ONE DIFFERENCE in outlook between Hubbard and Gunn had to do with the role the AFL-CIO should play in legislative battles. Hubbard was inclined to write off the legislature as a hopeless cause and concentrate labor’s efforts on electing more progressive state officials. Gunn felt that many incremental reforms could now be won in the legislature with an active, savvy lobbying effort. Hubbard was almost never seen by legislators at the Capitol, while Gunn took part in such latter-day victories as the expansion of unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation to farmworkers. Already in the current legislative session, Gunn has taken a more visible approach, giving labor a strong presence in the developing workers’ compensation debate. 16 MARCH 10, 1989