ustxtxb_obs_1989_06_30_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

Anti-Pickens forces stacked the ballot with candidates. “I think it’s just amazing that they [the voters] kicked two commissioners and a mayor out of office,” Adams told the GlobeNews on election night. Adams had decided that the gas issue left the mayor so vulnerable, that Adams gave up his Place 4 seat on the commission to challenge Parkey for the mayor’s post: Adams won with 58 percent of the vote in a record-high turnout at the polls. \(Commissioner Taylor did not Pickens hasn’t commented on the defeat of his candidates, although his company did send out a direct-mail letter 11 days before the election to insist that: “no so-called `deal’ was cut between any one member of the Commission and Mesa.” It appears, however, that Amarillo voters felt otherwise. 0 POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE V THE DEPARTURE of Jack Rains from the Secretary of State’s office triggered a few political chain reactions. Gov . Clements appointed his chief of staff George Bayoud to be the new Secretary of State. He then moved deputy chief , of staff Mike Toomey up to fill Bayoud’s old job, whereupon Toomey told the press that he will stick it out in the governor’s office and not make his expected run for the Republican nomination for Comptroller of Public Accounts. “I can’t just do this for a little while and then leave,” Toomey told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “It means I won’t be running.” Republican businessman Tom Fatjo has declared himself a candidate for Comptroller. Fatjo, a Houston fatcat who founded Browning-Ferris Industries, a giant waste disposal firm, would most likely face Democratic Railroad Commissioner John Sharp in the general election. Meanwhile, Rains is gearing up to run for governor. He has selected H.R. “Bum” Bright as his campaign treasurer. Rains is not exactly touching gold by tapping Bright. Aside from his ill-fated former ownership of the Dallas Cowboys, Bright lost a fortune in Dallas banking in recent years. V SUPREME COURT Justice C.L. Ray announced this month that he will not run for reelection. Some Democrats greeted the news with a sigh of relief, as Ray was certain to face the same charges of ethical weakness that Republicans used against former justices William Kilgarlin and Ted Z. Robertson in the last election. Ray was reprimanded by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct in 1987. A Democrat who is considered a potential candidate for the court is Karl Bayer, an Austin plaintiffs’ lawyer who ran unsuccessfully in 1988. g/g THE STATE HOUSE of Representatives greeted the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on flag-burning with a predictable spasm of patriotism-for-show. At loose ends in the fifst week of the special session as the workers’ comp bill was being negotiated, House members passed a resolution calling on Congress to propose a constitutional amendment outlawing flag desecration. After the resolution passed, House members stood and recited the pledge of allegiance. When the Senate was notified of the House’s resolution, Houston Democratic Senator: Craig Washington stood up and derided it, saying, “They’ll pass anything in the House.” V LEGISLATORS who were intent on protecting the flag may not have recognized the local connection with the case that was decided in Washington. And that is not just that it began at the Dallas Republican Convention in 1984. The case was originally filed by Texas Civil Liberties Union attorney Jim Harrington. Only later did the defendant connect with attorney William Kuntsler, who argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Though 32year-old Gregory Johnson might not be the most appealing defendant \(his timing was off when he described himself as a Maoist on a day when he competed for news seemed to miss the point that the conservative court made on free speech. Even as the Texas House was cranking out its resolution, in Washington, Houston Republican Congressman Jack Fields had his staff at work on legislation to make flag burning illegal and the President was describing the flag as “very, very, special.” V ONE OF THE MORE unusual arguments in favor of creating a state income tax came recently from the mouth of Rep. Ric Williamson, Democrat from Weatherford. -Williamson told a Lubbock convention of the Justices of the Peace and Constables Association of Texas that the breakdown of the nucleai family means more children are taught basic morals in school. Thus, more money needs to go toward school funding, and the best way to raise the money is through an income tax, Williamson said. “This emotional reliance on ad valorem taxes is doing the middle class out of ownership,” he said, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. One of Williamson’s complaints, according to the paper’s report, was that too many ,schoolage children “don’t know what Christianity means.” V MOST LABOR PEOPLE assume Joe Gunn will become the next President of the Texas AFL-CIO when the state’s unionists hold their convention July 26-29. But Gunn says he’s not taking it for granted. “We’re running a campaign. We’ve got posters made, and pins,” he said in midJune. “After last time, you don’t want to get caught sleeping.” Two years ago at the labor convention Gunn had to fight off a challenger to retain his post as AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer. Gunn’s opponent was backed by President Harry Hubbard, who is now retiring. Jackie St. Clair, from the building trades, is the likely candidate to replace Gunn as SecretaryTreasurer. V BOTH Jim Mattox and Ann Richards are jostling for position with labor; as they move into their already serious primary campaigns for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1990. Mattox is trying to get labor to. make an early endorsement of his bid; Richards is trying to forestall such a move. Both camps have strong ties into organized labor. V HOUSTON MAYOR Kathy Whitmire’s opening campaign speech had a faMiliar ring to it. Whitmire said that just over a decade ago the city faced serious problems, including a police f6rce “known around the nation for its lack of professionalism,” a bus system known for breakdowns and delays, and an inadequate sewer system that polluted the city’s bayous, according to Houston Chronicle political writer Nene Foxhall. For some longtime political observers, Whitmire’s speech seemed like deja.vu all over again: the lines might have been lifted from a speech made by Fred Hofheinz, Whitmire’s challenger who served as Houston’s mayor from 1974-1977, when he decided not to seek re-election. Whitmire raised the issues, suggesting that she, and not Hofheinz, resolved many of the problems that Hofheinz identified more than ten years ago. Whitmire trails Hofheinz by just under ten points and faces opposition from municipal employees, labor, and other progressives who see her as a representative of the city’s business establishment rather than the somewhat iconoclastic progressive that many believed she was when she was first elected in 1981. In 1985 Whitmire defeated another ex =mayor, Louie Welch. But Welch was an old-line, chamber of commerce booster type \(and apparently a homophobe now remembered for his “Shoot telegenic appeal of Hofheinz. Nor did Welch 16 JUNE 30, 1989