ustxtxb_obs_1989_10_27_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

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 powerful 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. SINCE 1954 Publisher: Ronnie Dugger Editor: Louis Dubose Associate Editor: Allan Freedman Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka Editorial Intern: Karen Speed Calendar: Elisa Lyles Washington Correspondent: Mary Anne Reilly Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Warren Burnett, Jo Clifton, John Henry Faulk, Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, Bill Helmer, James Harrington, Amy Johnson, Michael King, Mary Lenz, Dana Loy, Tom McClellan, Bryce Milligan, Greg Moses, Debbie Nathan, Gary Pomerantz, John Schwartz, Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh Editorial Advisory Board: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerrville; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg; Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. Layout and Design: Layne Jackson Typesetter: Lana Kaupp Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hinterlang, Alan Pogue. Contributing Artists: Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods. Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons Development Consultant: Frances Barton SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $27, two years $48, three years $69. Fulltime students $15 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. 1989, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval Texas Observer Publishing Co., 307 West 7th Street, Austin, paid at Austin, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, P.O. Box 49019, Austin, Texas 78765 liE TEXAS b T server SINCE 1983, when he moved from the Texas House to the Texas Senate, Craig Washington has killed bad bills, amended potentially bad bills, and introduced his share of worthwhile legislation. Having mastered parliamentary tactics in the House, in the Senate Washington waged successful fights against bills that would have prevented municipal governments from banning guns, expanded the definition of capital murder, and diminished rights of the accused. It was Craig Washington who persisted until the final hour of the final day of the 70th session, in a fight against a tortreform package that would have eroded individuals’ rights to equity in court. Washington has carried legislation that protected persons with AIDS against discrimination. He has fought against the privitization of prisons and reduction in AFDC programs. In the last session he held his ground against conservative House members who would have used omnibus AIDS legislation to harm the very persons it was intended to help. Some of his fights have been more symbolic than substantive. Washington alone, on the final night of the 70th session, killed a bill that allowed investment of state funds in companies with ties to South Africa. And in what might have been be his last filibuster in Austin, Washington stood at 2 a.m., on July 19, talking to an empty Senate chamber. He was attempting to kill a proposal supporting an anti-flag-burning amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If Craig Washington is elected to replace Mickey Leland the Texas Senate will lose its most dedicated and eloquent defender of the Bill of Rights. Like the late Mickey Leland, Washington is a complex mix of ideology, principle, and pragmatism. Also like Leland, Washington has learned how to work effectively in a system in which, by philosophy and race, he is a minority. The only reservation that we offer in endorsing Craig Washington for Congress is our concern over who will replace him in Austin. The Senate will have lost its conscience. \(Note: The final Observer issue of 1989 will be dedicated to and focused on the career of U. S. Congressman Mickey AMENDMENTS SINCE ITS adoption in 1876 the Texas Constitution has been amended 307 times. The amendment procedure requires a two-thirds vote in each house and approval by the voters. On November 7, 21 amendments will appear on the ballot. The Observer makes the following recommendations: Proposition One is an attempt to raise legislators’ salaries to one-fourth of the governor’s salary, which is currently set at $93,432 per year. Legislators now earn $600 per month plus per diem expenses. The low salary is based on a nineteenthcentury concept of a volunteer, yeoman/lawyer Legislature that would meet every two years. The low salary, despite the intentions of the authors of the constitution, now serves to discourage people of modest means from running for the Texas House and Senate. And it is not reasonable compensation for legislators who perform year-round constituent service and are usually called back for one or more special sessions. \(Before the next general election, this Legislature will have served in at least three special sessions beyond the 140-day biennial The legislative pay raise is a wage-andhour issue. It is about public financing of government. It would take the power to increase legislative salaries away from the people, but the pay increase is overdue. And in a sense, the people get the government that they pay for. The ten most populous states pay their legislators an average of $32,437 per year. Of that group Texas, is dead last. The Observer votes yes on proposal number one. Proposition Two would allow the state to issue $500 million in bonds for water projects and funds for improvement in living conditions in colonias, \(unincorporated, rural or semi-rural residential subdivisions scattered along the would go a long way toward improving Third World conditions in which many live on the border, where tuberculosis, dysentery, encephalitis, and hepatitis are all too common because of improper public sanitation. Much of the bond money will be paid back by colonia residents who will be assessed monthly payments for water and sewer services. And much of the bond money is not limited to colonia development, but is available to communities where potable water and sewer systems are in need of funding. The passage of the joint resolution in the House and Senate was the result EDITORIAL Endorsements 2 OCTOBER 27, 1989