ustxtxb_obs_1992_02_14_50_00021-00000_000.pdf

PEOPLE Make a world of difference ! We’re proud of our employees and their contributions to your success and ours. Call us for quality printing, binding, mailing and data processing services. Get to know the people at Futura. FUTURA P.O. Box 17427 Austin, TX 78760.7427 389-1500 COMMUNICATIONS. INC. He plans a dual .attack. with “The Income Disparities Act of 1991,” which would prevent businesses from taking tax deductions for executive salaries that are more than 25 times higher than the salary of the lowest-paid worker. In a letter to his colleagues, Sabo wrote, “I don’t see why the taxpayer should have to subsidize those levels of pay through business tax deductions.” He thinks his method would benefit all workers. “While my proposal would not stop excessive salaries at the top, it would end indirect support of them through the corporate income tax structure,” he wrote. By tying the tax write-off to the difference between the highestand lowest-paid people, Sabo maintains his efforts will also encourage raising the lowest pay levels. You can imagine what corporate America thinks of this plan. “Dribble,” is how Tom Pearl, vice president with Chemical Securities many of the highly-compensated when he says Sabo’s effort would simply drive a class wedge into society. Pearl has plenty of company. And that kind of company will probably derail Sabo’s bill. Sabo himself is not too optimistic. He says we will just have to see “if we are ready for it in 1992.” The corporate world certainly is not ready for it, although Stephen Werling, with the University of Texas at San Antonio’s College of Business, believes the recent exposure of CEOs will probably result in some self-discipline. There are signs of this already. For example, William D. Ruckelshaus, CEO of the Houston-based waste management firm, Browning-Ferris, wrote his own prescription. In 1990, USA said his total compensation, including stock options and other perks, was worth $4.21 million. While a Browning-Ferris spokesman disputed this figure, he said Ruckelshaus did award himself a $360,000 bonus that year, in which the company lost $45 million. Last year, with profits up $65 million, Ruckelshaus waived his right to his bonus. Now who says a fox can’t behave himself in the hen house? Cluck, cluck. Political Intelligence Continued from page 24 stocking scandal that led to a reorganization of the TPWD four years ago, as well as his recent plea bargain on two misdemeanor charges. WRONG HIGHTOWER. Incumbent Texas Supreme Court Justice Jack Hightower may have signed onto too many Republican court decisions, as far as the Texas AFL-CIO is concerned, as the labor federation’s Committee on Political Education endorsed challenger Paul Banner, a state district judge from Greenville, in the Democratic primary. Texas Lawyer, a trade journal, reported that Hightower in 1991 aligned himself with three Republicans on the court, and had sided with Chief Justice Tom Phillips, a Republican, 91 percent of the time, compared with 32-percent agreement with Justice Oscar Mauzy, a labor-oriented Democrat. The labor group also endorsed Mauzy, who is running for re-election; State District Judge Rose Spector, a San Antonio Democrat, for Place 2 against incumbent Justice Eugene Cook, a Republican; three Democratic incumbents for the Court of Criminal Appeals, judges Charles Baird, Morris Overstreet and Pete Benavides; and Lena Guerrero for the Texas Railroad Commission. V LT. GOV. BOB BULLOCK surprised some this past month when he announced that he was reversing his stance on the need for an income tax and said he would oppose any new taxes during next year’s legislative session, with . the possible exception of taxes required to finance public schools. While Bullock has another two years on his term, Republicans charged him with an election-year conversion to save Democratic senators endangered by a federalcourt-ordered redistricing plan that could give the Senate an historic number of Republican’s next spring and shift the balance of power back to the conservatives. Bullock’s choice df Rep. Bruce Gibson, D-Godley, a bill-fixer, as his new chief of staff may help him adapt to the new political reality. GARDNER RESIGNS. In a surprising move, Attorney General Dan Morales forced the resignation of his best-known deputy, assistant AG Steven Gardner. Gardner, who headed the Dallas consumer protection office, had garnered national attention, including a profile in the Wall Street Journal last summer, for his aggressive pursuit of misleading corporate advertising. Some of his major cases included prosecutions against cereal manufacturers, Chrysler Corp., and Procter & Gamble. All parties were being closed-mouth about the dismissal, at least for the record. According to Wayne Slater, reporting the incident.in the Dallas Morning News, one possible motive could have been Gardner’s recent warning to makers of alcoholic beverages to avoid advertising that would encourage teenagers to drink. Morales, Slater noted, has received at least $60,000 from the liquor lobby. Or, the story speculated, Morales might have chafed at Gardner’s high-profile approach; the AG has sought to focus media attention upon himself instead of his assistants. Gardner is an aggressive, some would say abrasive lawyer, but certainly an effective one. He said he’ll practice consumer law in Dallas. THE TEXAS OBSERVER series on George W. Bush and Harken Energy Co. has been named one of the ten winners of the Project Censored awards, which are chosen annually to recognize coverage of important stories the major media outlets “overlooked, spiked, or just didn’t seem to understand.”The project, judged by a distinguished panel of journalists and academic figures, honored four publications, including the Texas Observer, for their coverage of “The Bush family and its conflicts of interest.” The Observer stories, “Global Entanglements ” \(TO, 9/20/91, and “Oil in mer editor David Armstrong. Another Observer article, “Have Badge, Will Travel \(TO, tion, out of more than 700 entries. Also, A Ward County grand jury recently indicted Ronald Ray Tucker, a former undercover informant for the department, for allegedly skimming funds from one of the reverse-sting operations THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21