ustxtxb_obs_1992_08_21_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

Even when Bush cuts the military budget, he comes in for criticism at home. His plan to slash production of B-2 Stealth bombers to 20 from 75 would cost jobs at the Dallas-area LTV plant, a major subcontractor on the project. His Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, has repeatedly sought to kill Bell Helicopter Textron’s tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey, only to have Congress order him to spend the money on the aircraft; Cheney also would phase out of production of General Dynamic’s F-16 jet fighter. On the eve of Bush’s recent visit, General Dynamic announced it would cut 5,800 employees from its Fort Worth payroll by the end of 1994; Democrats accused the President of barring a job-saving sale of up to 180 F-16s to Taiwan for fear of upsetting communist China. Taiwan began negotiating with France for Mirage jets. Texas officials got no satisfaction from Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher of Houston on the undercount of minorities in the 1990 census. Mosbacher, who is now Bush’s campaign manager, decided to let the botched figures stand; as a result Texas is expected to lose at least $1 billion in federal aid. In Texas, the unemployment rate has risen to 8.2 percent, claims for unemployment compensation are up 5 percent over last year, oil and gas production taxes are $50 million below estimates and auto tax income is $40 million less than forecast. It’s little wonder that Democrats are smiling and Republican congressmen are talking about skipping the convention and distancing themselves from the national ticket. Texas Republican Party leaders blustered about a “bloodless coup” and threatened to go back to court to regain the advantages the Legislature denied them, but Secretary of State John Hannah waved two court orders at them as he ordered Texas Senate elections held under the plan drawn by the Legislature. After consulting with Democratic elected officials, including Attorney General Dan Morales, Hannah acted on the strength of a ruling by a three judge federal court in Washington which found the redistricting plan which the Legislature approved this past January does not violate minority voting rights. The Washington court, which included two Democratic appointees, conflicted with a three-judge federal panel headed by Judge James Nowlin in Austin. That court all Republican appointees accepted a GOP challenge of the Democratic Legislature’s map, drawn with the help of a GOP state representative who later ran for one of the seats. The D.C. court found that the Democratic plan would have elected one more Hispanic senator than the GOP/court plan, which was supposed to preserve minority voting rights. Democrats hope reinstating SB 1 will maintain the two-thirds Democratic majority in the 31-member Senate. SB 1 would strengthen the re-election chances of incumbent Democratic senators Bob Glasgow of Stephenville and Ted Lyon of Rockwall and it could revive Senator Temple Dickson D= Sweetwater, a trial lawyer who lost his pri mary election to Senator Bill Sims, D-San Angelo, in a marginally Republican district; Dickson was resurrected in Democratic District 24 as state Rep. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio, stepped aside to to become the nominee in District 19, a district that starts in San Antonio and runs almost to El Paso, diluting the name recognition of Republican nominee Ernest Ancira, a San Antonio car dealer. In the San Antonio area, District 19 Democratic nominee Greg Luna, a state representative, became the nominee in District 26, which turned from a Republican Hill County district into an urban San Antonio district, as Carlos Higgins of Austin stepped aside. Sims would run in a more Republican District 25 against state Rep. Troy. Fraser, R-Big Spring. Sims has said he would join the Republicans in challenging Hannah’s action. In the Houston area, the Nowlin panel put fewer Hispanics in the “Hispanic” Senate district in Harris County than did the Legislature; Senator John Whitmire defeated Rep. Roman Martinez in the court-ordered district. Under SB 1, Martinez gets the nod to represent the Democrats in District 6, which was Republican under the court plan; Whitmire would remain the nominee in District 15. SB1 also enhances Continued from pg. 2 become a trademark of the democratic party, a position, incidentally, greatly influenced by the secular media which we all absorb with our morning coffee. Television, especially, is written and directed to degrade and humiliate practitioners of organized religion almost all the time. Do a little test for yourself: How many times have you see religious people, especially Christians, portrayed in a positive light in a current TV show? Are they not almost always portrayed as narrow-minded buffoons or vindictive axe-murderers? The vast majority if the American people are religious. A party that would become a majority party again would take a definitive stance against the cultural and media prejudice and say a few kind words about religion. Democratic leaders \(and newspaper opinion the religious community again. Mr. Freedman spoke of being on a personal search for leadership. For all democrats, it is imperative to Senator Chet Brooks’ re-election chances. Republicans charged that Democrats were manipulating the redistricting process as if the actions of the GOP and Nowlin, a former Republican state representative, did not constitute manipulation. An investigation by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resulted in a reprimand of Nowlin and his recusal from the case. Nowlin was replaced on the panel by U.S. District Judge Harry Hudspeth of El Paso, a Democratic appointee. Even if the Austin court allows the Legislature to go ahead, the Republicans succeeded in pitting minorities against organized labor, which backed white incumbents in newly-created “Hispanic” Senate and Congressional districts in Houston. GOP-inspired gerrymandering in South Texas also helped business-oriented Senator Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, win reelection against a progressive opponent in the Democratic primary. The Democratic power grab may not look pretty and the fight probably will be drawn out, but as one Democratic strategist said, “If we don’t do this part well dealing with the legal and mechanistic elements of the election the philosophical and ideological concerns don’t have a chance.” J.C. make the distinction between what political leaders can do for us, and what they cannot. The classic democratic line was that “Jesus saved my soul and FDR saved the farm.” The folk wisdom involved was the recognition that there are temporal as well as eternal goals to be sought in life, and we do well to seek the appropriate structures and societies that will help us seek those goals. Most card-carrying democrats understand the need to organize and work together to seek temporal goals. Too many of my party seem to think that personal, philosophical, and ethical goals can only be sought individually. It just isn’t so. Humans are social animals which is why we need political parties, and which is why we need organized religion. When the Democratic Party forsakes its sophomoric ignorance of religious values, then we will be on the way to the party of the people again. Wayne Walther Lockhart, Tx. OBSERVER PREVIEWS As we go to press, the Observer editors and interns loin the media pilgrimage to the Republican Party Revival in Houston. Convention coverage will be included in the following issue. Life after Gib? A group of reformers have set out to change the way the House selects its speaker. Of the last four, only Price Daniel Jr. was never indicted or pleaded guilty to a crime. Is change possible? THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5