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Fisher produced little to project himself back into the race during the October 21 joint appearance with Hutchison. Both candidates basically agreed on the need to keep government out of regulating business as much as possible, although Hutchison took pains to distance herself from environmental regulations with the incredible claim that 10 percent of cars cause pollution, so it’s not worth the cost to test the rest of them. Fisher put some distance between himself and Hutchison with his opposition to assault weapons, which the Republican senator would not have banned. He also established himself as pro-choice on abortion, while Hutchison would place restrictions on abortions. She placed herself foursquare in favor of term limits, national defense and strong families. Fisher had the best line of the evening: “If you took the word ‘no’ out of Kay Bailey Hutchison’s vocabulary, she would be speechless.” Get out the checkbook, Richard. LEUT. GOV. BOB BULLOCK is so sure of re-election that he had heart ypass surgery in September so he could be fully recovered in time for the next legislative session. His Republican opponent, H.J. “Tex” Lezar, a lawyer and rightwing public policy activist who worked in the Nixon and Reagan administrations, spent much of the campaign attacking President Clinton. By the time Lezar focused on Bullock, the Democratic incumbent was back on his feet and running far ahead in the polls. Attorney General Dan Morales, who has taken an increasingly conservative turn this past year, faces Republican Don Wittig, a state district judge in Houston. [See story on pg. 5.] Comptroller John Sharp, who previously announced he was seeking one more term as state Comptroller of Public Accounts, faces Teresa Doggett, an Austin accountant who has trouble keeping track of her own private businesses. She hired Ed Rollins, of New Jersey “walking-around money” infamy, as her campaign consultant. Her campaign appears to be walking around in a daze. In the race for Agriculture Commissioner, Marvin Gregory, a plain-looking and plain-talking Sulphur Springs farmer, faces an uphill fight against the good-looking and well-financed incumbent Rick Perry, a former Democrat who was recruited into the GOP in 1990 to unseat Jim Hightower. Gregory, former Hopkins County Republican chairman, switched to the Democratic Party in 1991 when he realized the Republicans were not interested in helping family farmers. He criticized Perry for supporting big agribusiness at the expense of family farmers and consumers. There’s no surprise that he has raised only $26,000 and spent $63,260 while Perry has raised more than $500,000.. In the race for Land Commissioner, Republicans have attacked Garry Mauro’s personal business problems, his politicking for Bill Clinton, and his coastal management plan as Mauro seeks a fourth term. Mauro filed for bankruptcy in 1992, blaming bad real-estate investments that had been in a blind trust since he took office in 1983, but he reminds voters that the state land he manages has produced $2.7 billion for the Permanent School Fund in that time and the Veterans Land Board, which he chairs, is expected to make $200 million in loans to veterans and their families this year. He also has been active in promoting the use of natural gas and recycling and led in the creation of oil-spill and coastal management programs and the stopping of ship-dumping of garbage in the Gulf of Mexico. His Republican opponent is Marta Greytok, a business consultant who, as a member of the Public Utility Commission from 1988 to 1993, was the swing vote for $1.7 billion worth of rate increases. Texas had the seventh-highest average residential utility rates when she got on the PUC, but when she left in August 1993 to run for land commissioner, after raising electrical bills for the average Texas household by 22 percent, the state had the nation’s highest residential rates, Mauro noted, citing Edison Electric Institute figures. In Texas Railroad Commission races, Commissioner Jim Nugent, who has served on the Commission since 1979, faces Republican Charles Matthews, a former Garland mayor. In the other seat up for election, Mary Scott Nabers, running for a two-year unexpired term, faces Republican Carole Keeton Rylander, a business consultant and former Austin mayor who managed Walter Mondale’ s presidential campaign in 1984, switched parties and unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Representative Jake Pickle in 1986, ran Clayton Williams’ gubernatorial campaign in 1990 and lost a GOP primary election for the Railroad Commission. The race for state Treasurer features the unlikely spectacle of a Republican, Austin banker David Hartman, arguing that the state needs a bureaucracy, the Treasury, which Democratic interim appointee Martha Whitehead, the former Longview mayor, wants to do away with. It would be hard for disgruntled voters to pass up the chance to vote to do away with a state agency. REPUBLICANS have stumbled in high court races as two GOP judicial nominees have been caught “embel lishing” their resumes. Priscilla Owen, a Houston lawyer who specialized in oil and gas cases jumped from obscurity to the Republican nomina tion for the Texas Supreme Court, but after she boasted of her legal accomplishments, the Texas Lawyer magazine searched Lexis and Westlaw databases and found she was not listed as attorney of record in any published appellate cases in Texas or federal courts. The magazine found she was attorney of record in two unpublished cases involving energy companies in the Fort Worth and Eastland appeals courts. But she has received $785,000 in campaign contributions, mainly from defense lawyers and businesses, while plaintiffs’ lawyers have supplied most of the $1.1 million collected by the Democrat in the race, Chief Justice Jimmy Carroll of the Third Court of Appeals in Austin. Carroll also questioned how Owen justified her endorsement of the Texas Civil Justice League PAC in a fundraising brochure, even as Owens criticized Carroll for commenting on the gubernatorial race and indicating support for the Democratic ticket. The brochure for the TCJL PAC, which aims to elect judges and legislators who are sympathetic to business and insurance interests, also included plugs from two other conservative justices seeking re-election: Democrat Raul Gonzalez and Republican Nathan Hecht. Hecht’s Democratic opponent, Chief Justice Alice Oliver Parrott of the First Court of Appeals in Houston, noted that the Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits judges from allowing their names to be used to raise funds for other candidates or for a purpose other than the furtherance of justice. Hecht, who has received $1.52 million in contributions, has criticized Parrott, who has received $857,000, for failing to itemize credit card expenses and a $250,000 media buy in the Democratic primary. Parrott staffers noted that Hecht claimed $60,000 more in contributions than he actually received, apparently due to an error in addition. On the Court of Criminal Appeals, there is no vested interest to bankroll candidates as there is on the Supreme Court. The Texas Lawyer noted that the 12 candidates for the state’s highest criminal courts raised only $222,415, or less than 5 percent of the $4.6 million raised by Supreme Court candidates between July 1, 1993, and June 30, 1994. So incumbent Democratic Judge Charles Campbell has few resources to spread the word that, as Texas Lawyer reported, Stephen Mansfield, the Republican nominee, has misrepresented his birthplace, exaggerated his legal experience and “forgot” about two races he ran for Congress in New Hampshire. Mansfield also had failed to pay a statewide attorney tax. Although Mansfield spent most of the past 12 years as counsel for several insurance companies, he claimed he had handled 100 criminal cases, but the magazine was unable to confirm any appearances in Texas criminal 12 OCTOBER 28, 1994 ,,Yr!Ple1 ,-.;