ustxtxb_obs_1994_11_25_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

ence to have a candidate with an almost 60 percent positive rating, with a moving economy and crime down three years in a row, with no personal scandal around and immigration wasn’t playing here like it was on the two coasts; it was inexplicable why those things could not be reduced to 30-second sound bites. In fact he clearly seized the crime issue away from her, which was little short of miraculous when you’ve got the data showing she had paroled onefourth of what her predecessor had paroled. “… It’s fairly true when people say she got caught in the Republican tide but she helped that by swimming too far out with her campaign,” Polinard said. Richards’ spokesman, Bill Cryer, said the voters were in no mood to listen to her accomplishments and many did not believe reports that crime was down and jobs and student test scores were up. Richard Murray, a pollster and professor of political science at the University of Houston, noted that the people who voted for President George H.W. Bush’s re-election in 1992 were much more motivated to come back to the polls this year than those who in 1992 voted for Clinton or Perot. Harris County voted about 40 percent for Bush in 1992 but 48 percent of the county’s voters on November 8 said they had voted for Bush and only about 32 percent had voted for Clinton. As in other areas of the state, Harris County turnout was high in white middleclass areas, with 65 percent of registered voters getting to the polls, while workingclass white and minority voters turned out at 40-45 percent. “I think you can still see Democratic strength in South Texas while Republicans do awfully well in the ring counties around the big cities,” Murray said, “but we still see the confirmation of the pattern that’s been developing over a quarter-century, where the Republicans have strength with white suburban voters and the Democrats have strength with the minorities, and the rural and small-town whites tend to be up for grabs. They went Republican in ’94.” Sanders Anderson, a political science professor at Texas Southern University, said African-American turnout of approximately 40 percent in Houston was slightly more than four years ago and went heavily Richards and the Democrats. Anderson said the turnout was not greater because African-American voters did not perceive Bush as much of a threat and Democrats paid little attention to the black vote until the last few weeks of the campaign. When Bush talked about fighting crime, reducing the age at which juveniles could be tried as adults and cutting welfare, Anderson said Richards failed to present her side of the story. “African-Americans are concerned about crime and welfare, but when it comes to crime I think African Americans look at solutions that are aimed more at prevention and rehabilitation,” Anderson said. While the state has made substantial efforts in those areas during Richards’ administration, Anderson said, it seemed all Richards was talking about was the number of prison cells she had built. And neither candidate had much to offer on welfare reform. “When it comes to getting people off welfare, we need to come up with jobs and child care and neither candidate was talking about raising the kind of funds you would need to do that,” he said. State Democratic Chairman Bob Slagle said Texas Democrats actually did well when compared with the rest of the country. In the case of Richards, he said, she had recovered in the polls the’last two weeks of the campaign but undecided voters opted for Bush in the last few days. The party did a good job of getting out the vote in targeted precincts, Slagle said, but ticket splitters spelled trouble for Richards and some other Democrats. For example, in Jefferson County, he said, Bullock, Sharp, Morales and Mauro and Bullock all ran 65 percent or better but Ann Richards ran at 55 percent, Parker ran at 57 percent and Jack Brooks only ran at 52 percent. “So obviously some of the vote we turned out was being selective about which Democrat they voted for, and swing voters obviously were willing to vote for a lot of our Democrats and not willing to vote for others,” Slagle said. Congress U.S. Representative Jack Brooks of Beaumont faced the wrath of Southeast Texas gun owners who were upset that he voted for the crime bill, with its ban on assault weapons, as well as the fact that he had been in Congress 42 years. Steve Stockman, a 37year-old accountant from Friendswood, a Houston suburb, who was making his third try for the seat, polled 5.1.9 percent of the vote as Brooks got 45.7 percent and two other candidates split 2.5 percent. Brooks, 71, narrowly won in his home base of Jefferson County but lost Chambers, Galveston and southeast Harris counties as he fell 9,710 votes short out of 156,797 cast. On election night, Brooks was quoted warning residents of the 9th District, “It’s going to be a new world.” Brooks’ ouster shocked Congressional colleagues. Charlie Wilson, a Lufkin moderate Democrat who voted against the crime bill and won an 1 1 th term with 57 percent of the vote in neighboring Deep East Texas District 2, said he knew Brooks was in trouble, despite the fact that as Judiciary Chairman he had bitterly fought the assault weapon ban. In the end, Wilson said, Brooks faced the choice of voting for the crime bill or losing his committee chair. Conservative Democratic Representative Bill Sarpalius of Amarillo lost to Republican challenger Mack Thornberry, who got 55.5 percent of the vote in Panhandle District 13, as the election left the state’s delegation at 19 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Progressive Democratic Representative John Bryant of Dallas, a critic of Democratic accommodationist tactics who called for Speaker Tom Foley to step down two years ago, survived with a plurality of 49.8 percent in the Fifth District, as Republican Pete Sessions got 47.6 percent and three other candidates split the remaining 2.6 percent. Moderate-to-progressive Democratic Representative Martin Frost of Dallas also was pressed before he emerged with 52.9 percent in District 24. In other tight races for Democrats, conservative Charles Stenholm got 53.7 percent in West Texas District 17; moderate-to-conservative Greg Laughlin of West Columbia got 55 percent of the vote against Jim Deats in Upper Gulf Coast District 14; and moderate Jim Chapman of Sulphur Springs won with 55.3 percent in the Northeast Texas First District . Dick Armey of Flower Mound is expected to be elected House Majority Leader when the 104th Congress convenes in January. While Texas loses committee chairs in Brooks at Judiciary, Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio at Banking and Kika de la Garza of Mission at Agriculture, Republicans Bill Archer of Houston will head the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee and Tom DeLay of Sugar Land is a leading contender for Majority Whip. Also, Gonzalez, as the senior Texas Democrat in Congress, will be responsible for recommending to the White House judicial candidates from Texas. The bright spots for Democrats were election of Lloyd Doggett in Austin and Ken Bentsen and Shirley Jackson Lee in Houston. Doggett, the former state senator and Supreme Court justice from Austin, got 56.3 percent against Jo Baylor, who got 39.8 percent, and three other candidates who split the remaining 4 percent, only to find out he had stepped down from his minority role on the state’s high court to take a minority role in the U.S. House. Bentsen, an investment banker and former Harris County Democratic chairman, got 52.3 percent of the vote to outpace Gene Fontenot, a hospital executive who got 45 percent after spending $2.4 million of his own money on the race while two other candidates split 2.7 percent. Other Democrats who won relatively handily were conservative Ralph Hall of Rockwall; moderate-to-conservative Chet Edwards of Waco; conservative Pete Geren of Fort Worth; moderate-to-conservative Kika De la Garza of Mission; progressive 8 NOVEMBER 25, 1994 *.rorkweityop.4.1.41r voiad e.o.^ Mr,,,y ,.4.0104.4,??M1, mn….to.40!1*%** 111100e.0`