Monday, January 16, 1989
The Battalion
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Legislature gears up for week 2
AUSTIN (AP) — The Legislature
I enters its second week ol business in
I high gear Monday, with House com-
I mittees ready to receive bills weeks
I earlier than usual and a special panel
I working to resolve a state represen-
I tative’s election challenge.
House Speaker Gib Lewis, in a
I move he said broke a 30-year record,
I appointed House committees
I Wednesday, the second day of the
■ regular legislative session. Usuallv,
■ such appointments aren’t made for
I two to three weeks in the House.
The Fort Worth Democrat also
■ appointed a bipartisan panel to re
view the election contest in the Dis
trict 129 race. Democrat Ed Watson
of Deer Park is challenging Now 8
election results that caused him to
lose his House seat after 16 years.
Recount results showed Watson
losing by seven votes to Republican
Mike Jackson of La Porte — 13,009
to 13,002.
Hopes are that the issue can be re
solved within 10 to 15 days, Lewis
said. “It’s not a cut-and-dried issue,
he said.”
Watson said there were discrepan
cies in vote-counting, and he should
have won. He said he’s heard
Ex-militants now
work with system
“through the grapevine” that a new
election likely will be called.
But Jackson, who was seated with
other members last week, said. “I’m
sure the facts will show I’ve won the
race fair and square.’’
Lewis said he thinks it's likely the
House will divide along partv lines
over the issue. He said he doesn't
think that’s right, but he added, "I
think it’s just the way the system
works.”
Rep. Patricia Hill, R-Dallas, who is
vice-chairman of the special commit
tee, noted that Democrats out
number Republicans in the 150-
member House — 93 to 57. But she
said the matter shouldn’t be decided
by party affiliation.
“I think the committee, and I
hope the House, will reallv decide
this on the facts as they see them,”
Hill said.
The special committee will make
recommendations to the House,
which can allow Jackson to retain the
seat, replace him with Watson, or
call for a special election.
Also scheduled to meet this week
is a streamlined House Appropria
tions Committee, which has been re
duced from 29 to 23 members under
new House rules.
“It’s the old saying, ‘You can have
too many cooks in the kitchen,’ and
that’s exactly what has happened
with the appropriations committee,”
Lewis said.
The House also is getting a head
start on 1991 redistricting, with cre
ation of a committee with jurisdic
tion over preparations for that proc
ess.
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Associated Press
I Some of the state’s militant His-
[panics have given up the strident
(rhetoric of the 1960s and donned
(business suits to take places in the es-
(tablishment they once denounced.
But these former firebrands say
(they still hold on to the ideals of the
(Raza Unida Party.
Jose Angel Gutierrez, one of the
party’s founders, graduated from
the University of Houston law school
in December and is spending much
of his time studying for the 'Texas
bar exam.
Two other former party support
ers, Angel Noe Gonzalez and Jaime
de la Isla, work as top administrators
with the Houston school district’s
multilingual education department
and its af firmative action program.
All three said they evolved with
society to achieve the basic principles
of education and equal opportunity
that the Raza Unida Party promoted
as its platform.
But Gutierrez, director of the
Texas Rural Legal Aid Foundation,
still speaks on minority issues.
“Were still a nation in captivity,”
he said. “Minorities are used as a re
serve labor pool and remain under
developed.”
Gutierrez is a native of Crystal
City, the predominantly Hispanic
South Texas town that acted as a cat-
lyst in 1969 for Hispanic conscious
ness-raising in the state when he
helped organize a school boycott of
more than 1,700 Mexican-American
students. Those involved in the boy
cott called for bilingual education
and career and college counseling.
He went on to become school
board president and then Zavala
County judge in the 1970s, but polit
ical in-fighting among Raza Unida
members and a Democratic Com
missioners Court swept away Gutier
rez’s power base.
In 1980, he moved to Oregon and
didn’t return to Texas until 1986,
when he became director of the legal
foundation.
Angel Noe Gonzalez, now 59,
worked with Gutierrez in Crystal
City, where he was the school district
superintendent from 1970 to 1974.
Currently, he directs the Houston
Independent School District’s de
partment of multilingual programs.
“In those four years (in Crystal
City), I changed professionally and
indivdually as an educator, an ad
ministrator and as a human being,”
Gonzalez said.
“We were able to incorporate
what we did in Crystal City to have a
tremendous impact on education
and politics,” he said. “Back then we
had to fight the system, while now
we use the system.”
De la Isla came into contact with
La Raza Unida members at the Uni
versity of Houston and when he
joined the Mexican American Youth
Organization.
State employees work
as Texans honor King
Associated Press
Thousands of Texans began cele
brating Martin Luther King Jr.’s
birthday with parades and marches
this weekend, but state agencies and
some schools planned to remain
open during the federal holiday
Monday.
All federal and many city and
county agencies will close Monday in
honor of the slain civil rights leader.
Most stores and businesses, as well as
colleges, will remain open.
King’s oldest son, Martin Luther
King III, told a Dallas audience that
students who must attend class Mon
day can remember his father in
school.
The NAACP planned to demon
strate Monday against the Grand
Prairie school district’s decision not
to close, of ficials said.
“We’ll have signs, we’ll have
chants and we ll sing some songs just
to continue to press this issue,” said
Lee Alcorn, president of the Grand
Prairie chapter of the National Asso
ciation for the Advancement of Col
ored People.
But King said he thought his fa
ther would challenge a “school sys
tem to be a better school system, not
neressarilv to close it.” He did not
criticize districts that chose to remain
open, but encouraged students to
celebrate by “living a day in peace.”
King on Saturday encouraged the
overhaul of the city’s public housing
system and urged Dallas residents to
move forward with the recommen
dations made last week by a mayoral
commission that studied race rela
tions for nearly a year.
Actress Cicely Tyson gave a read
ing of portions of King’s speeches
and other passages relating the black
experience to a San Antonio audi
ence of 400 on Saturday night. Ty
son planned a similar appearance in
Dallas Monday.
On Monday, the Black Heritage
Society in Houston and the North
Houston Frontier Club will sponsor
a breakfast and parade. With Mayor
Kathy Whitmire making a formal
city declaration honoring King, the
two organizations will also sponsor
an afternoon tribute with entertain
ment and speeches at Hermann
Park.
In San Antonio, about 20,000
people will march from four direc
tions to the city’s Martin Luther
King Plaza Monday morning, orga
nizer Jaime P. Martinez said.
Drug smuggler
deals for leniency
HOUSTON (AP) — Informa
tion given to federal authorities
by a convicted Colombian drug
smuggler in exchange for a
shorter prison term resulted in
indictments against people who
allegedly worked for him, rather
than more important figures in
the organization, a newspaper re
port said.
In a copyright story, the Hous
ton Chronicle reported that Idi-
nael Martinez told prosecutors
shortly after his October 1984 ar
rest that he had information
about higher-ups in the Colom
bian smuggling ring, and agreed
to tesfify against them.
Martinez was arrested after
smuggling more than 1,800
pounds of cocaine into the Hous
ton area and faced up to 300
years in a federal prison.
Federal officials quickly struck
a deal with Martinez that in
cluded a 10-year maximum
prison sentence and putting Mar
tinez and his family in the federal
witness protection program.
The Chronicle said the federal
government also has paid Marti
nez $98,174 in the past three
years, including $4,000 in cash
within the past several months.
Now federal prosecutors admit
that Martinez headed the drug
distribution ring in the United
States and his cooperation has
primarily resulted in the indict
ment of alleged underlings in his
own organization.
Only one person who may have
played a larger role than Marti
nez in the smuggling operation
has been indicted. He is Pedro
Ortegon, a reputed drug ex
porter who is hiding in his native
Colombia.
“Martinez led the government
to believe that he could help them
catch the big fish,” said Kent
Schaffer, a defense attorney rep
resenting one of Martinez’s al
leged confederates. “Now they
realize that he is the big fish.”
As a result of Martinez’s coop
eration, federal authorities in
dicted 18 people in early 1987 for
allegedly participating in the
drug ring.
Eight of the defendants went
on trial Monday, but U.S. District
Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt declared
a mistrial Wednesday after a
scheduling conflict left one of the
defendants without an attorney.
Federal prosecutors refused to
be interviewed about Martinez,
the newspaper said.
But in opening statements at
the trial, chief prosecutor John
Lenoir described Martinez’s op
eration to jurors as a “Horatio
Alger” story, where a penniless
Colombian national parlayed one
kilo of cocaine into an illegal
“Fortune 500” operation within
several years.
He did that with the help of
many people, Lenoir said, includ
ing seemingly legitimate business
men who assisted him in acquir
ing airplanes and laundering the
profits from his drug distribution
network.
Federal authorities claim Mar
tinez’s drug ring was responsible
for importing more than 5,000
pounds of cocaine between 1982
and his arrest at Houston Inter
continental Airport in 1984, with
much of it smuggled into the
Houston area.
Some questions have been
raised about the money paid to
Martinez, which included
$29,000 for housing, $16,000 for
medical expenses and $39,000 in
spending money given to his wife,
according to information the
newspaper obtained.
1 wo $2,000 cash payments also
were made to Martinez while he
was a prisoner, including one that
came just weeks before he was
scheduled to take the witness
stand against the eight individu
als.
“Why does the government
pay a guy in federal prison
$4,000 in cash except to remind
him of his obligation to them,”
Schaf fer said.
But prosecutors said the pay
ments are legitimate expenses in
curred as the result of placing the
Martinez family in the witness
protection program.
Martinez is expected to return
to Houston to testify.
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