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STATE & LOCAL
3
Monday, April 3,1989
Wright denounces story
in hometown newspaper
House speaker denies breaking 100 violations
FORT WORTH (AP) — House Speaker Jim
Wright denounced a newspaper’s story that quoted a
source close to the House ethics inquiry of Wright as
' saying the probe turned up an estimated 100 poten
tial congressional rules violations.
“It is absolutely absurd to suggest that 1 have bro
ken House rules on 100 occasions,” Wright said Sat
urday in a letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
which quoted the unnamed source in an article Fri
day.
“I feel very strongly, and my attorney agrees with
my conclusion, that I have not violated any such
rules at any time,” Wright, D-Fort Worth, said. “If I
have ever even technically violated any such rule, it
would have been unintentional.”
Wright has served the Fort Worth district in Con
gress since 1955 and became Speaker in 1987.
The Star-Telegram’s source said a report written
by special counsel Richard Phelan, a Chicago attor
ney, refers to the potential violations and that the in
vestigating committee has decided to release the re
port this week. Phelan submitted the report to the
committee in February and its contents have been
kept secret.
A spokesman for Wright, Mark Johnson, said Fri
day the committee’s report matters more than Phe
lan’s.
“Phelan made a presentation and the Speaker’s
lawyer made a presentation,” Johnson said. “Now we
are on the eve of a decision. That’s what matters.”
Wright said in his letter to the newspaper that he
has not enriched himself Financially from congres
sional service.
“What I have gained for my efforts is a good repu
tation, and 1 damn well resent any sniveling coward
who tries to take that away from me and my family
by planting anonymous stories based on innuendoes
in my local newspaper,” Wright said.
House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich said Sun
day that pending ethics allegations against Speaker
Jim Wright mean “we’re going to have a long and
difficult spring,” and renewed his prediction that
Wright will be out as speaker by June.
But House Majority Leader Thomas S. Foley, D-
Wash., appearing with Gingrich on NBC’s “Meet the
Press,” said he is confident the Texas Democrat will
be cleared of any wrongdoing.
And he charged that Gingrich brought the allega
tions against Wright in a politically motivated effort
to “vilify” the Democratic party leadership.
Gingrich said: “I think the evidence is already in
public record, pretty clear, that we’re going to have a
long and difficult spring. The evidence is going to be
overwhelming. I frankly think Mr. Foley is going to
be speaker by June.”
1 he Georgia Republican said the ethics committee
already has spent $1.6 million investigating Wright,
and he called on the panel — whose membership is
evenly split between Democrats and Republicans —
to make public a 460-page report prepared by its
special counsel, Richard Phelan.
“I think that it’s vital that we establish, as a Con
gress, our commitment to publish that report and to
release those documents so the country can judge
whether or not the man second in line to be presi
dent, the speaker of the House, should be in that po
sition,” Gingrich said.
Foley, who as majority leader ranks just behind
Wright in the House’s Democratic leadership, de
clared, “I am confident he‘s (Wright) going to be
cleared of violating any House rules and he will re
main the speaker of the House.”
Gramm misrepresents Texans
in Washington, opponent says
By Sharon Maberry
STAFF WRITER
, State Sen. Hugh Parmer, D-Fort
Worth, is running for the U.S. Sen
ate against incumbent Sen. Phil
Gramm because Gramm “doesn’t re
flect Texas values,” Parmer told
Bryan-College Station press mem
bers Friday.
“People need to understand the
differences between the way Phil
Gramm talks in Texas and the way
he votes in Washington,” Parmer
said.
“In Washington, he voted against
funding of the FBI, drug enforce
ment appropriations, additional
funds for the border patrol, Meals
on Wheels for shut-in elderly and
job retraining funds for displaced oil
workers, although in Texas, he said
he supported these issues.”
Parmer said he is in favor of in
creased funding for those programs.
“I realize that Gramm has a large
constituency in the Bryan-College
Station area,” he said, “but I’d be
willing to bet that if I stopped 10
Bryan-College Station people at ran
dom and asked if we should spend
more on these programs, 10 out of
10 would say ‘yes.’”
As an example of Gramm’s voting
record, Parmer cited an emergency
supplemental appropriation for con
tinued nutrition aid for 20,000 preg
nant women and babies in Texas
that was passed three years ago in
Washington by a vote of 71 to eight.
Gramm was among the eight sen
ators voting against the appropria
tions, Parmer said.
“It’s difficult to understand that
kind of political stinginess,” Parmer
said. “Gramm has misunderstood
Texas toughness. We’re tough on
criminals. We’re not tough on babies
or poor pregnant women or old
folks.
“During the next 19 to 20 months.
I’m going to show the people of
Texas that the real Phil Gramm is
one who doesn’t reflect Texas values
and that one who does reflect Texas
values is Hugh Parmer.”
Parmer said his political record is
strong in the area of law. He said he
supports the death penalty for serial
murderers and video-tape testimony
by victims of child abuse so they
wouldn’t have to appear in court.
Parmer has been the state senator
for the 12th District, within Tarrant
County, since 1983. He also has
served as mayor of Fort Worth, state
representative, Fort Worth City
Council member and Tarrant
County Hospital District Board
manager.
Lawmaker drafts ‘hate crimes’ bill
AUSTIN (AP) — Recent vandal
ism of synagogues and churches, as
well as violent crimes against minori
ties in Dallas, have prompted a
Houston legislator to draft a bill that
would increase penalties for so-
called “hate crimes.”
The legislation, which comes be
fore the Senate Criminal Justice
Committee Tuesday, would make
certain offenses such as murder, as-
Former KKK leader forms anti-Semitic movement
AUSTIN (AP) — Louis R. Beam Jr., the for
mer Ku Klux Klan leader acquitted last year of
conspiracy to overthrow the federal government,
said he is forming a new movement aimed at es
tablishing ties with groups in the Middle East.
The New Right movement wants to create a
national state “for the White man and an Aryan
Republic within the borders of the present occu
pied country,” Beam said, apparently referring
to the United States.
Beam discussed the new movement in a recent
quarterly journal he has begun publishing called
The Seditionist, and in an interview in Austin
with the Houston Chronicle.
“Factored into the new, thinking of the New
Right will be a new relationship of respect and
admiration for other races who have conducted
successful campaigns of liberation in their re
spective countries by throwing out the Zionist
Jews,” he said. “Syrians, Libyans, Iranians and
Palestinians will come to be looked upon in a fat-
more favorable light than previously.”
“When the time comes, I’ll have plenty to say.
It’s in the hands of the father, the heavenly fa
ther,” he said, referring to Yahweh, a favorite
figure in the racist Identity Church.
The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith,
which monitors extremist groups, calls the Iden
tity Church movement a pseudo-theological hate
movement that emerged as a noticeable presence
in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It holds that
Jews are the children of Satan and that the white
race is inherently superior to others.
An impassioned speaker, Beam gained na
tional fame in the 1960s and 1970s when he was a
Grand Dragon of the KKK in the Houston area.
He moved on to the Aryan Nations, and by 1987,
was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list.
sault and vandalism more serious if
they are committed because of the
victim’s race, ethnicity, sex, age, sex
ual orientation or religion.
“There has been a dramatic in
crease in this type of crime in Texas
in the last five or six years,” Sen.
Craig Washington, D-Houston, told
the Dallas Morning News.
“In some places it has become
fashionable to voice group hatred
out loud. This is something our so
ciety ought to be beyond,” Washing
ton said. “Sadly enough, we are not.”
Among the organizations sup
porting the measure are the Dallas
Anti-Defamation League, American
Jewish Congress, Texas Catholic
Conference, Texas Baptist Christian
Life Commission, Texas Civil Liber
ties Union, Texas Women’s Political
Caucus and Lesbian-Gay Rights
Lobby of Texas.
“This is a class of crime and a type
of criminal that deserves special at
tention,” Dallas lawyer Michael
Stone recently told members of the
criminal justice committee.
Stone, vice chairman of the Dallas
Anti-Defamation League, said the
league — which monitors the activ
ities of extremist groups — detected
no anti-Semitic acts in Texas in the
five-year period before 1987.
But in 1987, the league had re
ports of five such acts in the state,
and the number of incidents bal
looned to 23 last year.
In the Dallas area in recent
months, Temple Shalom, the Jewish
Community Center and a Jewish-
owned business in Richardson were
painted with swastikas and anti-Se
mitic graffiti and windows were shot
out. Two synagogues in Waco also
were vandalized.
“This represents only the begin
ning of the problem, and these only
are acts against the Jewish commu
nity,” Stone said.
In addition, the Islamic Associa
tion of North Texas mosque in Rich
ardson was vandalized and two Dal
las gay men were killed last year by a
Mesquite teen-ager.
Washington’s bill would elevate a
criminal offense one degree if the
crime was motivated out of group
hatred or bigotry.
HOPE
IN HARD TIMES
The peace movement
of the 80"s and how
individuals can make
a difference in the
world.
A Talk by
Paul Loeh
Monday
April 3, 1989
701 Rudder
Free Admission
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