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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1990)
— ITe.asA*M _ J_J_ | • The Battalion Vol. 90 No. 45 USPS 045360 12 Pages College Station, Texas PI« Just one step away Junior cornerback Kevin Smith goes for record j kx: - See Page 9 Friday, November 2, 1990 Republican chairman charges registrar with hindering voters “This is voter intimidation, and it’s against the law.” — Rodger Lewis, Brazos County Republican chairman By JAMES M. LOVE Of The Battalion Staff The Brazos County Republican chairman charged the county’s voter registrar with trying to prevent al most 2,000 people — most of whom are Texas A&M students — from voting in the upcoming election while the registrar maintains he did everything within the law to ensure these students could vote. Rodger Lewis said Thursday dur ing a press conference that Buddy Winn, a Democrat, deliberately sent voter registration cards addressed to Brazos County back to counties that applicants listed as permanent ad dresses. “Winn knows the majority of A&M students will vote Republican,” Lewis said. “He also knows many students will be confused by the per manent address blank on the voter registration card.” Lewis said cards are poorly worded, and many students do not realize they should list local ad dresses as their permanent address to vote in Brazos County. Regardless of the county listed on their registration forms, the students are eligible to vote in the upcoming election. Texas Secretary of State George Bayoud ruled Wednesday that those with the wrong county listed were eligible to vote in Brazos County because they attempted to register locally before deadline. “In previous elections, Winn has had deputy voter registrars call ap plicants and correct the cards,” he said. Lewis said that this year Winn failed to call applicants, but has sent the cards to counties that applicants listed as their permanent addresses. He charges this was done to keep students from voting in Brazos County. “I think it’s interesting he went to all the trouble of finding the home counties of these people, but won’t contact them when their phone numbers are right on the card,” he said. During a phone interview Thurs day night, Winn said he was no longer allowed to contact people to find out if they had listed Brazos County as where they wanted to vote. A one-year-old state law pro hibits Winn from calling voters. House Bill 1563, passed in Sep tember 1989, states county voter registrars have two days to send ap plications with a different county listed as the permanent address to that other county. “My job is to accept the applica tions and send them to their rightful counties,” Winn said. “I am not sup posed to try to figure out what peo ple really meant. “In the past, I did indeed call these people and ask if they really wanted to register where they said. The new (law) said I no longer had the right to do this and that it was not up to me to guess what was meant on the application. That’s what the law says.” Lewis said Winn has published the names of those with permanent ad dresses outside of Brazos County on a list, and instructed election judges and clerks to prevent these people from voting Nov. 6. “This is voter intimidation, and it’s against the law,” Lewis said. “This is no small percentage, and it’s certainly enough to make a signifi- See Voters/Page 5 GOP accused Democrats: Voter intimidation used to influence outcomes WASHINGTON (AP) — Dem ocrats charged Thursday that Re publicans are trying to intimidate minority voters in North Carolina and Texas and asked the attorney general to step in to protect vot ing rights. The Democrats said postcards the GOP mailed to voters in heav ily African-American sections of North Carolina and East Texas contained misleading or outright false information. Postcards sent to elderly Tex ans in Gregg County who had re quested absentee ballots urged them to 'throw that mail ballot in the trash” and “walk proudly into the voting place ... in honor of the many who fought and died for your right to walk into the polls.” Democratic Party Chairman Ron Brown said that in Texas, once someone requests an absen tee ballot, they cannot vote in per son without going through a com plicated procedure to cancel the absentee ballot. Brown wrote to all 50 state Re publican chairmen reminding them of a 1982 consent decree he said bars them from conducting “ballot intimidation and ballot se curity activities.” Tne letter also reminds the chairmen that the Orange County (Calif.) Republican Party- last year paid a $400,000 set tlement after being sued for in timidating Hispanic voters in 1988. The party hired armed, uniformed security guards to re quest identification from people as they arrived at polling places. In a hand-delivered letter to Attorney General Dick Thorn burgh and John Dunne, the assis tant attorney general for civil rights, Brown asked for an imme diate investigation into possible civil rights violations. “The Republican National Committee has nothing to do with this. Period,” RNC spokeswoman Leslie Goodman said. Centerpole ceremony JAY JANNER/The Battalion Brownpots Matt May, Paul Neuhaus and John Lee watch as the Aggie Bonfire centerpole is raised Thursday at Duncan Field. PITS official explains revised parking rules By TROY HALL Of The Battalion Staff With all the parking changes at Texas A&:M in the past year, some students are unaware many were recommendations from the student parking oversight committee. Formed in Fall 1989, the commit tee made recommendations from a student survey completed last year by on-campus students. The committee was comprised of two people from Off Campus Ag gies. two from Student Government and two from the Residence Hall As sociation. Kathie Mathis, administrator for the Department of Parking, Transit and Traffic Services, chaired the committee. “We worked all year long on the report,” Mathis says. “The student committee is one of the most effec tive and professional I have ever worked with.” One committee recommendation resulted in 30-minute spaces. These spaces are intended only for short term parking. “The parking oversight commit tee found students never have a place to park whenever they are loading or unloading their vehicles or when dates come to campus to pick them up because they may or may not have permits,” Mathis says. Parking permits are not needed to park in 30-minute spaces, but Mathis emphasizes the time limit is enforced strictly. The creation of University busi ness spaces has resulted in many questions regarding who can park in them. Mathis says University business spaces are for people conducting business at certain areas on campus, but they must have an appropriate sticker. However, on weekdays between 4 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. and during weekends and faculty-staff holidays, students with valid A&M parking permits also can park in these spaces without being ticketed. Unlike previous years, the park ing department now patrols the A&M campus seven days a week. “We do not ticket on Saturdays and Sundays for not having a per mit,” she says. Since the parking department has gone to seven-day enforcement, many students have wanted to know how the department tickets during weekends. Campus enforcement is provided everyday from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., but visitors are allowed to park on campus without a permit Saturdays and Sundays. Enforcement of red on-campus parking and blue day-student park ing during breaks and holidays also has changed. “In the past, students without per mits parked in red and blue spaces from the time finals were over in De- See Parking/Page 5 Rocket man Astronaut By ELIZABETH TISCH Of The Battalion Staff The next generation can look for ward to crafts transporting them to and from space stations, and there fore, aerospace engineers have an exciting future ahead of them, a NASA astronaut said Thursday night. NASA Astronaut Col. Loren Shriver spoke to Texas A&M aero space engineering students. “There are already people think ing about a spacecraft that will either take the place of the shuttle or supplement it that will do its ow n ex ploration,” Shriver said. “Space- gives vision of future crafts that will carry people in orbit, back and forth to space stations (also are being looked into).” Shriver, commander of the STS- 31 Space Shuttle Discovery crew, spoke extensively about his five-day mission in which the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed. The shuttle commander said the crew’s reactions to deployment prob lems with the space telescope were mixed. “There are several years worth of training, developing the tools and procedures (and) practicing hour af ter hour,” he said. “And two mem bers of the crew were five minutes from going outside the shuttle be fore we stopped them.” “There are already people thinking about a spacecraft that will either take the place of the shuttle or supplement it that will do its own exploration.” — Col. Loren Shriver, NASA Astronaut He said this was disappointing to them because they were anxious to go outside the shuttle. “But on the other hand, not going out meant the (telescope) method fi nally worked, and that is more in line of good news because you never want anything to fail.” The crew not only kept busy or chestrating the telescope, but also conducted a variety of mid-deck ex periments involving the study of protein crystal growth, polymer membrane processing and the ef fects of weightlessness and magnetic Fields of an ipn arc. They also operated various cam eras that observed the Earth from their record-setting altitude of 380 miles. “From that altitude, the view you have of the Earth is beautiful,” he said. “It also gives vou the impres sion that the Earth is not such a big place after all.” Shriver said damage to the envi ronment is evident even from space. “Human beings are doing some bad things to the environment, and it is pretty easy to see that from spa ce,” he said. During a slide presentation, Shriver pointed out dark areas on prints of the Earth which indicated locations of heavily populated cities where environmental damage has occurred. Shriver has logged more than 194 hours in space which include his three-day mission in the Space Shut tle Discovery in 1985 and his most recent expedition with the STS-31 crew. Local candidate forum program held to help voters make educated choices By BILL HETHCOCK Of The Battalion Staff Candidates for local offices mingled with students Thursday in the MSG during a program aimed at making students more aware of candidates and issues in the Nov. 6 elections. Ron Heath, chairman of MSG Political Forum, says he thinks the “Come Meet the Candidates” program was a success, “The candidates were willing to come out and meet with stu dents, and both gained by getting to know each other better,” he says. Seventeen candidates gave speeches in the MSG Flagroom and spoke one-on-one with stu dents in the MSG main hallway. The program’s goal was to ed ucate students about political races that haven’t received sub stantial coverage in the media, says Heath, a junior political sci ence major from Wharton. “This was a great way to in form many students, especially in some of the lesser-known local ra ces.” Heath says he hopes the pro gram will encourage more stu dents to vote and make educated choices at the ballot box. “Some people feel that one vote doesn’t count very much, but if everyone felt that way, there would be no use living in a demo cratic society,” he says. “This gives people a chance to put the candidates they believe in into of fice.” Heath says voters often know where they stand on the issues but don’t know which candidate represents their viewpoint. The election awareness program was a way to match the candidates with the issues. Mock elections have been held during past Political Forum-spon sored election awareness pro grams. However, the organization chose to focus on educating stu dents instead of attempting to poll them this year. TEAC: Clean Air Act of 1990 falls below restrictions of other countries By KATHERINE COFFEY Of The Battalion Staff The Clean Air Act of 1990 is a step in the right direction but isn’t as strong as an act proposed earlier this year, the president of the Texas En vironmental Action Coalition says. Charles Albert, a Texas A&M graduate student in physics, says he thinks even if the act is passed the United States still won’t have re quirements as strict as industrialized nations including Japan, West Ger many or France. Congress passed the legislation Saturday — the first of its kind in 13 years. The act aims to tighten emission controls on cars, better control pol lution by businesses contributing to urban smog problems and reduce acid rain. The act also calls for cleaner-burning gasoline blends. Albert, TEAC spokesman, says he thinks the act is the best President Bush will allow and the most the country can hope for. “It seems we (United States) are behind the industrialized nations in trying to curve the C02 (carbon di oxide) emissions into the ozone layer because other countries have passed stronger regulations,” Albert says. “I’m disappointed because the act is placing a ceiling on C02 emissions to be the same as the 1987 level, but it is not requiring a cutback,” Albert says. “In the long run, it still won’t make a difference on helping de- See Clean Air/Page 5