siduLJiecr;
Election ’90
Page 6B
Bryan man seeks
Education position
AUSTIN (AP) — Charles Jones of
Bryan is the only challenger this election
to an incumbent on the State Board of
Education, Democrat Will Davis.
Jones, a Republican who works with
school districts as Job Training Part
nership Act administrator for the Brazos
Valley Private Industry Council, notes
the race doesn’t get much attention.
Jones said, “A large number of people
are not familiar with what the State
Board of Education does.”
The two are competing to represent
the Education Board’s District 10, which
includes 16 Central Texas counties.
Seven of the board’s 15 seats are up for
election this year, but the other races are
uncontested.
While low-profile, the State Board of
Education race is an important one in
Texas, whose 1,068 school districts
spend $14 billion a year in state aid, local
tax money and federal funds.
The board adopts rules to implement
state law, carries out education policy
and approves the textbooks that are
used in public schools. It also will screen
and recommend the education commis
sioner to be appointed by the next gov
ernor.
Davis, chairman of the Education
Board’s finance committee, said devising
a constitutional school finance plan is the
state’s most pressing education issue.
A state judge has ruled that the cur
rent system is unfair to poor school dis
tricts.
“The first thing we’ve got to do is get
this finance plan acceptable to the
courts,” said Davis, 61. “My committee
and I presented a plan last year about
this time that in my judgment would
have been declared constitutional by the
court.”
A similar plan likely will be presented
to the Legislature when it convenes in
January, Davis said.
“A constitutional plan will be a more
expensive plan. That’s one thing the
Legislature has to face up to,” he said.
“We’re at the bottom of the barrel in
comparison to other states.”
While it’s not the Education Board’s
job to raise taxes, Davis said, he would
support any plan lawmakers devise to
fund a constitutional school system.
Jones, a former teacher and school
administrator, said, “I am not against
more money for the schools. But my po
sition, if I were elected to the school
board, would be to try to do ... things
that would help kids and teachers that
did not involve a great deal more
money.”
A chief problem is “massive amounts
of paperwork” required of teachers, he
said.
Jones, 59, said he’d work to keep pa
perwork at a minimum, and to give
schools as much flexibility as possible in
educating children.
Davis been on the State Board of Edu
cation since 1988, and he also served in
1982-84. He was an Austin school board
member for 16 years, and had three
terms as its president.
Davis also has been on study commit
tees on public education, including one
headed by Dallas billionaire H. Ross
Perot that led to sweeping education re
forms approved by lawmakers in 1984.
The Education Board became an ap
pointed body for several years as part of
that reform law. But voters in 1987 de
cided to return it to an elected board.
Jones ran unsuccessfully for the board
in 1988. He spent 28 years as a teacher
and administrator before leaving “the
school business” in 1984, when he was
assistant superintendent in Bryan.
Incumbent, justice run
for chief justice spot
HOUSTON (AP) — The race for
chief justice of the Texas Supreme
Court involves two men whose differ
ences while sitting on the high court’s
bench are as great as their approach
on the campaign trail.
Republican Tom Phillips is seeking
re-election as chief justice, while
Democrat Oscar Mauzy is hoping to
unseat him.
The chief justice post is one of
three supreme court races to be de
cided.
Republican John Cornyn, a state
district judge in San Antonio, and
Democrat Gene Kelly, a former Air
Force judge from Universal City near
San Antonio, are vying for the Place 1
position.
Democrat Bob Gammage faces Re
publican Charles Ben Howell in the
Place 2 race. Howell, a perennial Re
publican candidate, is a state appeals
judge from Dallas. Gammage, a
Houston native, is a former state rep
resentative, former state senator, and
former congressman serving on the
3rd Court of Appeals in Austin.
Voters also will cast ballots in five
races for seats on the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals, but the race for
chief justice has drawn the most at
tention.
Mauzy, already an associate justice
on the court, has little to lose. He’ll re
tain his seat if he fails to beat Phillips,
Mauzy said, “I am for the people
continuing to have the right to elect
all their judges in open competitive
elections.”
“The (current judicial election) sys
tem is designed for the benefit of the
people in this state and that’s what I
insist on,” he said. “I’d never favor
any plan that takes away their right to
elect judges.”
“Judicial philosophy, I think, is the
overwhelming issue,” Phillips said.
“That just comes down to whether a
judge sees his role as following the
law or whether a judge sees the role
as the opportunity to invent the law.
‘T believe injudicial restraint, and I
think my record shows that. Justice
Mauzy has taken a much more activist
view,” said Phillips, a 41-year-old,
Harvard-educated lawyer from
Houston. “That’s our principal dif
ference.”
Mauzy, 63, a longtime Democrat
from Dallas, responds by saying if
correcting past mistakes made by
other courts is legislating from the
bench — he’s guilty.
“The law is a living, breathing, al
ways evolving thing,” Mauzy said.
“Those who choose to say that’s judi
cial activism, I say that’s foolishness.
The beauty of the common law is that
we can admit we made a mistake and
correct it.”
Mauzy, a state senator for 20 years,
says the selection of judges is the big
gest issue of the race. He favors elec
tions forjudges.
Phillips, appointed chief justice in
1987 by Gov. Bill Clements and
elected the following year, has backed
a merit selection system in which
judges are first appointed by the gov
ernor. Instead of a regular election,
they then would face a “retention”
election, with voters deciding if the
judge stays or goes.
But Phillips would push that a step
farther, making it an open, non-parti
san race the first time a person runs
for a judicial post and then a reten
tion election.
Mauzy opposes any retention elec
tion, saying it doesn't give voters a
choice. He also says Phillips has not
been dear on what system he really
favors.
Railroad commission candidates spar over 15-year-old issue
HOUSTON (AP) — Unlike some more high-profile
statewide races this season, the candidates for a seat on
the Texas Railroad Commission have little to argue
about.
But in step with 1990 Texas politics, they have little
nice to say about each other and have discovered an is
sue to divide them, although they had to go back IS
years to find it.
Democrat Bob Krueger and Republican Beau
Boulter, both former congressmen, are vying to re
place Kent Hance on the Railroad Commission, the
agency charged with regulating oil, gas and transporta
tion.
Because it controls the state’s most important indus
try, a seat on the commission carries a lot of power. But
because candidates woo the industry, they seem to say
much the same thing.
“I think Bob Krueger’s goals are the same as mine,”
Boulter said in a recent interview. “The question is,
who can work with the Bush administration better and
of course that’s me.”
Krueger also said the issues are similar and added,
“I was voted the most effective new member of Con
gress by my colleagues. He was never voted the most
effective anything that matters.”
Krueger, a New Braunfels businessman, served in
Congress from 1975 to 1979. Boulter, an Amarillo law
yer, served from 1984 to 1988. He returned to Texas
after losing the Senate race to Lloyd Bentsen.
In Congress, both came to be known as champions
of the oil and gas industry. Boulter sat on the Budget
Committee and chaired the House Republican Energy
Task Force. Krueger served on the Interstate and For
eign Commerce Committee’s energy and power sub
committee.
Both have won the “Hats Off’ award from the
Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners.
Back in 1975, Krueger supported an amendment to
the windfall profits tax plan that would have allowed
energy companies to avoid the tax by plowing the prof
its back into oil and gas development. It also included a
title that would have gradually decontrolled domestic
oil prices.
It was defeated 220-202, with all but one Texas
member supporting it.
Boulter reopened the issue in September, pegging it
on the price increases resulting from Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait and the renewed talk in Washington of a wind
fall profits tax.
“With the current rise of anti-Texas, anti-energy
sentiment in Congress, the last thing our state needs is
a liberal Democrat railroad commissioner with a his
tory of supporting the windfall profits tax and other
legislation harmful to Texas interests,” says a Boulter
fund-raising letter.
Krueger responded with a letter explaining that the
windfall profits tax didn’t actually become law until
April 2,1980.
“Neither of us was a member of Congress,” Krueger
writes. “And neither had anything to do with the
‘windfall profits tax.’” He then describes his involve
ment in.the issue leading up to the 1980 enactment as
well as several points regarding the history of the
amendment that he says Boulter got wrong in his let
ter.
Although the Railroad Commission has no say in
such matters, Krueger says the issue is “as important to
the oil industry as the First Amendment is to the
press.”
But in this race, he says the issue boils down to “one
candidate (who) is willing to be honest and the other is
not.”
“It’s the most desperate attempt at misrepresenta
tion,” he said.
Boulter said, “It’s an issue as long as he says plow-
back provisions stimulate growth. Anybody who be
lieves that believes the government can tell you what to
do with your money.”
On more recent issues, both men favor a national
energy policy that would stabilize oil prices and reduce
reliance on foreign oil.
Boulter specifically proposes the proration of natu
ral gas production and deregulation of the trucking in
dustry.
Krueger supports an exploration cost recovery in
centive in the federal tax code, which would permit the
driller to recover 65 cents per dollar of capital invested
in a dry hole against the income from wells drilled af
ter a dry hole.
He says the trucking industry should be deregulated
gradually because if “we took out all controls, jobs
would be wiped out overnight.”
Boulter has pulled out big GOP guns to campaign
for him — Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Vice Presi
dent Dan Quayle.
A Mason-Dixon poll dated Oct. 11, shows Krueger
with 47 percent to Boulter’s 31 percent. It had a mar
gin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.
Boulter dismissed the poll, saying it over-samples
Democrats. His latest data shows him 9 percentage
points behind with 48 percent undecided.
SB
Texas Legislature
3 candidates battle for open Senate seat
By SEAN FRERK1NG
Of The Battalion Staff
Republican Richard Smith, Democrat
Jim Turner and Independent Lou “Eng
lish” Zaeske are entrenched in one of the
closet Senate races in the state, seeking
to represent Brazos and 17 other coun
ties.
The seat became open when 10-year
Sen. Kent Caperton, D-Bryan, decided
not to seek re-election for District 5.
Smith, Class of’59, says he believes he
should be the new state senator because
of his experience in the Texas House of
Representatives.
Smith has served as Brazos County’s
representative during the past six years.
“I think my record in the House has
given me the experience necessary to be
a good senator for District 5,” he said.
Meanwhile, Turner, a 1971 Univer
sity of Texas Law School graduate, says
he believes his experience in the Texas
House from 1981 to 1984, as well as his
appointment as executive assistant to
Gov. Mark White, proves he will do a
good job as state senator.
“My community service record speaks
for itself,” said Turner, who is mayor of
his hometown, Crockett. “I know I will
represent this area well.”
Zaeske, Class of ’64, says although he
never has held public office, he believes
Texans are ready for a new face in poli
tics.
“People are tired of bipartisan infight
ing and professional politicians,” Zaeske
said. “I have lived in this area for more
than 30 years and I believe I have the
qualifications that will make me the next
state senator.”
Crime and punishment
AH three candidates support legis
lation allowing tents to be used as tempo
rary cells while the state builds additio
nal prisons.
Turner says he would support mea
sures to put “punishment” back into the
prison system and put prisoners back to
work.
“We need to make prison life an expe
rience no one wants to repeat,” Turner
said. “By reinstituting the prison work
program, we can teach these people a
trade and teach them a lesson. We need
to make sure crime does not pay.”
Smith and Zaeske also support a
prison work plan. Zaeske, like the other
two candidates, says prisoners should be
paid a minimum wage.
They also should pay for their rooms
and board with money they make,
Zaeske says.
“What we have now is state-run coun
try clubs,” he said. “We need some strict
but creative legislation to deal with this
problem.”
All the candidates want to put an end
to early parole for violent criminals.
“We have drug dealers in jail now
bragging they’re getting a good deal be
cause they’re only serving one-twelfth of
their sentence and not being made to
pay restitution,” Turner said. “I will
change that attitude if elected to office.”
Turner also has proposed a call for
more money for the Drug Enforcement
Agency to fight the “war against crime.”
“We need to use education in our
schools to stop our drug problem,”
Turner said. “Until we correct this prob
lem, we will never solve our prison prob
lem.”
Education
All three candidates agree:
• Education should be the top prior
ity in Texas government.
• Each state-run school should have a
student and a faculty member on its gov
erning board as non-voting members.
• The state’s university systems
should be strengthened.
• Public schools should be controlled
by local educational groups, not run by
bureaucrats in Austin.
However, Smith and Zaeske say they
support a voucher system similar to the
one proposed by Republican gubernato
rial candidate Clayton Williams, while
Turner supports a “guaranteed yield”
system which only would apply to public
schools.
The voucher system states each stu
dent would be given a voucher worth a
determined amount. Students then
could choose to “spend” their educatio
nal credits at private, public or home
schools.
“To make education in Texas better,
we need more competition in our
schools,” Zaeske said. “We have enough
money. We just need to spend it more
wisely.”
Zaeske, founder of the American Eth
nic Coalition, is an “official English” ad
vocate.
He says he believes the state should
conduct its business in English. This pol
icy would include writing court records
and election ballots in English only.
He says if Texas would adopt his ap
proach and stop spending money on
programs like bilingual education,
Texas would have a better school system.
Campaign ethics reform
Because Smith has received nearly
$300,000 in contributions from special
interest groups and political action com
mittees, campaign ethics reform has be
come a major part of the state senate
campaign.
Turner says he thinks the entire polit
ical contribution scheme needs change.
“We need to have caps on the amount
of money anyone can receive,” Turner
said. “Right now, the situation is simply
ridiculous. When a candidate for gover
nor spends dose to $20 million trying to
win, we need to change something quick-
1 y”
Zaeske says he questions where
Smith’s loyalties lie.
“Smith may be the common-sense
candidate but my common sense tells me
See Senator/Page 8B
James, Ogden fight for A&M student vote
By BILL HETHCOCK
Of The Battalion Staff
As election day draws near, both District 14 state
representative candidates are campaigning hard for
A&M student votes.
Democrat Jim James and Republican Steve Ogden
pushed for last-minute absentee votes Friday in the
MSC, hoping to increase their chances to represent
Brazos County in the Texas Legislature.
Education
James, Class of ’75, says disparity between rich and
poor school districts is causing students in poor dis
tricts to receive inadequate education.
“We’re in danger of creating an underclass in this
society because children from the poorest socio-eco
nomic background go to the poorest schools,” James
said. “That hurts their opportunity to become better
educated.”
Under the current tax structure, rich districts can
tax at a lower rate and still generate more revenue than
poor districts taxing at high rates.
James said he supports taxes that will distribute
money more evenly among in rich and poor districts.
“I support requiring minimum taxing rates while
still making sure all students receive a good educa
tion,” he said. “We need to make sure every school dis
trict which is willing to tax at a fair rate can provide a
good education.”
Ogden, who earned his M.B.A. at Texas A&M, says
the state’s education system needs clearly defined goals
and more flexibility.
“After we’ve established definite goals, we should
give teachers and principals the authority to meet
those goals,” he said. “We need to decentralize, be
cause the micromanagement system we have now in
hibits creativity and flexibility.”
One goal the state should set is improving average
SAT scores by 100 points within 10 years, Ogden said.
His education plan also calls for tying more money
to individual school performance and spending more
Jim James Steve Ogden
on teachers’ salaries and less on administration and
overhead costs.
Abortion
Abortion is another issue separating the candidates.
Ogden is pro-life, while James supports abortion
rights. ,
“I’m pro-choice, but my opponent is on record as
wanting to change the constitution to prohibit abortion
even in the case of rape or incest,” James said.
Ogden said people, not judges, should decide
whether abortion is allowed.
“I believe unborn children are human beings and
have a right to exist,” Ogden says. “This issue needs to
be resolved democratically, not by nine judges.”
Political reform
Both candidates agree the Texas political arena
needs reform.
James said he sees a “lack of courage” among poli
ticians who now represent Texas.
“We have abdicated responsibility for prisons,
schools and some social services to the courts,” he said.
“We need people who have the guts to make some
tough decisions. That’s the real problem facing Texas
today.”
Ogden said limiting politicians’ terms is the best
means of ethics reform. He has proposed a maximum
of 12 years in the Texas House of Representatives or
Senate.
“We have too many professional politicians,” Ogden
says. “By limiting terms, they would have to come back
and live with the laws they pass while they’re in office.”
Taxes
To help the business climate in Brazos County and
throughout the state, Ogden says taxes should be kept
to a minimum.
“We need to hold the line on taxes,” he says. “We’re
heavily taxed now. Increased revenue in Texas needs
to come from economic growth.”
He also says state highways must be maintained for
the area’s economy to thrive.
James, who is endorsed by the Sierra Club, said
Texas must clean up its environment and improve its
educational system to boost economic growth.
“If we’re going to encourage high-tech businesses
we have to give those businesses a well-educated work
force, and we have to provide a dean environment to
do business in,” he said. “Low taxes alone are not
enough to compete. We have to provide a high quality
of life.”
Crime and punishment
James supports putting non-violent criminals into
minimum security facilities, which would provide
space for violent criminals to serve longer sentences.
He also wants to admit oral confessions in criminal
cases and make murder during a drug deal a capital of
fense.
Ogden also supports longer sentences and says ju
ries should have more authority to set stiff minimum
penalties. He said more prison space is necessary to
house convicts.