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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 17, 2001)
<) or AP)-A by took Ml be awaited ■I BA ontli 3r throwing hat instead y cool, be- mby said, lity. “Those e since I’ve an easygo v that blood ae wrong," t strike Dan- lio becaiist stepped be- vment. Cair- an Gundv'' when lood, ruly, /rong’ reus Canto i Gundy’s k stitches, bove both it from ber, om colli#, idy’seyeai' i just feel si laid. “Bea 1 think he’sti iboundingp nby in thee arter of Ne over the Sp. restrained ag with anoc bolted towi able and to Wednesday, January 17, 2001 Opinion Page 9 THE BATTALION The problem with Chavez Was Linda Chavez a victim of corrupt politics, or was she just corrupt herself? F t following a trouble-ridden presi dential administration, the actions of Linda Chavez, President-elect Bush's initial nominee for labor secre tary, helped prepare Americans for the next round. Chavez, a prominent activist in Washington politics, disregarded her factual violations of U. S. immigration laws 10 years ago during her interview process with Bush’s transition team. Her apparent act of compassion, harboring illegal Guatemalan immigrant Martha Mercado, included pro viding Mercado with free room and board and so-called “monetary allowances.” Chavez’s actions undermined her qualifications to lead the Department of Labor; therefore, her withdrawal from Bush’s nomination was the only cor rect decision. Trusting such a person to represent the working people of America and enforce U.S. immigra tion laws would be an insult to the hard-working, tax-pay ing individuals whom she would be representing for the next four years. By concealing information from the public eye, Chavez destroyed her credibility and trustworthiness. Bush advisers noted that information about Mercado was never disclosed while they conducted their many inter views with Chavez. In fact, according to The Wall Street Journal, Chavez worried about her fate, calling a neigh bor who had employed Mercado at one point to discuss a | possible FBI investigation. She even asked if the neigh bor planned to speak with the media in the event Chavez were named to Bush’s Cabinet. Chavez obviously went to great lengths to keep the sto ry from surfacing. Once the story broke, Chavez called Regardless of her apology, the nation cannot trust the highest-ranking labor official to protect workers in America if she cannot abide by the rules herself from Pag es will rely lard Kingtos ffensive end k to senior to step up averaged 11 ; averaged ot :rence phy r # Texas begii e Aggies,« heir next t j opponents. ! from Ptfi her violations of the law assisting someone in need, which is exactly the excuse labor unions hear when employers are found employing illegal aliens. The laws Chavez broke are the very laws that the labor secretary is sup posed to enforce. Ironically, Chavez found herself in the center of yet another issue. She publicly opposed one of President Clinton’s Cabinet nominees in 1993 for essentially the same reason that others opposed her nomination. Zoe Baird, Clinton’s 1993 nominee for attorney general, em ployed two illegal immigrants and failed to pay Social Se curity taxes on their wages. Now, eight years later, and faced with an identical scenario, Chavez said that Baird was treated unfairly. Only when high-ranking officials across the nation caught wind of the allegations did Chavez reluctantly de cide to withdraw her nomination. Some say Chavez should be commended for withdrawing. However, her withdrawal was not the act of a martyr, but simply an act of responsibility. She said her future with the Bush administration looked grim as long as the politics in Washington focused on “search and destroy” tactics. Chavez must have forgotten that a background check is standard procedure for Cabinet nomi nees. She does say she made a grave mistake by not dis closing this information when she first had the opportunity. Regardless of her apology, the nation cannot trust the highest-ranking labor official to protect workers in Amer ica if she cannot abide by the rules herself. Chavez’s ac tions, while compassionate, are not appropriate behavior for secretary of labor. y- ;the ; inconsisteno ken over the recruited the j a competj hool stars ht jnard King- ick Andersof ne of college ?s to comem 1, will soineda! )use. has had just ast two sca lded the players in :ing player ; leaderships the two fac eS ' r ■ ihe escape of sev- iriginate there I e n armed inmates 'ipxnerience^ X from Texas’Con- . ^ lially Prison Unit on ^ rm going 1 Dec. 13 has top officials i 6 from the Texas Depart- c *- , ptylnent of Criminal Jus- only h °P ke tice searching for an-, 1 Pfn piri swers an d somewhere nly a ,|c re ;: |° point the blame. The )0 Big 1^ . daylight prison break led to the death of ings more it‘ -Irving p 0 ]i ce officer Aubrey Hawkins, loor. Heah 0 was g Unne( j down as he attempted to j Stop the robbery of an Oshman’s Sporting one was th^ Goods store. In a serious incident review, o during hi s “ ! Gary Johnson, director of the state prison J.J. Trevino is a senior journalism major. A 11 A f x Ysi THOMAS CAMPBELL RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion trusted friend eshowed up at Linda Chavez’s doorstep with a young woman, a homeless victim of domestic abuse who was hungry and lacking basic language skills. Chavez did not ask for Marta Merca do’s citizenship papers before invit ing her into her home and taking care of the battered, homeless woman — an act of compassionate conser vatism Chavez thinks exemplifies the necessary character for President elect Bush’s Cabinet. Bush is looking for people in his Cabinet who are not only qualified, but represent the same values he believes have not been seen in the executive branch in the past eight years. In this light, Chavez’s withdrawal from the secretary of la bor nomination was a mistake; she is a victim of the politics of personal destruction. As soon as Chavez was an nounced as Bush’s secretary of la bor nominee, the outspoken conser vative pundit was attacked by liberals, to the pleasure of organized labor lobbyists. Chavez’s opposition to affirma tive action and raising the minimum wage angered many union mem bers. Like attorney general nominee John Ashcroft, Chavez has been the victim of “an organized effort to de rail nominations,” said Jeff Sessions (R - Ala.). The same unrelenting attacks have not been made against Envi ronmental Protection Agency head nominee Christie Todd Whitman, the current Republican governor of New Jersey, who admitted seven years ago she unlawfully employed two il legal immigrants without paying the proper taxes. One can only assume that, be cause of Whitman’s liberal ideology and support for ideas like abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, she is immune to attacks from the liberal elements 'of society. Chavez, with experience as a columnist for USA Today, a delegate to the United Nations sub-committee on human rights, and the Civil Rights administrator under former -Presi dent Reagan, has also served as a po litical analyst. Zoe Baird, the former attorney general designee of President Clinton in 1993, stepped down amid similar accusations that she illegally hired and paid two illegal immigrants. When asked about what America thought about the Baird affair, Chavez stated, “I think most of the American people were upset during the Zoe Baird nom ination that she hired an illegal alien. That was what upset them more than the fact that she did not pay Social Se curity taxes. I do believe that Zoe Baird was treated unfairly.” Chavez did not lead the charge against Baird, but merely answered a question about why she thought Americans were upset with Baird." Chavez’s history of compas sionate conservatism would riot compromise her ability to be labor secretary. . Helping a homeless woman get back on her feet should not call one’s ethics into question. If anything, it demonstrates a strong sense of morality, compas sion and a belief in making Ameri ca a better society. Because of the drawn out elec tion, the nomination process for the nearly 1,000 open executive posi tions had to be shortened by five weeks, thereby preventing a de tailed examination into each nomi nee’s background. The nominees should have been as open as possi ble about their pasts to expedite the nomination process and prevent disasters like this. Chavez should have been more forthcoming with the Bush team, and she admits as much. Because of her compassion, Chavez has become a victim of the poli tics of personal "5 destruction. Because Chavez was not open with the Bush team, the team wa^ unable to soften the impact of the| revelation that Chavez harbored an illegal alien. Chavez refutes allega tions that she tried to silence her neighbors about Mercado by staU ing, “That’s false. I was trying to re-j fresh my memory.” The Bush team did not have the: time to defend someone who wa^ not forthcoming with all possibly damaging personal actions. Chavez was attacked for he? staunch conservatism, not for hen past association with Mercado. The Mercado incident was an excuse for political opponents to force Chavez out of a position for which she is well qualified. The assertion that Chavez was instrumental in defeating Clinton’s appointment of Baird is an un scrupulous attempt to make Chavez look hypocritical. The fact that Chavez has been defeated, while liberal Gov. Todd Whitman remains unscathed, shows a clear double standard. Chavez helped an abused, homeless woman get on her feet, and because of h£r compassion, Chavez has become a victim of the politics of personal destruction. u 1- Thomas Campbell is a junior agricultural journalism major. Prison Blues Texas prison system needs major overhaul; recent prison break shows current incompetence s young practice < tend to mitt 01 »on the mo#; ities of set^ rosttf lystem’s Institutional Division, cited hu- and game out. an error and procedural noncompliance f three guards as the key reasons for the scape. While Texas Criminal Justice Depart- ent officials are quick to identify inept uards as the cause of the escape, they are hesitant to admit that departmental policy needs to be re-evaluated. To blame an elab orate prison escape, in which 16 prison y/orkers and inmates were subdued, and 16 firearms were stolen, on a certain few cor- . fcdions officers is laughable at best. There Lincoln > s 1 is a larger problem to contend than a few journalisn'* , the coiife'” j ihe team* ; ready toP* lax prison guards, and the prison adminis tration’s knowledge of these unsupervised conditions is at the heart of this problem. “This report is ludicrous. It’s a joke,” Jayne Hawkins, mother of the late Aubrey Hawkins, is quoted as saying in The New York Times. “You’re using words like ‘blame’ and ‘fault’ when you should be talking about responsibility and accountability.” The Texas Department of Criminal Jus tice was aware the Connally Unit may have presented an ideal environment for an es cape, according to Randy Albert, a correc tions officer subdued during the escape. Albert told the Fort Worth Star- Telegram, “If you have people working for you, and they’re not doing their job, and you just keep letting it happen, you’re just as much at fault as those people working for you.” Various prison employees, speculated that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. The Con nally Unit is not the only Texas prison that lacks skilled staff; the growing compla cency of underpaid, overworked correc tions. officers forced to work in under staffed prisons has led to loose security in prisons across Texas. This carefree atmos phere enabled seven convicted felons to overtake a maintenance warehouse and office, subdue and gag several guards, and impersonate prison personnel before es caping in an unattended Texas Depart ment of Criminal Justice truck. This poor pay has led to understaffed Texas Prisons 160,000 inmates in 116 prisons Texas ranks 43rd in prison employee pay. Salaries begin at $18,000 annually and do not exceed $28,000 prisons throughout the state, and according to statistics, at least one in five Texas cor rections officers quit last year. Union officials also report that the Con nally Unit was 22 officers short of staff re quirements at the time of the escape. Other reports claim the unit to be as many as 80 officers short. In addition to operating with skeleton crews, Texas prisons are becoming home to increasingly violent and hardened crimi nals who have nothing to lose. The number of prisoner attacks on guards in Texas was 2,267 in 2000, a dramatic increase from previous years. The Texas prison system’s only re sponse to its weakening situation has been more prisons. The billions of dollars spent on building prisons corresponded with a tripling of the state’s inmate population over the past decade. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice must take responsibility for the worsening condition of the state’s pris ons before an incident of this magnitude occurs again. Steps must be taken to en sure officers receive the best training available and are prepared to deal with escape and hostage situations. Pay should be increased in an effort to bolster employee self-esteem. Guards must be held responsible for even the smallest of procedural breaches, and problems must be isolated and eliminated before they get worse. Electronic monitoring, which has proven to be effective elsewhere, may also become widespread as prison offi cials try to cope with the increasing in mate population. The system should re-evaluate how prisoner security-risk classification is handled-and must better enforce the use of identification, within prison walls and ; * along its perimeter. Above all, prisoners-^' should never remain unattended or loose ly supervised. Given the opportunity to ■ * escape, a person in prison will not turn it down. -- A Texas prison system overhaul may bfc closer now than ever, but until such an v „ overhaul is implemented, the Texas De- partment of Criminal Justice must learn the hard way the problem with prisoners: if you ignore them, they will go away. George Deutsch is a sophomdre journalism major. The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 300 words or less and include the author’s name, class and phone number. The opinion editor reserves the right to edit letters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may be submitted in person at 013 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters may also be mailed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 014 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-1111 Campus Mail: 1111 Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: battletters@hotmail.com