Molly Ivins January 27BERKELEY, Calif. — Texas Rural Legal Aid has the starring role in a perpetual performance of "The Perils of Pauline." ("And he tied her to the railroad tracks again!") The villain in this perennial saga is always the same and has been trying to kill off TRLA since what seems like the dawn of time. In this episode, Sen. Phil Gramm, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Gov. George W. Bush, Texas Secretary of State Tony Garza and Tom Pauken are all calling for TRLA's collective head. And just what might this remarkably variegated cast of characters have in common? Do we notice a certain Republicaneity? And just what has TRLA done this time to give Texas Republicans the hot fantods? Filed a perfectly good lawsuit, of course — so good that they've already won it. Come with me now to the Rio Grande Valley, land of magical realism, where strange things are always happening. Down in Val Verde County, what to our wondering eyes should appear after the last election but an Anglo Republican sheriff and an Anglo Republican county commissioner — which seems unlikely, given that we're talking about Del Rio. So the local Dems investigated and found that the Rs' winning margins came from 800 votes mailed in by U.S. service personnel from around the world, most of whom had at some time or another been posted to Laughlin Air Force Base. Better than 90 percent of those votes went to the Republican candidates in the local elections. The problem is that under state and federal law, military personnel living abroad can vote only in federal elections. Many of the service folks voting in the Val Verde County commissioner's race have not lived in Del Rio in 10 or even 20 years and know nothing about local issues or pols, so we see the wisdom of this restriction. In truth, the reason that most of them continue to claim Del Rio and other Lone Star locales as a stateside residence is because Texas is one of seven states in our great nation that do not have a state income tax. In fact, military authorities regularly remind voting soldiers of this interesting fact, with the result that Texas, Florida and Wyoming are the happy recipients of an exceptionally large chunk of the military vote. In Texas, depending on whom you talk to, we get between 50,000 and 200,000 votes from service people who have not seen our shores in many, many moons. None of this would be a problem if those in uniform got ballots listing only federal offices.
And what a candidate was there elected by 113 votes. According to Germany's Stern magazine, Commissioner-elect Murry Kachel, when he was stationed in that country around 1981, was active in the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, Stern ran a picture of him wearing his Klan robes accompanying a story reporting that he had been passed over for promotion precisely because of his KKK affiliation. Kachel denies the whole thing and says that Stern faked the picture and that he has never worn KKK robes or Bruno Magli shoes. The reporter who wrote the story is now a top editor at Stern and insists that the story and the picture are totally legit. So now we have Gramm, Hutchison, Bush, Pauken & Co. screaming that not only TRLA but the entire Legal Services Corp. should be de-funded for casting aspersions on this splendid gentleman. The poor Legal Services Corp., TRLA's bureaucratic parent, is under such heavy fire from the Republicans in Congress that it begged TRLA to drop the case, which was filed by TRLA attorney George Korbel. So after Korbel got a temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge H.F. "Hippo" Garcia, he lateraled the legal ball, as it were, to veteran Texas freedom-fighter David Richards, now in private practice. Richards in turn had little trouble persuading District Judge Fred Biery to enjoin the certification of the election of the two Val Verde Republicans. All the Republican honchos have issued huffy statements saying that military personnel serving overseas should have the right to vote — as indeed they should, and not a soul has questioned it. But that doesn't have anything to do with the price of beans in Val Verde County. Meanwhile, poor old TRLA is back on the railroad tracks again, with both its entire $3.4 million federal grant in jeopardy and also a chance to convince the state Legislature to help out with the cost of its non-controversial services apparently in jeopardy. Unlike California Legal Services, which apparently does harbor actual leftists (they have actual leftists in this state), TRLA consists of a bunch of bona fide, certified, chicken-fried good ol' Texas boys who happened to go to law school. That's probably where they picked up the foreign notion that even poor Hispanics have rights under the law, even in Texas. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1997 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.��������
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