National Reports:
EUBANKS, SAM ROMER, BICKNELL
National Reports Minnesota Facts' Keeps Tab on Politicos By Sam Romer ST. PAUL THERE'S AN invisible but highly effective lobbyist in the corridors of Minnesota's capitol as the State...
...Labor leaders shrug off the attacks as a tribute to their efforts...
...which is all the way across Texas to the east, more than 600 miles away...
...It's an old "right" which Texas has claimed ever since it came into the Union...
...The principal point in favor of having five "Texases" is that Texans could then have 10 Senators instead of the normal two...
...The presence of a Democratic Governor in the capitol, moreover, has resulted in fewer conservative votes for labor measures because the word has gone down to "hold the line" lest the Democrats take credit for popular legislation...
...Legislators were quick to recognize the danger...
...Moreover, Mr...
...It is financed by a 20cent annual tax on each AFL member in the state, which provides about $44,000 for each campaign...
...For a long time, no one took the idea seriously, although as recently as the 1930s John Nance Garner was suggesting the national political gains that might be reaped from having a North Texas, South Texas, West Texas, East Texas and Central Texas...
...It disdains the usual cumbersome table of roll-calls used by other legislative reports in favor of a series of special editions, each tailored toward the record of a specific legislator...
...This allows pro-labor Senators who may have a bad record on some community issues to escape the labor gauntlet...
...It may be a long time to wait, but as one legislator told his neighbor: "Can you imagine it...
...Most of the criticism of Minnesota Facts can be traced to its voting summaries, which, the publication's opponents have charged, are "based on innuendo, half-truth and bias...
...Of course, there might be plenty of legal underbrush to be cleared away before such a step could be taken...
...although it will include some of the major labor votes...
...Representative Martin Dies (Dem...
...And the publication's approach is probably unique in the nation...
...Minnesota Facts is an expensive operation...
...It does not emphasize purely labor issues...
...The fund, of course, is limited to state and legislative races, since Federal law prohibits the use of union funds for Congressional campaigns...
...According to Senator Railey...
...And, in point of economic and cultural fact, El Paso is much closer to New Mexico, which is only a dozen or so miles away, than, for instance, to Texarkana...
...What has revived the agitation is the debate over statehood for Hawaii and Alaska...
...And one clause in the 1845 resolution is generally passed up in discussion of this rather unique bit of legalism...
...So far, Minnesota Facts has had a negative effect...
...That is quite a task even every six years, as Senators have to do...
...Some Constitutional lawyers contend that, when Texas seceded from the Union in the Civil War and was readmitted, it forfeited the rights it had obtained under treaty...
...It is pretty hard for a state government in Austin, which is so much closer to the rest of the state, to be cognizant of what is going on in that part of the state west of the Pecos...
...It is Minnesota Facts, an AFL campaign publication which records roll-call votes on key issues...
...Since then, it has been credited (or blamed) with the defeat of 65 anti-labor legislators?1 of them in the 1954 election...
...It would be a lot easier for Mr...
...At one time, some years ago, suggestions for a division of the state actually resulted in the writing of a proposed West Texas "Constitution...
...The measure passed the House 79 to 34, but it was killed in the Senate on the "freedom of the press" issue...
...it concentrates on defeating foes rather than aiding friends...
...The resolution specifically declared that new states could be formed out of Texas, provided they did not exceed four in number...
...Dies hasn't been too popular in some parts of South and West Texas, and people out there might be happy to set up shop separately if only to get rid of the orator from the East...
...Part of its cost—especially the editing—is borne by the Federation's public-relations department, which gets about $25,000 a year in the AFL budget...
...Every time I get home, somebody wants to know why I voted the way I did...
...Dies, who is Congressman-at-large because the Lone Star State hasn't been redistricted since the 1950 census, is tired of traveling the length and breadth of Texas every two years to get reelected...
...It also gives AFL lobbyists a potent advantage in horsetrading favorable votes for pure labor measures in return for omission from their target list...
...Then it adds: "Representative Soand-so voted for (or against) this measure...
...The so-called "right" is contained in a proviso in the joint resolution voted by the American Congress in 1845 for the annexation of Texas...
...Whether or not it still has, or ever did have, legal standing is beside the point...
...Copies of this document are in a collection in the University of Texas Library...
...So he has given notice that he wants to be heard on the Hawaiian statehood bill and will push the suggestion for making five "Texases...
...One measure of its effectiveness is the constant stream of abuse directed at it by aggrieved legislators who call it a "scandal sheet...
...Then Minnesota Facts starts rolling...
...This was pointed out by the late Joseph Weldon Railey, onetime Texas Senator...
...During the 1951 session, the first after Minnesota Facts devoted itself to the legislative record, a bill was introduced to penalize "misstatements" about positions taken by legislators...
...In any case, the legislator running for re-election has to do a lot more explaining than he once did...
...When election time comes around, it decides not only which candidates it wants to support but which it hopes to defeat...
...It might be, as some wag has suggested, that Mr...
...If the issue is not easily explained, the summary disregards the technical aspects and reduces it to its simple meaning...
...The geographical bigness of Texas does create serious political problems...
...The implication of the 1845 wording is that Congress would have discretion in the mailer...
...Some of this may be true, in the sense that the editors pick their issues and often ignore votes that may place their target in a more favorable light...
...Minnesota Facts, one said recently, "is just powerful medicine to cure the short memories of voters...
...PAUL THERE'S AN invisible but highly effective lobbyist in the corridors of Minnesota's capitol as the State Legislature nears the end of its biennial session...
...Texans would have only to ponder the question: "Who would get the Mamo...
...Mass meetings were held all over the western part of the state, which, incidentally, covers more territory than New England and New York combined, but the move died down...
...These two territories would come into the Union with two Senators each...
...In the early 1920s, there was agitation for West Texas to secede, after a measure to locate an agricultural and mechanical college in that area was vetoed by the Governor...
...Apart from all the legal technicalities, there is one stumbling block which seems just about insurmountable...
...Another more serious criticism stems from the fact that Minnesota Facts is essentially an "anti" publication...
...a one-vote liberal margin in the Lower House often vanishes under pressure...
...of Texas observes that each new stale would have the same number of Senators "which folks in our area have now...
...Thus, Texas has no more rights than any other state, for, as has been pointed out by Constitutional experts, any other state could also vote to divide, subject to approval by Congress...
...El Paso, largest metropolitan center west of Fort Worth, for instance, rather bitterly suggests at times that it could get a much better deal from New Mexico than it can from Texas...
...Talk of Five 'Texases' Is Revived By Bicknell Eubanks DALLAS AS IF the United States hasn't enough problems—domestic and international—to contend with, an old proposal is being revived to create five "Texases" in place of the one which now sometimes seems too much for the nation to handle...
...There was some grumbling among affiliated AFL unions when the tax first went into effect, but after they weighed results there were no objections...
...It says the new states would be admitted under terms of the Federal Constitution...
...It prefaces each vote report with a summary of the proposal that is usually written from a labor point of view, but not obviously so...
...Most of its ammunition consists of issues like conservation, taxation, constitutional revision, reapportionment and highway problems—issues with wide appeal throughout the community...
...The House is up for re-election in 1956, however, and the Senate in 1953...
...The Minnesota Senate still is overwhelmingly conservative...
...This has been around since the 1948 campaign, when it helped set off the Humphrey landslide that turned out Joe Ball...
...Here is how this works: The Minnesota State Federation of Labor keeps its own record of key roll-calls...
...Dies, who would be a Congressman from the state of East Texas, to make his campaign...
Vol. 38 • April 1955 • No. 14
