Editor’s Note

Staff

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 4-5

Four states—and only Arkansas in the South—elect governors for merely a two-year term. More than most other high ranking officials these four governors must face the electorate only after a relatively brief time in office and may suffer the benefits or tragedies of the changing winds of public sentiment.

Unlike members of the U.S. House of Representatives who also serve only for two years, the two-year governors must set a tone—cast a vision for their administrations. From the day they take office, when custom requires a formal public address to the people of the state, governors cannot easily swing both ways nor satisfy opposing concerns by voting differently on different votes on the same issues.

In Arkansas in January, 1979, the state’s youngest governor, Bill Clinton,

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gave an inaugural address that soon led people to discussing his national future as a Democrat. Two years later, Frank White, a middle-aged Republican offered the state quite a different view of government as Clinton listened to the man who defeated his re-election.

These two contrasting views of government in Arkansas do not explain entirely why Bill Clinton lost the governor’s chair. They do represent a remarkable portrait of common notions, differing styles, and opposing philosophies that represent the change in elected government in 1981 at both the stateand national levels.

One final note: Governor White’s address received no prompting from President Reagan’s inaugural speech. White presented his remarks on an January l3, 1981—seven days before the changing of the guard in Washington.

An Era of “Pride and Hope” 1979

By Bill Clinton

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 4, 18

As we celebrate this new beginning, I want to explain as clearly as my command of the language will allow what kind of governor I will try to be.

Like anyone else, I will tend to make decisions that reflect the values and principles I have come to cherish over the years of living and strugg ling to grasp what understanding I can of the human condition.

For as long as I can remember, I have believed passionately in the cause of equal opportunity, and I will do what I can to advance it.

For as long as I can remember I have deplored the arbitrary and abusive exercise of power by those in authority, and I will do what I can to prevent it.

For as long as I can remember, I have rued the waste, and lack of order and discipline that are too often in evidence in governmental affairs, and I will do what I can to diminish them.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved the land, air, and water of Arkansas, and I will do what I can to protect them.

For as long as I can remember, I have wished to ease the burdens of life for those who, through no fault of their own, are old or weak or needy, and I will try to help them.

For as long as I can remember, I have been saddened by the sight of so many of our independent, industrious people working too hard for too little because of inadequate economic opportunities, and I will do what I can to enhance them.

Today, we begin anew the people’s business in a time that is confusing, uncertain, and sometimes difficult to understand. In the recent past, we have learned again the hard lesson that there are limits to what government can do—indeed, limits to what people can do. We live in a world in which limited resources, limited knowledge, and limited wisdom must grapple with problems of staggering complexity and confront strong sources of power, wealth, conflict, and even destruction, over which we have no control and little influence.

Let us not learn too much of this lesson, however, lest caught in the thrall of what we cannot do, we forget what we can and should do. We are a people of pride and hope, of vision and skill, of vast capacities for work. We have the prospect, for which we have waited so long, of economic growth which does not require us to ravage our land and so to reject our heritage. We have the immeasurable benefit of living in a state in which the population is sufficiently small and widely dispersed for people of all kinds still to know and trust each other, still to believe in and work together for the elusive common good.

We have an opportunity together to forge a future that is more remarkable, more rich, and more fulfilling to all Arkansas than our proud past, and we must not squander it.

There is much to be done.

In education, we have lingered too long on or near the bottom of the heap in spending per student and in teaching salaries. We must try to reverse that. However, we must be mindful that higher quality education will not come from money alone. The money must be but part of a plan which includes better accountability and assessment for students and teachers, a fairer distribution of aid, more efficient organization of school districts, and recognition of work still to be done in programs for kindergarten, special education, and gifted and talented children.

In energy, we have been too undisciplined and tardy in our efforts to

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provide for future energy supply that we need for sustenance and growth at prices the people can afford. The Energy Department I have proposed will attempt to marshall and intensify our efforts to promote conservation, develop alternative energy sources, and develop more effective and fairer utility regulatory policies.

In human services and health care, we have a great deal to do, especially for those at the far ends of life’s spectrum—our senior citizens and children. The proposals of this administration will provide to senior citizens tax relief, a uniform probate code, greatly expanded and improved home health care, and advances in nursing care. For children, we will seek to complete an effective care network for those who are emotionally disturbed and to create a system of perinatal care that will be a model for the nation.

In economic development, we must move quickly to intensify advances all across our state and to make more efforts for more development in the areas of our state that need it the most. The Economic Development Department I have proposed will lead this effort with its new emphasis on marketing our products abroad, expanding existing enterprises at home, and more vigorous attempts to help local communities help themselves.

Last evening, after our gala, a friend of mine from Washington who travels this country and speaks to many groups in many places, said that he felt in that crowd two emotions which are not found in other places today: Pride and Hope. Pride and Hope. With those two qualities, we can go a long way. We can bring on a new era of achievement and excellence—we can fashion a life here that will be the envy of our nation. The future lies brightly before us. With pride and hope, and the grace of God to take our hands and lead us on, we shall not fail! Thank you, and God bless you all.

“The Era of Unchecked Government…Is Over” 1981

By Frank White

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 5, 18

My election endorsed a new type of leadership for Arkansas. The challenge for the 80s is very clear: “The era of unchecked government fiscal expansion is over. Government is not, never was, and cannot be all things to all people.”

We submit to you an austere, no frills, no nonsense budget. We cannot outspend inflation in Arkansas—we shouldn’t try.

We have seen the frustration and difficulties created by our failure to practice fiscal integrity in state government. Our current budget is $80 million more than our anticipated revenues. In the spring of 1980 we failed to heed the clear warning being sent by the national economic indicators and our own reduced tax collections. The “windfall tax” program of 1980 created for the first time in Arkansas history, deficit spending. Last year we accelerated tax collections instead of cutting spending. This maneuver gave the people of Arkansas a false sense of security that ignored economic reality.

It is time for us to “draw the line.” Learn from our past mistakes. It is imperative at this time that we use common sense and maintain the financial integrity of the state. In my effort to use sound business practices, I ask for your understanding and cooperation. It will not be easy. We must live within our means.

I believe the purpose of government is to do for the people only what the people cannot do for themselves. Abraham Lincoln said, “You cannot help man permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

My administration is firmly committed to an aggressive industrial development effort. The dignity of the individual can best be served by a meaningful job opportunity. I propose to recreate the Arkansas Industrial Commission (AIDC) and abolish the Department of Economic Development. The AIDC and her industrial training division enjoyed national respect and recognition that spanned 25 years starting with the late Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. During that 25 years we have seen over $4 billion in investments—300,000 new and expanded jobs and 3,900 new and expanded plants.

Much has been said about the failure of our vo-tech progrqm. I know everyone in this room shared my concern when we learned we lost a $150,000,000 high technology industry in 1980 because of our inability to provide the technical training through our vo-tech program.

I have proposed a new direction and administrative control for our votech program. Business and labor will be encouraged to help us develop a new program–better funded—more responsive to the needs of industry.

Let me reaffirm my commitment to cut back the growth of government. My executive recommendations will cut the governor’s staff 25 percent and save the taxpayers over $400,000. Effective today, the Washington office (of the state of Arkansas) is closed, allowing $187,000 saved in the last six months of this biennium. I will support the abolishment of the Department of Public Safety and I have an open mind on a reduction in the Department of Local Services and the Department of Higher Education.

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I propose to take the Department of Energy and put it under the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission. Within the AIDC I will look for its planning division and the energy division to work on the development of a broad energy program.

An energy program which will insure:

• That the state of Arkansas has adequate energy supplies to encourage and support our economic and industrial growth in the future.
• That we support and encourage conservation and the dissemination of information to our people on government supported programs.
• Continued support for industrial and residential energy audits to inform people how to cut energy costs.
• That we analyze energy supplies and distribution and help the state deal with resource shortages.
• That the state participates in programs to develop alternate energy sources.

I have recommended 16 new positions for the Public Service Commission and $1.4 million increase above continuing level funding for the biennium. This will strengthen the PSC’s ability to handle their increased workload and encourage reasonable and timely rate decisions.

I have allocated over 45 percent of my budget to public education, the highest percentage ever allocated by a governor. For those who argue that that is not enough, I remind them that local school districts do have the ability to go to their voters for additional revenues. We have tried to address the health care needs of our state with compassion and understanding. During periods of revenue expansion, I will look to improve the budgets of education and health care.

As I accept this great responsibility I ask that you pray for me that I will have the strength and the wisdom to pursue those things which serve the needs of all our people. I seek your support and your guidance in these difficult times ahead, knowing that together, we can build a new future for Arkansas—a future that encourages a better quality of life for all.

Election Results ’80

By Steve Suitts

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 6-9

The Rise of Southern Suburban Politics

Ronald Reagan’s victory in 10 Southern states, leaving the President only his native state, showed in fact a divided south—with Black voters overwhelmingly supporting Carter and an enormous number of Whites voting for Reagan.

Although their candidate lost, Southern Blacks’ clear choice was Jimmy Carter. In 78 targeted predominantly Black precincts in nine southern states (excluding Arkansas and Texas) Carter received more than 86 percent of the vote. Both urban and rural Black support for the Democratic presidential ticket was strong throughout the region. In fact, more than two out of three of all the Black boxes surveyed showed Carter with better than 90 percent of the vote.

On this basis of precincts’ patterns, nine out of 10 Black southern voters cast their ballot for Carter. This degree of support exceeded national projections of 80 percent Black support for Carter.

Selected county returns confirm the depth and breadth of Carter’s support among Southern Blacks. Of five Deep Southern states surveyed (North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia) Carter lost only three majority Black populated counties among the more than 70—and those three were all in Mississippi. Within the same states, only nine of more than 130 counties with at least 40 percent Black population failed to give a majority of their votes to Carter.

The overall White voting patterns show the opposite trend: Southern Whites voted in large numbers to defeat Carter. In the 23 predominantly White—largely urban precincts in nine states surveyed in the South, election returns show Reagan with almost 70 percent of the vote. In fact, Carter failed to carry a single box within the targeted precincts.

Southern White voters were not for Reagan as uniformly as Blacks were for Carter. The Democratic presidential ticket carried, for example, 20 of the 50 mostly rural counties in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi which have more than 90 percent White population.

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Final Count: Black/White Choices for President

In November, Jimmy Carter lost the South in the suburbs. Unlike 1976, the 1980 Presidential election shows Carter’s failures and Reagan’s strengths in the Southern metropolitan areas, especially outside the central city.

This Democratic slippage in the South’s presidential politics is nothing brand new. As far back as 1968, when George Wallace campaigned as a third party candidate, the Democratic party’s candidate has been unable to deliver a majority vote in the South nor more than one Southern state’s majority except in 1976 (Chart 1).

In most Southern states Reagan carried the balance of the suburban counties. In Alabama, Mobile and suburban Baldwin counties voted Republican as did the three other expanding suburban areas—Dothan (Houston and Dale counties), Birmingham (Tuscaloosa, Shelby, Jefferson, St. Clair, Blount, and Walker counties) and Montgomery (Montgomery, Autauga, and Elmore counties).

A close analysis of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas illustrate how Reagan won (Chart 2). In a breakdown of the voting returns by counties in the metropolitan areas (as defined by the 1970 U.S. Census Bureau) of these states, the voters in all suburban counties except one, gave Reagan a majority. Only in the metro counties where a central city is located did Reagan fail to pick up overall voter approval.

In the New Orleans area, for example, the three suburban parishes surrounding the city delivered more than 60 percent of the vote for Reagan while only 40 percent of the New Orleans’ parish voted for him. In South Carolina, the central city vote did not even reduce markedly Reagan’s strength. All metro counties supported the Republican president.

In Texas the only suburban county to vote for Carter was San Patricio outside of Corpus Christi. Because it is small, rural and has a significant Hispanic population, San Patricio is hardly a typical suburban county and, hence does not really defy the pattern of suburban support for Reagan.

Republican strength in these counties made the difference often in the final state returns (Chart 3). The ten metro parishes in Louisiana gave the new president more than half his total state’s support. The seven South Carolina counties—among the state’s forty-six—delivered almost half the Republican president’s votes and in Texas the metropolitan counties’ Reagan votes constituted three-fourths of the state’s total.

The Southern pattern of Reagan’s voting strength is convincing. Although the margins of victory for the Republican party in each Southern state were not overwhelming, Republicans have captured the support of those Southerners living outside of central cities and in suburban areas—where the South’s population is steadily growing. It is what professionals in the business of vote getting call “a growth pattern” and the basis for the Republican hopes for 1984 in the South.

More than two out of three of all the Black boxes surveyed showed Carter with better that 90 percent of the vote.

ELECTION RESULTS’80

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Chart 1
Presidential Elections in the South, 1968-1980
State Choices in 11 Southern States

R-Republican
I-Independent
D-Democrat
State	1968	1972	1976	1980
Alabama	Wallace(I)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
Arkansas	Wallace(I)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
Florida	Nixon (R)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
Georgia	Wallace(I)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Carter (D)
Louisiana	Wallace(I)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
Mississippi	Wallace(I)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
North Carolina	Nixon (R)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
South Carolina	Nixon (R)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
Tennessee	Nixon (R)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
Texas	Humphrey (D)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)
Virginia	Nixon (R)	Nixon (R)	Carter (D)	Reagan (R)

Chart 3
Reagan Votes in Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA)As Percentage of Reagan’s Total States Vote

State	% of Reagan’s Total Vote
Louisiana SMSA’s	53.7%
South Carolina SMSA’s	47.7%
Texas	75.5%

Chart 2
Reagan Votes in Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas of 3 Southern States
Urban and Suburban Voting Patterns in 1980 Election

	Louisiana
SMSA/Counties	% of Total Votes for Reagan	No. of Reagan Voters
Baton Rouge
*East Baton Rouge	52.9%	60,032
Lafayette
Lafayette	58.7%	30,812
Lake Charles
*Calcasieu	42.5%	27,360
Monroe
*Quachita	63.5%	29,701
New Orleans
Jefferson	64.2%	99,915
*Orleans	39.8%	73,712
St. Bernard	61.3%	19,410
St. Tammany	64.0%	27,214
Shreveport
*Bossier	62.8%	16,515
Caddo	55.7%	43,085
TOTAL FOR SMSA’s	53.7%	427,760
	South Carolina
Charleston
Berkeley	55.2%	12,510
*Charleston	61.1%	60,894
Columbia
Aiken	57.7%	18,528
Lexington	68.4%	28,271
*Richland	50.5%	36,351
Greenville
*Greenville	57.8%	46,198
*Pickens	53.8.%	9,517
TOTAL FOR SMSA’s	58.1%	212,269
	Texas
Abelene
*Jones	47.2%	2,777
Taylor	62.0%	22,943
Amarillo
*Potter	60.9%	16,327
Randall	73.7%	23,136
Austin
*Travis	49.4%	73,151
Beaumont
*Jefferson	43.4%	36,763
Liberty	51.3%	7,470
Brownsville-Harlingten-San Benito
*Cameron	47.6%	22,041
Bryan-College Station
*Brazos	60.3%	17,798
Corpus Christi
*Nueces	45.6%	37,276
San Patricio	46.6%	7,662
Dallas-Fort Worth
Collin	67.9%	36,559
*Dallas	65.8%	359,518
Denton	59.9%	29,908
Ellis	51.3	10,050
Grayson	53.7%	16,811
Johnson	51.7%	11,411
*Kaufman	46.8%	5,081
Rockwall	65.3%	4,036
*Tarrant	56.9%	173,466
El Paso
*El Paso	53.5%	53,276
Houston
Brazoria	58.1%	27,614
Chambers	54.1%	3,140
Fort Bend	65.9%	24,914
*Harris	58.0%	416,965
Montgomery	65.6%	26,237
Laredo
*Webb	30.8	5,421
Lubbock
*Lubbock	68.8%	46,711
McAllen-Pharr-Edinburg
*Hidalgo	41.8%	25,499
Midland
Ector	72.4%	25,846
*Midland	76.6%	25,027
San Angelo
Tom Green	60.1%	15,840
San Antonio
*Bexar	49.9%	148,126
Guadalupe	64.2%	9,901
Texarkana
*Bowie	54.8%	7,804
Waco
*McLennan	53.1%	30,026
Wichita Falls
Archer	54.8%	7,804
*Wichita	55.0%	22,884
TOTAL FOR SMSA’s	57.3%	1,837,357
* Central City Counties

North Carolina Reapportionment: 1981 Version

By Susan M. Presti

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 10-11, 19

Reapportionment—the redrawing of electoral district lines based on the results of each decennial census—looms as one of the most important tasks facing the 1981 North Carolina General Assembly. National population shifts and those within the state during the past decade could result in significant changes for the state. When the final results of the 1980 census are released, the power balance between the coastal, piedmont, and mountain districts may be upset. “(Reapportionment) will be, in my opinion, the key issue of this General Assembly,” says Alex K. Brock, director of the State Board of Elections.

Historically, the power to reapportion has been wielded in a highly political fashion. The majority party in a state legislature has traditionally sought to limit the minority party’s influence by drawing grossly misshapen districts. In 1812, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a reapportionment plan in which one district was so distorted it resembled a salamander. Such legislative legerdemain has thereafter been referred to as “gerrymandering.”

Throughout the 1920s, as more of the country’s rural population migrated to cities and as political machinations continued to dominate reapportionment decisions, electoral districts within individual states grew to increasingly disparate sizes. In 1946, for example, Cook County, Illinois, contained 914,000 citizens while a downstate district had only 112,000.

In Baker v. Carr (1962), the U.S. Supreme Court established judicial jurisdiction over questions of reapportionment. A series of landmark decisions followed, known as the “one person, one vote” rulings, in which the Supreme Court began to redress electoral district imbalance stemming from many types of discrimination—political, racial sexual, ethnic, rural-urban, etc. These rulings, combined with regulations included in federal and state policies, have created a complex set of criteria for reapportioning.

Because the profusion of new regulations has complicated the reapportionment process, many states have turned to computers and independent commissions as the most practical means of redrawing electoral districts. For the 1981 reapportionment, several states are relying extensively on computers. The New York Legislative Task Force on Reapportionment has spent almost $1 million on a computer package. California, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Illinois, New Mexico, Indiana, Texas, Michigan, and many other states are expected to use computers for sophisticated mathematical analyses of proposed districts.

Seventeen states have utilized independent commissions rather than depending exclusively on their legislatures. Eleven states use independent commissions for actual apportionment; six use them in an advisory capacity or as a fall-back unit in case the state legislature cannot develop a suitable plan. Legislation now before Congress would vest all responsibility for congressional reapportionment in independent commissions that would be established in each state.

The North Carolina Experience

Factors unique to North Carolina also complicate the reapportionment process. As the Piedmont counties grow, for example, they are becoming so large that they cannot be grouped easily with contiguous neighbors to form electoral districts.

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Their combined populations are too large. (Electoral districts must be composed of counties with contiguous borders.) The North Carolina Constitution prohibits the division of counties into smaller units for the purpose of redistricting state electoral zones. This restriction may create problems for redistricting the Piedmont, problems that will carry over to congressional reapportionment. There is no federal law preventing a smaller unit—for example, a township—from being used as the primary building block of congressional districts, but North Carolina has a long history of refusing to break county boundaries for representational purposes.

In addition to the demands of equal population, any redistricting plan in North Carolina must meet the demands of equal representation. Republican, minority, rural, and liberal voters—usually concentrated in specific parts of the state—should be districted so that their votes can have a fair expression, not gerrymandered in such a way as to undermine their strength.

One further complication for North Carolina is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Because of past evidence of voting discrimination in 39 counties, the Act requires that any reapportionment affecting these counties must be approved by the U.S. Attorney General. He must determine that “the plan in question does not have the purpose or intent of abridging the right to vote on account of race or color,” says David Hunter of the Justice Department’s Voting Rights Section. If the Attorney General rejects a North Carolina reapportionment proposal, a new plan has to be developed.

Court decisions in the 1960s forced the General Assembly to develop new plans for North Carolina. In both 1965 and 1966, a U.S. District Court rejected the state’s reapportionment. Finally in 1967, the courts accepted the legislature’s plan. In 1971, the Justice Department successfully challenged portions of the redistricting that affected the 39 counties cited in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The redistricting of the unaffected 61 counties was allowed to stand.

Despite the complexities of the task, the North Carolina General Assembly has not yet appointed any legislative committees to prepare for the pending reapportionment. Some preliminary work has been done in the state but has not been coordinated by the legislature. The General Assembly’s Division of General Research is preparing a reapportionment briefing book for legislators which will summarize pertinent court decisions, federal and state restrictions, and logistical questions on reapportionment. The state Office of Data Services has performed some computer runs on the preliminary census data. If requested by the legislature, the Office could provide computer services to aid in reapportioning the state. In 1971, no computers were used “at all,” according to Clyde Ball, then Legislative Services Officer.

The process the General Assembly will use to reapportion North Carolina in 1981 will not become clear until the General Assembly convenes. Rep. Liston Ramsey (D-Madison), in all likelihood the next speaker of the House, says that the process probably will be similar to that of 1971: a House committee will be established to redistrict the House, a Senate committee will be established to redistrict the Senate, and a joint committee will be established to reapportion
Continued on page 19

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congressional districts. Each committee will consider plans submitted by any legislator, and Rep. Ramsey already has invited North Carolina’a eleven congressmen to submit reapportionment plans to the General Assembly. Each committee will propose its final plan as a piece of legislation that must be ratified by both houses. (In 1971, the Senate accepted the proposed plan of the House and the House accepted the Senate’s plan.)

According to Ramsey, the use of computers in the 1981 reapportionment “will be up to the chairmen of the various committees.” And like 1971, apparently no serious consideration will be given to the idea of an independent reapportionment commission. Ramsey rejects the concept of an independent commission for North Carolina. “I expect the legislature to do it (reapportionment) because the Constitution says we shall do it,” he says.

Citing the Constitution serves to disguise the fact that reapportionment still is perceived by many legislators and others as being the sole domain of state legislatures. Nationwide, politicians from both parties tend to see reapportionment as legitimate political booty. Larry Mead, a member of the Republican National Committee research staff, has said, “We want reapportionment to be fair, but the state legislatures are sovereign. Our job isn’t to save ourselves but to build the party from the bottom up.” Consequently, “the national drive by Republicans to control more statehouses by electing more Republican legislators in November is keyed to the upcoming reapportionment,” writes Dan Pilcher.

Rapid changes in reapportionment law over the last twenty years have increased the complexity of redistricting; rapid changes in reapportionment technology have increased the number of ways to develop redistricting plans. Despite these changes, North Carolina in 1981 will reapportion itself in much the same way it has in the past. “Reapportionment is a political process.. . and that’s the way it should be,” says Brock.

Susan M. Presti is a staff member of the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, an independent research group. This article is reprinted from N.C. Insight, the quarterly magazine of the Center.

The Good Ole Boys Club Prevails: Mississippi Legislature

By D.O. Bell

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 12-13

0nce questioned about the odd language used by lawyers in drafting legal documents, a law professor at Oxford, Mississippi, listened to a law student contending that legal pleadings use archaic terms and the style should be modernized. The professor tongue-in-cheek replied, “What we need are not more modern pleadings; what we need are more archaic law students.”

This theory of “legal reform” did apply for many years to the Mississippi legislature where pleas for more progressive legislation were met by the addition of more reactionary legislators. However, a growing number of persons with bright minds and a view to Mississippi’s future, not its past, now occupy seats in both the Senate and House of Representatives. There are seventeen Black lawmakers, fifteen more than in 1979, primarily due to court-ordered reapportionment. In addition to long-time Black leaders Aaron Henry and Henry Kirksey, the Black caucus boasts well-groomed newcomers such as Hillman Frazier, a George Washington University Law School graduate and former legislative draftsman, as well as Jackson attorney Fred Banks. A new wave of White legislators, including Ivy League educated Gerald Blessey, Jackson’s Ed Ellington, and Dennis Dollar of the Gulf Coast, is striving to move Mississippi forward.

The Mississippi legislature, nevertheless, remains in the clutches of “the ole boys club.” Black gains still leave minority representation at about ten percent in a state which is thirty-eight percent Black. Of the entire legislature’s one hundred and seventy-four members, there is but one woman.

Despite new blood, the Mississippi legislature is still not the place to go for fast action. Very little legislation of any signigicance gets as far as the floor. As one lobbyist put it, “It’s easier to block bad legislation than it is to get good legislation passed.”

The 1981 Mississippi legislature looks to be carrying on that standard. Early in the session, which began January 6th and will close March 31st, the Speaker of the House, C.B. “Buddie” Newman, requested members to read and consider the legislation assigned to their committees. He then added that “sometimes we help people more by what we don’t do,” but that he did think that the bills should be read.

Speaker Newman, a Delta farmer, holds immense power by having control over committee assignments. A telling, if inconsequential example, of his dominance, drew laughter from the gallery and took place a few minutes before a joint session in January. The senators were late getting into the House chamber. A motion was made to delay the session until they had time to get in. “All in favor say ‘aye,'” the Speaker said. No one bothered. “All opposed say ‘no.’ “A chorus of goodnatured “No!” rang out. “The ‘ayes’ have it,” the Speaker concluded and retired to wait for the senators.

Gathered into what was once Jackson’s Central High School, which has been remodeled to accommodate the legislature while the $18 million renovation of the capitol takes place a block away, this year’s legislature has heard and heard again that the state is in financial straits, that there is little money for new or expanded programs. In spite of this warning, the medicaid bill, which had been given much attention by the press, has already passed. Had this appropriations bill not been enacted, the Medicaid Commission would have had to cut services to patients due to a budget deficit.

Governor William Winter, whom many view as the most able chief executive in the state’s history, has placed education at the top of his priority list. His bill to provide for the establishment and funding of public kindergartens, something Mississippi has never had, is still alive and given a good chance of survival. The compulsory school attendance bill, repealed in the 1950s, will not be reinstated this session as the governor had wanted. Governor Winter has also stressed the development of forestry products and methods of handling industrial wastes.

Mississippi remains one of only six states that does not have either court decision or statute requiring landlords to comply with minimum housing standards. This legal protection for tenants will not be granted again this year. The bill was not voted out of committee by February 5th, the deadline for committees to send legislation to the full House. The Fair Pulpwood Sealing and Practices Act, designed to attack some of the problems of the state’s estimated 10,000 pulpwood cutters and haulers, bled to death after being gutted by the Ways and Means committee. Some progressive

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measures dealing with jail conditions, domestic abuse, and accountability of state schools for the deaf and blind remain under consideration. A bill calling for open business and meetings of state boards has a good chance of passage.

But no other real reform measures seem likely to be pushed through this session. Those who look to the Mississippi legislature for modern reform may look back in the spring and conclude, in the words of Leonard PenthDarnel, television’s “Saturday Night Live” and former host of Bad Opera, “There, that wasn’t so good, now was it.”

D.O. Bell is a staff member of the Southern Regional Council’s Southern Project for Fair, Open Government.

Big Profits and Little Pay in South’s Backwoods: Woodcutters Organize (Part II)

By Wayne Greenhaw

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 14-17

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Woodcutters have generally been considered the bottom of the barrel when you are talking about agriculture in the South,” stated a forestry professor at Alabama’s Auburn University.

“The industry has been a profitable one for the huge companies, but the workers in the woods, cutting the timber and hauling it to the woodyards have been submissive to the demands of the companies,” explained Dr. Herman Aiken, who has worked with half-dozen top companies as a consultant to their new timber crops.

“Today we can plant a hybrid pine tree in the South and harvest it in less than fifteen years. The Sun Belt may even lend itself to faster harvesting in the near future. When you have an annual rainfall of between forty-five and sixty inches with a preponderance of sunshine during most of the year—even in the winter, you have an ideal situation for the modern fast-producing forest. In the Pacific Northwest, Washington, Oregon, and parts of California and Idaho, it takes nearly sixty-five years for a tree to mature,” Dr. Aiken added.

“The time factor is one reason for the tremendous growth in the pulpwood industry in the South during the past decade,” the professor said. “Another reason is the cheap labor. There is no doubt about that. The company looks at the overall picture in every agricultural area before it decides to move in that direction,” he said.

This movement was emphasized recently by the decision of Georgia-Pacific, a leader in the pulpwood industry, to come South. A company spokesperson explained the move of corporate headquarters from Portland to Atlanta by saying, “We are not going to abandon the Northwest, but we have shifted our interests to the South, where we have more than two-million acres.” In 1979, Southwest Forest Industries, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, registered what the president, W.A. Franke, termed “a milestone” in its purchase of a Panama City, Florida, pulp and linerboard mill, a railroad line and 425,000 acres of timberland in Florida, Georgia and Alabama from International Paper Company. “We looked at Panama City on an opportunistic basis. It was clear that the longterm economics for owning the timber were good. This was our initial objective. After studying the project, we concluded there were also opportunities for added profitability at the paper mill. So our thinking moved from a timberlands-oriented acquisition to the concept of an integrated profit center that would be a long-term contributor to the company’s earnings,” Franke remarked.

In its move into the South, Southwest Forest Industries purchased 245,000 acres in pine and 157,000 in hardwoods. A company representative said, “We have the wood to supply a large portion of the Panama City mill’s needs. We bought lands that have been managed intensively for high productivity and we have the resource base to diversify into lumber and plywood production. Most important, we are now in the South in a meaningful way, where the fast timber growth cycles point to more rapid expansion in our industry than in other parts of the country. We made a good buy here.”

The Panama City mill uses about eight-hundred-thousand cords of pulpwood and woodchips every year, and company-owned timberlands furnish about twelve and one-half percent of the mill’s needs. “Many, many woodcutters depend on our operation to keep them in work, and we want to continue to work with them,” a mill representative said. However, it was added, by 1985, the company’s pine plantations should be supplying about twenty-five percent of the mill’s needs.

0ne of the people who have been attempting to organize woodcutters throughout the region, Ben Alexander of Atlanta, Georgia, greets these moves, “We want to welcome the new companies. All the woodcutters want to see more and more companies coming into the area. It’s good to see, it revitalizes the business of pulpwooding. But we want to educate them from the beginning. We don’t want them to think they are coming into a backward area where the labor force will lay down, roll over, and play dead.”

Alexander pointed out that the wage structure in Southern states has been a great incentive to companies to move from other sections of the United States into the South. “That sort of green is irresistible,” said Jim Drake, coordinating officer in Mississippi of the Southern Woodcutters Assistance Project (SWAP). “Trade unions in paper mills report that similar jobs in Oregon pay three times the wage in Mississippi. Furthermore, the old standard that ‘Prices are cheaper down there’ does not hold. In Mississippi, March 1980 gasoline prices were the highest of all fifty states,” Drake continued.

“In Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas and Florida there are more than fifty to sixty thousand aging pulpwood trucks hidden in

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deep woods,” Drake stated. “Each truck requires a crew of three persons. Thus, tucked away in hollows and hamlets are over one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand families dependent on pulpwood for a living.”

“No congressional subcommittee has ever delved into the misery of these people,” Drake continued. “They are the invisible workers and their families. They go unseen, unheard. They live in the poorest counties of America, and Black or White, they suffer malnutrition, poor healthcare, inadequate education and substandard housing.

“And yet, on their strong backs and out of their sweat, International Paper, Georgia-Pacific, St. Regis, Masonite, Weyerhauser, and Scott Paper, to mention only the giants, have built their vast empires,” the United Church of Christ minister said.

With the accelerated growth of the paper industry in the South during the past ten years came the emergence of people like Jim Drake who were interested in organizing the pulpwood workers. Drake, for instance, was sent into the backwoods by the Board for Homeland Ministries of the United Church of Christ to work with SWAP in Mississippi. Several years earlier a young Massachusetts attorney named Grant Oldfield had been in Mississippi to register voters during the summers of 1964 and 1965, “and while we were there we found that not only were Black people discriminated against but the White as well as Black pulpwood worker was being pushed to the back of the bus. The woodcutter was the second-class citizen of the agricultural South. After I finished Boston University Law School I came back to Hattiesburg and set up an office to start working with the woodcutters. We got a little money from Catholic Charities and the Southern Voter Education Project, and we worked to put some sting into the political makeup of Mississippi.”

But three years later, having met with dozens of local political defeats and numerous stumbling blocks, Oldfield went back to his native state to fight for other causes. He was more or less replaced by other young lawyers and organizers in Hattiesburg who began working in the late 1960s with the Gulfcoast Pulpwood Association (GPA), which by 1973 had organized some three thousand woodcutters in southwest Alabama, southern Mississippi and northwest Florida.

Oldfield and his associates filed a lawsuit in the early 1970s against two companies. The paper companies countered with their own lawsuit against the cutters. For nearly a year in the mid 1970s, GPA was ordered to discontinue its organizing efforts while the case was before the courts. However, in 1975, after limited victories for the woodcutters in federal courts, Scott and International Paper companies agreed to an across-the-board raise in prices of pulpwood paid to the cutters and haulers. The companies also agreed to pay GPA attorneys $25,000 in fees.

The cutters were given an overall five-dollar-per-cord increase in payment, and owners of standing timber, which is cut to become pulpwood and sold to the woodyards, were given a one-dollar-and-fifty-cent raise per cord. Scott and International also agreed at the time not to take their fight against GPA’s organizing efforts to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It was a significant step forward at the time,” commented a GPA leader. “Unfortunately, however, that was the last we heard from the companies. We got the increase. They could not deny us that. But the negotiations stopped there. That was the last raise we received. Now, it appears, we have to go back into court to seek further relief.

“GPA is continuing its organizing efforts. We have moved in several directions. We are looking now for a more substantial increase with a more permanent basis of cost-of-living raises. It costs the pulpwood cutter more and more to live every year, just like it costs the paper companies more and more to produce pulpwood. They are making more and more profits, but those profits are not shared with the man who is working hard to produce the pulpwood. We feel that it is time that we made something for our sweat and blood.”

Many woodcutters participating in

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organizing their fellow workers believe that the various labor associations need to ban together in a southwide effort. In northern Mississippi and Louisiana, SWAP spokesmen say that they do not wish to compete with GPA, “but we would like to join hands with all woodcutters to make sure our efforts do not go to waste.”

Wayne Greenhaw is a freelance journalist in Montgomery, Alabama and author of several Southern books. His final installment on the woodcutters will appear in the next issue.

Update: Alabama Legislature

By SLRC Staff

Vol. 3, No. 2, 1981, pp. 18-19

The Alabama legislature returned to Montgomery on February 3rd to face critical budget problems which have been plaguing the state for years. Tax revenues earmarked for many functions of state government, especially the education system, are failing to keep pace with inflation and Alabama’s bare bones approach to government services is leading to drastic proposals to cutback public assistance and social welfare programs.

Many Alabama agencies are facing proration, or across the board percentage reductions, as revenue falls short of expectations. Ironically, under present funding systems, Alabama Education Association must defend the earmarked sales tax revenues on which the education budget depends against proposals to exempt food and drug items from the sales tax. Meanwhile, the state’s income and property taxes remain very low compared to other states.

With social programs already struggling to survive, Governor James has announced a goal of identifying $45 million of “excess and waste” in the current year’s budget in order to transfer monies to the State Department of Corrections’ expansion program. James hopes that program will convince the federal court to return the prison system to state control. such a transfer plan will be highly controversial, requiring legislative authorization.

Last year, the legislature agreed the state needed $407 million from the general fund, yet could promise only 75 percent of that total, making $109 million of “conditional” appropriations. Recurring proration and increasing “conditional” appropriations—only rarely granted—point to a need for substantial reform in the taxation and finance system in Alabama.

In his “state of the state” address to the legislature, however, James said no

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new tax proposals were needed and that “the ship of state” was leaky with misused funds and earmarked monies. The governor is asking the legislature to unfreeze funds designated for specific purposes by legislation and to establish an election on a constitutional amendment to release monies earmarked in the state constitution.

If successful, James would unfreeze funds from the state income tax, license taxes, some sales taxes, and fines from state game and fish laws violations.