THE BUSH WATCH

THE OFFICIAL MAURO FOR GOVERNOR WEB SITE IS UP. TO GET THERE, JUST CLICK ON THIS HEADLINE. 8/ll/ 98, Austex

MAURO BLASTS BUSH FOR CONTINUING SUPPORT OF U.S. CONGRESS DECISION "TO MAKE TEXAS THE RADIOACTIVE PRIVY OF THE ENTIRE NATION." In spite of the House vote to allow Maine and Vermont to make money by allowing other states to dump radioactive waste in Texas, the Gov stuck by his support of the Compact. According to Mauro, "Bush may say...Texas can prevent other states from sending their nuclear waste to Texas, but he's dead wrong." Mauro's correct about this. When the House stripped the bill of the Doggett ammendment, Texas became the dump site for the nation, subject to Senate confirmation, which is likely, particularly since (surprise, surprise), it has the support of Kay (Baby) Hutchison and Phil (Otto) Gramm. (DMN, 7/31) 7/3l, Austex

"THE GUY IS BROKE AND HE HAS GOT NO SUPPORT. WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO? HE IS GOING TO PUT A BRAVE FACE ON AND MAKE THE BEST OF IT." So says Bruce Buchanan, a UT gov. prof. and political observer. Meanwhile, in a grassroots attack on the Guv's suburban voters, Mauro spent a recent day at Del Webb's Sun City near Georgetown, walking from door-to-door and talking to the voters. He plans to visit over l00 Texas cities by the end of August, but called his walking tour "a symbolic thing." Meanwhile, this week it was revealed that the Indian tribes with casinos featuring machines that Bush wants to outlaw contributed to the Mauro's campaign prior to his support of their position. This is an issue that Bush is unlikely to touch because it could backfire so easily. (AAS 7/ l4+l6) 7/ l8 Austex

LAST NIGHT AT THE STATE BOARD MEETING RE THE TRIANGLE, Garry Mauro presented a new development plan and the board granted the developer and the neighborhoods 90 days to consider it, tweak it, and return with an agreement. The new plan eliminates a large multi-screen cinema and adds three-story apartments and offices. Although the plan calls for 600,000 square feet rather than 400,000, the retail space drops from 7l% to 25%, resulting in an estimated reduction of traffic. A neighborhood resident called the new plan "a major victory" and the developer's rep called it " an evolution." Mauro called it, "My compromise...I'm dealing in good faith." The next meeting will take place a month before the elections. 7/ 7/ 98

"DEAR (POLITEX), MY CAMPAIGN DATA WEB SITE WILL BE OPERATIONAL NO LATER THAN JULY l." E-mail response: "Dear Garry, here it is July l and I'm unable to find your campaign data web site. Will it be at the www.mauro.org when it's operational?"MAURO APPEARED AT THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION WITH BOXING GLOVES ON AND BASHED AN ELEPHANT PINIATA TO BITS ! The party faithful wore "Go to Hell, Bob Bullock" buttons and claimed they didn't miss Democratic bail-outs Sharp and Hobby, the strongest candidates for State office at present. Meanwhile, Mauro gave a rousing speech and backed the platform of teacher raises, school construction, accessible child care, and doctor choice, an answer to the GOP's platform of abolishing the minimum wage, teaching creation science in public school, and opposing regulation of property owners' water rights.E-N,6/30

BUSH SAYS "TOMATO" AND GARRY SAYS "TOMAHTO"! What's with Candidate Mauro these days? Whatever Bush says, he's agin it. In today's Austin "Statesman," Ben Sargent, the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize-winning liberal cartoonist, has Bush taking a dose of "guts" medicine because he commuted the execution of Henry Lee Lucas to life in prison with no hope of getting out. Appealing to Bush's more conservative voters, Garry says Bush should have allowed the execution: "He's guilty enough of the murders he confessed to." (Italics mine.) What's with Mauro? First he ices the liberals with his apparent triangle decision, then he attempts to woo Bush's pro-execution faction with this cheap shot. What do your polls tell you, Garry? AAS, 6/30

Jenny Staff in this week's AUSTIN CHRONICLE GIVES US ANOTHER VIEW OF MAURO'S BEHAVIOR at the state Board meeting (see below). He appeared "skittish and agitated," because, according to observers, he was afraid that another member of the board would vote with the city and queer the state's deal with the developers over the triangle. According to this scenario,in the past the state would come in with bulldozers and that would be the end of it. Mauro wants the triangle neighborhoods to see him as a hero because he changed the rules so that they gained input into the process of deciding what will be built on state lands, but that simply is a half-truth at best.

Mauro knows that a state requirement insists that 40% of a state land development plan must be a done deal with the developers and their "big box" clients like Barns and Nobel, Randalls, and Act III cinema before the plan is submitted for neighborhood discussion and local and state approval. Further, the state agency that owns the land, the MHMR in the case of the triangle, can include future lease funding in its projected budget, even though this is against Texas law, if the Comptroller of Public Accounts says it will happen, and he did in the case of the triangle. This took some doing because in l994 Mauro's office went on record as saying the best use of tringle land would be a "non grocery store small retail power center" because of the giant development in the next block which includes the Central Market "big box" with land leased to the developers by the MHMR. One year later, Mauro's office changed its mind because of the "persistence of...Randalls," a grocery store chain with a fully functioning "big box" three blocks away.

Jenny Staff ends her piece on a semi-optimistic note, suggesting that one West Texas Republican board member, Louis Renaud or Bill Warnick, might be inclined to vote with the city against the state . However, they have said elsewhere that they don't understand what the problem is; they'd love to read a book, sip an expresso,see a movie, and make up a gormet shopping list all in one new place out there on the prairie. So we're back to Mauro; his vote would win it for the neighborhoods, and they wonder what office or administrative position he's really running for. 6/ 27, Austex

GARRY MAURO FINDS HIMSELF BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE because he happens to be wearing two hats at the moment; he's both Texas Land Commissioner and Democratic gubernatorial candidate. His problem is a 27 acre empty field in central Austin called "The Triangle." This state-owned parcel, surrounded by historic, liberal neighborhoods and state office buildings, has had the developers licking their chops for years, and when Bush became governor vacant state lands became valuable pawns in the cost-cutting game. The state cut a deal to develop the land, over the objections of the neighborhoods, and the City of Austin sided with the neighborhoods against the developers, taking the battle to the next and last level, the State Board of Review, a six-member committee chaired by Mauro. Although he has said, "It's never OK for state government to run roughshod over a neighborhood," indications were he was going to vote with the developers, despite the fact that neighborhood input was not invited until after the deal was cut with the developers. By the time the State Board met last night, it was clear that Mauro's vote was the deciding vote. After listening to over four hours of debate, the Land Commissioner declared the meeting illegal and got a two-week postponement. His rock is as Land Commissioner he would probably vote with the Bush appointees for the developers, further eroding his liberal power base in his underdog fight to become governor and leading some to question the serious of the race, itself. His hard place is that as Democratic gubernatorial candidate he would probably vote with the neighborhoods, reinforcing his power base and his seriousness of purpose. And what effect, if any, will his vote have on his Washington friends? Stay tuned. (See PoliTex, 6/l5) 6/ l4/ 98, Austex

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Garry Mauro has taken advantage of the Guv's Indian problems by visiting El Paso and backing the Tiguas' casino rights and attacking the Bush-backed nuke dump site in Sierra Blanco. El Paso pollster Bill Kaigh believes Garry's West Texas numbers went up accordingly. (AAS)5/ 3l Mauro will return to El Paso on the 25th to meet up with Al Gore at an event that should earn him some needed campaign funds. He will also be meeting with Bill and Hillary in Washington at around the same time for the same reasons. (AAS) 6/ 7/ 98