DRUGS, MONEY DOMINATE ATTORNEY GENERAL PRIMARY ISSUES

AUSTIN -- Arguments about drugs, money and deadbeat parents are dominating
the Republican and Democratic primary contests for attorney general.

On drugs, the two contests have featured tough talk in favor of a crackdown
on illegal narcotics while at least two candidates have refused to say
whether they have ever used illegal drugs.

On money, the Republicans have fought over whose campaign war chest is the
most tainted while complaining about Democratic Attorney General Dan
Morales' agreement to pay billions of dollars in contingency fees to trial
lawyers in the state's tobacco lawsuit settlement.

And on deadbeat parents, the candidates are touting plans to collect child
support payments from almost 550,000 delinquent mothers and fathers.

The fight for the Republican attorney general nomination has pitted former
Supreme Court Justice John Cornyn, former state GOP Chairman Tom Pauken and
Railroad Commissioner Barry Williamson together in a sometimes personal
brawl that would have been more characteristic of the Democratic primaries
of old.

The Democratic primary has been a more civil affair, mostly because of the
low-budget campaigns of its two major candidates: former Attorney General
Jim Mattox and Court of Criminal Appeals Justice Morris Overstreet.

Although the third candidate in the Democratic race, Universal City lawyer
Gene Kelly, is not campaigning, he has benefited in some of his past races
from having the same name as the now-deceased tap-dancing movie star.
Without campaigning in 1990, Kelly won the Democratic nomination for
Supreme Court but was defeated by Cornyn.

The stakes in the primary contests increased last December when Morales
announced he would not seek re-election.

The attorney general's office primarily is a civil law office, representing
the state in court. But the agency also represents the state in death
penalty appeals, and one division assists local district attorneys in
criminal prosecutions when they ask for help. And almost half the agency's
staff is dedicated to the collection of delinquent child support payments.

The Democratic contest for attorney general got a late start because
Morales waited to drop out until other candidates already were filing to
run.

Overstreet had already begun his campaign against Morales on the grounds
that many of the attorney general's actions had been contrary to the
interests of minorities and women. He was particularly upset over Morales'
ruling that the Hopwood anti- affirmative action case applied to all Texas
universities.

In the wake of Morales' departure, Overstreet -- the first African-American
to win statewide office -- argued that other candidates should stay out of
the race. But Mattox decided to try to win back the office he held for two
terms before giving it up for an unsuccessful run for governor in 1990.

Overstreet said Mattox has been a good representative of minority
communities in the past, but that Mattox's time has past.

"There was a time when the Hispanic community and the AfricanAmerican
community had to rely on others, mostly whites, to stand up for them in the
courts and the Legislature," Overstreet said. "But things have evolved to a
point that we have leaders who have the education, the training and the
wherewithal to represent our communities."

Mattox said he ran again simply because "I believe I can do the job better
than anyone else." Mattox said if elected he wants to restore the agency's
consumer and environmental protection divisions.

Neither Mattox nor Overstreet has so far run television campaign advertisements.

Most of the attention in the attorney general primaries has been on the
Republican side, because that is where the money is.

Williamson has had the best-financed campaign, with almost $1 million
raised and another $1 million transferred from his Railroad Commission
campaign account. Cornyn raised about $700,000 for the contest, and Pauken
about $400,000. Williamson and Cornyn have been advertising on television,
while Pauken has been limited to radio.

With the heaviest television buy, Williamson has tried to drive the debate
with his message that he wants to expand the attorney general's
crime-fighting role.

Williamson -- whose oilman father-in-law, Robert Holt, is on the
three-member oversight board of the Texas Department of Public Safety --
vows that if elected he will start a border crackdown on drug smuggling,
starting in Maverick County. Williamson also wants to create a coordinated
statewide fight against juvenile gangs.

"Law enforcement officials realize juvenile gangs are being fed and funded
by the drug cartels down below the border, and they (gangs) are selling
dope, heroin to our kids and this is killing them," Williamson said.

But both Cornyn and Pauken, while offering crime plans of their own, have
criticized Williamson for blowing the crime-fighting role of the attorney
general out of proportion. Cornyn said Williamson is running for "top cop"
without having a law enforcement background.

"I don't see Barry as having a philosophical compass," Pauken said. "He's
just running a poll-driven campaign."

Pauken also upped the ante by challenging Williamson to say whether he had
ever used illegal drugs. Pauken, who helped organize the Just Say No
campaign in the Reagan administration, said he had never used illegal
drugs.

Williamson's reply was less definitive.

"I did a lot of stupid things when I was in college in the '70s that I'm
not very proud of today," Williamson said in a statement. "The important
thing is that as a parent, I have set a proper example and will work with
my kids to ensure that they grow up with values that prevent them from even
wanting to experiment with drugs."

Williamson and Cornyn have since said the issue is irrelevant to the
campaign and refused to answer the question.

"Because of his flagging campaign, Tom's tried to throw a hand grenade into
a crowded room, a verbal hand grenade, and let other people clean up the
bodies," Cornyn said.

Overstreet and Mattox have said they have not used illegal drugs.

In the 1990 governor's race, Mattox accused former Gov. Ann Richards of
using illegal drugs, but the issue backfired on Mattox. At one point, an
individual said he had smoked marijuana with Mattox, an accusation Mattox
denied.

With the disparity of campaign funds in the Republican races, Pauken and
Cornyn have questioned the ethics of Williamson having raised his campaign
funds largely from people he regulated at the Texas Railroad Commission.
Both have called on Williamson to resign his commission seat.

"When you sit as a regulator, a lot of times when you're raising money from
the people you regulate, they have a hard time saying no," said Cornyn, who
resigned his Supreme Court seat when he decided to run for attorney
general.

A Dallas television station reported last year that since 1994, Williamson
had raised $350,000 from political committees, lobbyists and executives of
businesses that he regulated on the Texas Railroad Commission.

Williamson noted that he returned donations when a company had a case
pending before the commission. But the television station noted that
Williamson returned a $1,000 contribution from an Enron executive in 1996
while a case was pending without returning the $6,000 he had received from
Enron representatives in the two previous years.

Williamson criticized Cornyn for taking political contributions, as a
Supreme Court justice, from lawyers -- including personal injury trial
lawyers -- who had cases before the court. Texans for Public Justice
reported recently that 46 percent of the $1 million Cornyn raised in
1995-96 came from people with business before the court.

Since resigning from the Supreme Court, Cornyn has returned unused
contributions to donors and asked that they give a like amount of money to
his attorney general's race. Supreme Court justices are not allowed to
transfer their political funds directly to another race.

Williamson said he did not resign because he promised voters he would serve
a full six-year term. He criticized Cornyn for resigning his Supreme Court
seat just nine months after winning re-election.

"I keep my promises," Williamson said.

In the realm of money, all the Republicans have criticized Morales'
agreement to obtain more than $2 billion in fees from the tobacco industry
for trial lawyers who handled the state's $15 billion settlement in the
tobacco lawsuit. Pauken was critical of the arrangement before the suit was
settled, but Cornyn grabbed the issue by filing a lawsuit challenging the
fee payments.

The three Republicans also have been criticizing each other's experience
and ability to run the attorney general's office.

Cornyn -- who served six years as a state district judge before his seven
years on the state Supreme Court -- accuses his two opponents of lacking
the legal experience to serve as the state's top lawyer.

Cornyn came out the best in the State Bar of Texas poll, receiving 45
percent of the votes, followed by Mattox at 22 percent. Overstreet came in
third at 16 percent. Williamson received 3 percent of the vote from the
more than 13,600 lawyers who voted in the poll.

But such polls usually favor trial lawyers and judges. Pauken has practiced
as a mediation lawyer, and Williamson claims he has adjudicated more than
4,000 cases as a railroad commissioner.

Williamson criticizes Cornyn for not having managed a major government
agency such as the attorney general's office, while Williamson has been one
of three leaders of the railroad commission and oversaw the Minerals
Management Service of the U.S. Department of Interior in the Bush
administration.

Pauken claims a broader background than either Republican candidate and
notes that he ran the Action agency in the Reagan administration as well as
the state Republican Party. Williamson claims Action was a minor agency and
says Pauken poorly managed the state GOP.

One thing all the candidates agree needs to improve is the child support
collections handled by the attorney general's office.

Child support payment enforcement moved from the state's human services
agency to the attorney general's office in the early 1980s when Mattox was
attorney general.

When Mattox first took the program over, it collected about $13 million a
year from delinquent parents and delivered the money to the parents who
take care of the children. Under Mattox and Morales, collections have grown
to $700 million a year.

But last year, the state had been unable to collect on about 78 percent of
the 700,000 cases that had been turned over for legal action, and a glitch
in developing a new computer system had resulted in the state making
delayed payments to parents on the money that was received.

Cornyn, Pauken, Williamson, Overstreet and Mattox have all promised to
improve the collections and distribution of money.

Mattox and Cornyn also have a connection to child support enforcement that
dates back to 1985.

When Mattox was attorney general he led a statewide crackdown on delinquent
parents, vowing to send those who did not pay child support to jail. The
first father jailed under Mattox's program was a San Antonio man whose
failure to pay $2,400 in delinquent payments resulted in a four-month
sentence from then-District Judge Cornyn.

Copyright 1998 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau