Port Lavaca Wave (Port Lavaca, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 189, Ed. 1 Monday, April 20, 1987 Page: 4 of 12
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Is age discrimination next on Court's busy agenda?
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By Viecent Carroll
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FOUNDERS
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Liberalism: Is it dead or alive?
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One year after Chernobyl
Commentary
□
COURTS
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"At least you got custody rights on the test tube "
AWARD WINNt R
William A
Rusher
Soviet officials estimated the acci-
dent cost their nation more than 2
billion rubles, about $3 billion at the
official exchange rate Radioactive
contamination rendered 600 square
miles of farmland useless
CHESTER C. SURBER
Editor and Publisher
even if the agency had not engaged in
past sex discrimination Previous de-
cisions have given a similar green
light to discrimination against whites
in favor of minorities — again, in
clear violation of the law’s original
intent
Yet civil-rights protections extend
beyond race and sex They include age
as well Somedav the court must de-
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poor, it is probably as ineradicable as
herpes House Speaker Uriah Heep, or
whatever his name is. has already
started floating that idea, albeit with-
out great success
But I take the quasi-sociahst move-
ment that has appropriated the grand
old name of liberalism as standing for
something marginally more pro-
grammatic than that As on display in
this country since the first inaugura
tion of Franklin Roosevelt, "liberal-
ism" has meant the twin propositions
that the federal government ought to
involve itself ever more deeply in reg
ulating the private economy, and that
it should pre-empt an ever-greater
portion of the gross national product
in order to spend it on all sorts of al-
legedly desirable projects
chance of working, but its results
will depend in large measures on
how well it is handled on the slate
level It is viewed in Washington as
the product of a growing consensus
that welfare recipients, for the most
part, are willing and able to work if
they get adequate remedial educa
tion. training, job-placement aid and
other help
Bonuses paid to states that imple-
ment the new welfare plan would not
cost the government anything
because they would be paid from
savings on federal welfare funds ex-
pected to become available when
trainees obtain jobs and are remov
ed from the rolls
In addition to the bonuses, the bill
would permit states to use summer
youth job funds for continuous train
ing programs for welfare youths
The Reagan administration is ask-
ing Congress for mi million in
fiscal 19BH for this program, which it
says will permit states to use the
money more effectively
paid $6oo a month for."
But what would happen if voters
reject the tax proposal'1 Gov
Clements would cross that bridge
w hen he gets to it In Speaker Lewis'
opinion, if that happened, it would be
a clear indication voters don t want
any new taxes And. if they did re-
ject the issue, they would have to
realize that additional cuts in state
programs would be forthcoming
Although several statewide polls
have shown that respondents favor a
tax increase to build more prisons
by margins between 65 and 70 per-
cent instead of continuing a policy of
early prisoner release
Another issue to consider as the
debate continues on special elections
is the critical time that would elapse
between now and an election, and
the fact that one or all issues could
fail
The Legislature should decide
these issues They speak for the peo-
ple
Gorbachev lays
post on line?
Fears that contaminated produce
was making its way to consumers
Ihroughout the Soviet Union have
subsided with time and with
repeated official assurances that
commodities tainted by radiation
have been destroyed
Is there the slightest evidence that
either of these propositions has re-
vived. or even twitched a toe. since I
indirectly pronounced them dead at
New York's Plaza Hotel on the eve-
ning of Dec 5, 1980’’ On the contrary,
the Democrats tried to revive them in
Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential
Port Lavaca Wave
E*tabli*h*d 1890
Pubh*h*d each aftarnoon axcapt
Chriatmat Day, Monday thru Friday
bv Port Lavaca Wava. Inc.
301 S. Colorado. P.O. Box 88
Port Lavaca. Taxat 77978 0088
Talaphona (512) 552 9788
accident, and some medical
specialists have speculated that the
evacuees already had been exposed
to harmful levels of radiation
An American bone-marrow
specialist, Dr Robert Gale, worked
w ith Soviet physicians tor weeks try-
ing to save the lives of the most
seriously injured But. by the end of
last summer, all but a few of the 35
people listed in cnticial condition
after the accident had died
Gale, who will help the Soviets
with long term monitoring of the
survivors' health, predicts a slight
increase in cancer risk for those who
lived near Chernobyl, but he has
been reluctant to project an eventual
death toll
is now under way with the Age Dis-
crimination Act
Bolick researched this subject for
the Cato Institute a Washington think
tank with libertarian leanings, and
turned up a number of ominous deci-
sions He notes, for example, that an
older worker no longer must prove
discriminatory intent by an employ-
er; if a business takes any action that
adversely affects older workers, it
may be found guilty of bias
In one case, for example, a college
board of regents was prevented from
cutting tenured positions (it had in-
tended to trim non-tenured staff as
well) because of "the close relation-
ship between tenure status and age "
As Bolick notes, the result is the col-
lege "would be compelled to dis-
charge only younger, non tenured fac-
ulty members "
In another case, a school district
was told it could not limit its new hir-
ing to teachers with less than five
years experience, since those teach-
ers would tend to be young
Even more worrisome, some courts
have actually suggested that hiring
practices cannot result in the "under-
representation of older workers in a
business a hint that affirmative-ac-
tion criteria should expand to include
age
So far. the Supreme Court has
failed to review the most radical of
these judicial innovations, and Bolick
clearly wishes it would Yet he real-
izes his hope for reversals could be
sadly misplaced After all. the Su-
preme Court has already subverted
the goal of a society free of discrimi-
nation by race and by sex Why stop
there"
While Western experts try to
fathom his intentions. Gorbachev
announces elections featuring
several candidates to be held in
select districts throughout the coun
try on June 21 The balloting will
give voters a choice of candidates on
a wide scale for the first time in
Soviet history
We anxiously await the outcome of
these "free elections” to see
whether the people's choices are
permitted to occupy offices to which
they have been elected instead of be
ing appointed
Some issues up
to Legislature
There is so much disagreement
among legislators at this stage in the
current session that it is doubtful a
suggested referendum can be held in
June on increasing taxes to build
new prisons, a state lottery, and
gambling on horse and dog races
For example, a binding statewide
referendum on legalizing pari
mutuel wagering is scheduled for
November, but House Speaker Gib
Lewis would hke to leave that date
unchanged instead of including the
issue in a June referendum So
would Rep Hugo Berlanga.
D-Corpus Christi, a sponsor of the
pari-mutuel bill approved by
lawmakers last year
Lt Gov Hill Hobby opposes shif-
ting the responsibility ot dealing
with taxation to the public He
doesn't think taxes are very good
subjects for constitutional amend
ments He believes the legislature
should make such decisions because
"That's what they (legislators i get
Page 4 Port Lavaca Wave. Monday, April 20, 1087
"Editorials/comments
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1986
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TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
One year after
history's worst nuclear accident,
thousands of Soviets face lifelong
fear of cancer, and the Kremlin's
new "open" image remains marred
by the disaster it kept secret for
three days
The accident last April 26 at the
Chernobyl nuclear power station has
cost at least 31 Soviet lives, done un-
told damage to public health, and
caused billions of dollars in
economic losses. It has also
bolstered the anti-nuclear move-
ment worldwide, and led to better in-
ternational cooperation on atomic
safety.
The human toll from exposure to
Chernobyl's radiation, which spread
around the world from its source in
the northern Ukraine, will not be
final for decades
British radiologists last month
forecast that the delayed effect ol
the cancer-causing radiation will
add about 1.000 deaths to the
estimated 30 million cancer
fatalities in Western Europe in the
next 50 years
But exact figures, in the Soviet
Union and elsewhere, may never be
known There has been no similar
accident.against which to gauge the
risk.
West Europeans were outraged
that the Chernobyl disaster was not
reported in time for them to take
steps to block radiation contamina
tion of crops and livestock The
Kremlin's initial silence was cited as
proof that Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev's program for increased
official openness has distinct limits
Most of those living in the coun
tryside near Chernobyl were asleep
when unsanctioned experiments at
the power plant's No 4 reactor went
out of control at 1 23 a m that day
Explosion and fire tore open the
reactor
Hundreds of firefighters and plant
workers tried to quell the blaze,
which reached a height of five
stories and threatened to engulf the
adjacent No 3 reactor The heaviest
casualties were among this group
A grim reminder of the human
cost stands today at the Mitmskoye
cide whether to permit the same pref
erential treatment for workers over
40 that it has now granted to minor
ities and women To be blunt Can em-
ployer* discriminate against the
young"
If the court * record of the past 10
years is any guide, the disgraceful an-
swer will almost certainly be ves
GEORGIA HRDLICKA
Advertising Director,
General Manager
GARY FULGHUM-
Managing Editor
RICKWELCH-
Staff Photographer
CATHY WALL--
Classified Manager
DENNIS BURGART
Sports Editor
CAROLINE GRANATO-
Circulation Manager
EDWARD HAWTHORNE JR.-
Prearoom Foreman
Th* Associated Pt*m i* entitled
•xclu*<v*ly to th* u*a for r(publication
of all th* local newt printed in this
nawipapar ** wall a all AP newt
dispat chM.
The 25th anniversary dinner of Na-
tional Review magazine was held on
Dec 5, 1980 - just a month after
Ronald Reagan's first election as
president Being called on to say a few
words. I "let the eagle scream" a bit,
exulting in conservatism's triumph
and warning that we would have to be
on guard to stamp out any embers of
liberalism that might reignite that
menace My caustic remarks were
apparently memorable, because the
episode has gone down in history as
"the time Bill Rusher said liberalism
was dead.”
Recently, on Bill Buckley's "Firing
Line" show. Mark Green brought my
comment up, apparently on the the-
ory that it was. by this time, good for
a chuckle Precisely why Green — a
flaming liberal if there ever was one
— should think so is not entirely clear,
since he was the Democrats' choice to
run against New York's conservative
Republican Sen Alfonse D'Amato last
November and lost by nearly 700,000
votes But I am grateful to him none-
theless. because he has given me an
opportunity to observe how right I
seem to have been
Of course, determining whether lib-
eralism is dead requires us to define
both "liberalism" and dead To
tackle the latter first. I suggest that a
political movement deserves that de
scription if there is little or no plausi-
ble evidence that it is going to get
anywhere in the foreseeable future
What may happen 50 or 100 years
from now. when everybody who can
personally remember liberalisms
ghastly record is gone, is of course an-
other matter
As for "liberalism." defining it is no
simple thing Regarded merely as a
witless Robin Hood-like impulse to
take from the rich and give to the
campaign and promptly lost every
state but Minnesota, which they man-
aged to carry by about 3,000 votes
In 1986 the Democratic party con-
trived to recapture the Senate, but
certainly not by running its candi-
dates as liberals, on the contrary, they
avoided the designation — and the
proposals associated with it — like
the plague
As for 1988, the front-runner for the
Democratic nomination, Gary Hart,
has been conducting a widely publi-
cized (if spectacularly unsuccessful)
hunt for "new ideas" ever since he be-
gan seeking the presidency back in
1983 The rest of the field includes
just one viable candidate — Gov Mi-
chael Dukakis of Massachusetts —
who would willingly accept the liber-
al label and in the last trial heat I
read about, he scored 3 percent The
only two really big-time liberals still
active in Democratic politics. Gov
Mario Cuomo of New York and Sen
Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts,
have declined even to run
And what are the big issues being
pushed by the Democrats in Con-
gress" Two of the biggest are deficit
reduction and welfare reform —
which is rather like W C. Fields join-
ing the temperance movement If
that's liberalism, where do I sign up"
persuaded that Gorbachev believes
in any political philosophy other
than Marxism Leninism, and if it
should come to a choice between
those doctrines and a freer society in
the Soviet Union, the former would
prevail
Even so. Gorbachev's experimen-
tation, viewed from afar as we now
do. is fascinating in a nation that has
deprived its citizens of material
things to build what may be the
world's most powerful military
machine
dJT NOT TUE
Y4E D ft
W
ftv
sons based on their ability rather than
age."
Yet for all the effect of those words
on some lower-court judges they
might as well have been written in
Sanskrit According to Clint Bolick,
an attorney in the U.S Department of
Justice, the process by which courts
transformed the 1964 Civil Rights Act
X
11 —'
U.S experts on the Soviet Union
predict that Mikhail Gorbachev,
who appears to be trying to achieve
a mixture of communism and
capitalism in that nation's political
system, is moving too fast with his
reform < glasnost i policies and likely
will be ousted in three or four years
There are two schools of thought in
the Western world about
Gorbachev's perceived push toward
some democratic-based reforms
One holds that he is sincere, the
other that his pronouncements are
"window dressing designed to lull
the West while the Soviet communist
government further strengthens
itself.
Some authorities on the Soviet
system believe Gorbachev is pursu
ing his new openness policy as a
means of improving his country's
stagnant economy and that his
moves do not signal any fundamen-
tal changes in his communist
philosophy
Arthur Hartman. America's am-
bassador to Moscow until earlier
, this month, declined to predict Gor-
" bachev's ultimate late, but he is not
Not that a literal reading of the law
would warrant that answer Congress
never contemplated special treat-
ment of older workers when it passed
the Age Discrimination in Employ-
ment Act in 1967 In fact the law s
language could not be clearer on the
point The purpose of this act (is) to
promote employment of older ner-
Those of you who admire judicial
creativity, take heart The Supreme
Court has yet to complete Us work of
reversing the plain meaning of this
nation's civil rights laws
Our madcap justices have come a
long way. admittedly As Justice An-
tonin Scalia noted in his dissent from
the court's latest affirmative-action
ruling. "The court today completes
the process of converting (the Civil
Rights Act of 1964) from a guarantee
that race or sex will not be the basis
for employment determinations, to a
guarantee that it often will."
Notice that Scalia referred only to
race and sex In its recent decision,
the court decreed a public agency
could promote a qualified woman
over a more qualified white man.
Wave Wanderings
Welfare remedy
may just work
After hearing that existing federal
job-training programs 'or low in-
come people do not help the least
qualified, who need it most, the U S
Senate voted 99-0 for a bill authonz
ing payment of federal bonuses to
states that focus on welfare reci-
pients for job training and help place
them in jobs they are likely to hold
indefinitely
Passage of the measure, whose
chief sponsor was Sen Edward M
Kennedy. D-Mass . appears to be a
step in the right direction It it works
as intended, it will go a long way
toward helping people trapped in the
welfare net to become self
supporting
The year's first meaningful pro-
posal to help welfare recipients
received overwhelming bipartisan
support Its goal is to help people
shackled by welfare dependency
remove themselves from the public
dole and return to the ranks of pro-
ductive citizens
This new program has a good
i Im
...... TH - A* \
Cemetery just outside Moscow. 450
miles northeast ol Chernobyl
Twenty six of the victims lie buried
there side by side in a plot that will
eventually bear a monument to the
"Heroes of ('hernobyl
More than 200 other plant
employees and firefighters were
hospitalized with radiation sickness
after the accident The medical
team monitoring their health has not
made a public forecast oi their
chances for lull recovery
A Ukrainian nuclear engineer w ho
emigrated after the accident said
friends who worked in two Kiev
hospitals claimed at least 15,000
Chernobyl victims died in those
hospitals over live months The
emigrant's statement, made to a
U.S congressional group, was de
nounced as a "100 percent lie" by
Soviet officials American experts
say they see no evidence to support
such claims
The accident forced the evacua-
tion ol 135,001) people from the nor-
thern Ukraine and southern
Byelorussia, where a danger zone
w ith an 18-mile radius w as establish
ed
But the convoy of buses that
evacuated the first group was not
summoned until 36 hours alter the
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Surber, Chester C. & Fulghum, Gary. Port Lavaca Wave (Port Lavaca, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 189, Ed. 1 Monday, April 20, 1987, newspaper, April 20, 1987; Port Lavaca, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1280690/m1/4/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Calhoun County Public Library.