Oral History Interview with David Allred, August 9, 1967 Page: 27
This book is part of the collection entitled: UNT Oral Histories and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Oral History Program.
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Allred
27
onto the floor and one of his bills was up. And I commented to a
guy near me, "What's the action? What's the bill?" And he said,
"I don't really know what the bill does, but I know who's sponsoring
it, and I'm voting against it on that basis."
Getting into the area of influence, the lobby around the Texas
Legislature is extremely powerful, but it's not through the area
of bribes. I wasn't offered a single bribe per se, and I don't know
of anybody else who was. Of course, this is not something a person
would advertise. But membership in the House is like belonging to
a club. Even members who hold varying views on the floor will get
together for coffee or a beer or something afterwards, and they
respect each other. A story is attributed to Representative John
Field of Dallas. I don't know how true it really is, but he is
supposed to have commented to another member, who was of a different
view, "Now, as a member of the House, you merit my respect and I
will give you my respect as a member of the House, but don't come
around here with a bunch of this jazz." He was talking about the
member's conduct. So members do kind of consider themselves a club.
And they talk about things that come up just as anybody talks shop.
One of the big ways the lobby is powerful is in the area of
campaign contributions, not only in members races, but in the
speaker's race. The race for speaker can be a terribly expensive
and a real, mean race. My estimate is that you would have to have
some financial backing to make much of a race for speaker. If you're
not independently wealthy, the lobby is the most readily availablesource. And certainly they would want to back a winning speaker
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Marcello, Ronald E.; Kamp, H. W. & Allred, David. Oral History Interview with David Allred, August 9, 1967, book, November 20, 1968; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth223569/m1/28/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Oral History Program.