Oral History Interview with David Allred, August 9, 1967 Page: 82
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Allred
82
I think the sponsor was Tommy Shannon, and I don't know whether
Tommy would have been vindictive about it or not. But he could
have turned around and gotten bills killed that were pets of these
subcommittee members. It only took something like five votes to
kill a local bill and almost any member could round up four friends
to vote a bill down. And if you couldn't get a local bill passed
to help your district, an opponent could use it against you. (A
local bill is one that pertained to one locality.) As I say, the
general rule was you just didn't mess with somebody else's local
bill. Curtis, I felt, should have taken a little different approach.
Also, there was a good deal of antagonism because he dealt so
much on the one theme. He said he told racial jokes in order to
set people at ease. My feeling was it only served to accentuate
the subject. And in general, I felt he took what could have been
a reservoir of good will and turned it pretty much against himself
because of the fact that he was absolutely uncompromising. Now
compromise has come to have a bad connotation in many people's minds,
but the truth of the matter is when you're dealing with 181 people
as you are in the legislature, the name of the game is compromise.
The only way you can get anything accomplished is what the others
will allow you to accomplish. It may not be exactly what you want,
but it's the best that you can get through.
Curtis' theory, as he expressed it to me, was though that it
helped him politically every time "Whitey" slapped him down. Also,
Governor Connally was not particularly popular in his district,
according to him, and he felt if he fussed at the governor and
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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/m1/83/?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.