Legislative Messages of Hon. James V. Allred, Governor of Texas 1935-1939 Page: 65 of 263
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-66
PROCLAMATION
No.
15103
By The
Governor of the State of Texas
Executive Office
May 17, 1935.
To All to Whoml These Presents Shall Come:
WHEREAS, House Bill No. 680,
"AN ACT regulating the use of State-owned motor vehicles by employees
of State Departments, Bureaus, Commissions, Institutions and
Agencies in political campaigns; providing said cars may not be used
except for carrying out business of the State; providing any one violating
the provisions of this Act shall be dismissed from the State's
employ; providing no employee of the State shall campaign or solicit
votes in any manner whatever for the head of his department or any
other candidate seeking public office; providing no car may be used for
the personal or family use of an employee; fixing penalties, and declaring
an emergency,"
was duly passed by the Forty-fourth Legislature in Regular Session and is
now before me, as Governor, for approval or veto; and
WHEREAS, Said Act not only prohibits State employees from using Stateowned
motor vehicles in -political campaigns, but contains the following
broad and all inclusive prohibition:
"No employee in any Department or branch of the State Government
or State relief organization shall campaign or solicit votes in any
manner whatever for the head of his or her department or any other
candidate seeking public office"; and
WHEREAS, This prohibition does not merely apply to political activities
on State time, or the hours during which an employee is working, but seeks
to regulate the conduct of such employees in leisure hours or when off duty,
or on vacation, and, in my judgment, constitutes an unreasonable deprivation
of the natural and constitutional rights of free born Texas citizens whether
they are employed by the State, or not; and
WHEREAS, The quoted provision is so broad that if the conduct oi acts of
an employee were attacked or questioned in a political campaign, such enmployee
would be denied the right even to defend himself or to explain the
challenged transaction before the public without subjecting himself to criminal
prosecution; and
WHEREAS, My immediate predecessor vetoed a similar bill passed by
the Forty-third Legislature, and called attention to these defects in that
bill; and
WHEREAS, This bill nowhere attempts to restrict the activities of other
public employees such as employees of counties, cities and school districts,
who are free to exercise their free born American rights without fear of
penalty while State employees are denied these identical rights; and
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Allred, James V. Legislative Messages of Hon. James V. Allred, Governor of Texas 1935-1939, book, 1939; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth3899/m1/65/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .