FROM THE EDITOR

By John S. Gray Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP

Is History Repeating Itself?

Every summer begins with the Houston Bar Association welcoming a new president and with him or her a new cast of energetic and dynamic committee members and section chairs heading up the HBA's 37 committees and 29 legal sections that serve Houston's legal community. This summer is no exception as The Houston Lawyer welcomes a new editorial board comprising many familiar faces and several new ones. This bar year, T. Mark Kelly is the HBA's new president, and I have the honor of leading an excellent team of talented volunteers as they prepare six new issues for you. I hope they will provide you with articles to help improve your practice and inform you about the lawyers we work with and the communities in which we live.

As has become the custom, most issues will have a topical theme. This year's themes include corporate and taxation law, legal issues affecting our children, the legislature, the environment, and the traditional issue that salutes our volunteers. If you have an idea for an article that you believe Houston lawyers would like to read, or need to read, please let us know. Even better, if you would like to write an article for one of these issues, we would love to hear from you–just drop us an email at taras@hba.org. We welcome your articles, your comments and your insight. After all this is your magazine.

Our first issue for this bar year is one of general interest. We are pleased to have a mix of substantive legal articles on a range of topics that every lawyer should find of interest, including avoiding disciplinary actions, improper witness coaching and evidentiary issues regarding undocumented persons. In addition to these three substantive legal articles, our first issue also proudly revisits a favorite topic with two articles – stories devoted to Houston's legal history. Judge Mark Davidson again honors us with a riveting tale about Houston's own Civil Rights movement when a group of courageous young lawyers took on Houston's established government in the 1950s in an effort to desegregate the Harris County Courthouse cafeteria. THL's own outgoing editor, Ann Ziegler, then regales us with the true story of those fine upstanding ladies of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (the "Daughters"), whose 1907 dispute over the Alamo resulted in a brawl in the Senate Chamber in the Texas State Capitol and ended with a lawsuit over the Alamo's future being filed in Houston.

It is the Alamo article that led to the title of this column. At one time or another, we have heard Winston Churchill's famous quote: "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." Well, it seems that the Daughters need to read Ann Zeigler's article because they appear to be fighting over finances again. But this time, instead of brawling in the Senate Chamber and involving Houston judges in their disputes, they involved the Texas Attorney General's Office and Governor Perry has weighed in on the issue.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article (this new brawl is making national headlines), the AG's office got involved after a member of the Daughters of the Republic filed a 65-page letter complaining that the Alamo was not being kept in "good order and repair," as required by the 1905 state law that charged the group with the Alamo's upkeep. This latest dispute is allegedly about a leaky roof, but it is clear that competing groups are again fighting over who can best maintain the Alamo as it welcomes 8,000 visitors each day.

As the Attorney General's office is conducting its investigation into the Daughters' financial, engineering and personnel files, the Governor's office has been busy reviewing structural reports on the Alamo's buildings. It is reassuring that both Governor Perry and Attorney General Abbot take concerns over the Alamo's safety seriously and that the leaking roof appears to pose no immediate threat. The same cannot be said about the threat this latest schism among the Daughters' membership may pose. This whole brouhaha began last year when an ousted Daughter started a competing group called the Friends of the Alamo. This new group is claiming that the Daughters are not equipped to run the Alamo and should be stripped of their custodianship. They are seeking to have the Daughters officially disbanded in lieu of hiring a business manager. I cannot tell you how this latest saga will end, but I do ask the question: Is history repeating itself? You be the judge.

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