University Daily Kansan, March 19, 1985
NATION AND WORLD
Page 2
Company will take over ABC
Court bars PAC spending limits
NEW VORK — Spokesmen for American Broadcasting Cos. and Capital Cities Communication Inc. said yesterday they would merge in a $3.5 billion deal that allows the smaller Capital Cities to take control of the network.
Under the agreement, ABC stockholders
share a share of stock in closed at $7.50 FD.
stock in closed at $7.50 FD.
Some analysts speculated that ABC executives had agreed to a friendly takeover by Capital Cities in order to avoid overtures by others, including Ted Turner, owner of Cable News Network.
Killings spur appeal to U.N.
**CAMUS** — Iran has executed hundreds of political prisoners in the past few weeks and intends to kill 2,000 more, the leader of Iranian opposition group said yesterday.
The leader of the Mujaheddin Khalq organization said he had appealed to U.N. Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar to prevent further killings.
He said 141 supporters of the Mujaheddin had been executed in Tehran and three other cities in the last few days.
New hearing for Goetz begins
NEW YORK — A new grand jury heard testimony yesterday in the case against subway gunman Bernhard Goetz, but the defense said it had been asked yet to appear before the panel.
A private court hearing also will be held today in the renewed investigation of the Dec. 22 shootings of four teenagers. At the Dec. 19 goers' lawyers said, they hoped state Supreme Court Justice Stephen McFarlane would stop the grand jury proceeding.
Goetz, 37, was indicted by the first grand jury in January on weapons violation charges that are still pending, but the panel stopped short of indicating Goetz for attempted murder.
National VFW expels post
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — A rebel Veterans of Foreign Wars post has been expelled from the national organization after his resignation. The Central America, post members said yesterday.
The Bill Motto Post 5888, whose 90 members are mostly veterans of the Vietnam War, has taken a public stand in opposition to the national VFW's support of the Reagan administration's policies in Latin America.
Members of the Santa Cruz post said that their charter had been revoked by the national organization but that they would continue functioning as a post.
Compiled from United Press International reports.
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court threw out a key provision of election law yesterday when it rulied that limits on the amount political action committees may independently spend on presidential campaigns violated First Amendment guarantees.
PAC's are independent political groups that campaign — and spend — for and against candidates who agree or disagree with their goals.
The 7-2 rulng defeated attempts by the Federal Election Commission and the Democratic Party to uphold a federal election law provision that placed a $1,000 ceiling on independent expenditures for presidential candidates who accepted public financing for their campaigns. Violation of the law carried a criminal penalty.
The Democrats had sued to stop conservative groups from spending millions on President Reagan's reelection campaign, which he defeated before the 1984 campaign had ended and
THE DEMOCRATS complained that massive spending by PACs skewed the election outcome.
before the conservative PACs had spent a total of $15.2 million.
The law regulating PAC spending was part of post-Watergate election reform passed by Congress in an attempt to limit the political influence of large special interest groups.
Justice William Rehqunit, delivering the majority opinion, said there could be no doubt that the expenditures at issue were part of the speech protected by the First Amendment. Such discussion of public issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates are central to the American system of government.
"THE PACS IN this case . . . are not lone pamphleteers or street corner orators in the Tom Paine mold; they must spend substantial amounts of money in order to communicate their political ideas through sophisticated media advertisements." Reheng said.
Rehnquist said that in a nationwide presidential election, allowing the presentation of views while forbidding the expenditure of more than $1,000 to present them is "much like allowing a speaker in a public hall to express his views while denying him the use of an amplifying system."
The court rejected arguments that spending such large sums of money would corrupt the system.
Dissenting, Justice Byron White wrote for himself and Justice Thurgood Marshall: "The First Amendment protects the right to speak, not the right to spend, and limitations on the amount of money that can be spent are not the same as restrictions on speaking."
In other action yesterday. the court:
- Thwarted an attempt by the Indianapolis Colts to transfer a lawsuit filed by Baltimore seeking to retain the football team.
- *Let stand a ruling rejecting efforts to bury 16,500 aborted fetuses and embryos found discarded in a backyard in California.
- Leaf intact a Texas judge's order barring public scrutiny of documents in a suit over alleged mismanagement of a nuclear power plant construction project.
Ohio works to reopen savings and loans
By United Press International
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio General Assembly yesterday wrestled with emergency legislation to reopen some of 70 state-chartered savings and loan associations and to protect 500,000 depositors.
A proposal worked out by the governor, legislators and bank executives was introduced in both houses, but majority Republicans raised questions about provisions of the bill.
Gov. Richard F. Celeste met in Cincinnati with community leaders in an attempt to assure them and nervous depositors that his plan would enable the institutions to open
their doors with their dollars fully protected as soon as possible.
Celeste closed the state-chartered but privately insured savings and loans Friday and extended that order indefinitely yesterday after a "run" by customers to some $60 million out of the institutions. It was the largest closing of savings institutions since President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the banks during the months.
The run was caused by the closing 10 days ago of Home State Savings Bank of Cincinnati, after it was disclosed the institution may have lost $100 million in the collapse of ESM Government Securities Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
state-chartered savings and loans to be insured by the federal government within 60 days. But they would be allowed to reopen at once upon demonstrating to the state superintendent of savings and loan associations that they qualify for federal insurance.
Celeste on Sunday conceded he could not guarantee that all the closed institutions would be able to reopen but fall short of them. Their associates would lose their deposited money.
The initial bill contained no provision for the 500,000 depositors with money in the state-chartered institutions to make partial withdrawals, as hinted by the governor Sunday.
The emergency legislation requires all
Salvadoran rebels start disruption plan
By United Press International
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Leftist guerrillas blackened out two northern provinces and toppled electricity line towers along a coastal highway in a campaign to disrupt upcoming elections, officials said yesterday.
The action followed the rebels' weekend announcement that they would begin a new highway sabotage campaign to disrupt March 31 elections, in which Salvadoran will
vote for members of legislative assembly and for mayors in 237 towns.
The elections are seen as a challenge to President Jose Napoleon Duarte's moderate Christian Democrats. Rightist parties traded on the island been stronger in the country's rural areas.
"There will be no more quiet nights for the oligarchs. We will take the war of national liberation to new victories throughout the country," rebel Radio Venergeos warned.
In fighting over the weekend, government troops killed 10 guerrillas in three provinces and on the 5,400-foot San Salvador volcano on
the capital's western edge, military officials said.
Several thousand government troops pressed the rebels in the disputed provinces of Usulutan, San Miguel, San Salvador and Mozambique. There was no immediate report of casualties.
In the northern provinces of Chalatenango and San Salvador, officials said, the rebels toppled several electricity towers late Sunday, cutting power to 32 towns.
Explosions occurred on the Northern Trunk Highway, 24 miles north of the capital, power company officials said yesterday.
U.S. deficit in '84 trade sets record
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — The U.S. balance of payments deficit was a record $101.6 billion in 1984, as service industry earnings fell far short of merchandise trade losses, the Department of Commerce reported yesterday.
The latest figures also showed that the fourth quarter deficit of $23.7 billion was nearly $9 billion smaller than that in the third quarter. The figures show the extent to which the nation is paying for imported products with IOUs. But the quarterly improvement apparently is only temporary.
And the worst may have yet to come, the department indicated.
"The United States is shifting from net creditor to net debtor. Commerce Sec-
The balance of payments, also known as the current account, is the way nations compare their books and is considered the bottom line status report on the effects of every form of international transaction, not just merchandise trade.
New liabilities last year canceled a surplus in the United States' international banking system.
Experts agree that the U.S. international debt will be the largest on Earth if, as expected, the current pace of borrowing keeps up for the next few years, and that it remains on that debt will help 1965's deficit set a new record, Baldridge indicated.
The 1984 deficit was 28 percent of all exports of both goods and services, worth $362.3 billion last year. The United States exceeded the previous record for that comparison, Italy's shortfalls of about 20 percent earlier this decade.
The 1983 balance of payments deficit of $441.6 million was 12.5 percent of exports.
The world market for currency, goods and services tends to balance international accounts eventually — to the disadvantage of the borrower. The borrowing nation then experiences a lower standard of living as it necessarily imports less, experts say.
Symptoms of massive borrowing could be found throughout the report. Foreigners lent money to the U.S. government directly through a record $22.5 billion in government securities purchases. They lent a record $13 billion to corporations and individuals.
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