By Dave McNeely and Jim Henderson

lmost nine years ago, the most storied Texas politician since Lyndon John- Bob Bullock: son rode off to that big caucus in the A sky and left behind a tangled legacy. As presiding officer of the Texas Senate for eight years, Bob Bullock enjoyed the Experience Counts most powerful lieutenant governorship in The man who ran Texas as lieutenant governor the nation. He was often mean and nasty, yet incredibly effective. Lawmakers, lobbyists knew how to get what he wanted. and other officials did things not necessarily because they wanted to, but because Bullock wanted them to. He left the Legislature in 1999 and died five months later at 69, but his power is legendary. An example: In 1994, the University of Texas and Texas A&M University wanted to increase their sports team earnings by leav- ing the Southwest Conference in 1994 to join the Big 8. Bullock, a graduate of both Texas Tech and Baylor Universities, called in their top executives. “You’re taking Tech and Baylor, or you’re not taking anything,” Bullock said. “I’ll cut your money off, and you can join privately if you want, but you won’t get another nickel of state money.” The university representatives expressed hesitation. Bullock cut them off. “If you want to try me, go ahead,” he said. “Governor, we understand,” said then-UT Chancellor Bill Cunningham. At that moment, for all practical purposes, the Big 8 became the Big 12. Was Bob Bullock, as one of the last gov- ernmental gunslingers, the most innovative and productive state government executive? Did he, by his animosity, help bring down fellow Democrat Ann Richards as governor, and promote a baseball team president and former First Son to succeed his father in the BARRERA AMERICAN-STATESMAN/RALPH AUSTIN White House? George W. Bush had at least two things in Democrat Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock The answer may well be “yes.” How it hap- common. They both quit drinking in the and Republican Governor George W. Bush pened is a story little-known outside Texas, 1980s, when they were in their 40s. They became a bipartisan team in Texas. of two governors and a lieutenant governor both served as governor of Texas while Dem- powerful enough to control the reins of both ocrat Bob Bullock was lieutenant governor. nor’s job he’d earlier said he wanted. their political futures and, ultimately, the Bullock and Richards had been drinking “Bullock was never fair to Ann, and treated course of history. buddies in the 1970s until Richards checked her very badly, mostly out of intense envy,” Democrat Ann Richards and Republican in for alcoholism treatment—“drunk school,” Ivins said in a 2005 interview. “She could get Bullock called it—in 1980. Bullock followed elected governor and he couldn’t.” Dave McNeely and Jim Henderson are co-authors of suit in 1981. In 1990, he was elected lieuten- And although he was one of the state’s pio- Bob Bullock: God Bless Texas. McNeely was a political writer for the Austin American-Statesman for 26 years and ant governor and she was elected governor. neer practitioners of affirmative action with continues to write a syndicated political column for Texas The late columnist Molly Ivins, who was regard to hiring and promoting women and newspapers. Henderson is currently a freelance writer. close friends with both, thought it bothered minorities, Bullock still suffered from more He has been a reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Times-Herald. Bullock that Richards had gotten the gover- than a trace of male chauvinism, Ivins said.

March 2008 state legislatures 29 She recalled that he called Richards and her passed in 1942. That amendment requires that The lieutenant governor is also a leader staff “hairy-legged women.” after legislators draw up the biennial budget of the Legislative Budget Board, and gets to In Texas, the governor and lieutenant gov- (Texas meets only the first five months of appoint the four senators who sit on it, who ernor run independently of each other. After each odd-numbered year, unless called into meet with the House speaker and four House Bush upset Richards in the 1994 election, special session by the governor), the comp- members to draw up a rough-draft budget while Bullock was handily re-elected, Bull- troller has to certify that his estimate of the during the 19 months before each regular ock and Bush got along famously. revenue to be taken in during that period will legislative session. With a few exceptions, he treated the presi- cover the spending. When Bullock was elected lieutenant gov- dential son almost reverently. He predicted as Bullock used the leverage of that power ernor, he had instant power over the Texas early as 1996 that Bush would one day follow to wheedle money from the Legislature for Senate, and an enviable information and his father to the White House, and endorsed things like out-of-state auditors, state-of- power network scattered through state agen- him for re-election as governor in 1998 over cies and the lobby. Not only had 19 of the 31 Bullock’s former deputy comptroller, Demo- senators and 63 of the 150 House members cratic Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, endorsed his candidacy for lieutenant gover- even though Bullock was the godfather of Bullock was a sponge nor, when his hand came off the Bible at his two of Mauro’s children. swearing-in, it was as though 5,000 Manchu- Bullock didn’t get Bush elected president; rian Candidates had been activated. He had he died of recurring lung cancer and conges- for information— loyalists everywhere. tive heart failure on June 17, 1999, almost a Although he’d announced in the 1980s year before Bush won the Republican nomi- on policy, politics, that he’d run for governor, he pulled down nation. But he could have made Bush’s record that flag, and eventually decided to run for as governor a shambles, had he so chosen. administration and lieutenant governor when it became known that the incumbent, Democrat Bill Hobby, A Power Center wouldn’t seek re-election. Bullock, ever an Most Americans and probably most Texans plain old gossip. early bird, announced for the job in Septem- don’t know it, but the Texas lieutenant gov- ber of 1987—more than three years before ernor is the most powerful lieutenant gover- the election in 1990. nor position in the country. Texas is one of the-art computers, a crackerjack training a handful of states that is ostensibly bipar- program, and anything else he thought he Bullock and Richards tisan; its legislature is not organized along needed. If legislators would pony up for his When Richards came from behind and won party lines like the Congress and most other ambitious tax-collecting approaches, he told the governorship, most who knew them both states. In that independent atmosphere, the them, he’d be able to collect more revenue thought she and Bullock would be a natural presiding officer of the Senate has even more for the state, and legislators would have more fit. They agreed on most issues. But Bullock power. Some have argued that the lieutenant money to spend for their budget. Within four thought the lieutenant governor should han- governor is more powerful than the governor, years, the comptroller’s budget had almost dle the nuts and bolts of running the govern- particularly on budget matters. tripled. ment, while the governor should make lofty Bullock came to the job after 33 years in Although Richards had been state treasurer speeches and clip ribbons. Richards, the first and around state government—as a state rep- for the eight years before she was elected woman governor of Texas whose husband resentative, lobbyist, appointments secretary governor, Bullock used to tell her that he hadn’t held the job first, didn’t agree. to a governor, secretary of state and, most could get her job done with a secretary and a From her days as treasurer and before that important, 16 years as the state comptroller. phone. She had far fewer employees than the as a county commissioner in Travis County, It was in that position as the state’s tax col- comptroller, and, a few years after she left home of the state capital of Austin, Rich- lector that Bullock, whose role model was office, the treasurer’s job was abolished and ards was a detail person. She wanted to be LBJ, developed enormous power. During its functions scattered elsewhere, including involved in everything. the first half of his tenure, he was a bourbon- some to the comptroller’s office. Bullock was a sponge for information— swilling, manic-depressive, a hard-driving The source of the lieutenant governor’s on policy, politics, administration and taskmaster, who carried out raids on busi- power comes not from the constitution, plain old gossip. He loved to know who nesses that had not paid their taxes. Not only which merely says he will be president of the was sleeping with whom and where bodies did he control some 2,500 state jobs, with Senate. It comes from the rules passed by the were buried. He had an explosive temper well-trained alumni scattering to a host of senators themselves at the outset of each reg- that could melt a safe, and could go off other state agencies, the lobby, the Legisla- ular legislative session. For many years, they with seemingly little or no reason. Within ture, and even statewide office, Bullock also have given the lieutenant governor the power short order, the members of the Senate, and had the final say-so on how much the Legis- to name committee members and their chair- even some House members, began to real- lature could spend every two years. men, decide to which committees bills will ize that those stories of explosive, mercu- That power came from the balanced-bud- go, and decide which senators will be recog- rial, abusive behavior in the comptroller’s get amendment to the Texas Constitution, nized on the floor to present legislation. office that had traveled the bar circuit for

30 state legislatures March 2008 the past several years weren’t exaggerated. Carlton Carl said he and another former Bull- have a Republican president, why shouldn’t But Bullock and Richards “both made an ock aide, Buck Wood and Molly Ivins, “used he be from Texas? And Bush had indeed effort to get along in the beginning,” said to talk about how we needed to do a Demo- acted in a relatively bipartisan fashion. There Mary Beth Rogers, Richards’ initial chief of cratic intervention.” were just 181 legislators, all in the same staff. “By the end of the first year, Bullock On the other hand, Bullock and Laney knew building with the governor, and he courted decided he was king.” that the number of Republicans in each of them by popping into their offices in the Bullock increasingly turned his guns on their chambers were growing with each elec- afternoon and posing for pictures with them Richards and her staff. He demanded, often tion. If they were to be successful in hanging and staff members. Bush had a small agenda, in insulting and sometimes demeaning terms, onto their leadership power, it didn’t hurt to and he used his affable personability to good that he know everything that was going on, have the ostensible leader of the Republican advantage. And, because of the proximity, he and that Richards and her staffers feed him Party’s arm draped around them. could have a senator in his office smoking a all the information he wanted. But Richards At Bullock’s request, Bush assigned staff cigar within half a minute. and her employees decided they wouldn’t member Dan Shelley to meet with Bullock In Washington, by contrast, there were 535 honor that kind of nasty behavior by catering and a few key staffers every morning at 6:30 legislators, many un-awed by Bush, many of to it. a.m., as they mapped out the Senate’s order whom thought they were smarter, and some (Richards declined to talk about her rela- of business for the day. Shelley said he gave actually wanting his job. Hardball partisan- tionship with Bullock, right up to her death in Bullock any information that he wanted. ship was so ingrained that despite the new 2006.) And in that fashion, Bullock became the president’s stated intentions, with Republi- bipartisan talisman that Bush wanted and cans in narrow control of the Congress, Bush Bullock and Bush needed to run for president. He said he had had to go along with them to get along. By contrast, when Bush came in as gov- demonstrated as Texas’ governor that he A visit to a senator’s office required a two- ernor, he was coached by key staff member could get along with the other party, and after mile drive in a motorcade with enough man- Cliff Johnson, a former state representative winning the GOP nomination, even asked power to invade Cuba. Add in that Bush was and legislative liaison for former Governor Bullock’s widow Jan to introduce him at the responsible for the national defense and the Bill Clements, to court Bullock. And Bush 2000 Republican National Convention in economy, and things got truly complex. did—beginning even before the election. Philadelphia. People may ponder what Bullock would Bush, sensing he was winning, went to “We have seen firsthand what kind of have thought about Bush’s presidency. But Bullock’s home three weeks before the genuine people George and Laura are,” Jan in Texas, memory of Bullock lingers several election. As Bush had hoped, Bullock was Bullock told the Republicans and the nation. years after his death. They remember that in impressed by the overture and how Bush “We have seen his intelligence, his integrity, his days as lieutenant governor, perhaps as handled himself. After Bush left, Bullock his sense of humor, his bipartisan spirit and recompense for his reckless earlier days, he told his chief of staff, Chuck Bailey, “I think his dedication to public service. Texans of always insisted to his staff, “Do what’s best we can work with that boy.” all political stripes are proud of Governor for Texas.” In fact, he ended every speech “Bush became a protégé, and he was ask- Bush and Laura Bush. And Americans will with the sentence, “God Bless Texas.” ing for advice,” said Richards’ aide Rogers. be proud of President George W. Bush and But his authoritative governmental style “As long as you were subservient, things Laura Bush ...” and megalomaniacal style, which had former were okay.” staffers still jumping when their pager or cell Yet both men were smart enough to know Texas vs. Washington, d.c. phone buzzed, reverberated for years beyond they needed each other. When Bush came Three months after his inauguration, Presi- his death. in, with Democratic leaders and Democratic dent Bush was called upon to dedicate a A couple of years ago, a journalist visited majorities in both the House and Senate, he Texas History Museum that had been named the Texas State Cemetery, where Bullock knew that if he was to get any credit for pass- for Bullock. In his remarks, Bush said that in was buried and whose restoration he had ing anything, he would need their acquies- moving from the Texas governorship to the overseen during his last term as lieutenant cence, if not cooperation. presidency, he’d tried to transport some of governor. Bush had run for office on a modest plat- the bipartisan spirit that he and Bullock and Occasionally, when the reporter asked why form of just four planks—limiting consumer Laney had enjoyed. something was the way it was at the ceme- lawsuits, reforming juvenile justice, over- “There is a way yet to go, but I think we’re tery, the caretaker replied, “That’s the way hauling welfare, and improving education. making some progress,” Bush said. “The tone Mr. Bullock wanted it.” Three of the topics had been the subjects of is more civil, the respect is more widespread. Finally, the reporter said, “But Bullock’s interim committees, but nonetheless, when I think Bob Bullock would be pleased.” dead.” they passed, Bullock and House Speaker Pete That civil tone wasn’t all that obvious in Smiling and arching an eyebrow, the care- Laney allowed Bush to claim some credit. Washington, D.C. Part of the reason was that taker said, “Are you sure?” Some of Bullock’s old Democratic buddies it’s just a bigger, tougher, meaner and more weren’t too pleased with the cozy relation- spread out than the Texas Capitol. CHECK OUT how to order Bob Bullock: ship he was beginning to develop with some In Texas, there had existed a chauvinism, EGod Bless Texas at www.ncsl.org/magazine. Republicans, even before Bush’s election. even among Democrats. If we’re likely to

March 2008 state legislatures 31