Photo courtesy The Texas Tribune Jennifer Whitney Michael Strav.docx

Photo courtesy The Texas Tribune: Jennifer Whitney / Michael
Stravato
Early voting starts Monday for the November 4th election. And
to help you head to the polls with as much information as
possible, KUT's Nathan Bernier and political reporter Ben
Philpott have been giving you a rundown of some of the state's
key races, along with telling you just what the offices in
question actually do.
Today, they talk about the office that some people say is the
most powerful one in the state of Texas: the lieutenant
governor.
Ben: So here's what a lieutenant governor can do, and why those
powers are considered so important. First up, the lieutenant
governor gets to be governor if the governor dies and even if
the governor just leaves the state for a few days.
The Texas Constitution says you can't be the governor of Texas
when you're not physically in the state. So when Governor Rick
Perry was on the road hitting several national news programs
last week, current Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was acting
governor. So that's nice, but according to the LBJ School's
Sherri Greenberg, it's not where the power of the office lies.
"The lieutenant governor appoints all the committee chairs of
the committees in the Senate, determines where the bills are
going to be sent and to what committees and the timing. And so
this is extremely powerful," Greenberg said.
So that doesn't really appear so powerful at first glance, but
remember every bill has to come through a Senate Committee
before it gets a final vote. Getting passed by the Senate is tough

enough. But it's impossible if your bill never gets out of
committee. Which makes the Lt. Governor's power to pick
where to send a bill very important.
"Well, he can always send it over here you know to [the] State
Affairs [committee] where he's stacked it with his friends,
instead of over to say, [the] Health and Human Services
[committee], where maybe he doesn't have as many friends,"
says former UT School of Law Legislative Lawyering Clinic
director Hugh Brady said.
The lieutenant governor still has power over a bill even if it
makes it out of committee. They decide when a bill comes up
for a vote, and when to recognize a senator for any floor action.
So, lots of power. But, power that isn't dictated by the Texas
Constitution or even state law. And can be taken away easily by
state senators.
"If the members were to choose to make them less powerful,
they could do so," the LBJ School's Greenberg says.
Almost all the lieutenant governor's powers derive from the
rules passed by the Senate at the beginning of each legislative
session. So, each session starts with a decision by
senators…how strong do we want our leader to be?
Nathan: And I guess that question won't really be answered
until voters decide who's going to be in that chair in the Senate.
Ben, tell us a little about the candidates.
Ben: Well, the top two are Republican State Senator Dan
Patrick and Democratic State Senator Leticia van de Putte.
Let's start with the Republican. Patrick defeated current Lt.
Governor David Dewhurst and others in a crowded GOP primary

field. His top priority, according to most of his campaign ads:
securing the Texas border with Mexico.
Nathan: Tough talk from Patrick, but hasn't his border rhetoric
gotten some negative publicity, too?
Ben: Yes, during the GOP primary a few prominent Hispanic
Republicans and business leaders came out either against
Patrick, or at the least, concerned that his campaign could be a
step back for the state Republican party's goal of trying to bring
more Hispanics to the party.
More recently, in a Dallas Morning News endorsement of
Senator Van de Putte, the editorial board said Patrick's primary
governing tools are "fear and division." But, it's also a message
that the Tea Party likes. And right now, that's the main block of
voters driving the Republican party.
Nathan: Now, you said he was criticized during the GOP
primary, has he modified his message in the general election?
Ben: Yes, he has, really until that ad about ISIS coming across
the border, he has focused much more on his proposals for
cutting taxes and limiting state spending.
He's been really pushing the idea of cutting property taxes, and
making up some of that lost revenue with increased sales taxes,
although he hasn't offered a detailed plan yet on just how he'd
do that, since the state isn't collecting the property taxes in the
first place. That's done by local governments and school
districts.
Nathan: So what about his opponent, Senator Van de Putte?
Ben: Van de Putte has tried to capitalize on any concerns more
moderate and traditional business Republicans have with

Patrick. She's pushed her work with veterans in the Texas
Senate and highlighted her goals to invest in state infrastructure
like water, transportation and education. Something chambers of
commerce like to hear…and spending she says Senator Patrick
has not supported in the past.
Nathan: Ok, Ben, so who's ahead going into early voting.
Ben: Well, I feel like I'm sounding like a broken record this
week…but, as with the Attorney General and Comptroller races,
this is a red state. And polls show Patrick with a lead.
7/14/17, 12(43 PMA Weak Governor System, With a Strong
Governor | The Texas Tribune
Page 1 of 7https://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/08/weak-
governor-system-strong-governor/
A Weak Governor
System, With a Strong
Governor
Rick Perry has been governor for so long
and has consolidated so much power that
it's easy to forget a basic tenet of Texas
government: It's designed to keep its
governors weak.
BY ROSS RAMSEY JULY 8, 2013 6 AM
Gov. Rick Perry answers press questions at the National

Right to Life convention. ! Callie Richmond
It’s a little odd to think about a Texas Ask Texplainer
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It’s a little odd to think about a Texas
government without Rick Perry. He’s been a part
of it since 1985, serving three House terms as an
elected Democrat (the last as a Democrat who
switched to the Republican Party after his
election), eight years as agriculture
commissioner, less than two years as lieutenant
governor and more than 12 years — so far,
anyhow — as governor.
He hasn’t said he’s leaving, though the
speculation is heavy about an announcement in
San Antonio set for Monday. But he could leave
voluntarily or by popular demand in 2015, or in
2019. Eventually.
Before Perry, half the stories about the doings in
the state Capitol were either about the inherent
weakness of the governor’s office or the ancient

lore about how the lieutenant governor holds
the state’s most powerful office.
The governor has no cabinet. He or she can
appoint the people who populate the various
boards and commissions, but only a third of
them come up for appointment every two years,
and the governor doesn’t have direct control
over them once they’ve been posted. They can’t
be fired — they can be made pretty
uncomfortable, but that takes a lot of work —
and they often behave as if they have their own
brains and their own goals and ways of doing
things.
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That means that most of the people who head
the executive branch of Texas government have
never had full control over it. Other elected
officials head some of the major agencies, and a
powerful legislative branch can, with strong
personalities in charge, control the agencies to
some extent by controlling their budgets.
The strong lieutenant governor legend gelled
during Bill Hobby’s tenure from 1973 to 1991.
He was a parliamentarian before he was
lieutenant governor, the son of a governor and a
United States cabinet secretary. His successor
was Bob Bullock, who held the office for eight
years but who built a power base in Texas
government during 16 years as comptroller of
public accounts.
Perry followed Bullock’s model, mentoring
young lawyers and policy wonks and political
animals and then posting them in agencies

throughout the state government. After six years
of Perry being in the governor’s office, virtually
every appointee had him to thank for their post.
And over his first decade in office, the governor
seeded the executive branch with his former
aides and their like-minded peers. They’re all
over the place, with titles like executive director,
general counsel, communications director and
so on.
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He owns it. Bullock did something similar by
heading a big agency that eventually sprinkled
former employees all over state government.
Bullock people were everywhere. He had a long
reach and an impressive intelligence network.
And Perry picked up the lesson, turning what
was designed as a weak office into a strong one.

He has made it look better than it is.
The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.
His successor has to start all over. Perry’s
transformation of the office might be
permanent. The agencies might naturally turn
their ears to a governor for guidance after all
these years out of habit.
It will take six years to replace all the appointees
who owe their jobs to Perry, a third of the jobs
turning over every two years. The people at the
tops of all of those agency organization charts
will linger until retirement — Perry’s legacy —
and while they may be helpful to a new
governor, they will not be indebted like they are
to the old boss.
The rest of the elected statewide officeholders —
pushed back from power a notch at a time
during Perry’s time in office — could reassert
themselves.
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Lieutenant governors, attorneys general,
comptrollers and speakers of the House have, in
recent Texas history, overmatched their
governors. And if someone new comes into the
office, the House and Senate will instinctively
test them: There are no freebies in politics.
It was common to see how this governor or that
one would wiggle out of a trap set by others.
Bullock once said he didn’t want the top job —
it’s hard to know whether he meant it — because
all a governor does is cut ribbons.
Perry, because of his tenure and the methodical
placement of former staffers throughout the
government, changed all that, turning a weak
office into a powerful one. It’s hard to remember
how it used to be.
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A long standing argument is that the lieutenant governor of
Texas is more powerful than the governor. It’s that way by
design. During the Reconstruction period after the Civil War,
Texas had to endure the concentration of power in the governor:
who removed local, elected officials that had been part of the
Confederacy; appointed district judges, district attorneys,
county treasurers, mayors and aldermen; and imposed martial
law on counties. After Reconstruction, writers of the new Texas
Constitution vowed to disperse power among the lieutenant
governor, the speaker and the governor. The revised
constitution also made numerous other positions elected instead
of appointed by the governor. Several other former Confederate
states did likewise.
This means the most visible politician in the state can have
trouble moving an agenda. “When you couldn’t dominate the
Legislature,” observed Mary Beth Rogers, who was chief of
staff to the late Democratic Gov. Ann Richards, “you were
limited in your ability to get anything done. That became a
problem. It’s a structural flaw in Texas government.”
Her statement is in former state Rep. Brian McCall’s book, The

Power of the Texas Governor: Connally to Bush. McCall, a
Plano Republican who is now chancellor of the Texas State
University System, combines meticulous historical research
with knowledge gleaned from almost 20 years in the House.
This book, like another recent title on the history of the speaker
of the House, The House Will Come to Order, shows how
individuals have the potential to shape these positions. Over
time there have been powerful Texas governors and weak Texas
governors, depending on their persuasive abilities. And over the
past 50 years, the speaker of the House has become a power
center as speakers have learned to control the state’s budget.
As The Power of the Texas Governor lays out, Richards’ tenure
proved how limiting the governor’s position can be if you don’t
have an ally in the lieutenant governor. Richards had the
misfortune of being elected governor at the same time 16-year
State Comptroller Bob Bullock was elected lieutenant governor.
Though they had been hearty drinking buddies before they both
went to what Bullock called “drunk school,” to say Richards’
relationship with the cantankerous, dominating Senate presiding
officer was rocky is a vast understatement.
Bullock wanted information about everything: policy, politics,
personal gossip. He demanded it in frequently nasty terms. He’d
wanted to be governor and tried to relegate Richards to clipping
ribbons and making speeches. Richards, a former county
commissioner and state treasurer, was detail-oriented, and had
her own ideas about how things should run. She and her staff
were determined not to cater to Bullock’s hostile demands,
which added fuel to the fire. Bullock called Richards’ staff
“hairy-legged lesbians” and made Richards’ lone, four-year
term as governor hell.
Richards lost re-election to Republican presidential son George
W. Bush in 1994. Though Bush was from the opposing party, he
was just what Bullock was looking for. Bush had a limited
agenda and was content to let Bullock and House Speaker Pete
Laney, a Democrat, run things. Meanwhile, Bush’s political
guru Karl Rove greased the skids for Bush’s 2000 presidential

run. Bush fed Bullock all the information he wanted. Democrat
Bullock developed a deep affection for Republican Bush, and
wound up endorsing him for re-election as governor in 1998
over Land Commissioner Garry Mauro—a Bullock protégé, a
fellow Democrat and a former deputy comptroller under
Bullock, who was the godfather to two of Mauro’s kids. Then
Bullock endorsed Bush for president. A different relationship,
indeed.
The governor can run this state if he’s savvy enough and has
legislative leaders who will go along. Possibly the most
successful governor at achieving far-sighted goals and wielding
power and influence was John Connally (1963-1969), a
longtime aide and ally of Lyndon Johnson. A Democrat at the
time (he switched parties after leaving the governorship),
Connally had served as secretary of the Navy during the
administrations of Democrats John F. Kennedy and Johnson.
From that vantage, he watched other states surpass Texas in
attracting research grants. “Unless our nation produces more
and better brainpower, our system of democratic government,
our personal liberties, will soon perish,” Connally warned in his
first State of the State address.
McCall quotes longtime Texas Monthly political writer Paul
Burka’s description of Connally as “the greatest Texas governor
of the century” because, Burka said, Connally “saw the dark
side of the Texas stereotype—a self-satisfaction, a narrowness,
a confusion of size with greatness, and an obsession with myth
that kept the State from realizing its full potential. What’s
more, he said so. He made Texans see that they weren’t as good
as they thought they were.”
Connally engineered the election of ally Ben Barnes as House
speaker in 1965 by appointing the previous speaker, Byron
Tunnell, who had diluted Connally’s efforts, to a vacant seat on
the Texas Railroad Commission. While Connally was governor,
Barnes developed the speaker’s office into a political
showcase—having weekly meetings with members of the
Capitol press and making the speaker a more aggressive official

in setting policy. It didn’t hurt that his mentor was the sitting
governor.
Barnes, like Connally, was an activist. He wanted to make
things happen. As Patrick L. Cox and Michael Phillips point out
in The House Will Come to Order, Barnes sought to put the
speaker and the House on more equal footing with the lieutenant
governor and the Senate. “We are not going to come down this
trail but one time,” Barnes said he told his troops in the House.
“Let’s get out there. Let’s not just sit over here and react. Let’s
go act. The Senate gets all the credit for what good legislation
passes. The House has always kind of been a second place to the
governor and the Senate. So let’s change it. Let’s get out there
and be proactive. Let’s make some changes.”
Barnes took advantage of national policy changes. While LBJ
was U.S. Senate majority leader in the 1950s, and later when he
was president, he used federal matching money to get states to
do things he thought they should have already been doing in
education, health care and other areas. State agencies were
expanded to distribute the money. The Texas House weighed in
on directing that money, and speakers began to realize the job
no longer was just a stepping-stone to something else, but its
own power center.
The speaker’s office holds particular appeal because speakers
exercise statewide power, but don’t have to face a statewide
electorate like the governor and lieutenant governor. He—there
has yet to be a she—only has to face voters in one of the state’s
150 House districts, and then keep at least 75 of his 149 House
colleagues happy (or scared) enough to re-elect him every two
years.
The gold standard for recent speakers was moderate-
conservative Democrat Pete Laney, who ran the House from
1993 to 2003. The House Will Come to Order shows that his
management style helped extend his longevity. He allowed
members to vote in the interests of their districts even if it
contradicted what his party wanted. His tenure looked even
more golden after a few years of his successor. Republican Tom

Craddick of Midland helped engineer Republican redistricting
coups that reshaped the House’s districts to unseat long-serving
Democrats in the Texas and U.S. Houses, and produced the first
GOP House majority since just after the Civil War.
Craddick was so autocratic that he alienated some Republican as
well as Democratic members. Now we’ve returned to a more
moderate presence in charge, Joe Straus, a Republican from San
Antonio. Straus, evenhanded like Laney in dealing with
members of the other party during his first term, began courting
more conservative Republican members after the Legislature
adjourned. He realized that while the Democrats were
responsible for his election, they would dump him for a
Democrat if they won a majority. That put him in the ironic
position of needing to maintain a Republican House majority—
but not too large for fear of a coup from the right—to continue
as speaker. It remains to be seen whether he can walk that
tightrope.
The Power of the Texas Governor does not include Rick Perry,
who has become arguably the most powerful Texas governor
ever, mostly as a result of his longevity. He has not only
appointed every member of every state board and commission,
but also reappointed many—as long as they stayed committed to
his political future. He has stacked several agencies with former
employees. He has appointed a considerable number of state
judges to vacancies, including two-thirds of the Texas Supreme
Court.
Perry has used his power to shrink the government. Facing a
$10 billion budget shortfall in 2003, Perry announced he wanted
the budget balanced without new taxes. With Republican
majorities in the House and Senate for the first time in more
than a century, few legislators wanted to vote for a tax hike they
presumed would never become law. To pinch pennies,
legislators deregulated college tuition (it has since
skyrocketed), kicked hundreds of thousands of children off the
state’s health care program, and forced state departments and
agencies to cut corners. Whether those results are good or bad

depends on one’s point of view, but there is no doubt that Perry
has left his mark on Texas politics.
How will upcoming elections shuffle the power dynamics at the
Capitol? Conventional wisdom is that Texas is such a red state
that Perry is on a slick track to re-election. His political team’s
theory has been that after winning the Republican primary, he’s
a cinch to win the general election. If they are right, Perry will
add almost 1,500 days to the almost 3,700 he will have logged
by the January inauguration.
The results of the 2010 elections, and how the big three
positions are affected, could have a huge impact on legislative
redistricting and budget battles in the 2011 legislative session
that begins in January—and could shape the state for at least the
next decade.
As The House Will Come to Order and The Power of the
Governor show, the powers of the speaker and the governor
grow partly through longevity and allies in other power
positions. If Perry and Republican legislators continue to
dominate, they will increasingly be able to assert their policy
agenda—a departure from the intent of the writers of the
Constitution to limit the governor’s power. This election could
have a huge effect on whether Texas is headed for bitter,
winner-take-all partisanship or solution-oriented bipartisan
cooperation.

Photo courtesy The Texas Tribune Jennifer Whitney Michael Strav.docx

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