Bob Bullock

Renowned for his fierce devotion to the people of Texas—as well as his equally fierce rages and unpredictable temper—Bob Bullock was the most powerful political figure in Texas at the end of the twentieth century. First elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1956, Bullock held several key statewide posts before capturing the lieutenant governor's office in 1990. Though nominally the state's number two official, Bullock in fact became Texas's top power broker, wielding tremendous influence over the legislative agenda and state budget through the 1990s while also mentoring and supporting a future president—George W. Bush. In this lively, yet thoroughly researched biography, award-winning journalists Dave McNeely and Jim Henderson craft a well-rounded portrait of Bob Bullock, underscoring both his political adroitness and his personal demons. They trace Bullock's rise through state government as Assistant Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Comptroller, and Lieutenant Governor, showing how he increased the power of every office he held. The authors spotlight Bullock's substantial achievements, which included hiring an unprecedented number of women and minorities, instituting a performance review to increase the efficiency of state agencies, restructuring the public school funding system, and creating the state's first water conservation and management plan.

Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff is an engineer, a widely respected senator, and according to Caroline Kennedy he is “an inspiration to all who serve in government, and to all Americans.” Senator Ratliff, nicknamed “Obi Wan Kenobi” by his colleagues, was a revered and much loved leader in Texas for more than a decade. He singularly wrote the Texas Robin-Hood school finance law, a major Ethics reform law, a Texas tort reform law, and held a great disdain for narrow partisanship and politics. This is the inspirational story of a great man doing good work in a time when many are cynical about political leadership and government. His courageous stand on principle brought him to a showdown with powerful forces in the Bush White House and earned him the public vitriol of right-wing billionaires.

In 1978, Republican William P. Clements won the race for governor of the Lone Star State, marking the start of an interlude of two-party competition in the state. Eventually, Republican ascendancy would once again make Texas a “safe” place for a single party—but not the party that had dominated the state since the end of Reconstruction. At the time, observers asked whether the election of a Republican governor was a mere flash in the pan. For the previous twenty years, other races, at every level from national to local, had made inroads into Democratic strongholds, but that party’s dominance by and large had held. In 1978, the situation changed. Now, historian Kenneth Bridges—drawing on polling data, newspaper reports, archival sources, and extensive interviews—both confirms the significance of the election and explains the many and complex forces at work in it. He analyzes a wide range of factors that includes the disaffection among Mexican American voters fanned by La Raza Unida, miscalculations by Democrat John Hill and his campaign staff, the superior polling techniques used by Clements, the unpopularity of the Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, the changing demographics of the state, and the unprecedented spending by the Clements team. In the process, Bridges describes not an ideological realignment among Texas voters, but a partisan one. Twilight of the Texas Democrats illuminates our understanding of both political science and regional history.

The eighth edition of this popular text has been expanded and updated to better fit the needs of a stand-alone Texas politics course. Jillson continues to approach the politics of the Lone Star State from historical, developmental, and analytical perspectives, while giving students the most even-handed, readable, and engaging description of Texas politics available today. Students are encouraged to connect the origins and development of government and politics in Texas to its current practice and the alternatives possible through change and reform. This text helps instructors prepare their students to master the origin and development of the Texas Constitution, the structure and powers of state and local government in Texas, how Texas fits into the U.S. federal system, as well as political participation, the electoral process, and public policy in Texas. Texas Politics offers instructors and students an unmatched range of pedagogical aids and tools. Each chapter opens with an engaging vignette and a series of focus questions to orient readers to the learning objectives at hand and concludes with a chapter summary, a list of key terms, review questions, suggested readings, and web resources. "Let’s Compare" boxes help students see how Texas sits alongside other states, "Texas Legends" boxes spotlight key figures in Texas political history, "Pro & Con" boxes bring conflicting political views into sharper focus and every chapter features a timeline of important events in Texas history. New to the eighth edition • Covers the 2020 national elections, the 2021 legislative session, and the 2018 state and national elections as they affect Texas. • Highlights Governor Greg Abbott’s call for policy solutions to the vulnerability of the Texas energy grid; Texas voter eligibility laws; the coronavirus recovery program; and preparation for redistricting in the wake of the 2020 census. • Provides a detailed study of the 2022–2023 state budget and the taxing and spending decisions that went into it, including the school funding and property tax reforms of 2019. .

HEARTBEAT is the riveting story of a dying LA librarian who sues the U.S. Congress in a Supreme Court case demanding health care access for America's 45 million uninsured. Sometimes no matter how hard she tried, there were tough choices to be made-choices between her heart pills and paying the mortgage, her diabetic pills or electricity in her home, her blood pressure pills or food on the table, her cholesterol pills or the phone bill. Somehow, however, with careful budgeting, Dr. Rosen's good will, and the grace of God, she managed to get by, except on those days when the mailman brought another agency collection notice. When those bad moments occurred, she mailed a small payment to get the agency off her back, and she would firmly inform her heart, diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol that they would have to simply make do with a little less that day. There are currently over 45 million Americans without health insurance. Over 18,000 Americans without health care access die annually. More than two million uninsured Americans declare medical bankruptcy every year. HEARTBEAT is their story

With its barbecues, new Cadillacs, and $4,000 snakeskin cowboy boots, Texas is all about power and money -- and the power that money buys. This detailed and wide-scope account shows how a group of wealthy Texas Republicans quietly hijacked American politics for their own gain. Getting George W. Bush elected, we learn, was just the tip of the iceberg.... In Follow the Money, award-winning journalist and sixth-generation Texan John Anderson shows how power in Texas has long been vested in the interconnected worlds of Houston's global energy companies, banks, and law firms -- not least among them Baker Botts, the firm controlled by none other than James A. Baker III, the Bush family consigliere. Anderson explains how the Texas political system came to be controlled by a sophisticated, well-funded group of conservative Republicans who, after elevating George W. Bush to the American presidency, went about applying their hardball, high-dollar politicking to Washington, D.C. When George Bush reached the White House, he brought with him not only members of the Texas legal establishment (among them former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales) but empowered swarms of Republican lobbyists who saw in Bush's arrival a way to make both common cause and big money. Another important Beltway Texan was Congressman Tom DeLay, the famous "Exterminator" of Houston's Twenty-second District, who became majority leader in 2003 and controlled which bills made it through Congress and which did not. DeLay, in turn, was linked to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who used his relationships with both DeLay and Karl Rove on behalf of his clients, creating a shockingly corrupt flow of millions of dollars among Republican lobby groups and political action committees. Washington soon became infected by Texas-style politics. Influence-peddling, deal-making, and money-laundering followed -- much of it accomplished in the capital's toniest restaurants or on the fairways and beaches of luxurious resorts, away from the public eye. The damaging fallout has, one way or another, touched nearly all Americans, Democrat and Republican alike. Follow the Money reveals the hidden web of influence that links George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Texas Republicans to the 2000 recount in Florida; the national tort-reform movement; the controversial late-hour, one-vote passage of the Medicare Reform Act; congressional redistricting schemes; scandals in the energy sector; the destruction of basic constitutional protections; the financial machinery of the Christian right; the manipulation of American-Indian tribe casinos; the Iraq War torture scandals; the crooked management of the Department of the Interior; the composition of the Supreme Court; and the 2007 purges of seasoned prosecutors in the Justice Department. Some of the actors are in federal prison, others are on their way there, and many more have successfully eluded a day of reckoning. Told with verve, style, and a not-so-occasional raised eyebrow, Anderson's account arcs directly into tomorrow's headlines. Startling in its revelations, Follow the Money is sure to spark controversy and much-needed debate concerning which direction this country goes next.

A genealogical compilation of the descendants of Henry & Margareth Crook and their seven children. The couple was married circa 1812 in South Carolina and by 1828 could be found in Rankin County, Mississippi. Many of the descendants are traced to the present, including biographies and photographs when available.