Rick Perry
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{{Infobox_Governor |name= Rick Perry |image= Rick_perry.jpg |caption= |order=47th |office= Governor of Texas |term_start= December 21, 2000 |term_end=present |lieutenant= David Dewhurst |predecessor= George W. Bush |successor=incumbent |birth_date= March 4, 1950 |birth_place= Paint Creek, Texas |death_date= |death_place= |spouse= Anita Thigpen Perry |profession=military officer, politician |party= Republican |footnotes= }} James Richard "Rick" Perry (born March 4, 1950) is a Republican politician and the governor of Texas. He assumed office in December 2000 when then-Governor George W. Bush resigned to assume the office of President of the United States. Perry was elected in 2002 over Democrat Antonio R. "Tony" Sanchez, Jr., a Laredo businessman. In the 2002 general election, Perry polled 2,632,591 votes (57.80 percent) to Sanchez's 1,819,798 (39.96 percent). Four other candidates shared some 2.21 percent of the vote.
Seeking reelection in November 2006
Perry was renominated with ease in the March 7, 2006, Republican primary. In the November general election he will be challenged by a Democrat, former Congressman Chris Bell of Houston, and two possible independent candidates, outgoing Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Richard "Kinky" Friedman , a political maverick and a friend of the popular entertainer Willie Nelson. If he is reelected and if he serves a full second term, Perry would become the longest-serving governor in Texas history, with 10 years of total service.
Growing up in Paint Creek, Texas
A fifth-generation Texan, Rick Perry was born in the West Texas town of Paint Creek, 60 miles north of Abilene, to ranchers Ray and Amelia Perry. His mother was a long-time Haskell County commissioner and school board member. As a child, Perry was an active Boy Scout and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. Perry has said that his interest in politics probably began in December 1961, when, at the age of 11, his father took him to the funeral of the legendary Sam Rayburn , who during his long public career served as Speaker of the Texas House and the U.S. House. Dignitaries from all over the nation descended on the small town of Bonham for the official farewell to Rayburn.
Perry attended Texas A&M University where he was a member of the Corps of Cadets and Alpha Gamma Rho. Perry graduated from A&M in 1972 with a degree in animal science before joining the United States Air Force flying C-130 tactical airlift in the United States, the Middle East, and Europe until 1977 when he returned to Texas with the rank of captain. He worked on his father's ranch for a year before he was elected to the State Board of Education in 1978 as a Democrat.
To the Texas legislature
In 1984, he was elected to the Texas Legislature as a representative from a district that included his home county of Haskell. He served on the important House Appropriations and Calendars Committees during his three terms as a state legislator. In 1989, The Dallas Morning News named him one of the most effective legislators in the 71st legislature. In 1989, Perry announced that he was joining the Republican Party.
As agriculture commissioner (1991-1999)
In 1990, in a race for commissioner of agriculture, new Republican Perry unseated Democrat Jim Hightower. Hightower had worked for the Jesse Jackson, for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, while Perry had supported Tennessee Senator Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. After his loss to Perry, Hightower went on to become a liberal radio talk show host.
The agriculture commissioner is responsible for promoting the sale of Texas farm produce to other states and to foreign nations. The commissioner also supervises the calibration of gasoline pumps and grocery store scales.
Perry was reelected agriculture commissioner by a large margin in 1994. He polled 2,546,287 (61.92 percent) to unknown Democrat Marvin Gregory's 1,479,692 (35.98 percent). Libertarian Clyde L. Garland received 85,836 votes (2.08 percent).
As lieutenant governor, 1999-2000
In 1998, Perry vacated the agriculture commissioner's office to run for lieutenant governor to succeed the popular retiring Democrat Bob Bullock. Perry polled 1,858,837 votes (50.04 percent) to the 1,790,106 (48.19 percent) cast for Democrat John Sharp of Victoria, who relinquished the comptroller's position after two terms to run for lieutenant governor. Libertarian Anthony Garcia polled another 65,150 votes (1.75 percent).
Mrs. Anita Thigpen Perry
In 1982, Perry married Anita Thigpen, his childhood sweetheart whom he had known since elementary school. They have two children, Griffen and Sydney. Anita Perry attended West Texas State University and has a degree in nursing. She has spearheaded a number of health-related initiatives such as the Anita Thigpen Perry Endowment at the San Antonio Health Science Center, which focuses on nutrition, cardiovascular disease, health education and early childhood development.
His relevance in Texas political history
Rick Perry has a particular relevance in Texas political history. He is one of the rare public officials who has never lost an election. His prominence as a popular Republican politician in West Texas was cited by Republican strategist Karl Rove as important to the growth of the Republican Party in that part of the state http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/lastmanstanding/special_myth_kr.html]. Together with Kay Bailey Hutchison's popularity among suburban and women voters and George W. Bush's success in Central Texas during his gubernatorial campaign, Perry was part of an important shift in Texas politics to make the state more firmly Republican and conservative. When the Texas Senate Democrats fled the state to avoid a vote on a controversial measure, Perry used public tax revenues to broadcast public service messages asking the public for help finding the missing Democrats. PAC ads even ran wanted posters on Federal Highway.
Governorship
Perry is the first graduate of Texas A&M to serve as Governor of Texas. As Governor, he is a member of the National Governors Association, the Southern Governors' Association, and the Republican Governors Association.
Early in his term as governor, Perry worked to reform Texas health care and make it more accessible, increasing health funding by $6 billion and the famous CHIP program (Children's Health Insurance Program) which was designed to insure 500,000 children. Some of these programs have faced funding problems in recent years. He also greatly increased school funding prior to the 2002 election, creating new scholarship programs to help needy children in Texas including $300 million for the Texas GRANT Scholarship Program. Some $9 billion was allocated to Texas public schools, colleges, and universities and combined with a new emphasis on accountability for both teachers and students.
Perry's campaigns for lieutenant governor and governor rested to a large extent on a tough stance on crime. In June 2002, Perry vetoed a ban on the execution of mentally retarded inmates. He has also backed block grants for crime programs.
His purging of Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith
Perry has made numerous appointments to the Texas courts, the Railroad Commission, and other bodies and commissions during his tenure as governor. One of his first selections was the appointment of Xavier Rodriguez to the Texas Supreme Court. Rodriguez, who called himself a "moderate," was quickly unseated in the 2002 Republican primary by conservative Steven Wayne Smith, the attorney in the Hopwood v. Texas suit in 1996, which successfully challenged affirmative action at the University of Texas Law School. Hopwood, however, was overturned in a 2003 decision stemming from the University of Michigan. Steven Smith was elected in the 2002 general election.
Perry objected to Smith's tenure on the court and refused to meet with the new justice when he attempted to mend fences with the governor. Perry encouraged Judge Paul Green to challenge Smith in the 2004 Republican primary. Perry raised a lot of campaign cash for Green, who defeated Smith in the primary and was then elected without opposition in the 2004 general election. Smith attempted a comeback in the 2006 Republican primary by waging a shoestring challenge to Justice Don Willett, another Perry appointee who was also considered a strong conservative on the court. Smith polled 49.5 percent of the primary vote, but Perry's man prevailed. Willett faces a Democratic opponent in the 2006 general election. Another Perry appointee, Elizabeth Ames Jones, a state representative from San Antonio, was named to a vacancy on the three-member Railroad Commission. She too won her primary on March 7, 2006.
Tort reform
Another important element of Perry's platform has been tort reform; as lieutenant governor he had tried and failed to place a limit on class action awards and allowing plaintiffs to distribute awards among several liable sources. In 2003, Perry sponsored a controversial proposal that capped medical malpractice rewards; this proposal ultimately passed.
Fiscal conservatism
Perry, a committed fiscal conservative, has made tax reform and job growth chief aims of his policies as governor. Perry resisted new income and sales taxes, protected the state's "Rainy Day fund,", balanced the state budget, and worked to reduce property taxes that exploded with inflation in property values in the late 1990s. He has been credited with attracting thousands of jobs to Texas in recent years by cutting payroll and property taxes. His sales tax cuts have attracted new retail to Texas but in recent years his tax relief has come under scrutiny for sapping strength from government programs, particularly education.
Perry has faced considerable resistance in balancing fiscal conservatism, education equity, and the politics of school finance. As lieutenant governor, he initially sponsored a controversial school vouchers bill as an alternative to the "Robin Hood proposal" that was working at the time. In 2004, Perry attacked the same "Robin Hood" plan as a part of the education system's woes and attempted to get the legislature to finally abolish the system and replace it with one that he believed would encourage greater equity, cost less, not increase property or sales taxes, and not discourage job growth by legalizing video lottery terminals at racetracks and on Indian reservations and higher cigarette taxes.
A special session of the legislature was convened in May 2005 to address the issues, but there was considerable resistance in the house, even from Speaker Tom Craddick. Perry's proposal was attacked by Democrats and many Republicans who represent property-poor districts and was rejected 126-0. During the session, Perry became involved in a heated debate with Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn about the merits of his school finance proposal. Strayhorn planned to run against Perry in the 2006 primary[1], but later decided to run as an independent. Another special session was called in June 2005 after Perry vetoed all funding for public schools for the 2007-2008 biennium, stating in a press briefing that "I’m not going to approve an education budget that shortchanges teacher salary increases, textbooks, education technology, and education reforms. And I cannot let $2 billion sit in some bank account when it can go directly to the classroom." Perry's 2006 campaign office stated that "without a special session, about $2 billion that had been intended for teacher pay raises, education reforms and other school priorities would have gone unused instead of going to schools because House Bill 2 [the public school reform package] didn’t pass." [2] The bill failed to pass in the first session, and was refiled in a second session, in which the bill was defeated 62-79, after 50 amendments were added without discussion or debate.[3] Late in 2005, Perry appointed his former lieutenant governor rival John Sharp to head an education task force to prepare a bipartisan education plan for the 2006 special legislative session, which Perry announced would meet on April 17, 2006 at 2 p.m.
Image:Silvio Berlusconi and Rick Perry.jpg
Record use of vetoes
Perry set a record in the 2001 legislative session for the use of the veto: he rejected legislation a total of 82 times, more than any governor in any single legislative session in the history of the state since Reconstruction. Perry's use of the veto drew criticism from both parties in the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, having used the veto only nine fewer times than preceding governor George W. Bush over three legislative sessions and 22 more than Ann Richards cast in two sessions.[4] In the two legislative sessions since the 2001 session, Perry was more conservative in his use of the veto, employing it only 51 times in total.[5] However, as of 2005, he has used the veto more than any other Governor of Texas in a contiguous administration; the only governor who exceeded Perry's total was Republican Bill Clements, facing a Democrat-dominated state government, vetoing legislation 184 times over two nonconsecutive terms to Perry's 132.
Perry has backed states' rights on several occasions, including the ability of states to decide their own policy on the environment and on drugs.
Favors restrictions on abortion
In 2005, Perry, who is also a social conservative, signed a bill limiting late term abortions and requiring girls under the age of 18 to have parental permission for an abortion. He signed the bill in the gymnasium of Calvary Christian Academy in Fort Worth, an evangelical Christian school. He came under fire from abortion advocates and supporters of church-state separation. He is also known for his socially conservative views on homosexuality; He condemned the United States Supreme Court decision in Lawrence vs. Texas striking down sodomy laws and called Texas's last such law "appropriate." [6]
Perry-isms
As with many public officials, Perry has established a reputation for verbal gaffes during his political career. During his term as Lieutenant Governor, Perry's motorcade was pulled over by a Texas state trooper as his driver was speeding. A video from the trooper's car shows Perry informing the officer of his stature and stating "Why don't you just let us get on down the road?" The video was widely used by Perry's Democratic opponent, Tony Sanchez, in 2002.
In June 2005 Perry was taping a satellite feed interview from Austin with a Houston television station over his legislative agenda. The interview concluded with Perry declining to reveal the details of a legislative package after a reporter pressed him for information. Perry then believed the camera had been turned off. The feed was still live though, and caught Perry making an offhanded remark to the reporter, "Adios, MoFo." Perry later called the reporter to apologize.[7]
References
- Aguilar, Rose. "Houses of Right-Wing Worship". AlterNet. June 7, 2005.
- Kofler, Shelley . "Continued absence of Dems grinds House to a halt". Txcn. May 14, 2003
External links
- Official biography
- A look at Rick Perry, Austin Chronicle (before governorship)
- Official Campaign web site
- Rick Perry vs World -- a blog on Texas politics, focusing on governor's race
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| title=Governor of Texas
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| title=Lieutenant Governor of Texas
| before=Bob Bullock
| after=Bill Ratliff
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| years=1999–2000
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Template:Current U.S. governorsfr:Rick Perry nl:Rick Perry no:Rick Perry pt:Rick Perry sv:Rick Perry