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Dorothy Ann Willis Richards (September 1, 1933 – September 13, 2006) was an American politician from Texas. She first came to national attention, as the Texas state treasurer, when she deliverd the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention (detailed below). Considered the first woman elected governor of Texas in her own right, she served in that post from 1991 to 1995; she was defeated for re-election in 1994. Born during the start of the Depression, in Lakeview, Texas (McLennan County), Ann Richards died in Austin from esophageal cancer at the age of 73. [1]
Ann Richards | |
|---|---|
| File:Ann-Richards-Senate-photo.jpg | |
| 45th Governor of Texas | |
| In office January 15 1991 – January 17 1995 | |
| Lieutenant | Bob Bullock |
| Preceded by | Bill Clements |
| Succeeded by | George W. Bush |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 1 1933 Lakeview, Texas |
| Died | September 13 2006 Austin, Texas |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | David Richards (div.) |
| Profession | Politician |
Memorial Service: [2] Two services for Ann Richards were planned, with a nationwide telecast: the first, for Saturday, September 16, 2006, in Austin, Texas, with former President Bill Clinton as a speaker, and the second on Monday, September 18, 2006, at the Frank Erwin Special Events Center on the University of Texas-Austin campus, with New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Liz Smith, Henry Cisneros and others speaking. Ann Richards will lie in state in the rotunda of the Texas Capitol (Austin) from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. Both the memorial service (on September 18, 2006) and the Capitol events are open to the public. A private burial is planned.
Early life
Dorothy Ann Willis was born in Lakeview (now part of Lacy-Lakeview), as the only child of Robert Cecil Willis and Mildred Iona Warren. She grew up in Waco, and graduated from Waco High School in 1950. She participated in Girls State. She received a bachelor's degree from Baylor University while on a debate scholarship. She married high school sweetheart David "Dave" Richards and moved to Austin, Texas, where she earned a teaching certificate from the University of Texas. David and Ann Richards had four children: Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen.
Richards taught social studies and history at Fulmore Junior High School in Austin from 1955 to 1956. She campaigned for Texas liberals and progressives such as Henry B. Gonzalez, Ralph Yarborough,and Sarah T. Hughes.
Political career
By the 1970s, Richards was an accomplished political worker, having worked to elect liberal Democrats Sarah Weddington and Wilhelmina Delco to the Texas Legislature and having presented training sessions throughout the state on campaign techniques for women candidates and managers. She supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (The amendment was never ratified by enough states to become part of the Constitution.) In 1976, Richards ran against and defeated a three-term incumbent on the four-member Travis County, Texas Commissioners' Court; she was re-elected in 1980 without opposition. During this time, her marriage ended, in part because of the strain of politics on the relationship. Richards' drinking became more pronounced and she sought and successfully completed treatment for alcoholism in 1980. David Richards is a prominent civil rights attorney in Austin.
After the incumbent state treasurer, Warren G. Harding (no relation to the former U.S. president of the same name) became mired in legal troubles in 1982, Richards won the Democratic nomination for that post. Winning election against a Republican challenger in November that year, Richards became the first woman elected to statewide office in more than fifty years. In 1986, she was re-elected treasurer without opposition.
Richards's keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention put her in the national spotlight when she uttered the famous line, about the wealthy, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, "Poor George, he can't help it...He was born with a silver foot in his mouth." [3] The speech set the tone for her political future; she was a real Texan who established herself as a candidate who appealed to suburban voters as well as to the traditional Democratic base that included African Americans and Hispanics. In 1989, with co-author Peter Knobler, she wrote her autobiography, Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places.
Governorship
In 1990, Texas' Republican governor, Bill Clements, decided not to run for re-election. Richards painted herself as a sensible progressive, and won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Attorney General (and former congressman) James Albon "Jim" Mattox of Dallas and former Governor Mark White. Mattox ran a particularly abrasive campaign against Richards, accusing her of having had drug problems beyond alcoholism. The Republicans nominated multi-millionaire rancher Clayton Wheat Williams, Jr. After a brutal campaign, Richards narrowly won the election on November 6 1990 by a margin of 49-47 percent, and was inaugurated governor the following January. She was a "minority governor" because her popular vote was below 50 percent. Although officially she was the second woman to hold Texas's top office, Richards is considered the first woman elected governor in her own right, since twice-elected Miriam A. Ferguson is often discounted as having been a proxy for impeached governor James E. Ferguson, her husband.
The Texas economy had been in a slump since the mid-1980s, compounded by a downturn in the U.S. economy. Richards responded with a program of economic revitalization, yielding growth in 1991 of 2 percent when the U.S. economy as a whole shrank. Richards also attempted to streamline Texas's government and regulatory institutions for business and the public; her efforts in the former helped to revitalize Texas's corporate infrastructure for its explosive economic growth later in the decade, and her audits on the state bureaucracy saved $6 billion.
As governor, Richards reformed the Texas prison system, establishing a substance abuse program for inmates, reducing the number of violent offenders released, and increasing prison space to deal with a growing prison population (from less than 60,000 in 1992 to more than 80,000 in 1994). She backed proposals to reduce the sale of semi-automatic firearms and "cop-killer" bullets in the state.
The Texas Lottery was also instituted during her governorship - advocated as a means of supplementing school finances; Ann Richards purchased the first lotto ticket on May 29 1992. However, most of the income from the lottery went into the state's general fund rather than specifically to education, until 1997, when all lottery net revenue was redirected to the state's Foundation School Fund, which supports public education. School finance remained one of the key issues of her governorship and of those succeeding hers; the famous Robin Hood plan was launched in the 1992-1993 biennium which attempted to make school funding more equitable across school districts. Richards also sought to decentralize control over education policy to districts and individual campuses; she instituted "site-based management" to this end.
She was unexpectedly defeated in 1994 by George W. Bush, winning 46 percent of the vote to Bush's 53 percent, even after having outspent the Bush campaign by $2.6 million. [1]. The Richards campaign had hoped for a misstep from the relatively inexperienced Republican candidate, but none appeared, and Richards created one of her own in calling Bush "some jerk," recalling missteps that cost Clayton Williams the election in 1990. Richards would later commend Bush's oratory and attributed her loss in 1994 to Bush's ability to "stay on message." [2] Other people attribute her loss to the fact that she vetoed the Concealed Carry Bill that would have licensed citizens to carry guns for self-defense inside public establishments without the owner's permission. This veto may have cost Richards the 1994 election [3]. The key campaign issues in the Texas gubernatorial election were crime and gun control; Richards suffered when her stances on both issues became viewed as weak. [citation needed] Others have attributed her loss to the rise in power of the Republican Party nationwide that year, when the GOP took both houses in Congress and when many other Texas lawmakers lost their jobs. The year 1994 was the last year any Democrat won a statewide office in the Lone Star State, with the exception of one judge in 1996.
Post governorship
Beginning in 2001, Richards was a senior advisor to the communications firm Public Strategies, Inc. in Austin and New York. From 1995 to 2001, Richards was also a senior advisor with Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, a Washington, D.C.-based international law firm. Richards sat on the boards of the Aspen Institute, J.C. Penney, and T.I.G. Holdings. She campaigned tirelessly for Democratic candidates throughout the United States. In 2003, she tried to help California Governor Gray Davis fight off the recall, which resulted in the special election of liberal Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger.
One of her daughters, Cecile Richards, also a liberal activist, became president of Planned Parenthood in 2006. Ann Richards demonstrated interest in social causes such as equality, abortion, gay rights and women's rights.
Richards served at Brandeis University as the Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Politics from 1997 to 1998. In 1998 she was elected as a trustee of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, she was reelected in 2004, and continued to hold the position until her death.
She was diagnosed with osteoporosis in 1996, having lost 3/4 inch in height and broken her hand and ankle. She changed her diet and lifestyle, which stabilized her bone density. She spoke frequently about this experience, advocating a healthier lifestyle for women at risk of the disease. In 2004, she authored I'm Not Slowing Down, with Dr. Richard U. Levine, which describes her own battle with osteoporosis and offers guidance to others with the disease.
In the 2004 presidential election, Richards endorsed Vermont Governor Howard Dean for the Democratic nomination, and campaigned on his behalf. Richards later stumped for Democratic nominee John Kerry, highlighting the issues of health care and women's rights. Some political pundits mentioned her as a potential running mate to Kerry; however, she did not make his list of top finalists, and he selected North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Richards for her part has said she was "not interested" in any degree of a political comeback.
In the fall of 2005, she taught a class called "Women and Leadership" at the University of Texas at Austin: twenty-one (21) female students were selected for that class.
Final year
In 2006, the Austin Independent School District announced "The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders," a college preparatory school for girls, with grades 6-12 which will open in the fall of 2007. The intellectual focus will be math, science and technology, while the physical focus is building strength through good nutrition, exercise and other wellness strategies.
In March 2006, Richards disclosed that she had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. She received treatment at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. However, she died from the esophageal cancer on September 13, 2006, at night in her home in Austin, surrounded by her family. [4] She was survived by her four children, their spouses, and eight grandchildren.
Popular culture
Governor Richards guest starred in a fifth season episode of the Texas-based animated TV series King of the Hill. In the episode entitled "Hank and the Great Glass Elevator," she gets mooned and then enters into a brief relationship with Bill Dauterive.
Issue over Death Penalty
Under state law, Texas governors do not have the power to commute death penalty sentences, only to briefly postpone an execution pending further review by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (most members of which are appointed by the governor - including the chairman, who according to the Texas Administrative Code serves "at the pleasure of the governor" (RULE §141.1)). Bowing to the reality of the pro-death penalty Texas legislature, Ann Richards was not a vocal critic of the Texas death penalty law while governor. While campaigning for governor, she was asked if she supported or opposed the death penalty. She said, "I will uphold the laws of the State of Texas." The reporter then asked, "But what would you do if the Legislature passed a bill repealing the death penalty?" to which she replied, "I would faint." Her stance disappointed various human rights groups including Amnesty International. Among other death penalty cases, those executed while Richards was Governor were Johnny Frank Garrett, a man who Amnesty cited as being "extremely mentally impaired, chronically psychotic and brain-damaged." The organization further states that a mental health expert described Garrett as "one of the most virulent histories of abuse and neglect...I have encountered in 28 years of practice."
Notes
- ^ CBS/AP, "Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards Dies At Age 73, After A Six-Month Battle With Esophageal Cancer," CBSNews.com, September 13, 2006, web: CBSNews-Richards.
- ^ KVUE-TV, "Richards services finalized", News for Austin, Texas: KVUE.com, September 15, 2006, web: KVUE-Richards.
- ^ The comment was a combination of two American idioms: a man born into wealth is described as "born with a silver spoon in his mouth", and a man who embarrasses himself while speaking is described as "putting his foot in his mouth".
- ^ AP, "Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, 73, dies" (CNN.com), 2006-09-13, web: CNN-AR-obit: on death at home, with family.
References
- Ann Richards, Richard U. Levine, M.D., I'm Not Slowing Down; Winning My Battle With Osteroporsis, publisher: Plume, July 27, 2004, Paperback, 208 pages, ISBN 0452284120.
- Ann Richards, Richard U. Levine, M.D., I'm Not Slowing Down; Winning My Battle With Osteroporsis, publisher: E.P. Dutton, August 7, 2003, Hardcover, 256 pages, ISBN 0525946918.
- Ann Richards, Peter Knobler, Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places, publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York, 1989, Hardcover, 256 pages, illustrated with 14 black & white photographs, ISBN 0671680730.
External links
- Texas State Library: Governors of Texas
- Ann Richards' 1988 Democratic Convention Keynote Address
- 1995 Commencement speech, Mount Holyoke College
- 2002-2003 Fiscal Size-up by the Texas Legislative Budget Board
- Biography of Ann Richards from Northeastern University
- Promo Ann Richards performed in days before announcing she had cancer
- Ann Richards at IMDb
- Remembering Ann Richards by Molly Ivins