Bob Bullock: God Bless Texas by David McNeely, Jim Henderson (review)

Twilight of the Texas Democrats is a welcome addition to the historical literature of twentieth-century Texas politics and is must reading for anyone interested in the process by which Texas Republicans marched slowly across the decades from electoral oblivion to viability and on beyond to dominance. Austin Community College L. Patrick Hughes Bob Bullock: God Bless Texas. By David McNeely and Jim Henderson. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. Illustrations, notes, index. ISBN 978-0-29271454 -0. $27.00, cloth.) In this first full-length biography of Bob Bullock, the authors have done a great service in assembling all the Bullock stories they could find and weaving them into a coherent narrative. The stories are based on the firsthand experiences of the author-journalists themselves, relevant books, innumerable newspaper clippings, and a host of oral histories. This political trail stretches back to the mid-1950s in revealing the underside of Texas politics—the envelopes stuffed with cash, laundered money from the George Parr machine, office-holders accepting bribes, backroom deals, and feuds among the political elite. There are noble deeds interspersed, of course. Bob Bullock had a strong hand as secretary of state in establishing single-member districts for Dallas and San Antonio in the 1970s, voting for eighteen-year-olds, state-financed party primaries , and full disclosure of campaign contributions—the latter two being pulled off mostly by bluff. Then he forced a racist, inept state comptroller into retirement, and as comptroller himself Bullock modernized a fossilized agency, and his staff hit upon the idea of headline-making raids to seize the inventories of businesses that were cheating the state out of millions of dollars in sales taxes. As lieutenant governor in the 1990s he helped overhaul the 1907 business franchise tax and established the admittedly imperfect Robin Hood school-fund redistribution plan (nothing has yet replaced it). And among other achievements, it was Bullock’s political acumen that was probably crucial in having Preston Smith elected and reelected as governor. He was even instrumental in a major change in college football. The University of Texas and Texas A&M were abandoning the Southwest Conference in 1994, leaving other universities to fend for themselves. Bullock was a graduate of Texas Tech and Baylor, and bluntly told the presidents of the two flagship universities that they would not get another nickel of state money if they did not take Tech and Baylor along with them out of the Southwest Conference. This was a pivotal meeting in the creation of the Big 12. Bullock constantly demanded immediate action—as soon as an idea struck him—which sometimes provided hilarious consequences. The story of Bullock’s Raiders, especially their first effort to seize a San Antonio liquor dealer’s enormous stock, is a classic of bureaucratic bungling. He was also a managerial slave driver, a manic depressive, a womanizer, and an alcoholic. At times his office was out of control, riddled with graft and the misuse of state property. His volcanic, shouting mood swings and cursing were legendary, and while he was comptroller 356 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 356 and lieutenant governor no one in either party wanted to cross him. One joke was that his tongue should have been registered as a concealed weapon. The authors point out that Bullock abandoned his Democratic partisanship upon dealing with the larger GOP presence in the Senate, 1995–1999, and upon meeting George W. Bush, who began serving as governor in 1995. Although he touted Bush for the presidency, the authors are probably right in surmising that Bullock would not have supported tax cuts in the face of huge deficits or Tom DeLay’s hyper-partisan congressional redistricting. Professional historians, researching the office files and correspondence generated by the three statewide offices that Bullock held, as well as the papers of governors , state senators, and others, such as Ben Barnes, will eventually take on this same subject. Possibly, after more time has elapsed, they will place Bullock in some context that escapes these authors, but they will have to start with this book. University of Texas at Arlington George N. Green To Survive and Excel: The...