7. BALLOT BOX 13
It was 1948, and Lyndon B. Johnson was running for the U.S. Senate. But when the votes were counted, he lost.
It didn’t hold.
Six days after the polls closed, officials in Jim Wells County “found” a ballot box with 202 more votes for LBJ. There were no votes for his Democratic primary opponent, Coke Stevenson.
6. SPEAKER DENNIS BONNEN
You probably remember this one because it happened a year and a half ago. The rise and fall of Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen is akin, I’ve written before, to a Shakespearean tragedy.
Bonnen began his service two decades ago as the youngest member of the House and rose to the third -most powerful position in state government. Then afteronly one term as speaker, he lost it all.
Bonnen was flying high until he invited his mortal enemy, Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans, into his lair. Sullivan later released a secretly made recording of Bonnen’s ham-handed attempt at backroom dealing. On the recording, Bonnen asked Sullivan for help in removing members of Bonnen’s own Republican Party from office. Bonnen was forced to retire from the Legislature.
I talked to a couple of Bonnen’s pals who served with him.
Former state Rep. Todd Smith of Bedford said: “Clearly that decision to have a meeting with MQS is one that Dennis will regret for the rest of his life. We all make misjudgments, but this was a whopper.”
Former state Rep. Tommy Merritt of Kilgore said: “Dennis was just too naïve. Dennis took the hook. MQS outsmarted him. Dennis was above his pay grade in dealing with MQS. He does not think like MQS. MQS has a way to control the temp, to control members of the House being afraid of him.”
Sullivan told me: “Texans are tired of duplicitous politicians who govern differently than they campaign. Above all else, they expect and deserve honor and integrity from their public servants.”
5. MA AND PA FERGUSON
Ma and Pa Ferguson certainly livened up the governor’s mansion. Both were elected to two terms.
In 1916, Gov. James Ferguson became the only Texas governor impeached and removed from office. His crimes were financial improprieties.
His wife, Miriam, was then elected as the state’s first woman governor. The couple sold it to voters as “Two governors for the price of one.” He kept his desk next to hers.
Ma got in trouble for pardoning 3,000 inmates amid charges that the prisoners’ families paid bribes to the governor.
Capitol and changed Texas politics.
(ERICH SCHLEGEL – 132000)
4. SHARPSTOWN
In this Austin Capitol scandal of the early 1970s, about two dozen current and former state officials were accused of wrongdoing.
It began with stock purchases that yielded quick profits for state officers in exchange for votes on certain bills preferred by Houston businessman Frank W. Sharp. Gov. Preston Smith was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Sharpstown, named after a section of Houston, was so bad that half of the Texas House did not return to office after the next election.
After this, laws were changed, forcing candidates to disclose their sources of personal income and details about their campaign finances. The state passed an open meetings/open government law, too.
