Governor
Then U.S. Senator Daniel was elected governor in 1956. Thereafter, Daniel's chief intraparty rival Ralph Yarborough went on to succeed Daniel (after a temporary appointee, William A. Blakley of Dallas) in the Senate in a special election held in 1957. Also in the 1956 Democratic primary was a flamboyant former Republican, the historian J. Evetts Haley, who pledged to support segregation, remove price controls from natural gas, and halt the activities of South Texas political boss George Parr of Duval County. Haley returned to the Republican Party in 1964.
As Governor, Daniel saw legislative fruition of his proposals to reorganize of the State Board of Insurance, passage of an ethics code for lawmakers and other state employees, regulation of lobbyists, an improved structure for state archives, and a long-range water conservation plan.
Daniel was reelected governor in 1958 and 1960. In 1960, Daniel won renomination over Jack Cox, an oil equipment executive from Houston. Daniel then prevailed in the general election by a much larger margin than that obtained by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as the Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees. Daniel received 1,637,755 votes (72.8 percent) to Republican William M. Steger of Tyler, who obtained 612,963 ballots (27.2 percent). Yet Kennedy and Johnson barely won the Texas electoral votes over Richard M. Nixon.
In 1961, the legislature passed a 2-cent sales tax, which Daniel allowed to become law without his signature so the state would remain solvent. After the passage of the sales tax, Daniel's popularity waned, and he failed at his attempt to be elected to a fourth term in 1962. He lost the Democratic nomination to former Navy Secretary John B. Connally, Jr. Other 1962 Democratic candidates included highway commissioner Marshall Formby of Plainview, state Attorney General Will Wilson, a future Republican convert, and Major General Edwin A. Walker, who made anticommunism the centerpiece of his campaign. Connally went on to defeat Jack Cox, who had switched to Republican affiliation, to claim the right to succeed Daniel as governor.
Read more about this topic: Price Daniel
Famous quotes containing the word governor:
“[John] Brough’s majority is “glorious to behold.” It is worth a big victory in the field. It is decisive as to the disposition of the people to prosecute the war to the end. My regiment and brigade were both unanimous for Brough [the Union party candidate for governor of Ohio].”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Ah, Governor [Murphy, of New Jersey], don’t try to deceive me as to the sentiment of the dear people. I have been hearing from the West and the East, and the South seems to be the only section which approves of me at all, and that comes from merely a generous impulse, for even that section would deny me its votes.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“It is better to have the power of self-protection than to depend on any man, whether he be the Governor in his chair of State, or the hunted outlaw wandering through the night, hungry and cold and with murder in his heart.”
—Lillie Devereux Blake (1835–1913)