Lieutenant Governorship
In 1990, he was easily elected Lieutenant Governor, having defeated the 40-year-old Republican nominee, businessman Robert Mosbacher, Jr., of Houston, the son of the sitting United States Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher. Bullock prevailed, 53 to 44 percent, for the right to succeed the retiring Bill Hobby. Bullock took office on January 15, 1991, when Democrat Ann W. Richards became the state's second female governor. In 1994, Bullock was easily elected to a second four-year term as lieutenant governor defeating Republican Harold "Tex" Lezar, 61 to 38 percent. He was inaugurated for his second term on January 17, 1995, while Republican George W. Bush was sworn-in as the 46th Governor of Texas, having unseated Ann Richards. Bullock did not seek election to a third term in 1998, having been succeeded by Republican Agriculture Commissioner (and current Governor) Rick Perry on January 19, 1999.
Serving as Texas' 38th Lieutenant Governor, Bullock favored a hands-on management style that he carried onto the lieutenant governor's office and resulted in numerous achievements as the presiding officer of the Texas Senate. Bullock overhauled the ethics laws during his first term in an effort to restore public confidence in state government. He created the Texas Performance Review for the State Comptroller to analyze spending at state agencies and recommended cost-saving alternatives. He helped consolidate all environmental agencies into one department in an effort to better serve Texans and protecting the state's natural resources. As the state's second-highest elected statewide officeholder, Bullock aggressively pushed through a constitutional amendment requiring voter approval before a state personal income tax can be enacted and requiring the money be earmarked for education, if voters approve the tax. He led efforts to modernize the Texas tax system and worked on state problems in tort reform, health and juvenile justice. Bullock was instrumental in finding a legislative solution to get Texas out of federal court lawsuits involving prisons and mental health. He was a leader in legislative efforts to revamp the state's educational funding system and ushered through a law that created the state's first comprehensive water conservation and management plan, and promoted establishing a state museum in the Capitol Complex. Lawmakers during the 76th Legislature voted to name the museum after him for his work on the project.
As Lieutenant Governor, he professed a nonpartisan approach to lawmaking, often telling members of the Texas Senate to leave their politics at the door. Bullock and Bush got along well, in part because Bullock got to lead an increasingly Republican legislature to agree to key laws and policies and "when they passed, Bullock and House Speaker Pete Laney allowed Bush to claim some credit." Bullock unofficially endorsed Republican Governor Bush's presidential campaign even before it got off the ground. At a November 8, 2006, post-election press conference, a reporter from the Austin American-Statesman, who had covered Bush's tenure as governor, asked Bush if he thought then U.S. House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi resembled Bullock. The President replied that the reporter's question was an inside joke. The question was a thinly-veiled reference to the close working relationship, well known in Texas, to have existed between Republican Bush and Democrat Bullock; the reporter apparently was asking whether Bush would be capable of forging a similar bipartisan relationship with the members of the new Democratic legislative majority in the U. S. Congress.
Bullock was renowned for his blunt and sometimes politically incorrect speaking style, but also for his trademark closing line "God bless Texas." A lover of Texas history, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Texas State History Museum, located just to the north of the State Capitol in Austin. Opened to the public on April 21, 2001 (San Jacinto Day) after Bullock's death, it was named in his honor. The second-floor lobby of the museum features a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of Bullock holding a giant gavel, next to a gallery of items and a video from his career in politics.
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