1.
George W. Bush
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George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was also the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 and he is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, Bush married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election and he is the second president to assume the nations highest office after his father, following the lead of John Quincy Adams. He is also a brother of Jeb Bush, a former Governor of Florida who was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 presidential election, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bushs first term as president. Bush responded with what became known as the Bush Doctrine, launching a War on Terror, a military campaign that included the war in Afghanistan in 2001. He also promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, Social Security reform and his tenure included national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and torture. In the 2004 Presidential race, Bush defeated Democratic Senator John Kerry in another close election. After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the spectrum for his handling of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina. Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections, Bush left office in 2009, returning to Texas where he purchased a home in Crawford. He wrote a memoir, Decision Points and his presidential library was opened in 2013. His presidency has been ranked among the worst in historians polls published in the late 2000s and 2010s. George Walker Bush was born on July 6,1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, as the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife, the former Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with four siblings, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U. S and his father, George H. W. Bush, was Ronald Reagans Vice President from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U. S. President from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and some German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas, until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade. He then spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a school in Houston. Bush attended high school at Phillips Academy, a school in Andover, Massachusetts
2.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
3.
Governor of Texas
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The Governor of Texas is the head of the executive branch of Texass government and the commander-in-chief of the states military forces. The governor has the power to approve or veto bills passed by the Texas Legislature. The governor may grant pardons in cases other than impeachment or in the case of treason, the current Governor is Greg Abbott. The states first constitution in 1845 established the office of governor, the 1861 secessionist constitution set the term start date at the first Monday in the November following the election. The Reconstruction constitution of 1869 removed the limit on terms, Texas remains one of 14 states with no term limit. The present constitution of 1876 shortened terms back to two years, but a 1972 amendment increased it again to four years, the gubernatorial election is held every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and does not coincide with the presidential elections. Despite the lack of limits, no Texas governor in the 19th or 20th centuries ever served more than seven. Former Governor Rick Perry, who served from 2000 to 2015, has now surpassed both records, becoming the first Texas governor to serve three consecutive terms. When Perry won the election on November 2,2010, he joined Shivers, Price Daniel. In case of a vacancy in the office of governor, the lieutenant governor becomes governor, one governor of Texas won his partys nomination and was elected President of the United States, George W
4.
Texas' 19th congressional district
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The current Representative from the 19th District is Republican Jodey Arrington. District 19s current boundaries were drawn up during the controversial 2003 Texas State Legislature Redistricting made famous by the Texas Eleven, the district was redrawn in such a way that two Congressional incumbents, Neugebauer and Democrat Charlie Stenholm, were pitted against one another in the 2004 Congressional elections. Neugebauer won with over 58% of the vote, the border runs along the western boundary with New Mexico, and runs along county borders to include far reaching cities. The area is rural, with the exceptions of Abilene and Lubbock, and includes many state parks, ranches. This is one of Texas most conservative districts, it has not supported a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, republicans have held the seat since 1985, although much of this region continued to elect conservative Democrats to local offices and the Texas Legislature until 1994. The district voted 77% for George W. Bush in 2004, list of United States congressional districts Martis, Kenneth C. The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, the Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts. Congressional Biographical Directory of the United States 1774–present Current Election History, office of the Secretary of State of Texas
5.
Jim Reese (Texas politician)
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James O’Quinn Reese, known as Jim Reese, is a businessman who served from 1968 to 1974 as the mayor of Odessa, Texas. From the 1960s to the 1980s, he was a figure in the development of the two-party system in West Texas. In 1978, he lost the Republican nomination to future U. S. President George W. Bush for Texas 19th congressional district seat in the United States House of Representatives. Bush was then defeated in the 1978 general election by the then Democrat, later Republican, an only child, Reese was born to Arvil Lloyd Reese and the former Mary Louise Pearce in the defunct community of Hasse in Comanche County near Abilene, Texas. The Reese family moved repeatedly during Jim’s childhood as Arvil searched for employment amid the Great Depression, Arvil worked for the Texas Department of Highways for a time, having been assigned to place finich concrete on bridges. He also held jobs in the oil industry and was during the end of his working years a Butane dealer in Gustine in Comanche County. Reeses first remembrance of Odessa dates to 1938, when he was eight years of age, Arvil Reese had hired a driver with a pickup truck to bring the family of three to Odessa. Young Jim saw flares from the oil fields and smelled sour gas, “I had heard of hell but didn’t expect to get there that soon and he slept on hay in the back of the pickup that first night, thirty years before his election as mayor. Reese recalls that in the late 1930s there was no paving in Odessa past Grant, for several weeks the family lived in a tourist cabin in Goldsmith in Ector County, where they survived a tornado. It was while the Reeses were residing in Brady further east in McCulloch County that Arvil was financially able to purchase the family’s first vehicle, the car had been used to haul chickens in the back seat, but we were happy finally to have transportation, Reese remembers. The next year, he procured the Master of Arts from Northwestern University in Evanston, both degrees were in the then new field of radio and television broadcasting. From 1953 o 1955, he served in the United States Air Force and was stationed mostly in San Antonio, Texas, and Denver, Colorado and he also made a brief military sojourn to Tripoli, Libya. Reese is married to the former Jayne Damron, originally from Muleshoe in Bailey County and their daughter, Greta Jayne Reese Rigney, resides in Midland. Her husband, William R. Rigney, Jr. was a native of Oakland, California and he died at the age of sixty-eight of Alzheimers disease. There are three Rigney sons, Jim Reeses grandsons, the Reeses son, James Rockney “Rocky” Reese lives in Horseshoe Bay near Austin, Texas. A second daughter, Lori Jan Reese resided until her death in Abilene at the Abilene State School for special-needs persons, Reeses broadcasting career began at KCBD-TV, Channel 11, the NBC affiliate in Lubbock. KOSA formerly used the mantra “Your Eye on West Texas. ”At Reese Air Force Base, Reese had edited the newspaper and handled the Saturday evening and Sunday morning shifts at KCBD-TV. However, station manager Joseph H. Bryant forbade moonlighting, faced with the lack of choice, Reese resigned and moved to KFDA in Amarillo
6.
Kent Hance
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Kent Ronald Hance is the former Chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. In his role, he oversaw Texas Tech University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. He is also a lobbyist and lawyer who was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from West Texas, after his congressional service, he switched to the Republican Party and in 1990 made an unsuccessful primary race for governor of Texas. In 2006, Hance was chosen as the chancellor to succeed David Smith as the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System in Lubbock. He also served as the Student Government Association Vice-President and was a member of the Saddle Tramps and he later attended the University of Texas School of Law. During his time as a law student, he was the Student Bar Association President, after law school, he was admitted to the Texas bar and in 1968 became a practicing attorney in Lubbock. During this period, he was also a law professor at Texas Tech from 1968 until 1973, in 1974, Hance ran for the Texas Senate and defeated incumbent H. J. Doc Blanchard in the 1974 primary. His campaign at the beginning seemed doomed to failure, but Hance quickly made connection with voters in the sprawling West Texas district and he served in the state senate from 1975 to 1979. After winning the 1978 Democratic primary nomination for the Lubbock-based 19th Congressional District, the seat, which was based in Lubbock, had been held since inception by popular Democrat George H. Mahon, long-time chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Bush won the Republican nomination in a hard-fought but low-turnout runoff primary against the 1976 party nominee, Jim Reese, the 19th had long been one of the more conservative areas of Texas. It was one of the first areas of Texas to move away from its Democratic roots, however, at the time, conservative Democrats continued to represent much of the region at the state and local levels, and would do so well into the 1990s. Hance claimed Bush was not a real Texan because of his privileged upbringing, Hance won by seven points—the only time that the future 43rd President of the United States was ever defeated in an election. As a Democratic member of Congress during 1979–1985, Hance was a member of the boll-weevil conservatives, as such, he became one of President Ronald Reagans allies and carried his tax-cut, the nations largest tax cut, in 1981. His voting record was conservative even by Texas Democratic standards. He did not run for a term in 1984, opting instead to seek the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring John Tower. Hance announced within hours of Towers withdrawal that he would run for the Senate and he was very narrowly defeated—by only 273 votes—by State Senator Lloyd Doggett of Austin, who was later a long-term Democratic congressman. Hance had received a deal of support from conservative Republicans who crossed party lines to vote for him in the race, since Hance had run on a conservative platform. Hance proceeded to endorse Doggett in the election, which rankled many of the conservative Republicans who had crossed party lines to vote for him
7.
Ann Richards
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Dorothy Ann Willis Richards was an American politician and the 45th Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. A Democrat, she first came to attention as the state treasurer of Texas. Richards served as the 45th Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995 and was defeated for re-election in 1994 by George W. Bush, Richards was the second female governor of Texas, and was frequently noted in the media for her outspoken feminism and her one-liners. Ann Richards was born Dorothy Ann Willis in Lakeview, in McLennan County, Texas and she grew up in Waco, participated in Girls State, and graduated from Waco High School in 1950. She attended Baylor University on a Debate team scholarship, and earned a bachelors degree, after marrying high school sweetheart David Dave Richards, she moved to Austin, where she earned a teaching certificate from the University of Texas. David and Ann Richards had four children Cecile, Daniel, Clark, Richards taught social studies and history at Fulmore Junior High School in Austin from 1955–1956. She campaigned for Texas liberals and progressives such as Henry B, gonzalez, Ralph Yarborough, and future U. S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes. She supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U. S, 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 completed treatment for alcoholism in 1980, after the incumbent Texas State Treasurer, Warren G. Harding, became mired in legal troubles in 1982, Richards won the Democratic nomination for that post. Winning election against a Republican opponent in November that year, Richards became the first woman elected to office in more than fifty years. In 1986, she was re-elected treasurer without opposition, Richards was a popular and proactive treasurer who worked to maximize the return of Texas state investments. Richards said that when she took office, the Treasury Department was run something like a 1930s country bank, Richards keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention put her in the national spotlight. The speech was highly critical of the Reagan Administration and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush and he was born with a silver foot in his mouth, …two women in 160 years is about par for the course. But if you give us a chance, we can perform, after all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels, and When we pay billions for planes that wont fly, billions for tanks that wont fire, and billions for systems that wont work, that old dog wont hunt. And you dont have to be from Waco to know that when the Pentagon makes crooks rich and doesnt make America strong, Richards convention address has been cited by rhetorical experts as a historically significant speech. The speech set the tone for her political future, in 1989, with co-author Peter Knobler, she wrote her autobiography, Straight from the Heart, My Life in Politics and Other Places. In 1990, Texas Republican governor, Bill Clements, decided not to run for re-election to a third nonconsecutive term, Richards painted herself as a sensible progressive, and won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Attorney General Jim Mattox of Dallas and former Governor Mark White of Houston
8.
Texas gubernatorial election, 1998
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The 1998 Texas gubernatorial election was held on November 3,1998 to elect the Governor of Texas. Incumbent Republican Governor George W. Bush was re-elected in a landslide over 4-term Democrat Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, Bushs 37% margin of victory was the largest won by any candidate since 1966 and is, to date, the largest ever won by a Republican candidate. Bush carried 239 counties, while Mauro carried just 15, exit polls revealed that Bush won 27% of the African American vote, which was the highest percentage for any Republican statewide candidate, and 49% of the Latino vote. Bush was sworn in for a term as Governor on January 19,1999. George W. Bush, the son of former President of the United States George H. W. Bush, was elected governor in 1994, upon taking office in January 1995, Bush had a low approval rating of 38%. Over the course of his first term, this increased significantly, going into the election, Bush had an approval rating of 76%. Throughout the entire campaign, George W. Bush led in the polls by wide margins, after Garry Mauro declared his candidacy in November 1997, a Scripps Howard Texas Poll of 793 registered voters showed George W. Bush leading by 68%-16%, with 14% undecided. George Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said, The philosophical differences between Gov. Bush and Garry Mauro are clear and stark, Gov. Bush is a conservative, as most Texans are, and Garry Mauro is a liberal. In mid-June 1998, a Scripps Howard Texas Poll was conducted with George W. Bush versus Garry Mauro, the poll showed 70% likely voters support Bush, 17% favored Mauro, 11% were undecided, and 2% would vote for neither. Bushs approval rating was also virtually unchanged polling at 75%, in response to the poll, government professor at the University of Texas in Austin said, Gov. Bush looks to be unbeatable, but theres enough time for anything to happen. There is a chance for Mauro but still a real chance for him to reach voters with ad dollars. Its just too early to call the November election in June, on June 22,1998, Mauro called Bush out of touch saying, Governor Bush is out of touch with the concerns of ordinary citizens and in bed with the giant HMOs. This was because in 1995, Bush vetoed the Patient Protection Act, the Patient Protection Act would have also mandated that insurance companies to cover cancer treatment received at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Another Scripps Howard Texas Poll was conducted from August 12 to August 27,1998 and it indicated that 77% of likely voters support Bush, 20% favored Mauro, and 1% supported Libertarian candidate Lester Turlington Jr. About 10% were undecided and 2% didnt answer, again, Bushs approval rating barely fell and was 74% of Texans remarked that he was doing a good to excellent job as governor. Allan Saxe, an assistant political science professor at the University of Texas said, if Garry Mauro can close that to a 10 to 15 percent difference by election day, it will be a symbolic victory. But it will be hard to do – a 50-point difference is a big one, among Hispanics, Bush led Mauro 51%-31%, down from 67%-20% in June. George W. Bush and Garry Mauro met for the gubernatorial election debate in El Paso on October 16,1998
