William Perry "Bill" Clements, Jr. was the
42nd and 44th Governor of Texas, serving from 1979 to 1983 and 1987 to 1991 died he was , 94.. Clements was the first
Republican to have served as
governor of the
U.S. state of
Texas since
Reconstruction. Clements' eight years in office were the most served by any Texan governor prior to current Governor
Rick Perry.
(April 13, 1917 – May 29, 2011) |
Early career
Clements was born in
Dallas and worked as an
oil driller for many years. He founded SEDCO in 1947, the world's largest
offshore drilling company and technical leader of the offshore drilling industry, developing dynamically positioned drilling rigs, top drives, and many other offshore drilling innovations. In 1984, SEDCO was sold to
Schlumberger Ltd., and its assets combined with their drilling contractor subsidiary,
Forex, under Schlumberger management, to form
Sedco Forex Schlumberger. Sedco Forex Schlumberger was acquired by
Transocean Ltd. in 1999 and combined with their existing fleet.
[2] He entered politics as the
United States Deputy Secretary of Defense under Presidents
Richard Nixon and
Gerald Ford, in the latter administration under Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld (1975–1977).
Texas' first GOP governor since Reconstruction
On January 16, 1979, Clements succeeded
Democrat Dolph Briscoe as governor of Texas. To win the position, he first defeated
State Representative Ray Hutchison in the Republican primary by a lopsided vote of 115,345 to 38,268. Hutchison, a prominent Dallas
attorney, is the second husband of
Texas State Treasurer (1991–1993) and
U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has served since 1993. Clements won the November 1978 general election by narrowly defeating Democratic former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice
John Hill, who was the two-term Texas Attorney General for six years. Clements polled 1,183,828 votes (49.96 percent) to Hill's 1,166,919 ballots (49.24 percent). The
La Raza nominee, Mario C. Compean, and two other minor candidates shared 18,942 ballots. Clements' margin over Hill was 16,909. Therefore, Clements fell just under a simple majority, making him another "minority governor." The more liberal Hill, who had also once been the appointed secretary of state, had defeated Briscoe in the primary.
In winning, Clements achieved victory with 350,158 ballots less than the 1972 GOP nominee,
Henry Grover went down to defeat with, because turnout was much lower in the 1978 off-year election than it had been during the aforementioned presidential election year. The 1972 Texas governor's race was the last to coincide with a presidential election because when the terms went to four years, the gubernatorial elections were also set to coincide with the off years between presidential elections.
Clements ran for reelection in 1982, but he was defeated by Democratic Attorney General
Mark White by more than 327,000 votes because of sagging economic indicators and weak support from minority voters, who historically tend to support Democratic candidates. White received 1,697,870 (53.2 percent) to Clements' 1,465,537 (45.9 percent). In addition, the Republican down-ballot candidates were all defeated in 1982, including
George Strake, Jr., a
Houston businessman who had been Clements' former
secretary of state. Strake ran for
lieutenant governor against the incumbent Democrat,
Bill Hobby. After the 1982 campaign, Strake was named to replace
Chet Upham of
Mineral Wells as the Republican state chairman, a position that he filled from 1983-1988.
Staging the 1986 comeback
In between his two terms as governor, Clements was chairman of the board of trustees of
Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He ran again in 1986 and won a contested GOP primary against
U.S. Representative Thomas Loeffler of
New Braunfels, the seat of
Comal County, and former Democratic turned Republican Congressman
Kent Hance of
Lubbock. In the fall, Clements unseated Governor White, who was hurt by the unpopularity of the "no pass/no play" policy involving high school athletics and proposed teacher competency testing. In gaining his second term, Clements polled 1,813,779 ballots (52.7 percent) to White's 1,584,512 (46.1 percent). Clements had turned the tables on White in a near mathematical reversal of the 1982 results and was inaugurated for a second nonconsecutive term on January 20, 1987, where according to several people who covered Clements' second inaugural, Clements refused to shake White's hand on live statewide television.
Clements as governor
His first term was marked by SEDCO's involvement in the largest oil blowout in history, the
Ixtoc I oil spill, which caused extensive environmental damage. (See "Oil Rig Disasters at:
http://home.versatel.nl/the_sims/rig/ixtoc1.htm and "Incident News", NOAA site at: www.incidentnews.gov/incident/6250 ) During this time,
Charlie Brooks, Jr., became the first inmate ever to be executed by
lethal injection (December 1982). Clements faced heavily Democratic state legislatures during his tenure. In 1979, the legislature overrode one of his vetoes, the last time that Texas lawmakers have completed an override. In 1980, Clements commuted the death sentence of
Randall Dale Adams to life in prison. Adams, the subject of
The Thin Blue Line, an
Errol Morris documentary film, was exonerated in 1989 after serving twelve years in prison.
During his second term, Clements worked to reduce crime, improve education, boost the Texas economy, and to foster better relations with
Mexico, especially on issues important to the mutual borders, such as immigration and the
War on Drugs.
However, his second term was marred by a startling revelation he made two months after taking office. On March 3, 1987, Clements admitted that he and the other members of the SMU board of governors had approved a secret plan to
continue payments to 13 football players from a
slush fund provided by a booster. Clements said that the board agreed to "phase out" the slush fund at the end of the 1986 season, but that it felt duty-bound to honor prior commitments to the players. The decision to continue the payments ultimately led to the
NCAA shutting down the football program for the 1987 season—the so-called "
death penalty." SMU then opted not to field a team in 1988 as well, claiming it could not put together a competitive squad. The shutdown and other sanctions left the once-proud Mustang football program in ruin; SMU has had only two winning seasons since returning to the field, and would not procure another bowl bid until 2009. A few months later, the College of Bishops of the
United Methodist Church released a report detailing an investigation of its own into the scandal. It revealed that Clements had met with athletic director Bob Hitch, and the two agreed that the payments had to continue because the football program had "a payroll to meet."
[3]
A week later, Clements apologized for his role in continuing the payments. He said the he had learned about the slush fund in 1984, and an investigation by the board of governors revealed that players had been paid to play since the mid-1970s. Clements said that rather than shut the payments down immediately, the board "reluctantly and uncomfortably" decided to continue paying players who had already been guaranteed payments. However, he said, in hindsight the board "should have stopped (the payments) immediately," rather than merely phase them out.
[4]
Clements faced calls for his
impeachment as a result of these statements; two state legislators argued that he would have never been elected had he honestly addressed his role in the scandal. Under the circumstances, he opted not to run for a third term as governor and was succeeded on January 15, 1991 by Democratic state Treasurer
Ann Richards.
Post-political life
After leaving the governorship, Clements lent considerable personal effort to support a variety of Republican candidates seeking office in Texas. He resided in Dallas with his second wife, the former Rita Crocker (born October 30, 1931), who was first lady of Texas during both of his administrations. She was subsequently appointed to the University of Texas Regents by Governor
George W. Bush. Clements was known for his acerbic, energetic personality, which Democrats abhorred but Republicans tended to cheer. In 1993, he had supported the conservative Congressman
Joe Barton in the
special election for the
U.S. Senate to succeed newly-resigned Democrat
Lloyd Bentsen. Barton lost out to Kay Bailey Hutchison. Clements also supported the embattled Texas Supreme Court Justice
Steven Wayne Smith, who was purged by Governor Rick Perry in the 2004 Republican primary.
[citation needed]
Whereas Governor Perry first endorsed former
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of
New York City for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, Bill Clements was as early as 2006 already raising funds for the eventual nominee, U.S. Senator
John McCain of
Arizona. After Giuliani withdrew from the race, Perry joined Clements in endorsing McCain.
[citation needed]
In June 2009, Clements donated $100 million to
UT Southwestern Medical Center, the largest civic donation in Dallas history.
[5] On February 16, 2010, Clements and his wife both endorsed Governor Rick Perry's re-election campaign in the 2010 Texas Republican gubernatorial primary against Kay Bailey Hutchison.
[citation needed]
In October 2010, Clements' son, B. Gill Clements (born 1941), was murdered at the age of 69 near his ranch in
Athens in
Henderson County in east Texas. An investor, Clements was also a graduate of Southern Methodist University, married, and the father of three children. He was
Death
On
Memorial Day weekend in 2011, Clements died at age 94 in a Dallas hospital from natural causes. In addition to his wife Rita, Clements was survived by a daughter, Nancy Clements Seay.
To see more of who died in 2010 click here
Tozzi was born George John Tozzi in Chicago, Illinois.[1] He studied at DePaul University with Rosa Raisa, Giacomo Rimini and John Daggett Howell, making his professional debut in the Broadway production of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia in 1948 as Tarquinius. His signature roles included Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Phillip II in Verdi's Don Carlo, Hans Sachs in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Méphistophélès in Gounod's Faust.
