Ann’s Plans
Johnson, Bentsen, Connally, Bush,Perot … Will Ann Richards be the next Texan to run for president?
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“I’M DOING WHAT I SAID I’d do for Texas,” Richards said during our interview, “and I’m finding the bitter reality: Change is hard to bring about.” She was acknowledging her biggest problem—translating her popularity into concrete achievements.
If you strip away Richards’ symbolic importance from her first year in office, the specifics of what you have left are one policy victory (she got the lottery passed), one sweeping bureaucratic insurrection (she was able to take control of the agencies regulating insurance, water quality, and public utilities, mainly by forcing the resignations of Bill Clements’ appointees), and one clever political strategy (selecting issues—insurance reform and environmental regulation—that require no new spending and are popular with Republicans as well as Democrats). But perhaps her greatest success is what did not happen: She did not get blamed for the Legislature’s failure to solve the school-finance mess or to avoid a tax bill.
Politicians have to appeal to two divergent audiences—the pros who operate inside the Capitol (or in Washington, the Beltway) and the public. Richards is the first Texas governor since John Connally to please both constituencies. I asked Connally why he thinks Richards is so well liked. “She reflects a candor, a frankness that people find appealing,” said Connally, “plus she’s found the right combination for these times—she functions like an insider but talks like an outsider.”
Not all the insiders are so charmed, of course, but the main criticisms one hears are of her staff rather than of Richards. The staff is universally regarded as too ideological and not very knowledgeable on the issues. Yet the criticism has not seemed to rub off on Richards, who, after all, hired them and keeps them on. The school-finance issue is a clear example of staff shortcomings. Last year Richards was criticized for not having a plan. This year she offered a general plan to eliminate the difference between rich and poor school districts: Change the property tax on business from local to statewide so that every district in the state could share in tax revenues from oil and gas wells, nuclear power plants, shopping malls, and other businesses. Her proposal never even made it out of the starting gate. No one knew exactly how the business tax would be set, how appraisals of property—which now vary 30 to 40 percent from county to county—would be made uniform, how local school districts would handle new and old debt, or endless other specifics. Richards herself acknowledged that the plan lacked details. “I wish I could tell you that we have dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s in this plan,” she told the board of directors of the Texas Chamber of Commerce in early April, “but as Richard Nixon said twenty years ago, that would be wrong.”
It was a good line—but bad politics. Richards tried to drum up enough support for her plan to call a special session in May, but in the end not a single senator could be identified as a sure yes vote. Plans for a special session were dropped. “It was another example of her staff doing her in,” said one business lobbyist. “Here was the governor being moderate, reasonable, philosophically correct, but completely undermined by a staff that hadn’t done its homework.” Often the criticism is directed by males at the women who dominate the governor’s inner circle (with the exception of chief of staff Mary Beth Rogers). “There’s nothing wrong with the governor’s office,” said one critic, “that a rash of pregnancies wouldn’t fix.”
In fact, most of the substantive work of the Richards administration has occurred in the hidden world of the state bureaucracy. At the State Board of Insurance, Richards’ appointees have forced companies to provide a toll-free number for complaints in both English and Spanish, they’ve required auto insurers to allow customers to make monthly payments on some policies, and they’ve instituted rules that prevent insurers from not renewing policies because of claims that people have no control over—such as hail damage to cars. Insurance officials—who aren’t about to be quoted by name—say that her appointees are hopelessly one-sided (board member Allene Evans, for instance, was formerly the chief of the antitrust division in the attorney general’s office and was lead counsel in a massive lawsuit filed against eight of the largest insurance companies doing business in Texas). However, Richards had successfully concluded during her campaign that Texans feel no pity for insurance companies. She has the mandate to go after them, and she’s doing it. The jury is still out whether the actions of her board will result in lower rates.
Just as she has been able to insulate herself from the criticisms of her staff, she has so far been able to escape personal criticism for the actions of her appointees. Not that Meyer, the Republican party state chairman, hasn’t tried. “There is nobody more partisan than Ann Richards,” Meyer said. “She has driven all these people out of state agencies and replaced them with her own cronies.” But the criticism hasn’t stuck. Aside from one story about turnover at the insurance board, the bureaucracy remains impenetrable, and Richards’ team is so loyal that leaks to the Capitol press corps are almost nonexistent.
The main pitfalls ahead are the school-finance morass and the 1993 legislative session, which will find state government facing yet another shortfall, this time estimated at $6 billion. Court orders and congressional mandates requiring more public money for schools, Medicaid, prisons, and mental health facilities cannot be ignored. It will become increasingly more difficult for Richards to avoid a major tax bill.
Another problem for Richards is whether she can continue to perform a balancing act between the interests of environmentalists and those of business. That battle, which is now hidden from public view, will eventually surface as state regulatory agencies continue to make sweeping changes affecting powerful industries. Still, as Richards has proved, she doesn’t have to pass a lot of bills to keep her Texas family happy. If she can continue to attack popular targets, hold a tax increase within court mandates, and maintain her role as political symbol, she’ll be a strong favorite to win reelection in 1994.
After that the question is: What kind of damage can the character cops do to a Richards presidential campaign? Her divorce probably wouldn’t be a factor; David Richards, her ex-husband, remains a political ally, and besides, America has already had one divorced president. During the 1990 Democratic primary, supporters of Jim Mattox tried to make an issue of the fact that Richards is often in the company of gay women—with little effect, since Richards has four grandchildren and is often in the company of writer Bud Shrake as well. The issue of possible drug use will inevitably be raised again and probably pressed harder. The answer that she gave in 1990—that she wouldn’t answer questions about drug use because it might affect other people’s ability to get over their addiction—won’t be accepted by the national media. Yet Richards has been able to make her status as a recovering alcoholic into a strength. Her membership in Alcoholics Anonymous ties her to the millions of people in twelve-step personal recovery programs. As advertising executive Roy Spence put it: “The essential truth about Ann Richards is that she has been through the fire and the fire lost.” She just may climb those twelve steps all the way to the White House.
“I find I get into sloppy habits when I start thinking months and years in advance,” Richards said near the end of our lunch. For now, her public posture continues to be that she is not thinking about the presidency, even as she privately positions herself for a possible run. When Richards paused, I asked her if she honestly thought Bill Clinton or George Bush or anyone else on the horizon would make a better president than she would.
“No,” she said finally, “I can’t say that I do.”
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