Politics
Ben Barnes
So what if he never got to be governor or president? Thirty years after Sharpstown, Barnes is more powerful than ever.
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With the governor and the business lobby and all but a handful of House members behind him, Barnes was an instant powerhouse. The press latched on to the story of the young man with a limitless future. The headlines tell the tale: “Ben Barnes—Man Going Places,” “Boy Wonder of Texas Politics,” “Big Crowd Hears LBJ Predict White House for Ben Barnes.” In his 1968 race for lieutenant governor he carried all 254 counties in both the primary and the general elections; in the latter he won more votes than any candidate had polled up to that time in the history of Texas.
In retrospect, success came to him too soon in life, before he was able to understand how fickle it could be. He reveled in press speculation about his future instead of discouraging it. He advocated policies that were far ahead of his time: making Spanish a required course for every high school student, reducing the penalty for possession of marijuana, raising taxes to address the problems of urban Texas. The unsophisticated farm boy had been replaced by a young man in a hurry.
Barnes suffered some setbacks during his four years as lieutenant governor—a divorce, questions about his personal finances, and a unanimous rejection by the House of a plan he supported to extend the sales tax to food—but he drove the agenda in the Legislature and remained a heavy favorite to move up to the office of his choosing in 1972, which turned out to be governor rather than senator. But then the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Houston banker and real estate developer Frank Sharp, alleging that Sharp had manipulated the price of his bank’s stock. The stock happened to be owned by some prominent Texas political figures, including Governor Preston Smith, and at Smith’s request, the Legislature had passed two bills that would have eased Sharp’s problems with bank regulators. (Ironically, Smith had vetoed the bills when other bankers protested.) Barnes owned no stock and had no dealings with Sharp that anyone could find. The entire legislative session of 1971 went by without a suggestion that he was involved. But that summer, Sharp was seeking a plea bargain to avoid a trial and prison time, and he told federal investigators that his political operative had told him, “Ben is smarter than those other politicians—he only takes cash.” The operative denied having made the comment, and to this day there has never been any evidence to link Barnes to the Sharpstown scandal. But his meteoric career worked against him; who knew what such an ambitious young man might have done?
As 1972 began, he had a big lead over his most serious opponent in the gubernatorial primary, Uvalde rancher Dolph Briscoe. But as the vote drew near, House Speaker Gus Mutscher was convicted of conspiracy to accept a bribe in the form of bank stock. And lieutenant governor candidate Bill Hobby had billboards that read “Bill Hobby will make a good lieutenant governor … honestly.” Ouch. “We could see the polls dropping in the final weeks,” Barnes told me. “I went from over fifty percent to the forties, to the thirties.” In the end, he didn’t even get twenty.
The highly publicized end of the Barnes-Connally real estate partnership appeared to foil his attempt to regain power and influence. “I didn’t have anything but my father’s red pickup truck,” he told me. So he returned to politics—not as a candidate, but as a lobbyist. “Somebody who knew me needed a favor in state government,” he said. “He called a friend of mine to see if I could help him in Austin. I had always tried to help friends whenever I could, but I never took money for it. My friend told him, ‘Ben’s broke. You have to pay him now.’” He landed the two biggest lobbying jobs that the Capitol has ever seen: the bullet train and the lottery. His first big client was a French group competing with a German rival for the right to build a high-speed rail line in Texas. As Barnes tells it, the bill authorizing a study for the train was languishing in the Legislature with three weeks left in the session when he was hired. Barnes went to see Bob Lanier, the chairman of the Highway Commission, who was the chief opponent of the bill but also a former political ally. Barnes didn’t waste time on facts and figures. “Bob, I got to pass this bill,” he told his old friend. Lanier withdrew his opposition. As Barnes remembers it, “He told people, ‘Barnes is such a scoundrel, I just got to help him.’”
The French client won the right to build the train, but even Barnes couldn’t squeeze financial assistance out of the Legislature. In the meantime, Gtech had hired him to help pass the lottery. The Basses of Fort Worth were early investors in GTech, and their lawyer, a longtime Barnes supporter named Dee Kelly, recommended him. In frantic maneuvering at the end of the 1991 legislative session, Barnes had three hours to get three votes in the Senate, which he did. “It was harder than anything I had to do as Speaker or lieutenant governor,” he says. Years later, the details of his relationship with GTech came out during an investigation of the company by the Texas Lottery Commission. In addition to his lobbying contract of $25,000 a month, Barnes and a partner received 3.5 cents from every lottery ticket sold, or more than $3 million a year. Under pressure from the commission, the company severed its dealings with Barnes—for a buyout price of $23 million.
Now he had the money to get back into politics—only this time it was national politics. He had attended a Democratic senatorial fundraiser on Nantucket in 1990 and struck up a friendship with Tom Daschle. Today Barnes organizes fundraising events. “Every Democratic senator who is running for reelection has been to Texas for a fundraiser,” he told me. “We’ve got one coming up for Tim Johnson [of South Dakota].”
“Is Walter Umphrey invited?” I asked, referring to his client’s adversary in the Army contract battle, who also happens to be a major Democratic contributor.
Barnes grinned. “Of course.”
Two things have eluded Barnes in his life. One is high office, and the other is vindication. The Sharpstown damage is permanent, if unjust, and there have been other scrapes since then. But Barnes has reached the point where he can laugh at his own shortcomings. He tells the story of going to Arkansas to a Methodist conference when Bill Clinton was governor and taking a group of ministers to meet him. “I may have to switch religions,” Clinton told the ministers. “If you all will take a sinner like Barnes, you might take me.” The hand that fate dealt him has not played out so badly. He has been married to his third wife, Melanie, since 1989. They have adopted two girls, who are ten and seven. He is opening a Washington office and has a home in Austin and another in Nantucket, where his grandchildren from his first marriage come to visit.
And he is once again a force to be reckoned with, not only because of money but also because of his ideas. In April 2000 he made a speech at the LBJ Library and Museum that he has since repeated elsewhere around the state. “Texas today is drifting toward mediocrity just when it should be striving for greatness,” he said. “We are neglecting our public infrastructure and shortchanging our future… . Let me make my position very clear on this: No twentieth-century state ever became great by cutting taxes and no twenty-first century state is going to become great by cutting taxes either.” Barnes fired up the audience, just like the old days, but then former Democratic congressman Jake Pickle brought everyone back to reality during the question-and-answer period that followed. “I think you’ve made one of the greatest speeches of your life,” Pickle said, “now that you’re not running for reelection.”
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