25 Stories About Bob Bullock
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Bruce Gibson:
I've worked with a lot of people who worked as hard as Bullock did. I have never worked with anyone who worked as efficiently as Bullock did. It was a tight ship. Bullock's typical workday, in session or out, we would hit the ground running before seven-thirty. We'd be in meetings, staff meetings or strategy meetings, till lunch. Then he'd have a working lunch with somebody. The afternoons were his reflective time. He would talk to staff members about some far-removed project, or he would make phone calls, and by three he was worn out. So between two-thirty and three-thirty, we would pack a box. The box went home with him at the end of every day, and it was very meticulously put together. It would have every report filed in the past 24 hours in state government, with a summary of that report in the front, and it would have anything of significance from the paper flow that had gone through the office. He would go home and take a nap. And during his nap period, I had to read everything in that box. When he got up, he would go through the box and pull out things that interested him. He'd read all the executive summaries so he would have familiarity with them. And then he would read the reports he thought were important until midnight. He'd read and read and read. He'd call me at nine at night and ask me about one of these reports, and I was supposed to know any detail he'd ask about.
[a very complex personality]
Bresnen:
I sort of quit for three days. We were working on his lieutenant governor's campaign. He started giving me a hard time about something, and I told him, "Hey, I'm not going to take an ass-chewing for something I didn't do." He got really mad. Bullock was only about five feet eight or five feet nine, and I probably outweighed him by sixty pounds. He got right up in my face and it was "Damn you. Get the f—— out of here." And I said, "Okay, I will." I thought, "This man's gonna hit me and I'm gonna have to hit him back to prove my manhood." I have not been that mad in my adult life. About three days later the phone rings and he says, "Bresnen, I'm fixin' to say x and y in this campaign. Can I say that and be honest about it?" And I said, "Yes," and he said, "Bring your stuff down here and prove it." And I documented what he was about to say. He never said another word. He never apologized. He was not one to apologize. He was one to just go on down the road.
Chuck Bailey:
I spent about four hours on Palm Sunday one time in a royal ass-chewing. I got paged to come to the Capitol as I was going into church with my family. The Department of Public Safety was doing an investigation of the money coming into TCADA [Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse], and he didn't think I was keeping a close enough eye on it. I was, but because it involved alcohol abuse, it was real important to him. That was the surface issue. The real issue was that it was probably time for me to go. And in fact, I quit about two weeks later. With Mr. Bullock, you knew when it was time to go. You just knew. One time I had to let a guy go who had been with him for 25 years, and when he came in, I said, "You know better than I do that there just comes a time, and your time has come. My time will come next year."
Jack Roberts:
Once I got a call from Senator Rodney Ellis, and he said to me, "I know that you are friends with Mr. Bullock. I respect him, I admire him, but I just got a terrible scolding from him that I couldn't believe I deserved." I told Senator Ellis that the people that got scolded the hardest were those he was closest to and related to the most. No one likes to be scolded. No one likes to be fussed at. But you had to realize it was an integral part of a very complex personality.
Ratliff:
When I was in my second session, we were working on the conference committee for the ethics bill. It was the most hectic, bizarre time I have ever witnessed. Bruce Gibson was on the House conference committee, and Bullock started building one of his rages in his direction. It got louder and fiercer, and literally their noses were this far apart, and they were screaming at each other. And then three months later, he hires Bruce as his executive assistant. If Bullock could absolutely bully somebody, he had no respect for them.
[power plays]
Ronnie Earle:
Soon after I became the DA, we investigated Bullock for using a state airplane for personal purposes and using office stuff for personal and political business. It took awhile, and sometime later, the grand jury decided not to indict him. He called me after that at my secret, double-secret, unlisted home telephone number. I don't know how he got it, but he said, "I just want to thank you for that no-bill." I had been trying to get our public integrity unit funded by the Legislature, but Bullock had been blocking it. As soon as the investigation was over, we got funding. It was kind of like, "Since you didn't indict me, I'm going to remove my opposition." The only other time we were in jeopardy of losing that funding is when we investigated Speaker Gib Lewis. The House was raising all kinds of hell. Bullock was lieutenant governor, so I went to see him. We sat down at his kitchen table, and he was smoking a cigarette and looking at me through the smoke with that heavy-lidded stare, and he said, "You know that investigation you did on me years ago?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I was guilty as hell."
John Whitmire:
The first time he made an impression on me was on closing night [of the Legislature] in 1989. [Former senator John] Leedom wanted to do audits of state government, but it had a huge cost. Unless they got the audits, Leedom and others were not going to vote for the budget. Bullock comes into the members' lounge and says, "You give me more auditors, and I'll find money for Leedom's bill." He just saved the day.
Wayne:
His fundraisers were mob scenes. If you didn't go, you got somebody to pick up your name tag, because he would have an aide gather up the unused ones so he could see who didn't come, and he'd call you the next day. One trade association sent him a $1,000 contribution, and he sent it back with a letter that said, "Here's your check back, and I'm sending you a $500 check from myself. I didn't know your association was in such bad shape. I hope this $500 will help you." Boy, they came back with a $10,000 check right quick. That was just the way he did it.
Ratliff:
After the '93 session, I had to go home and run for reelection. Bullock campaigned for me, which was extraordinary for a Democrat, and he got letters from two plaintiffs lawyers really jumping on him about supporting me. Bullock wrote both of them letters that said, "I am sorry you're disappointed in me. I supported Bill Ratliff because I thought he was good for Texas, but I would never allow you to believe that I'd misled you, and rather than have that happen, I've looked over my records, and over the years you've given me $10,450"—it was some amount like that. "Enclosed is a check for $10,450. And so we are square." Did that to both of them. A few days later, one guy sent back the check marked "void" and enclosed another contribution. Bullock called me in and he says, "You think I don't know how to raise money?"
