Bill Ratliff, A New Texas Star?

• Author: McNeely, Dave
• Position: Contest for Lieutenant governor - Brief Article

When George Bush went off to Washington, D.C., Texas senators got to pick the lieutenant governor. Their choice? A man they call "Obi Wan Kenobe."

When George W. Bush moved from the Texas governor's mansion to the White House, it set off a ripple effect. And for the first time in history, it put someone in the most powerful lieutenant governor's office in the country who hadn't been elected statewide.

With Bush's election, Lieutenant Governor Rick Perry became governor. His replacement, selected by his colleagues in the Texas Senate, is Republican Bill Ratliff, a retired civil engineer from a small community in northeast Texas. He'll serve the remainder of Perry's term through 2002.

The Texas Constitution only says that the lieutenant governor will be the president of the Senate. It's the Senate's rules and the fact that Texas does not organize its Legislature along partisan lines, that make this such a powerful job. The rules give the lieutenant governor (who runs independently of the governor) the power to appoint Senate committees, to name chairmen, to set the calendar, and to have huge control over the Senate's side of the budgeting process.

Those powers, coupled with a Senate tradition of requiring a two-thirds vote to bring up a bill for consideration on the floor, have led many observers to consider the Texas lieutenant governor a stronger force in the state's government than the governor. Along with the votes of just 11 senators, the lieutenant governor can block anything he wants from passing.

DECISION IS CLOSE

Ratliff, 64, a gentlemanly, no-nonsense, moderate-conservative, won the very close election among his colleagues in the Senate Dec. 28 almost without campaigning. Ratliff had told his colleagues that he'd like to be the acting lieutenant governor if Bush won but thought it would be divisive for senators to start running for the job before a vacancy actually existed. Senators would have to take sides in a race that might never have to be run, which could cause the lingering bitterness that often accompanies House speaker races.

So he sat on the sidelines while his close friend in the Senate, David Sibley, actively courted his colleagues for a year before Bush actually won. Sibley, a Republican from Waco, traveled the state, wined and dined senators, raised money, hired a consultant and campaigned hard.

The Republicans hold a narrow 16-15 edge over the Democrats in the Texas Senate, and Sibley was considered the front-runner. Before the final vote tally was revealed, the two friends were called to the podium by Senate President Pro Tem Rodney Ellis who whispered the results. Ratliff had won, 16-15. An obviously disappointed Sibley returned immediately to his desk and moved that the senators elect Ratliff by acclamation, which they did.

Ratliff first came to the Senate by narrowly upsetting an incumbent Democrat in 1988. He was the first Republican senator from east Texas in the 20th century. Ratliff, who chaired the Education and later Finance committees, eventually came to be dubbed "Obi Wan Kenobe" by his respectful colleagues, after the wise old man in the Star Wars movies.

He is very highly regarded by his colleagues on both sides of the political aisle as a man of his word, a hard worker, fair and wise. And while he has run tough partisan races, he believes in the bipartisan...