I recently watched Emmy winner Holland Taylor perform her delightful one-woman show “Ann” on PBS. It is an homage to Ann Richards, former governor of Texas from 1991-1995. She ran as a liberal in conservative Texas. Bill Clinton said she was the wittiest person he ever met.
According to Wikipedia, a Democrat, she first came to national attention as the Texas State Treasurer, when she delivered the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Richards was the second female governor of Texas — the first being Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson — and was frequently noted in the media for her outspoken feminism and her one-liners.
Born in McLennan County, Texas, Ann Richards became a schoolteacher after graduating from Baylor University. She won election to the Travis County Commissioners' Court in 1976 and took office as Texas State Treasurer in 1983. She delivered a nominating speech for Walter Mondale at the 1984 Democratic National Convention and the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
Richards won the 1990 Texas gubernatorial election, defeating Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox in a Democratic primary run-off election and businessman Clayton Williams in the general election. She was defeated in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election by George W. Bush. She remained active in public life until her death in 2006.
To date, Richards remains the last Democrat to serve as governor of Texas.
Early life
Dorothy Ann Willis Richards was born Sept. 1, 1933 and died Sept. 13, 2006. She was born in Lakeview — now part of Lacy Lakeview — in McLennan County, Texas, the only child of Robert Cecil Willis and Mildred Iona Warren. She grew up in Waco, participated in Girls State, and graduated from Waco High School in 1950. She attended Baylor University on a debate team scholarship and earned a bachelor's degree. After marrying high school sweetheart David "Dave" Richards, she moved to Austin, where she earned a teaching certificate from the University of Texas. David and Ann Richards had four children — Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen. Richards taught social studies and history at Fulmore Junior High School in Austin from 1955 to 1956.
Early political career
By the 1970s, Richards was an accomplished political worker, having worked to elect liberal Democrats Sarah Weddington and Wilhelmina Delco to the Texas legislature, and having presented training sessions throughout the state on campaign techniques for women candidates and managers. She supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, presenting the amendment to the delegates of the National Women's Conference, held in Houston in 1978, but the amendment was never ratified by enough states to become part of the Constitution.
In 1976, Richards ran against and defeated a three-term incumbent on the four-member Travis County, Texas Commissioners' Court; she took 81.4 percent of the vote against Libertarian opponent Laurel Freeman to win re-election in 1980. During this time, her marriage ended. Richards' drinking became more pronounced, and she sought and completed treatment for alcoholism in 1980. Richards and her ex-husband were virtually estranged after the divorce.
State Treasurer
After incumbent Texas State Treasurer Warren G. Harding — no relation to the U.S. president — became mired in legal troubles in 1982, Richards won the Democratic nomination for that post. Winning election against a Republican opponent in November that year, Richards became the first woman elected to statewide office in more than 50 years. In 1986, she was re-elected treasurer without opposition. Richards was a popular and proactive treasurer who worked to maximize the return of Texas state investments. She said that when she took office, the Treasury Department was run something like a 1930s country bank, with deposits that didn't earn interest.
1988 Democratic National Convention
Richards' keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention put her in the national spotlight. The speech was highly critical of the Reagan Administration and then Vice President George H.W. Bush. Her address was notable for including several humorous remarks displaying her down-home Texas charm such as: "I'm delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like," "Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth," "…two women in 160 years is about par for the course. But if you give us a chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels" and "When we pay billions for planes that won't fly, billions for tanks that won't fire and billions for systems that won't work, that old dog won't hunt. And you don't have to be from Waco to know that when the Pentagon makes crooks rich and doesn't make America strong, that it's a bum deal." Richards' convention address has been cited by rhetorical experts as a historically significant speech. The speech set the tone for her political future. In 1989, with co-author Peter Knobler, she wrote her autobiography, “Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places.”
Governor 1991-1995
In 1990, Texas' Republican governor, Bill Clements, decided not to run for re-election to a third nonconsecutive term. Richards painted herself as a sensible progressive and won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Attorney General and former U.S. representative Jim Mattox of Dallas and former Governor Mark White of Houston. Mattox ran a particularly abrasive campaign against Richards, accusing her of having had drug problems beyond alcoholism. The Republicans nominated colorful multimillionaire rancher Clayton W. Williams Jr. of Fort Stockton and Midland. The Associated Press would later call the Williams-Richards face-off “the biggest, bruisingest, costliest, craziest, nastiest, noisiest, wildest, woolliest Texas governor’s race ever.”
Republican political activist Susan Weddington of San Antonio, a Williams supporter, placed a black wreath that read "Death to the Family" at the door of Richards's campaign headquarters in Austin. After a series of legendary gaffes by Williams, Richards narrowly won on November 6, 1990, by a margin of 49 to 47 percent. Williams most notable gaffe was his comment about rape early in the campaign, when he was sitting around a campfire in bad weather with reporters he had invited to his ranch. He compared the bad weather to rape, saying, “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.” Libertarian Party candidate Jeff Daiell drew 3.3 percent in an effort that included television spots and considerable personal campaigning. Richards was inaugurated governor the following January.
The economy of Texas had been in a slump since the mid-1980s, compounded by a downturn in the U.S. economy. Richards responded with a program of economic revitalization, yielding growth in 1991 of two percent when the U.S. economy as a whole shrank. She also attempted to streamline Texas's government and regulatory institutions for business and the public; her efforts in the former tried but failed to help revitalize Texas's corporate infrastructure for its explosive economic growth later in the decade, and her audits on the state bureaucracy saved $600 million.
As governor, Richards reformed the Texas prison system, establishing a substance abuse program for inmates, reducing the number of violent offenders released, and increasing prison space to deal with a growing prison population — from less than 60,000 in 1992 to more than 80,000 in 1994. She backed proposals to reduce the sale of semi-automatic firearms and “cop-killer” bullets in the state.
School finance remained one of the key issues of Richards' governorship and of those succeeding hers; the famous Robin Hood plan — "recaptured" property tax revenue from property-wealthy school districts and distributed it to those in property-poor districts — was launched in the 1992–1993 biennium and attempted to make school funding more equitable across school districts. Richards also sought to decentralize control over education policy to districts and individual campuses; she instituted "site-based management" to this end.
Despite outspending the Bush campaign by 23%, she was defeated in 1994 by George W. Bush — with 45.88% of the vote to Bush's 53.48% while Libertarian Keary Ehlers received 0.64%. The Richards campaign had hoped for a misstep from the relatively inexperienced Republican candidate, but none appeared, while Richards created many of her own, including calling Bush "some jerk," "shrub" and "that young Bush boy." Also, her veto of a concealed handgun bill may have cost her the election.
Governor Richards redefined feminine leadership and oratory style. She blended traditionally feminine traits such as nurturing and relationship building with traditionally masculine traits such as assertiveness and speaking directly and with candor. She was an inspiration to female voters and commanded the attention of male voters. Governor Richards successfully navigated the cutting edge that divides being "too masculine" and not being "too feminine.” Her ability to speak her mind with a refusal to be a soft voice in the background commanded the attention of not only voters, but also lawmakers allowing her to be an agent of change in Texas government.
Arts and film
Richards’ longtime personal interest in Texas film and music greatly raised the public profile of both industries and brought the two programs into the Governor's Office. As a result, these industries were institutionalized as key high-profile parts of Texas' future economic growth plans. Other of her music milestones include publishing the first "Texas Music Industry Directory" in 1991 and her "Welcome to Texas" speech to the opening day registrants of the 1993 South By Southwest Music and Media Conference. She was involved with the Texas Film Hall of Fame from the beginning. At the first ceremony, she inducted Liz Smith. She was M.C. every subsequent year but had to cancel at the last minute in 2006 because of her diagnosis with cancer.
Richards said, "I've been a friend to Texas film since the number of people who cared about Texas film could have fit in a phone booth." She was an advocate for the Texas film industry and traveled to Los Angeles to market her state. Gary Bond, the director of the Austin Film Commission, noted, "She was far from being the first governor to appoint a film commissioner; I think she was the first that really brought the focus of Hollywood to Texas."
Final years and death
In March 2006, Richards disclosed that she had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and received treatment at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Alcohol and tobacco exposure are major risk factors for certain types of esophageal cancer; Richards had "admitted to heavy drinking and smoking in her younger years, saying she 'smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish.'"
She died from cancer on the night of September 13, 2006, at her home in Austin, surrounded by her family. Her remains are interred at Texas State Cemetary in Austin. She was survived by her four children, their spouses and eight grandchildren. Three memorial services were held.
Legacy
On November 16, 2006, the City of Austin changed the official name of Congress Avenue Bridge — which opened in 1910 — to "Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.”
Her 1988 DNC keynote address was listed as #38 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century, listed by rank.
The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin, Texas — which Ann Richards helped to create — is named for her. The Ann Richards School, a college preparatory school for girls in grades 6-12, opened in the fall of 2007 in Austin, and continues to celebrate the life and legacy of Governor Richards. She also inaugurated a school in the year 1999 named Ann Richards Middle School in Palmview, Texas.
Quotes
I did not want my tombstone to read, “She kept a really clean house.” I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, “She opened government to everyone.”
Learn to enjoy your own company. You are the one person you can count on living with for the rest of your life.
(On ineffective government programs) "You can put lipstick and earrings on a hog and call it Monique, but it's still a pig.''
Most of all, I remember those children in the classrooms and the kids who grabbed me around the knees, and I think of the old people who really need a voice when they’re trapped in wheelchairs in dirty nursing homes. The person in this office really must have a conscience to know that how he or she directs this government dramatically affects the lives of those people.
In popular culture
In 2010, Emmy winner Holland Taylor — famous for her stint as Charlie and Alan Harper’s mother on the TV show “Two and a Half Men” — debuted in a one-woman called "Ann: An Affectionate Portrait of Ann Richards" at the Charline McCombs Empire Theater in San Antonio, Texas. The show was subsequently staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York City's Lincoln Center in 2013. PBS Great Performances broadcast the premiere of the play, now titled simply "Ann," on June 19, 2020. It had been recorded at the Zach Theater in Austin, Texas, following its national tour and Broadway run. Taylor said of her subject, "She was brave, strong, and funny, so I had to write a play about her four incredible years in Austin ... She was ahead of Obama by about 10 years as an 'inclusive' leader."