BEN BARNES Meet the One Ranger Who Made It to the World Series—The Team’s DJ. The highly publicized end of the Barnes-Connally real estate partnership appeared to foil his attempt to regain power and influence. Just before the 1965 session, a vacancy occurred on the Railroad Commission and Connally came up with the clever idea of appointing Tunnell, who was only a lukewarm supporter of Connally’s activist legislative program, to fill the seat. The Ben Barnes who came to the Capitol in 1961 was a gangly farm boy, unsophisticated in dress and social niceties. In retrospect, success came to him too soon in life, before he was able to understand how fickle it could be. John Connally. 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. But the résumé does not even begin to hint at what he is really like. Subscribe or link your existing subscription. During his speakership, Barnes placed a high priority on the state's colleges and universities, with financial support for these institutions rising by 300 percent. It Makes No Sense.”. Won’t You Say You Love a Dark ‘Barney’ Movie? 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. Potential rivals never had a chance. He later said he became fascinated with politics after he discovered the misappropriation of funds at this department and was able to instigate a state investigation. But Barnes has reached the point where he can laugh at his own shortcomings. It was time to close the deal. 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. "I bring to my clients a lifetime of knowledge and experience," Ben says. While still a UT student, Barnes worked at the state Health Department. You go into a conversation with him remembering how controversial he has been, vowing to be on guard, but it doesn’t matter. 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. Not directly; he doesn’t boast. “We just want to get back to the merits of the lawsuit,” said one of the lawyers. Get our weekly newsletter, filled with good reads, news analysis—and updates on special events. 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. The French client won the right to build the train, but even Barnes couldn’t squeeze financial assistance out of the Legislature. “We don’t want a public hearing in the middle of a contract,” he continued. A Former Police Officer Finds His Calling with Lonestar Sausage & BBQ. The political fallout from the Sharpstown Scandal, however, wounded Barnes, who lost the 1972 Democratic primary race for governor. “He has done a remarkable job of building this company. “We’ve got one coming up for Tim Johnson [of South Dakota].”. “Texas today is drifting toward mediocrity just when it should be striving for greatness,” he said. He foresaw an urban and modern Austin and was part of the wave of developers who literally built the city we see today. “The president of this company arrived in Houston in 1984 with nothing more than a U-Haul truck,” Barnes told one of Levin’s staffers. Barnes again thought of higher office. On a steamy summer afternoon in Washington, the kind of day when your clothes absorb the humidity from the sodden air, Ben Barnes is exactly where everybody in Texas politics knew he would be someday: in the private Senate dining room at the U.S. Capitol. Barnes owned no stock and had no dealings with Sharp that anyone could find. Learn more about the individuals in our group. Tour de Texas, Week 7: Tough Climbs and Spectacular Views in West Texas, The Damning History Behind UT’s ‘The Eyes of Texas’ Song, “It’s the Most Outrageous Thing I’ve Ever Seen. There goes Barnes to press the flesh with John Edwards of North Carolina. Lanier withdrew his opposition. The political future seemed limitless for Barnes, who enjoyed the support of Connally and President Lyndon Johnson who, after leaving the White House, predicted that his young protégé would one day claim the presidency. 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. A car appeared at the hotel’s main entrance and took our group—Barnes, me, and two lawyers for the company—to a Senate office building. Even though Barnes was not directly involved in the scandal involving bribes from banker Frank Sharp, he was saddled with anti-incumbent voter backlash. In the sixties he became Speaker of the House at 26 and lieutenant governor at 30; in 1970 he was touted by Lyndon Johnson as a future president of the United States. “I went from over fifty percent to the forties, to the thirties.” In the end, he didn’t even get twenty. Barnes stood up. “We’re delighted you’re in the majority,” he said. Barnes served on the Executive Committee of the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors and many political observers believed he was the most powerful man in state government during that tenure. After leaving office, Ben tried his hand at land development and was instrumental in creating the Barton Creek Resort in Austin, TX. Whatever he is trying to tell you—it could be something as simple as who we are going to see today in Washington or as complex as what the Democratic message should be in Texas—he is so forceful, so enthusiastic, so optimistic that you cannot help but believe too that it is totally, obviously, the right thing to do. The Basses of Fort Worth were early investors in GTech, and their lawyer, a longtime Barnes supporter named Dee Kelly, recommended him. “I think you’ve made one of the greatest speeches of your life,” Pickle said, “now that you’re not running for reelection.”. To make ends meet, he worked afternoons at the state health department, where he caught the political bug, and evenings selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Barnes received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas in 1995 and an endowed fellowship was created in his name at UT's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. The collapse of oil prices in the mid- to late-1980s and its effect on the Texas real estate market forced Barnes to file for bankruptcy following the financial collapse of the Barnes/Connally Partnership, a real estate firm. Enter your email below to send a password reset email. Furthermore, he helped establish the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. 66th Speaker The press latched on to the story of the young man with a limitless future. In 1960 he ran for a vacant Legislative seat back home at the age of 22 and beat a city councilman from Brownwood, the biggest town in the district. “I don’t represent clients day to day on legislation. ‘One by Willie,’ Episode 3: Alejandro Escovedo on ‘Half a Man’, How One State History Textbook Erases the Stories of Black and Hispanic Texans, Taco News Roundup: Dallas’s Taco Scene Is Booming. the Briscoe Center | Contact TSLAC Current Events, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, #1971/162-12. Ben's keen political insight, hard work, ability to cut through the clutter, along with his charisma, made him a protégé of President Lyndon B. Johnson and an ally of Governor John Connally. “It was harder than anything I had to do as Speaker or lieutenant governor,” he says. Now, in his third career, Ben Barnes is a gifted fundraiser and a trusted advisor in Washington, DC. 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. He played high school football, married his high school sweetheart when he was 18 and she was 17, and eventually found his way to Austin and the University of Texas. “Bob, I got to pass this bill,” he told his old friend. But he had acquired a mature understanding of human nature from knocking on the doors of total strangers. My friend told him, ‘Ben’s broke. So he returned to politics—not as a candidate, but as a lobbyist. Rather, he believes. This defeat prompted Barnes' unexpectedly early retirement from public office. “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.

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