Bob Bullock; Colorful Longtime Politician in Texas

Bob Bullock, a towering figure in Texas politics for four decades, died Friday at his Austin home. He was 69.

As lieutenant governor for much of the last decade, the Democratic Bullock ruled the state Senate with an iron hand, using his knowledge of the legislative process to mold it into a vehicle that fit his sense of government. A shrewd administrator and an imaginative fund-raiser, Bullock could also exhibit a fierce temper and an immoderate disposition.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a good friend who was the beneficiary of Bullock’s firm support even though they were of different political bents, was hard pressed to adequately describe him Friday.

“ ‘Unique’ seems an understatement,” Bush said. “Even ‘legend’ or ‘giant’ are not quite big enough.”

Bullock entered an Austin hospital June 11 for treatment of pneumonia, complicated by a number of other health issues including lung cancer and congestive heart failure, which was listed as the cause of death. He was released last week after doctors concluded that they had done all they could.

Bush, who is considered the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, last visited Bullock on Thursday night at his home.

The governor described his friend as “lucid and funny,” although he said the two men also wept. Bullock remarked that he was sad because he knew he would not live long enough to follow Bush’s run for the presidency.

Robert Douglas Bullock was born July 10, 1929, in Hillsboro, near Waco in central Texas.

He was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1956 while a student at Baylor University Law School. He quit the Legislature before his second term ended and went off to practice law.

Ten years later he was back in government service as an assistant attorney general before becoming the top lawyer for Gov. Preston Smith, who became his political mentor. Smith later appointed him Texas’ secretary of state.

In 1974 Bullock was elected comptroller, and it was in that position that he began to make a name for himself. He modernized the state’s antiquated tax collection procedures by installing computers and conducted raids on businesses owned by delinquent taxpayers. He shut them down if the overdue funds were not immediately produced. His staff became known as Bullock’s Raiders.

“There was no law that said we could do it. We just did it,” Bullock once told a Dallas reporter.

And he did it with TV cameras and newspaper reporters in tow. Some Texans found it a sideshow and disgrace. Others thought it was the cheapest entertainment around.

It was during his years as secretary of state and comptroller that Bullock’s temper became apparent. His drinking bouts quickly became legendary.

One morning he woke up in the back seat of a stranger’s car as it was moving down the interstate. As political commentator Molly Ivins wrote in a column for the Austin American-Statesman, he popped up and said to the unsuspecting driver: “Hi, there. I’m Bob Bullock, your secretary of state.” Ivins said the man nearly drove off the road.

Bullock’s fights with the media also were notorious. One time, the publisher of the Mount Pleasant Tribune opened a box that came in the mail to find cow manure and a note from Bullock. It read: “This is bull . . . and so is your column.” The two men later became friends.

A driven man who worked long hours, Bullock expected his staff to do the same. Typically, he would knock off for a couple of hours in the late afternoon for happy hour before returning to the office and working well into the night. Staffers were accustomed to answering his calls at 2 or 3 in the morning to talk over some piece of business.

Bullock recalled those days fondly, saying that even though they were wild, he accomplished his goal of bringing women and minorities into state government.

His health problems began to show up in the 1970s. He had part of a lung removed in 1972, but continued to smoke heavily. In 1978, the drinking began to take its toll. He was arrested for drunk driving and later admitted to being on the brink of suicide. In 1979 he suffered a heart attack. It became common practice for aides to issue press statements that began, “If alive, Comptroller Bob Bullock will address. . . .”

In 1981, he went to an alcohol treatment center in California. He gave up drinking after that but continued to smoke. In 1994 he had heart bypass surgery, and in 1998 a pacemaker was installed.

First elected lieutenant governor in 1990, he ran the state Senate until his retirement this January. He was given credit for single-handedly killing some legislative proposals, such as utility deregulation in 1997 and casino gambling and telecommunications deregulation in 1995. In 1993, he rammed through a constitutional amendment banning a state income tax after he was showered with criticism for suggesting the tax as a solution to the state’s chronic school-funding woes. He also was credited with pressing lawmakers to find solutions to make sure schools were more financially self-sufficient.

Bullock accomplished all of this the old-fashioned way, by arm-twisting, shouting and voting down favored projects of opponents.

He became a friend and staunch supporter of the governor after Bush was elected in 1994. Bullock even endorsed the governor’s reelection campaign, snubbing Democratic candidate Garry Mauro, who had been his protege. Bullock had also been the godfather of Mauro’s son.

Last June, when Bullock announced that he would retire at the end of the year, Ivins said of him: “Not since Lyndon B. Johnson has there been another pol who could so dominate everyone around him by sheer force of personality.”

Divorced four times, Bullock is survived by his fifth wife, Jan Bullock of Austin, a son, a daughter, a stepdaughter and a brother.

He will be buried today in Austin. Bush will give one of the eulogies.