Governorship of Rick Perry
, having served as the lieutenant governor of Texas from January 1999 to December 2000, succeeded to the office of Governor of Texas on December 21, 2000, when Governor George W. Bush resigned to prepare for his presidential inauguration. Perry became the first Texas A&M graduate to serve as governor. Perry was a member of the Republican Governors Association, the National Governors Association, the Western Governors Association, and the Southern Governors Association. Perry served as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2008 and 2011.
Perry's public relations office promoted the position that he advocated an emphasis on accountability, raised expectations, and funded programs that worked to improve the quality of Texas schools.
Perry's campaigns for lieutenant governor and governor focused on a tough stance on crime. In June 2002, he vetoed a ban on the execution of mentally retarded inmates. He has also supported block grants for crime programs.
Perry has also supported tort reform to limit malpractice lawsuits against doctors, and as lieutenant governor he had tried and failed to limit class action awards and allowing plaintiffs to allocate liability awards among several defendants. In 2003, Perry sponsored a controversial state constitutional amendment to cap medical malpractice awards, which was narrowly approved by voters. According to a tort reform advocate, this legislation has resulted in a 21.3 percent decrease in malpractice insurance rates. According to the Texas Medical Board, there has also been a significant increase in the number of doctors seeking to practice in the state.
Perry has drawn attention for his criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the Great Recession, and for turning down approximately $555 million in stimulus money for unemployment insurance. Perry was lauded by the Texas Public Policy Foundation for this decision and his justification – that the funds and the mandatory changes to state law would have placed an enduring tax burden on employers. In September 2009, Perry declared that Texas was recession-proof: "As a matter of fact ... someone had put a report out that the first state that's coming out of the recession is going to be the state of Texas ... I said, 'We're in one? Paul Burka, senior executive editor of Texas Monthly, criticized Perry's remarks, saying "You cannot be callous and cavalier when people are losing their jobs and their homes."
The Los Angeles Times reported on August 16, 2011, that Perry received $37 million over 10 years from just 150 donors, which adds up to over a third of the $102 million he had raised as governor through December 2010, according to the group Texans for Public Justice. Almost half of those donors received big contracts, tax breaks or appointments during Perry's tenure.
On July 8, 2013, Perry announced he would not seek reelection to an unprecedented fourth full four-year term in the election in November 2014, during a press conference at Holt Caterpillar in San Antonio, Texas with family and friends present.
Elections
2002
Perry won the office in his own right in the 2002 gubernatorial election when he defeated Laredo businessman Tony Sanchez, polling 2,632,591 votes to Sanchez's 1,819,798. Four minor party candidates shared 2.21 percent of the vote.2006
The 2006 gubernatorial election proved to be a stiffer challenge for Perry than his 2002 campaign. Though he easily defeated token opposition in the primary election, Perry faced three major opponents: former Democratic Congressman Chris Bell, as well as two major independent candidates – outgoing Republican state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and well-known Texas country music singer Kinky Friedman. Perry won the race in a plurality, polling 1,714,618 votes to Bell's 1,309,774, Strayhorn's 789,432, Friedman's 553,327, with a Libertarian candidate and a write-in independent garnering another 27,444 votes. Perry became only the third governor in state history to have been elected by a plurality of less than 40 percent of votes cast.Late in the 2006 campaign, the Republican Governors Association received one million dollars from Houston businessman Bob Perry, and the association thereafter contributed the same amount to Rick Perry. Bell brought suit, contending that the Bob Perry donations had been improperly channeled through the association to conceal their source. In 2010, the Rick Perry campaign paid Bell $426,000 to settle the suit.
2010
In April 2008, Perry announced his intent to run for re-election. Perry defeated Senator Hutchison and Debra Medina in the March 2, 2010, primary election, becoming the Republican nominee. He faced Democratic nominee William Howard "Bill" White, the former mayor of Houston. During the general election campaign, Perry refused to debate White until White released his tax returns from 1995, his last year as deputy energy secretary in the Clinton administration. White released his tax returns for his six years as mayor of Houston. According to his spokesperson, White had taxes withheld from his $133,000 salary in 1995, the amount of which was offset by losses in the starting of an energy business.On November 2, 2010, Perry handily won re-election to an unprecedented third four-year term in the general election. He carried 226 out of 254 counties and polled 2,733,784 votes to White's 2,102,606 votes. Perry made history by becoming the first Texas governor to be elected to three four-year terms and the fourth to serve three terms since Shivers, Price Daniel, and John Connally; his third term began on January 18, 2011.
The Koch network gave Rick Perry $76 000 in 2010, in relation to the Texas Gubernatorial elections.
Economy
Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, Perry has made what he calls the economic success of Texas the centerpiece of his campaign. According to Perry and his supporters, the state economy has improved as a result of his policy, including the lack of an income tax and predictable regulation. Others, meanwhile, have questioned whether the Texan economy is truly as successful as Perry claims.As of August 2011, Texas has an 8.2% unemployment rate. In comparison, the national unemployment rate was 9.1% in August 2011. 25 states have a lower unemployment rate than Texas, and 25 states have a higher unemployment rate, meaning that Texas has median unemployment among U.S. states. Between June 2009 and August 2011, 237,000 jobs were created in Texas. But when comparing population growth to the unemployment rate the influx of new job seekers has caused the UI rate to appear to be changing only slowly, when in fact the job creation rate has kept pace, or exceeded the influx of new population.
According to a March 28, 2011 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 9.54% of hourly-paid workers in Texas are paid at or below minimum wage. In comparison, the national percentage is 6.0%. Among the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, Texas has the highest percentage of workers paid at or below minimum wage; the state with the second-highest percentage is Mississippi, with 9.50%.
As of 2011, 26% of the Texan population does not have health insurance. In comparison, the statistic among the entire U.S. is 17%.
Paul Krugman, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, attributed Texas' job growth to its growing population, which he said decreased wages and attracted businesses to the state. According to Krugman, the high population growth in the state was due to a high birth rate, immigration from Mexico, and internal migration of other Americans, due to the warm weather and low cost of living – especially the low housing prices from less restrictive zoning policies, which he described as the "one area where Texas does in fact do something right."
Perry's defenders responded by stating that the median hourly wage is 93% of the national average, and wages have increased at 3.4% in 2010
Several of the business leaders who moved to Texas have ascribed their decision partly to business-friendly policies, and partly to the convenient Texas geography in the middle of the country with transportation hubs, a large bilingual population, mild winters and abundant space.
Fiscal policy
Perry, a proclaimed proponent of fiscal conservatism, has often campaigned on tax reform and job growth. Perry opposed creating a Texas state income tax and increasing sales tax rates, choosing instead to increase user fees and debt, adding $2 billion for road bonds, borrowing from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund and adding surcharges to various traffic offenses, protected the state's "Rainy Day fund", balanced the state budget as required by state law, and was reelected on a platform to reduce property taxes that rose with the inflation of property values in the late 1990s and the 21st century. As Governor of Texas, Perry received grades of B in 2004, B in 2006, B in 2008, B in 2010, C in 2012, and B in 2014 from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, in their biennial Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors.Tax policy
In 2002, although his Democratic opponent pledged to never raise taxes, Perry refused to make such a promise. In 2009, however, Perry signed Grover Norquist's pledge to "oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes".In early 2006, Perry signed legislation that delivered a $15.7 billion reduction in property taxes while raising other taxes such as a state franchise tax. The tax was condemned as a "back door" state income tax by many organizations. Perry claimed that the bill would save the average taxpayer $2,000 in property taxes. Critics contended that Perry inflated these numbers; the actual tax savings, some sources said, would average only $150 per family in the first year, and $1,350 over a three-year period.
In 2004, Perry proposed a number of tax increases to pay for public schools, including a tax on strip clubs. The "pole tax" idea went nowhere until 2007, when the Legislature approved a $5 per patron fee. The measure subsequently became tied up in litigation as the adult entertainment industry sued citing performers' First Amendment rights.