Clout of lobbyists has Demo on trail
Web Posted: 02/21/2006 12:00 AM CST
Gary Scharrer
Express-News Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — It took a clouded view of the San Jacinto monument and the coaxing of college kids to plunge Bob Gammage into politics.
More than 30 years later — after five political offices and a decade of retirement — he's back.
Convinced that special interests have taken control of state government, the retired state Supreme Court justice decided last year to move from saving historic bridges to doing something about the governor's race.
He tried to recruit Houston Mayor Bill White and others to carry the Democrats' banner this year against Republican incumbent Rick Perry. He got no takers.
So Gammage, who joined the "Dirty 30" band of renegade Texas legislators fighting corruption and cronyism in the state Capitol 35 years ago, decided to wage the battle himself. He is seeking the Democratic nomination in the March 7 primary against former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell and Houston department store manager Rashad Jafer.
'Whole thing is rotten'
For Gammage, it's a battle to save the future for his six grandchildren and other Texas kids against what he perceives to be the special moneyed interests of lobbyists and big business who buy access to politicians. Throw in mean-spirited, Washington-style partisanship, bully tactics, no-bid contracts, sweetheart deals and you can almost feel Gammage's blood begin to boil.
"The whole thing is rotten," he groused.
He reminds campaign audiences that Perry's school finance plan came after a Caribbean yacht cruise with millionaire backers — including the state's largest beer distributor and a one-man crusader for school vouchers. Should anyone be surprised, then, that Perry's plan proposed a tax on bottled water while beer escaped, Gammage, 67, tells those audiences.
He also tells them Perry put a crony for one of his larger contributors, a homebuilder, in charge of a toothless commission to regulate the homebuilding industry.
He complains that Perry is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on lobbyist friends of confessed-felon lobbyist Jack Abramoff and disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.
And he rails against President Bush's handling of terrorism and Gulf War II.
"Bush is dumb and Perry is dumber," Gammage said. "I saw (Perry) doing in Texas what's being done on the national level. They virtually lease our government out to moneyed interests who could care less about what happens to the people. Tax cuts for the rich are paid for with cuts to programs for people who need them."
Unhappy with Perry
Gammage said his grandchildren deserve more.
"Everybody's child and grandchild is entitled to better than this," he said. "I spent 25 years of my life trying to do what my mother raised me to do and what my father told me that I should do, and that is go out and make it better for the next guy."
He contends Perry doesn't share that aspiration.
"I don't think he has any desire to serve people," Gammage said. "He's too busy serving people with money. It permeates our entire state government."
Those are fighting words for Perry's campaign, which has been more inclined to fend off barbs from Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's independent bid for governor than responding to lesser-known Democrats.
"Gov. Perry's opponents are in a race to see who can be the most negative and who can hate Rick Perry the most," Perry campaign spokesman Robert Black said. "Texas voters are not going to elect someone based on who hates the most or who is the loudest critic."
Birth of a career
Gammage traces his political career to his early teaching days in the late 1960s at San Jacinto College, where the San Jacinto monument towering into the sky 7 miles away could be seen only on pollution-free days.
He had already been advised by doctors to move his family farther away from the Houston Ship Channel because toxic air had caused rashes and respiratory problems for his two daughters.
He encouraged students to believe they "could change the world" and organized them to team with biology, engineering and law students for research into state environmental laws. They concluded that legislative action was needed.
Gammage urged them to get involved in legislative races. They wanted him to run for the Legislature. Just out of law school and with two young children at home, he declined. The students reminded him he always preached the need to sacrifice, and they suggested it was his turn to do so.
He agreed if they could raise the $500 filing fee and recruit a volunteer army of campaign workers, which they did.
Gammage got outspent 20-to-1 in a five-person race but won anyway.
Gammage said he encountered a corrupted system in the Capitol run by Democrats, lobbyists and special interests "that felt like government existed for their purpose — to fatten their wallets and, maybe, pick the pockets of other people to do it."
He quickly became part of the Dirty 30 — 19 Democrats and 11 Republicans who challenged the Democratic leadership and helped expose the Sharpstown banking scandal.
Gammage said Democrat leaders threatened to sabotage his political career. However, they got the boot themselves as voters threw out the governor, lieutenant governor, House speaker, attorney general and many other incumbents.
Leaving retirement
Today's climate driven by the special interest lobby and its money is considerably worse than conditions 35 years ago, Gammage said.
"Bob Gammage has decided to reform Texas government again because it's going to pot, going to the dogs," said Rep. Paul Moreno, D-El Paso, one of two "Dirty 30" lawmakers left in the Legislature.
"This guy has jumped from state representative all the way to the Texas Supreme Court. If people think about it, this guy has good credentials, and the fact that he came back from his retirement gives you an indication that something has to be really bad."
After winning his first state House race, Gammage went on to the Texas Senate, the U.S. Congress, a state appellate court and then the Texas Supreme Court, from which he retired in 1995.
He has been practicing law in the Hill Country town of Llano, where he has participated in local politics, such as saving the community's icon — a historic four-lane steel trestle bridge — from demolition.
"He only gets an adrenaline rush when he's doing something for people," said his wife, Lynda Hallmark Gammage. "Bob is always looking for the next challenge. He doesn't spend any time golfing, hunting or fishing. Making life better for others is what makes him happy."
She and Gammage met in politics and married in 1980. They have one child. Bob Gammage has three additional children from a previous marriage.
Coming out of political retirement to run for governor "wasn't on our list of things to do," Lynda Gammage said. "But I am not surprised. ... Pretty much all of our discussions are political."
"This is about public school finance and corruption and tax cuts for the wealthy," she said. "We have no vision of living in the governor's mansion. This is not what this campaign is about."
Although he's met many people during his political career, it's been nearly 14 years since his name appeared on a ballot.
"He's an outgoing person. Clearly that's an asset for him on the campaign trail," Democrat consultant Ed Martin said. "He's been around. His trick is to get out and introduce himself to those people."
Gammage recently met with students at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he converted several young voters previously unaware of his candidacy.
"I was interested in his story. He's somebody who really cares about the public," said Evelyn Espinosa. "I think I probably will vote for him because of all the experience he has."
Joanna Rivera appreciated Gammage's struggles earlier in his life.
"He's earned what he has. It's really easy for those who are extremely wealthy to get what they want, and those who have to work twice as hard will appreciate that," she said.
Wild-card factor
Former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, who served with Gammage in the Texas House and in Congress, said Democrats have a chance to surprise people this year because of wild cards in the independent candidacies of Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman.
"The message that he's talking about is one that Texans ought to take to heart — if they can just see through the commercialized money stuff that the other side has got," Mattox said.
Gammage said he has no fear of losing.
"I don't think in terms of that. I know the realities of politics," he said. "When you put your head on the block, it can get chopped off. They will assault you in every way they can. If they don't have something they can legitimately use against you, they will fabricate it. This is hardball politics, and that doesn't frighten me.
"I am laying my life on the line because it's the most important thing I can do at this particular point."
