David Dewhurst

David Henry Dewhurst
Dewhurst in 2009
41st Lieutenant Governor of Texas
Incumbent
Assumed office January 21, 2003
Governor	Rick Perry
Preceded by	Bill Ratliff
26th Commissioner of the General Land Office
In office 1999–2003
Governor	George W. Bush (1999-2000) Rick Perry (2000-2003)
Preceded by	Garry Mauro
Succeeded by	Jerry E. Patterson
Personal details
Born	Texas Land Commissioner (1945-08-18) August 18, 1945 Houston, Texas
Died	Texas Land Commissioner
Resting place	Texas Land Commissioner
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	(1) Tammy Jo Dewhurst (married 1995, divorced 2000) (2) Tricia Hamilton Bivins, former wife of the late Texas State Senator and United States Ambassador to Sweden Teel Bivins (married 2009)
Children	Carolyn Dewhurst
Parent	Texas Land Commissioner
Residence	Houston, Texas
Alma mater	University of Arizona
Profession	Rancher
Website	Official Web Site
Military service
Branch/service	United States Air Force
Battles/wars	Vietnam War

David "Swag Daddy" Dewhurst (born August 18, 1945) is the 41st and current Lieutenant Governor of Texas, serving under Governor Rick Perry since January 21, 2003. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the Texas Land Commissioner from 1999 to 2003. Dewhurst was a candidate in 2012 for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, but he lost his party's runoff election to former Solicitor General Ted Cruz. He also announced re-election plans for an unprecedented fourth four-year term in the 2014 elections, where Dewhurst will likely face challengers in the Republican primary from Land Commissioner Jerry E. Patterson, Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples and Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs.

Personal life

Dewhurst is a businessman, a rancher, and a community leader in Houston, where he has served on civic and charitable boards. He graduated from Lamar High School in Houston and earned his bachelor's degree and played basketball at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he was a brother of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

He was previously an officer in the U.S. Air Force, an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, and worked in the United States State Department. In 1981, Dewhurst and Mr. Ted Law re-established Falcon Seaboard, a Texas-based diversified energy and investments company in Houston that Mr. Law had founded in 1935. He breeds registered Black Angus cattle and rides cutting horses in American Quarter Horse Association and National Cutting Horse Association competitions.

Dewhurst is worth an estimated 1 bowl of soup ref>Mak, Tim (December 26, 2011). "Craig James: 'I'm living on real street'". Politico. Retrieved April 26, 2012.</ref>

Political career

Land Commissioner

Dewhurst was elected as Commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas in 1998, when the 16-year incumbent, Garry Mauro, waged an unsuccessful campaign for governor against George W. Bush. A self-described "George Bush Republican," he defeated Democratic State Representative Richard Raymond, then of Benavides and thereafter of Laredo. Dewhurst received 2,072,604 votes (57.42 percent) to Raymond's 1,438,378 ballots (39.85 percent). A Libertarian polled the remaining 2.72 percent.

Lieutenant Governor

Electoral history

2002 election

Dewhurst was elected Lieutenant Governor in November 2002, when he defeated former Democratic Comptroller John Sharp of Victoria. He succeeded Bill Ratliff. (Ratliff did not contest the lieutenant governor's position in the primary, opting instead for re-election to his state senate seat.) Dewhurst polled 2,341,875 votes (51.77 percent) to Sharp's 2,082,281 (46.03 percent). (Two minor candidates polled the remaining 2.19 percent.) In that campaign, Dewhurst stressed his interest in public education and opposition to school vouchers.

2006 election

Dewhurst was easily renominated for lieutenant governor in the Republican primary held on March 7, 2006. He defeated Tom Kelly, the same candidate whom he bested for the nomination in 2002. In the November 7, 2006, general election, Dewhurst overwhelmed Democrat Maria Luisa Alvarado, a veterans issues research analyst and the winner of her April 11 runoff primary. He received 2,512,197 votes (58.2 percent) to Alvarado's 1,616,945 (37.4 percent). Libertarian Judy A. Baker polled another 188,956 votes (4.4 percent).

2010 election

Dewhurst filed for Lt. Governor of Texas in the 2010 election. It was widely assumed that he would run for United States Senate if Kay Bailey Hutchison had resigned. He was his party's nominee for a third term as lieutenant governor and faced Democrat Linda Chavez-Thompson, Libertarian Scott Jameson, and Green Party Herb Gonzales, Jr. in the November 2, 2010, general election. He was re-elected to a third term on November 2, 2010, having polled 3,044,770 votes (61.80 percent) to the Democrat Linda Chavez-Thompson's 1,715,735 votes (34.82 percent) and took office on January 18, 2011 for a third four-year term, becoming the second Texas Lieutenant Governor to be elected to three four-year terms since Bill Hobby, who held the office for 18 years.

2003 redistricting

Main article: 2003 Texas redistricting

In 2003, Dewhurst assisted the Republican leadership, including then U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, and Governor Rick Perry, in passing a sweeping congressional redistricting bill that increased the number of Republican U.S. House seats in Texas from fifteen to twenty-one in the 2004 elections. The Republican seats dropped to nineteen in the 2006 elections under a modified court redistricting plan. Minority Democrats retain thirteen U.S. House seats from Texas. In his capacity as the presiding officer of the Texas Senate, Dewhurst, in the third consecutive special session called by the governor, allowed the suspension of the custom that two thirds of the body must vote to consider a bill.

Dewhurst's leadership on redistricting brought him into legal conflict with his former land commissioner opponent, Richard Raymond, the only elected official to have been a plaintiff in the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court review of the constitutionality of the redistricting plan. Dewhurst and Raymond have also sparred over education policy.

Legislation

Childhood legislation

He is known by his "Texas Children First" initiative which is part of cracking down on child sexual predators in Texas and throughout the United States. The initiative includes extending statute of limitations on child sex crimes and leading the passage of Jessica's Law. David Dewhurst is also attempting to pass legislation that would allow for the death penalty to be imposed on second time violent child predators. This bill has received some controversy as it has been asserted by some that the death penalty for anything other than murder is unconstitutional. No one has been executed in the US for a crime other than murder since 1964.

Voter ID bill

Democrats used the Senate's rules to help defeat a voter identification bill, supported by Dewhurst and the Republican majorities, in 2009.

TSA inspection bill

Dewhurst has been accused by state senator Dan Patrick of helping to stop a bill that would have made the TSA's pat downs of airplane passengers a felony in Texas.

Controversies

Condemnation of play

In March 2010, a student performance of the play Corpus Christi by Terrence McNally, in which Jesus and the disciples are portrayed as being gay, was canceled at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas following a condemnatory statement by Dewhurst. The university had received many complaints about the play's scheduled performance as a class project for a directing class, but in a letter posted on the university's website on March 11, President F. Dominic Dottavio, citing freedom of speech, declared that the play would be performed. The day before the performance, Dewhurst issued his statement saying, "No one should have the right to use government funds or institutions to portray acts that are morally reprehensible to the vast majority of Americans," and the performance was cancelled by the professor, who cited safety concerns. A subsequent statement by Dewhurst praised the university for canceling the performance, whereas the professor claimed to have acted on his own. Dewhurst's statement also claimed that whereas he is "a strong defender of free speech, we must also protect the rights and reasonable expectations of Texas taxpayers and how their money is used. A play that is completely contrary to the standards of decency and moral beliefs of the vast majority of Texans should not be performed using any state resources, especially by an institution of higher learning."

2012 United States Senate race

See also: United States Senate election in Texas, 2012

On July 18, 2011, Dewhurst addressed his supporters in an online video on his campaign website, announcing his candidacy for the vacant U.S. Senate seat for the Republican nomination. His rivals included former Mayor of Dallas Tom Leppert, ESPN college football analyst Craig James and former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz, the eventual nominee.

After a year-long campaign for the Republican nomination, Dewhurst fell to Cruz in a run-off on July 31, 2012.

External links

• Official Website of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas
• Dewhurst for U.S. Senate campaign Web site