Hobby reflecting on his political future
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Well-known member
Hobby
3:45 PM CST, Thursday, February 26th, 1987
Rotary Club, Houston, TX
It was going to be one of those transformative legislative sessions for TX Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby (D), who was in the middle of his 5th term of office. He had been focusing all of his energies to the aspects of getting the legislative process going smoothly inside the TX State Senate chambers since he was the President of the TX State Senate including appointing the committee chairs, etc.,; Hobby was also working on tackling the latest budget shortfall of $5.8 billion.3:45 PM CST, Thursday, February 26th, 1987
Rotary Club, Houston, TX
His solution to the problem was quite simple: cutting expenses & raising revenues $12.5 billion each; Hobby also worked hard in protecting necessary programs & funding that mattered to Texans: education & human resources. He also realized that despite winning 5 consecutive statewide elections by landslide overwhelming margins, his political future was dwindling down very fast as chatter among many in Austin & across the Lone State State, majority of whom were discussing about several ambitious down-ballot statewide officeholders jockeying for positioning & gunning for the Lieutenant Governorship: State Comptroller Bob Bullock (D) & State Treasurer Ann Richards (D), both of whom were rumored to be jockeying for the Lieutenant Governorship, the Lone Star State's 2nd most powerful statewide office.Over the past 14 years in office, Hobby has experienced lots of changes & intriguing developments. Since taking office as TX's 37th Lieutenant Governor on January 16th, 1973, he learned the limits of pushing reform when he helped lead a serious effort in revising the TX State Constitution. "I believed that we could create a document more appropriate to governing a populous state in the 20th Century," he said. "I was wrong!" Hobby imbibed a sad, but realistic lesson about Texans' "fear of change and innovation. Texas voters will accept change in small increments when they are convinced of the need for it. But multiple changes with strong and credible opposition is going nowhere in a deeply conservative state."