Decision Points

pretty woman with a warm smile. Then Bullock emerged. He was a wiry man with a weathered look. He had been married five times to four women. Jan was his last wife and the love of his life. He had married her only once. At one time, Bullock had been a heavy drinker. In a famous story, he got drunk and fired his gun into a public urinal. He smoked incessantly, despite thefact that he had lost part of one lung. This was a man who had lived life the hard way. He stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Bullock. Come on in.”
    He took me into his study. The place looked like a research library. He had stacks of documents, reports, and data. Bullock dropped a huge file on the desk in front of me and said, “Here is a report on juvenile justice.” He knew my campaign was based partially on juvenile justice reform and suggested I think about some of his ideas. Then he banged down similar reports for education and welfare reform. We talked for three or four hours. Bullock supported Ann Richards , but he made it clear he would work with me if I won.
    The other key legislative player was the speaker of the house, Pete Laney . Like me, Pete came from West Texas. He was a cotton farmer from Hale Center, a rural town between Lubbock and Amarillo that I had visited in my 1978 campaign. Pete was a low-key guy. While Bullock tended to show his cards—and occasionally throw the whole deck at you—Laney kept his hand close to his vest. He was a Democrat with allies on both sides of the aisle.
    Shortly after I took office, Pete, Bob, and I agreed to have a weekly breakfast. At first, the meals were a chance to swap stories and help me learn about the legislature. As bills started to wind their way through the system, the breakfasts became important strategy meetings. A couple of months into the session, Bullock had moved a number of important bills through the senate. Most of them were still waiting in the house.
    Bullock wanted action, and he let Laney know it. As I ate my breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and coffee, Pete calmly told the lieutenant governor the bills would get done. Bullock was simmering. Before long, he boiled over. He looked straight at me and yelled, “Governor, I am going to f—— you. I am going to make you look like a fool.”
    I thought for a moment, stood up, walked toward Bullock, and said, “If you are going to f—— me, you better give me a kiss first.” I playfully hugged him, but he wriggled away and charged out of the room. Laney and I just laughed. We both understood Bullock’s tirade was not aimed at me. It was his way of telling Laney it was time to get his bills out of the house.
    Whether Bullock’s message had an impact on Laney, I’ll never know.But with all three of us pushing hard, legislation on education, juvenile justice, and welfare reform started moving quickly. The most complicated item on the agenda was tort reform . Reining in junk lawsuits was crucial to stopping jobs from leaving the state. But there was strong opposition from the trial lawyers’ bar, which was influential and well funded. I had an ally in David Sibley , a Republican state senator from Waco and the committee chairman who oversaw the issue.
    One night early in the session, I invited David over for dinner. We had just started to eat when he got a phone call from Bullock. I listened as a one-way conversation unfolded. David alternated between nodding and staring in stone-faced silence as the lieutenant governor unloaded. Then he said, “He is sitting right here. Would you like to speak to him?” Bullock wanted to have a word. I took the phone.
    “Why are you blocking tort reform? I thought you were going to be okay. But no, you’re a s—— governor.” Bullock fired off a couple of f-bombs and hung up. David knew what had happened. He had seen it before and wasn’t sure how I would respond. I laughed and laughed hard. Bullock was tough and earthy, but I had a feeling this would be a passing storm.
    Once David realized that I would tolerate the blast, we turned to the tort reform bill. The main difference of opinion was on the size of the cap on punitive damages. I wanted a $500,000 cap; Bullock wanted $1,000,000. David told me that if he could get agreement on this legislation, the other five tort bills that were part of the reform package would move quickly. He suggested a compromise: How about a bill with a $750,000 threshold? No question that would improve the system. I agreed.
    David called and told