Author Archives: Bill Hobby

In Texas the law is clear. Governing bodies must conduct the people’s business in public or else face some serious penalties. This statute has protected the public and elected representatives alike for the past 42 years with a basic premise: … Continue reading →

As the world struggles to come to grips with the global financial crisis, it might be instructive to look at how Jesse Jones and other Houston leaders dealt with an earlier banking calamity. The Chronicle’s Loren Steffy recently published an … Continue reading →

Fraudulent voting in the Texas House of Representatives has been going on for a long time. It reached a new low last year when the House passed the “voter ID” bill to prevent fraudulent voting at the polls, of which … Continue reading →

I had no Republican opponent when I first ran for Lieutenant Governor in 1972 and was re-elected in 1974 and 1978 without much opposition, but in 1982 the Repubs decided my free ride was over. My opponent was George Strake, … Continue reading →

The Hobbys and the Johnsons have been friends for three generations now, bound together by broadcasting and government. Mrs. Johnson was the broadcaster in the family. Luci Baines Johnson grew up in both businesses, as did I. Sam Ealy Johnson, … Continue reading →

The poll tax was eliminated by the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it was used by former Confederate States to keep poor people, black and white, from voting. But the Texas Legislature never ratified the amendment. It almost, … Continue reading →

Governor Pick Perry doesn’t like the way higher education is funded. He wants to micromanage it. He doesn’t care that higher education is poorly funded. (Texas ranks 50th in percentage of high school graduates, 27th in college graduates.) The issue … Continue reading →

Poor Tom Delay! He can’t get off the ballot. Poor Republicans! They can’t get him off the ballot! Why? Because in the early 1980s, both parties ignored their own voters in the primaries and replaced candidates whom the voters had … Continue reading →

Public support for higher education is declining all over the country. In state after state support is going down. Tuition is going up. In 2002, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University barely made the US News … Continue reading →

President Clinton’s end-of-term pardons have come in for a lot of criticism. Executive clemency, as Presidential or Gubernatorial pardons are called, has played its part in Texas history, too. Governor Sam Houston pardoned murderess Mary Monroe because the Texas Supreme … Continue reading →