If you have any interest in Texas politics, then you will want to check out this NY Sunday Times article on Ben Barnes, pictured on the far right with former House Speaker Gus Mutscher, former Governor Preston Smith, former president Lyndon Johnson. Barnes is the now 68 year-old elder (some would say elder gadfly) of the Texas Democratic Party who was Speaker of the Texas House at the age of 26, Lieutenant Governor at 30 and washed up in politics at 34 in the wake of the Sharpstown scandal. The NY Times article notes the publication of Barnes’ semi-autobiographical book, Barn Burning, Barn Building (Big Sky Press 2006) about his political career and the future of the Texas Democratic Party.
Despite leaving government 34 years ago, Barnes remains a fascinating character of Texas politics. He and the late John Connally made headlines in the late 1980’s when their highly-leveraged real estate development business melted down into bankruptcy, although neither faced any criminal prosecution as a result of the business failure (high-profile bankruptcies did not necessarily result in criminal prosecutions back in those days). In the 1990’s, Barnes was a member of a group that banked $23 million in a buyout of their lobbyist contract with Gtech, the gambling industry company that ran the Texas lottery under then Texas Lottery chairperson and current White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers. A subsequent lawsuit generated the 1999 deposition in which Barnes alleged for the first time that he had pulled strings as Speaker of the Texas House in 1968 to get President Bush into the National Guard and out of possible service in Vietnam. In a later highly-publicized 60 Minutes II interview during the 2004 presidential campaign, Barnes said he regretted that he had done so. Recently, Barnes has ruffled feathers in the Texas Democratic Party by supporting an independent candidate, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, rather than the Democratic Party nominee, Chris Bell.
Over the past fifteen years or so, the Democratic Party has become an afterthought in Texas politics, which has not been a healthy development for the state. Barnes’ book likely will include at least some insight into why that has occurred and, in so doing, perhaps provide some guidance on how the party can resurrect itself. If so, that just might be Barnes’ most valuable contribution to Texas politics.