Happy Birthday Governor Ann!

'We're not going to have the America that we want until we elect leaders who are going to tell the truth - not most days, but every day.'-Ann Richards
September 1 happens to be the birthday of the best Texas governor in my lifetime so far in Ann Richards who was born on this date in 1933.

She would have been 82 today, and no one will ever forget her classic line at the 1988 Democratic National Convention when during her nationally televised speech,  she said about then President George Herbert Walker Bush in that consummate Texas drawl, “Poor George, he can’t help it, He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” 

I was proud to vote for her three times, once as our state treasurer, and twice as our governor.  When she took office as our governor in 1991, under her leadership our state went from having a $6 billion deficit to a $2.5 billion surplus.  Her cabinet looked like Texas in terms of the talented people she chose for it and the diversity of the people on it.    

And we were proud to have her representing our state as our 45th governor, the second woman to hold that position and the first to be elected into the position on her own merits.

She sadly has been the last Texas Democrat to hold the position

We lost her on September 13, 2006 to esophageal cancer, but she has inspired a legion of young women in Texas and beyond to consider careers in public service. 
And she is sorely missed.