Political Updates
Chapter Seven: The Executive

Comparative Profiles, pg. 289

Rick Perry succeeded to the office of governor after George W. Bush won the presidential election of November 2000. Unlike Republican governors Clements and Bush, Perry had a record of government service. First elected to the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1984, he won two more terms in the House before switching parties. Subsequently, Perry was elected commissioner of agriculture in 1990 and again in 1994. Then in 1998 he became the first Texas GOP candidate to win a campaign for lieutenant governor since Reconstruction.