John Whitmire

John Harris Whitmire (born August 13, 1949)^[1] is the longest-serving of current members of the Texas State Senate representing District 15, which includes much of northern Houston, since 1983. Previously he was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1973 through 1982. He also served as the Acting Governor of Texas in 1993 as part of the Governor for A Day tradition.

Whitmire was born in Hillsboro, Texas to James M. Whitmire and Marie Harris Whitmire^[1] and graduated from Waltrip High School and the University of Houston.

In 2003, Whitmire was one of the "Texas Eleven", a group of Democrats who fled the state for New Mexico in 2003 in a quorum-busting effort aimed at preventing the passage of controversial redistricting legislation that would have benefited Texas Republicans.

National House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a powerful figure in Texas politics, advocated arresting Whitmire, along with the other members of the Texas 11, telling reporters that he supported using Federal Bureau of Investigation agents or U.S. marshals to arrest the runaway Democrats and bring them back to Austin, asserting that redistricting is a federal matter of federal concern.

It was Whitmire who first broke ranks and headed back home to Austin. His stated reason for doing so was that he wished to preserve consensus in the state Senate instead of allowing no-holds-barred partisan civil war to continue. Others have speculated about a possible "deal" between Republicans and Whitmire.

Besides the New Mexico controversy, he voiced his opposition to the City of Houston's Safe Clear program which unanimously passed by Houston Mayor Bill White. Whitmire introduced legislation to disband Safe Clear where it was deemed a revenue generator to which two Houston City Councilmembers decried its policy. The proposed legislation was later withdrawn after a private meeting in Austin where Mayor Bill White and Whitmire negotiated.

In July 2005 Texas Monthly, in its article “The Best and Worst Legislators of 2005” the magazine named Whitmire one of the ten best legislators in the Seventy-ninth Texas Legislature.^[2]

In 2008 Whitmire received threatening calls from death row inmate Richard Tabler who had a smuggled cell phone in his death row cell.^[3]

Whitmire is the former brother-in-law to Kathy Whitmire, the mayor of Houston from 1982 to 1991.

Cloak Room incident

In 2007 a bartender at a bar called the Cloak Room, located next to the Texas State Capitol and frequented by politicians and lobbyists, alleged that she was fired in retaliation for having refused to serve Whitmire, whom she says appeared intoxicated. Whitmire is alleged to have threatened to have the bartender fired, to prevent the police from coming to the scene—and other similar abuses of power. Shortly after the incident, the bartender was fired. She sued the manager and owner of the bar. Unbeknownst to the bar manager the employee reportedly tape-recorded the conversation. On the audio tape, which has not been released publicly, the bar manager stated that employees are to give state senators anything that they want, that as long as senators came to the bar the bar would not be investigated by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, and that Senator Whitmire could "kill them."^[4][5]

End to special last meals

Whitmire was outraged when convicted murderer Lawrence Russell Brewer ordered a large last meal which he did not eat prior to his September 21, 2011, execution. Whitmire said that this was Brewer's attempt to "make a mockery out of the process." The senator contacted the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and asked the agency to end the practice of last meals or he would get the State Legislature to pass a bill doing so. The agency replied that last meal requests were accommodated "within reason" from food available in the prison kitchen, but it agreed to end the practice immediately at Whitmire's insistence.^[6]

Election history

Election history of District 15 from 1992.^[7]

Most recent election

2002

Previous elections

2000

1996

1994

1992

References

External links

• Senate of Texas - Senator John Whitmire official TX Senate website
• Project Vote Smart - Senator John Whitmire (TX) profile
• Follow the Money - John Whitmire
  • 2006 2004 2002 2000 campaign contributions