In January 1975, a Harvard University junior from Texas named Bill White left school for the semester to work for a newly elected congressman from New Braunfels.

That came as a surprise to the congressman, Bob Krueger, who had met the redheaded student at a Harvard reception but doesn't remember promising him a position.

Krueger says he figured he could send White back to Harvard if things didn't work out. Within hours, Krueger knew he wouldn't be getting rid of White. The student had a keen interest in energy policy and became his trusted adviser. The New York Times declared that as a freshman Democrat, Krueger had become the energy expert in the House.

"If that was true, it was entirely because I had Bill White, who tutored me all the way along," Krueger said. "Bill is not bright; he is a genius."

Now, White, 55, who went on to become a U.S. deputy secretary of energy and mayor of Houston, is running for governor as a Democrat. Inspired as a boy by watching TV images of civil rights-era events like the 1963 March on Washington -- and injustices he saw in his native San Antonio -- White began his involvement with politics years before he arrived at age 20 at Krueger's office on Capitol Hill.

White's parents -- both school teachers -- remember that as an elementary school child, he would roam along a wall near their San Antonio house and just think. Then, he'd come inside and talk to his dad about what was on his mind. "It was always way out of line for what you'd think a child would think about," said Bill's mother, Gloria White. Once, his father said, Bill had been contemplating the poultry surplus. His father found pamphlets scattered around his son's room from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Bill White remembers his mother grading papers until the 10 o'clock news and his father holding a job at a department store in addition to teaching. On weekends, Bill -- a freckle-faced boy who was known at home as Rusty -- and his younger brother Robert did yard work.

"I learned to work hard," Bill White said. "That was just expected in our family."

The family managed money carefully. Gloria White still has a ledger from their early days of marriage where she wrote down everything she spent -- $6.95 for a pair of shoes, $1.50 for gas.

Bill White's Castle Hills Elementary School classmate Linda Greendyke remembers their neighborhood as a place where kids played in the street. The school itself "was mostly white, middle class -- I remember everyone looking like me," she said.

The Whites were Methodist Sunday school teachers, and once, Bill's mother found him preaching in the backyard to nobody. "He was talking to the air," she said. "All these feelings about God, how people should believe."

White, who would later become a Methodist Sunday school teacher, says that his faith has taught him "that I and other people were not the center of the universe. That we were all a part of something much bigger."

White developed an interest in government, sparked in part, he says, by "the horrors of Selma and Birmingham and the awakening of the civil rights movement."

"That interested me, engaged me, when I saw that laws could make a difference," he said, "and where there was a stark choice between some who felt we needed to defer making good on the promises made in our founding documents and others who thought, as did my parents ... that every person is made in the image of God."

White became aware that though San Antonio had a large Mexican American population, Mexican Americans were underrepresented in the business and political leadership of the city.

He became a page at the Texas Legislature in 1967, when he was in seventh grade. He remembers watching Barbara Jordan begin serving as Texas' first African American state senator since 1883 and understanding that key changes were taking place in the state.

"He was very, very keenly interested in the many personalities that we had in the Senate," recalled former Democratic state Sen. Joe Bernal, White's boss and a bowling buddy of White's father. "He'd ask me a lot of questions."

White continued political work in high school, block-walking during the summers to register Hispanic voters who hadn't cast ballots before because of the poll tax. The experience had a deep impact on White."Those efforts by us and others changed the face of San Antonio politics," White said. "Hispanics still were not fully represented in the political process."

Also in high school, White became a champion debater, winning the national American Legion Oratorical Contest. The topic was duties and responsibilities of citizenship under the Constitution. The prize was a scholarship , which White used for his Harvard education.

Socially, White was "a little geeky" but didn't "have any problem getting along with people," said family friend John Bell. White's debate partner , Scott Bage , remembers White's "great sense of humor" and many evenings at the White home spent playing pingpong. In college, White developed a broad spectrum of friends, said Parker Folse, a classmate who arrived at Harvard from a similarly modest upbringing.

"You had the blue-blooded aristocracy from New England and New York who had generations before them go to Harvard," said Folse, who also attended law school with White at the University of Texas. "There were all these famous names from not just the U.S. but from around the world. And then there were people like Bill and me."

White's assigned roommate was Mir Murtaza Bhutto, son of Pakistani president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and brother of Benazir Bhutto. One summer in college, White visited Pakistan for several weeks, glimpsing its government in action by accompanying Mir Murtaza Bhutto to town hall-type meetings where villagers would outline their grievances against the government.

Recalling White's time working for him, Krueger said White drafted his bills to phase out oil and natural gas price controls and allow market pricing. As Krueger debated amendments on the House floor, White sat in the gallery and sent Krueger notes via a page on how to respond. The proposals narrowly failed, but Krueger remembers the impact White had.

White said he was very passionate then and now about reducing oil imports and having a more independent energy policy. "For me, it wasn't a job," White said. "It was a cause."

Austin American-Statesman
Feb. 3, 2010

PHARR -- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White learned in business to pay attention to details.

As Houston mayor, he wanted to make tangible improvements to his city week by week, he said Friday in between campaign stops in the Rio Grande Valley.

"You've got to look at what's working and what's not working," he said. "Then we've got to do more of what's working."

But to do that, he first needed to learn about the issues from people who dealt with them on a daily basis.

And so he learned to listen.

White, a lawyer and former businessman considered the leading candidate in a crowded Democratic field for the March 2 primary, spent most of Friday in the Valley in meetings with local leaders.

First, he talked to McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez, who offered insight into immigration policy. Then he spoke to Pharr-San Juan-Alamo schools Superintendent Daniel King about measures to improve the state's high school dropout rate.

And finally, he talked with administrators at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, where he learned about health care needs of Valley veterans and other residents.

White, who opened his regional campaign office in Edinburg on Friday afternoon, said he lets similar discussions inform his decisions.

In a discussion with King at the school district's college, career and technology academy, White learned about PSJA's efforts to smooth out the "ninth-grade bubble" of students who are held back in that grade or who drop out that year.

The academy helps 18- to 25-year-old students -- those who dropped out of school, are behind on credits or have not passed sections of the state's standardized tests -- to earn their high school diplomas.

Since the academy's inception in September 2007, more than 450 students have graduated from the program. The achievement has contributed to a graduation rate for the district that has grown by 65 percent since 2007.

In his first year in office as Houston's mayor, White established a program called Expectation Graduation that includes receiving pledges from ninth-graders to stay in school and outreach walks by volunteers who visit youth who dropped out of school.

White said there was no excuse for the state placing at the bottom of national graduation rankings. But he added that there are common barriers -- from family economics to high school pregnancies -- throughout the state that can be solved in similar manners.

"These are common issues," he said. "If we address them one by one, everyone will benefit."

The Monitor
Feb. 5, 2010

Cameron Park-- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White made a campaign stop in Cameron Park on Friday to speak with community leaders, including Cameron County Commissioner John Wood.

White, a former mayor of Houston, said that many of the initiatives he created as Houston's mayor could be applied to the Rio Grande Valley.

White, who was re-elected as mayor of Houston with 86 percent of the vote in 2007 and 91 percent in 2005, was born in San Antonio and educated at Harvard University and the University of Texas School of Law.

"I love the Valley," said White, who also said he raised his children to be bilingual in English and Spanish. "I believe this is the front door of Texas, rather than the backdoor."

As Houston's mayor, White said he tripled the number of community clinics, cut costs for low-income families by helping them save on utilities, and converted neighborhoods in decline into safe and affordable housing. He said that while he would not play favorites with any corner of the state, many of his priorities -- diabetes management, lowering the dropout rate, and strengthening community colleges -- significantly affect the Valley.

Wood, who is currently running for county judge in Cameron County, said that he supports White for governor because he believes he has the experience to do the job right.

"He has the skills and knowledge and ability to be a great governor," Wood said. "In his heart and mind he understands the issues in our area."

Wood, represents Cameron County's Precinct 2, which includes the Cameron Park colonia. He said that over the years he has seen many candidates blow through town touting campaign promises.

"A lot of people feel like Texas stops at the Nueces River," Wood said. "This is the first governor candidate since Ann Richards who is really interested in this area."

The Brownsville Herald
Feb. 05, 2010

Instead, he talks about registering voters in Hispanic neighborhoods on San Antonio's West Side as the teen-age son of schoolteacher parents. He segues to the 1973 oil embargo and its implications. He fast-forwards to the rush of evacuees that Hurricane Katrinasent to Houston, where as mayor he welcomed them with a "treat our neighbors as we would like to be treated" philosophy that sometimes put him out on a limb.

When I asked White to identify key turning points on a path that now has him seeking the Democratic nod for governor, he gave three - "besides," he was careful to note, "marriage and kids." They help form the case he presents to voters on the trail.

The progressive roots that he said prompted him to register voters while in high school show in his push to improve education. White cites the influence of family and of friends including former state Sen. Joe Bernal of San Antonio, who coached and was in a bowling league with his dad. White, as a legislative page, commuted to the Capitol with him. "I would be going back and forth with Joe every week from Austin when I was 13 years old and a page, and we would talk about the future of this state," White said, adding that Bernal, like his parents, "believed that the future of our state was ... educating and bringing into leadership our growing Hispanic population."

On energy, as White tells it, that progressive beginning was leavened by a conservative attitude toward "excessive" regulation of competitive markets. He's known for his push for air quality, and as mayor sought to crack down on pollution from companies that weren't even in city boundaries. But on domestic production and pricing, he said his regulatory views were shaped by the embargo.

"Before the 1973 embargo .. few people understood how important domestic production was to our national security," said White, who as a Harvard student (he had an American Legion scholarship) got a policy job with then-U.S. Rep. Bob Krueger in the embargo's wake. White said in studying the industry as a student he saw "the United States was pursuing policies with overregulation of the oil and gas business which encouraged imports and discouraged production of domestic fuels including clean natural gas."

Two decades later, Clinton named White deputy secretary of energy after White raised some $2 million for his campaign. When White left that post, he became state Democratic chairman, launched an oil and gas exploration company and later became an energy and real estate investor as CEO of Wedge Group. But he said he learned to work across party lines, and to advocate his views on the issue, starting with his work with Krueger.

"Often I had to battle those who thought, incorrectly, that consumers would benefit from more regulation," he said. "Although my political background began with people who were more progressive Democratic political figures ... I learned that it was important for consumers and national security to avoid overregulation where there's real competition, and the market should be free to work."

Overarching his political philosophy is a leadership style showcased when Houston welcomed Hurricane Katrina evacuees. He made it happen partly with housing vouchers initially secured with nothing more than, as Texas Monthly put it, "the full faith and credit of Mayor Bill." While some praise him for putting partisan politics aside as mayor, critics at times have called his style top-down and arrogant. In this case, it won him the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

White said he learned that Texans will answer an appeal to their values and their "deep reservoir of spiritual strength." He said it also showed, "Leadership involves far more than just passing a law or giving a speech. Leadership is organizing a community and all the resources of the community to accomplish a clearly defined objective that people buy into." Coming weeks will show if Democratic primary voters buy into White.

San Antonio Express-News
Jan. 17, 2010

AUSTIN - State leaders asked agency heads Friday to submit ideas to cut spending by 5 percent this year.

While Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, have called the move a precaution, Gov. Rick Perry urged immediate trims.

"We've got to cut our spending now, to stay ahead of this budget challenge that we're going to face" in next year's legislative session, Perry told a group of conservative lawmakers and policy analysts.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry's main rival in the March 2 Republican primary for governor, criticized him for not already ordering cuts. And on Friday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White chimed in, saying Perry should have moved at least two months ago.

Sales tax receipts began a run of double-digit monthly decreases in July.

"At least the first 2 or 3 percent in cuts should have been identified by now," said White, a former Houston mayor.

Perry said that although state government is "a lean operation," he's confident he and the GOP-controlled Legislature again - as they did in 2003 - will avoid raising any broad-based taxes. In that year, they closed a $9.9 billion budget shortfall with deep spending cuts and some federal help, user-fee increases and accounting maneuvers.

"We've taken this tack before," Perry said. "We did it. And it works. Texans depend on us to make tough decisions in tough times."

Hutchison has criticized Perry's fiscal leadership, arguing that the budget has grown too quickly - from about $100 billion in overall spending in the last budget passed under former Gov. George W. Bush to the current plan to spend $182 billion this year and next.

Perry notes that spending of state-generated tax dollars declined from the previous two-year cycle in two budgets enacted on his watch - last year's and the one passed in 2003.

The Legislative Budget Board, after adjusting for population growth and inflation, published figures last month showing that spending of state general revenue has decreased by nearly 10 percent since the 2001 session, Perry's first. Overall spending, including federal funds, has increased nearly 11 percent in those years.

Perry said he had wanted to nudge state agency chiefs to aim for a higher spending-cut target - 6 percent of general revenue-related spending, minus items such as basic funding for public schools, which the leaders usually exempt.

He said Dewhurst and Straus settled on a 5 percent goal, which "is an appropriate number to strive for." The three leaders' letter instructs agencies to "identify savings in priority increments" by Feb. 15. It cites economic uncertainty and "potentially substantial long-term costs associated with" federal health care and environmental legislation.

In November, Dewhurst proposed asking for ideas for cuts. Straus wanted to wait to see if consumer confidence rebounded before Christmas. Both legislative leaders have stressed that there's no reason to panic, citing forecasts by Comptroller Susan Combs that the Texas economy is likely to rebound this spring or summer.

With the current budget set to spend about $87 billion in state taxes and earnings, a 5 percent trim would exceed $4.3 billion.

The Dallas Morning News
Jan. 16, 2010

The department joined a Texas utility company here on Friday to announce a trial that would produce enough wind-generated electricity by early 1995 to supply 3,000 homes in the middle of the nation's richest oilfields.

Bill White, the Deputy Secretary of Energy, said the project demonstrated the commitment by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to renewable energy sources. Through solar and wind energy, Mr. White said, "we can harness the energy of the sun in an environmentally compatible way."

Strong, consistent breezes sweep much of this state, especially the arid western region. The department said in a statement, "The wind potential in the state of Texas is sufficient to provide more than five times the state's total amount of electric energy use."

But utility officials said generating all this power might require reforesting the whole state, including office buildings and possibly backyard barbecues, with wind turbines.

Mr. White said that the wind power could be generated for 5 cents a kilowatt-hour or less. The Central and South West Corporation, the utility company taking part in the test, says electricity from coal and natural gas in West Texas costs 7.5 to 8.5 cents.

The Texas trial is part of a $40 million Department of Energy program that includes Maine and Vermont utilities and higher financing for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. The $17 million cost of the Texas project is being shared by the company, the department and the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry group.

Wind farms are already a common sight in Southern California, but not among the cholla cactus, creosote bushes and oil rigs of West Texas.

Texas faces no imminent power shortages, and oil prices are low. Mr. White, regarded as the oil industry's voice in the department, sees much greater use of wind power in the longer run. "Right there in the middle of the Permian Basin is also one of the the biggest basins for the development of wind energy," he said.

As a Houston oil and gas lawyer, Mr. White said, "I hope to refine the image of Texas that people will have in 30 years."

New York Times
Jan. 18, 1994

Heavy snow was falling on Houston when Bill White, the Democratic mayor, made his move. "I'll be a governor who challenges Texans to lead, not leave, the United States," he said on December 4th, announcing that he would run for governor in 2010. That was a shot at Rick Perry, the Republican incumbent, who got fired up at a tax protest this summer and suggested Texas might consider seceding rather than submit to Washington's socialism. Observers expect a spirited campaign.

Mr White was expected to run. As a big-city mayor he has ample executive experience. But until last week he had focused on the Senate, as Texas will supposedly have an election for that job next year, too. The state's senior senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, is challenging Mr Perry for the Republican nomination for governor, and insists that she will leave her seat in 2010 either way.

Gibes at Mr Perry will not be enough. Democrats argue that Texas has lost ground on education and health care during Mr Perry's nine-year tenure (he took over from George Bush when he was elected president in 2000). On the other hand, the state has avoided the worst of the recession, and voters may reckon there is no point changing horses in mid-stream. But Mr White has a real shot. He has built up an impressive record as mayor of Houston during these past six years, tackling traffic, bureaucracy, even polluters. He had a fine leadership moment in 2005, when the city welcomed 100,000 refugees after Hurricane Katrina.

Mrs Hutchison, meanwhile, is on the back foot. A Rasmussen poll on November 13th showed her trailing Mr Perry in the Republican primary by 46% to 35%. Previously she talked about building a big tent, in the hope that Democrats would vote for a moderate Republican. Now she has scuttled that line in favour of the argument that she is the only conservative who can win statewide. These appeals to electability work only if a candidate's party is frightened of losing. So Mrs Hutchison has a curious task. She must build Mr White up and knock him down at the same time.

First, however, Mr White has to face the Democratic primary. One long-shot candidate could make things difficult. Farouk Shami is an immigrant from Palestine who came to the United States with nothing and has made a fortune in hair-care products. He has never held office, but he has gobs of money, and has already pledged to spend $10m on the race "to start with". Mr White has $4m in his war-chest, but he would rather save that money for the general election. He will need it.

The Economist
December 10, 2009

HOUSTON, Texas - El alcalde de Houston, Bill White, anunció el viernes su candidatura a la gubernatura de Texas por el Partido Demócrata, con la promesa de arreglar el sistema de educación pública y limpiar el aire en las principales ciudades de la entidad.

Dejó de buscar candidatura al Senado federal

"Soy Bill White y quiero ser el próximo gobernador de Texas", dijo el aspirante al abrir el discurso con el que anunció su candidatura ante decenas de simpatizantes y periodistas.

White goza de una alta popularidad tras haber gobernado durante seis años la ciudad más grande de Texas, por lo que sería considerado de inmediato como el aspirante demócrata más fuerte para disputar la gubernatura en las elecciones de noviembre de 2010.

Antes, el alcalde deberá derrotar en las primarias de marzo próximo a cuando menos otros tres candidatos demócratas, el multimillonario de origen palestino Farouk Shami; el músico y escritor Kinky Friedman; y el profesor Félix Alvarado.

El ranchero Hank Gibert, quien también buscaba la candidatura demócrata, anuncio este viernes su retiro de la contienda y ofreció su respaldo a Shami.

Sin embargo, White, quien con el anuncio de este viernes abandona la búsqueda de la candidatura al Senado federal, tiene amplias posibilidades de ser electo por parte de los demócratas como su aspirante a gobernador en las primarias del próximo 2 de marzo.

El candidato que resulte triunfador en esa elección deberá enfrentarse en los comicios generales a uno de los dos fuertes contendientes que se disputan la candidatura republicana, el actual gobernador Rick Perry y la senadora federal Kay Bailey Hutchison.

White aprovechó el anuncio de su candidatura para comenzar a criticar el desempeño de Perry como gobernador.

"No podemos ser la entidad líder en Estados Unidos si somos el último estado en el número de estudiantes que se gradúan de preparatoria", dijo White, quien deberá dejar la alcaldía de Houston en enero próximo al concluir su tercer periodo en el cargo.

William "Bill" White, de 55 años, es originario de San Antonio, Texas, y abogado de profesión con títulos de licenciatura por la Escuela de Leyes de la Universidad de Texas y de maestría en la Universidad de Harvard.

Miembro del Partido Demócrata inició su carrera como abogado del bufete Susman Godfrey, de donde pasó a la administración pública federal llegando a fungir como subsecretario del Departamento de Energía durante la administración del presidente Bill Clinton.

White fue electo alcalde de Houston en diciembre de 2003 y fue reelecto en 2005 y 2007 por una amplia mayoría de votos, 91 por ciento y 86 por ciento, en forma respectiva.

Univision
December 6, 2009

The UH Faculty Senate hosted Mayor Bill White and former UH Chancellor William P. Hobby, who spoke on research and Proposition 4, at its meeting Friday.

White said universities need to have freedom to research, and that higher education is one of the few jobs where security and tenure are the most valuable parts of employment.

"[We need] a university having the sheer capacity to do research and have people with the freedom and understanding... to do it," White said. "Part of that has to do with the freedom to pursue their thoughts and their dreams without someone looking over their shoulder."

White also said the value of faculty has been diminished by pay cuts, and voiced his disdain for the practice of salary reduction.

"We'll pay you less than you're worth just so we don't have to raise the budget." White said. "We should not create a market system in higher education."

Hobby was invited by UH President Renu Khator to talk about flagship status in her place as a guest and co-chairman of the flagship status campaign.

"I'm not a state employee so I can tell you (to) vote for (Proposition) 4," Hobby said.

The Proposition 4 fund contains about $500 million designated for universities that meet certain goals.

The universities closest to reaching the goals are UH, Texas Tech, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas at El Paso.

"Houston is the largest city in the United States without a public (flagship) university," Hobby said. "I hope we can cure that problem."

The Faculty Senate voted to reject the Task Force on Graduate Faculty proposal that would allow non-senior faculty to participate in graduate education.

The proposal went through both the Faculty Affairs Committee and Faculty Governance Committee, and both committees decided against the proposal. The committees were concerned about the proposal's effects on doctoral education and its lack of specifics between graduate education and professional education such as law school.

The Daily Cougar
October 5, 2009

In endorsing Houston Mayor Bill White for the Democratic nomination for governor, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell said it's time to end Texas' long Democratic drought.

"It's a great night to be a Texas Democrat!" Leffingwell shouted to a raucous, upbeat crowd in Austin's Scholz Garten Sunday evening.

Leffingwell lamented that a person born the last day a Democrat was Texas governor will be 15 years old next month.

The festive occasion was White's first Austin rally since he announced on Dec. 4, in Houston that he was switching from a who-knows-when U.S. Senate election to the March 2 Democratic primary race for governor.

Two weeks earlier, White said he was still running for the Senate. But several days after former ambassador Tom Schieffer of Fort Worth told the capitol press corps he had quit his race for governor and met with White to urge him to run, White made the switch.

His enthusiastic reception by several hundred Democrats packed into Austin's famous political watering hole showed they consider White's change of direction an early Christmas present.

They figure it likely gives Democrats a seasoned civic leader who knows how to raise money to head their ticket next November, and possibly recapture the governor's office.

It also avoids a battle for the senate seat between White and former state comptroller John Sharp. Many Democrats considered it a waste of political firepower for White and Sharp to seek the same job.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry hopes to extend his nine years in office to 14 by winning re-election next year. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is challenging Perry in the March 2 Republican primary.

State Sen. Kirk Watson said Texas doesn't need a governor's race based on attacks and counterattacks, but rather on choosing "a person who can really lead Texas into the future."

The Republican race is between "one candidate who thinks we'll be lucky to have her, (and) another one who just doesn't have anything to do," Watson said.

"They want us to believe this is as good as it gets, that if you want to improve things, then you're just not proud of Texas," Watson said. "We have a word for that, and it's 'Bull.'"

Watson co-hosted the rally with several Central Texas Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives, who all stood on the bandstand to support White.

Clad in a work shirt, bluejeans and boots, White called on the crowd to spread the word that Texas needs new leadership.

"We need a governor that we can be proud of, and don't have to apologize for . . . who will lead the nation, not leave the nation," White said. "We need inclusive leadership that will move us forward."

The balding White, who acknowledges he is short on both hair and charisma, said he is "not as polished as the politicians who've been running for 30 years" a jab at Perry and Hutchison, who each have spent more than two decades in office.

"I know how to bring people together to get things done," White said, "and we need that in Texas right now."

Watson, Austin's former mayor, said White's six years as mayor "made Houston a model for a well-run big city," by cutting property taxes and crime rates, and coordinating massive efforts to help thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

"He worked well with Republicans, Democrats and independents," Watson said, "not by compromising his values, but by welcoming everyone to the table and creating a vision that everyone could believe in."

One state representative credited White with careful planning. His campaign Web site from the start has been BillWhiteforTexas.com, not BillWhiteForSenate.com allowing a smooth transition without extensive retooling.

White's switch had prompted Hank Gilbert to shift from running for governor to try again for agriculture commissioner, a post he sought in 2006. Gilbert also endorsed Houston hair-care billionaire Farouk Shami, who says he'll spend $10 million or more on the race.

Author/entertainer Kinky Friedman said through a spokeswoman that he's still in the race for now -- but wants to talk to supporters and friends, and White and Shami, "before making a final decision." Also running is Fort Worth teacher Felix Alvarado.

On the GOP side, businesswoman Debra Medina -- a devotee of anti-government Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Paul -- is also running for governor.

Abilene Reporter News
December 9, 2009

I spoke with Houston mayor and Prius driver Bill White last week about plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. White, who might run for governor, has guided the city to support plug-ins, as well as renewable energy.

But White isn't one of those politicians who thinks plug-ins are magic carpets. As a former deputy secretary of energy, White grasps that energy is complicated, and every solution involves trade-offs.

"If they say there's no emissions, they just don't know where power comes from," he said about supporters of plug-in electric vehicles.

The following are some excerpts from the interview.

Jump for the interview.

Why do you support plug-in hybrid electric vehicles?

I think that hybrid electric vehicles are going to be widely adopted in this country over the next decade. There is essentially, you can diversify your fuel source with a combination of power and a traditional motor fuels.

It would be great if we had more domestically produced natural gas used in vehicles, but the refueling infrastructure would have to be recreated at the cost of hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, whereas your electric distribution system is already there and wired and goes to literally every building there is.

Then as we get more real time pricing of electricity, there's also the ability to fuel vehicles at off-peak power rates and ultimately to discharge some of the batteries when rates spike

That won't be the typical pattern, but certainly there are some days in the summer when the wholesale rate for power is, you know, can be 30, 40 cents per kilowatt hour. And the reason it's so high is because of a peculiarity of the electrical power system. The grid goes down unless the supply of electricity meets demand every second, which means that you have to build capacity that sits idle for 99 percent of the time to meet the peak one percent of needs. Basically the dilemma for you, the last century and a half, as we built out these power grids, has been the inability to store electricity economically. With battery storage in vehicles and in rooftop solar voltaic systems, at least we would have one resource that we could call on to reduce that peak demand for electricity. And that would help us make power more affordable.

A lot of people say cutting pollution is the chief reason they support plug-in electric vehicles. You haven't mentioned pollution. Why not?

Electric vehicles are one alternative but not the only alternative.

You can have vehicles that consume less fuel, you can have vehicles that consume compressed natural gas... Or [there's the idea of] building an ultra energy efficient standard hybrid with advanced composite materials... So there are other ways that you can have vehicles reduce emissions.

And remember that electricity has to be generated somehow, and nuclear and hydro-power are limited, and renewables can't do it all.

The power in the electric vehicles will require some, you know, traditional power.

You'd have to look at the source to look at the total effect of greenhouse gas emissions.

Using electric vehicles to reduce emissions also creates other benefits, and that is, there's some cost effectiveness to not having to build in the price of a new distribution system. Obviously there's some infrastructure needs that will need to be done [but they aren't as extensive as the infrastructure needed for natural gas vehicles or ethanol.]

Now it does help, it can help the air quality on nitrogen oxide, on NOx and particulates, that have caused such a problem in the urban areas. When they reach concentrations in one area, it becomes smog.

To the extent that power plants are more geographically scattered and they're not concentrated in the heart of the urban center, you can move some of those emissions to areas of less concentration and aren't as likely to form smog.

On why Houston is supporting and purchasing hybrid vehicles:

I didn't order it as a matter of principle. We did it based on cost efficiency.

One of the big issues is that you want to be able to use your buses for multiple tasks. During hurricane evacuations, Rita and Ike, our metro bus fleet was a backbone of regional evacuation. They scattered all throughout the state. And buses are reassigned to different routes, so its' important that there be a fueling infrastructure

I applaud ... incentives for natural gas fleet conversions. I promoted natural gas vehicles since the early 1980s as one way in which we can cut imports. But in the marketplace, I think you'll see more and more people buying hybrids and conventional hybrid vehicles,

Dallas Morning News
November 30, 2009

Houston Mayor Bill White on Monday brought his gubernatorial bid to San Antonio for the first time, welcomed home under dreary, rainy skies by a constellation of local elected officials.

Without naming him, White -- who's vying for Democratic nomination next March -- took aim at Republican Gov. Rick Perry and what White called the incumbent's lackluster record on higher education and initiatives of interest to minorities and the middle class.

White grew up in San Antonio with parents who taught at Lee, Edison and Cole high schools. He said his campaign will stress higher education opportunities, particularly for Hispanics and other minorities.

Increasingly, minority students are finding themselves priced out of college because of rapidly escalating tuition and fees at the state's public colleges and universities, White said, vowing to reverse that trend.

He also said he'd address Texas' dropout rate "by letting people know that by leaving school early they will cut their earning ability in half."

White criticized Perry for "giving a running commentary on how they conduct business in Washington, D.C., when we have plenty of business to conduct right here in Texas." It was an apparent reference to the governor's ongoing criticism of congressional activities -- including those of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, his main rival for the GOP nomination -- and Obama Administration initiatives.

A Perry spokesman dismissed the criticism.

"The governor will continue to stand up against bad policies coming from Washington," said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. "Health care reform will cost the state billions of dollars a year, and the governor will continue to speak out on federal issues that will have such a negative effect on Texas."

White, who abandoned his bid for the U.S. Senate last week to jump into the governor's race, announced a slew of local endorsements Monday.

"Remember, (White) was born south of Hildebrand," said stated Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, D-San Antonio. "Someone who knows and understands (the Hispanic community) as well as he does, and who is the mayor of a city with one of the three largest Latino populations in the nation, won't forget about our needs and concerns."

Sen. Carlos Uresti, a host of current officeholders (including two area congressmen, five state representatives, four City Council members and County Judge Nelson Wolff) and former Mayor Phil Hardberger also threw their support behind White.

White also received the backing of his first boss -- former state Sen. Joe Bernal, who hired White at the age of 12 to be his Senate page in 1967.

"I don't know how he worked for me in Austin during the session, went to school, registered voters on the West Side and still had time to run for, and win, his student council presidency," Bernal recalled with a laugh. "That will be the kind of governor he'll be."

White faces Houston businessman and political novice Farouk Shami and singer and author Kinky Friedman in the March primary.

San Antonio Express News
December 7, 2009

Houston Mayor Bill White has wasted no time kicking off his change of campaigns from the U.S. senate race to the race for governor.

Sunday he stopped in Austin in a crowded room at Schulz Garten where he spoke to supporters.

White said Texans need to be brought together, and he can do that job.

"I know how to bring people together, to get things done, and we need that in Texas right now," he said.

White brought a message to Austinites, similar to Friday's announcement speech in Houston, poking at Gov. Rick Perry's record and where the state currently sits.

"Within our state we lead the whole nation in the number of kids who don't have access to any medical insurance, and we lead the nation in the number of adults who don't have a high school diploma," White said.

In a room full of Democrats, the entire Austin City Council and the delegation of the Texas Legislature from the Austin area, the focus was on what the party can do to help White win.

They also discussed the chance for Texas to make a shift from a red state to a blue state.

If White wins, he'll be the first Democrat elected governor in 15 years.

"I do think the tide has turned. Barack Obama changed the way people thought about the Democratic Party, and I think Bill White's going to do the same thing," supporter David Bales said.

"God bless you for all you do and all you're going to do so we can celebrate in November of 2010," Senator Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said to the crowd gathered for White's rally.

If White wins the primary, he'll still face an uphill battle against Perry or U.S. Sen. Hutchison, who officially filed for candidacy Monday morning.

On the Democratic side of the March primary race, rancher Hank Gilbert dropped out and will now run for Agriculture Commissioner.

He's backing Farouk Shami, the hair care mogul from Houston, who's still in the race.

Humorist Kinky Friedman said he'll let the public know what he's going to do Monday.

News 8 Austin
December 7, 2009

During one of his regular group bike rides around Houston, Mayor Bill White was held up because a freight train came to a stop, blocking the street. The problem of stopped trains in the city was already simmering -- a few months earlier, White was outraged to learn that middle-school students had crawled between train cars to get to school.

That day, he came face-to-face with the issue. He got angry -- this could keep emergency vehicles from getting through. And he made a call on the spot to a railroad official. "I just decided we weren't going to put up with it anymore," said White, the mayor of the nation's fourth-largest city.

That wasn't the end of White's fight against railroads to limit such stops inside the city -- his tactics included dispatching police officers to give engineers tickets and threatening to use federal laws to break up train companies -- and it was just one of a long list of projects that the mayor, and now Democratic gubernatorial candidate, has pursued with success.

"He's on 24 hours a day," said Rice University political science professor Bob Stein, who was on that bike ride and whose students have worked pro bono on policy research projects for White. "When you think he's recreating, he's actually looking at public policy problems."

White, who'd long said he planned to run for the U.S. Senate, emphasized his policy successes as he jumped into the Democratic gubernatorial fray on Friday, becoming the frontrunner to take on the winner of a high-profile Republican contest between Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. He faces businessman and political newcomer Farouk Shami, author Kinky Friedman and several little-known candidates in the Democratic primary.

White, who won re-election to his second term in 2005 by the highest margin in decades for a Houston mayor, winning 91 percent of the vote, has salvaged the city pension system, gone after polluters, cut the tax rate and helped unsnarl traffic through a program that tows disabled vehicles. And, most famously, he oversaw a massive shelter operation after Hurricane Katrina sent thousands of refugees to Houston.

"He put the city on the map for welcoming people who were in harm's way," said Stein, whose wife has worked as the agenda director for several mayors, including White.

Low-key personality

What you don't hear people call White is charismatic. The 55-year-old is known more for being a low-key wonk -- he worked as a deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy during former President Bill Clinton's administration -- than a captivating public speaker.

"Obviously that Clinton personality didn't rub off on him," said Renée Cross, associate director of the Center for Public Policy at the University of Houston.

White's critics say that he decided not to pursue a program that would have trained Houston police officers to identify illegal immigrants, that Houston's budget is on the verge of bankruptcy -- which White says is "ridiculous" -- and that he hasn't done enough to combat crime (although official statistics show crime is down). Jared Woodfill, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party, has similar concerns. "I don't have too many favorable things to say about Bill White's tenure," Woodfill said.

Being mayor of Houston -- a job White will vacate in January because of term limits -- is not like being mayor of Austin.

"Night and day," said Stein. He said Houston has arguably one of the most powerful mayors in the country because of the city's size and the mayor's ability to influence its direction. That's because, unlike in Austin where the mayor is just one member of the City Council and day-to-day administration is left to a city manager, the mayor of Houston sets the City Council agenda, controls the budget, appoints and oversees department directors and generally acts as the city's chief executive.

More than any other Houston mayor in decades, White has pursued a political ambition beyond the office of mayor, Stein said. In his six years as mayor, White has worked to cut the city's energy use, time downtown traffic lights to smooth vehicle flow and transform blighted neighborhoods by building affordable housing. He has also used his bully pulpit to take on issues that aren't technically in his purview, like school dropout rates. And he called on the private sector to help with everything from aiding Katrina evacuees to developing Discovery Green, a 12-acre downtown park.

White has taken on polluters both in and outside the city limits. Last year, he took the unusual step of calling on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to hold a hearing before renewing a permit for Lyondell Chemical Co., Houston's largest refinery and one of the nation's top emitters of the carcinogen benzene, the Houston Chronicle reported.

"If the company believes that it's just fine to put tons and tons of benzene in the air," White told the Chronicle, "then we would like to hear what scientific evidence they have that benzene is good for you."

More than a year later, Houston is still waiting to hear back from the commission, said Elena Marks, the city's director of health and environmental policy.

Reputation as a listener

White, a married father of three who grew up in San Antonio with schoolteacher parents, emerged from obscurity in 2003 to win his first mayoral term, beating two better-known opponents: Orlando Sanchez, a former City Council member who is now Harris County treasurer, and Sylvester Turner, a Democratic state representative.

Before his mayoral run, White, a Harvard graduate who earned a law degree at the University of Texas, had served in the Clinton administration, headed the Texas Democratic Party and served as CEO of an energy and real estate company. But outside of "big business insiders and diehard Democrats," few in Houston knew of him, Cross said.

"He came out of nowhere but quickly established himself as someone who was a moderate ... and he has really stayed down the center for the most part," Cross said. "He has equally annoyed both hard-core liberals as well as hard-core conservatives."

White cut a sharp contrast to his predecessor in the mayor's office, Lee Brown, who clashed with the City Council, according to Charles Kuffner, who writes the left-leaning political blog Off the Kuff. Instead, White listened to members, giving them committee assignments that were meaningful to them, Kuffner said.

"From the beginning, he got people to buy in to what he was doing," Kuffner said. "What we'd been used to up until then was a lot of bickering with the mayor and council."

And City Hall scandals. For example, Brown's director of building services, Monique McGilbra, got a three-year sentence for bribery after she accepted gifts including a Super Bowl trip and a Louis Vuitton purse in exchange for her influence over a city energy contract, according to a Houston Chronicle report.

"When you start off with that much power concentrated in one position, and you mix in big-city municipal government ... contractors, lobbyists, developers -- that's a natural petri dish for one scandal or another," Kuffner said. "It just hasn't been there" under White.

State Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, a friend and political ally of White's, said White doesn't bring up items for consideration by the City Council if he doesn't think there's a sizeable majority in favor. Instead of going for an 8-7 vote, he will hold off, listen to members' concerns and try to build a consensus, said Alvarado, a former mayor pro tem of Houston.

White said all but a handful of votes during his tenure have been unanimous. He said he has focused on "building consensus in a community where there had been divisions." And he said he's "tried to make it safe for people of different political views to find common ground."

City Council Member Anne Clutterbuck, a Republican, told Texas Monthly recently that White "is frankly one of the reasons I chose to run for office. I wanted to be part of working with that leadership style."

White was re-elected in 2005 with 91 percent of the vote against four perennial candidates, then again in 2007 with 86 percent of the vote in a three-way race.

Houston Chronicle City Hall reporter Bradley Olson said he finds support for White among his neighbors in the suburbs, where folks are more likely to be Republican than city-dwellers. "Neighbors where you might expect them not to like the Democrat -- they really like Bill White," Olson said during a Statesman.com podcast last week.

Response to Katrina

A lot of that has to do with Katrina.

When the evacuees arrived in 2005, White worked with Republican County Judge Ed Emmitt and others to coordinate shelters and find food, medical care and housing for the new Houston residents.

His efforts earned him the 2007 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

"Bill White marshaled the resources and goodwill of his city to provide refuge and essential services to hundreds of thousands of people who fled the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," says the Web site of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. "When the federal emergency response faltered in the days and weeks following the crisis, White mobilized more than 100,000 Houstonians in the public, private, business and faith-based communities to help evacuees rebuild their lives with independence and dignity."

However, not all see him as a hero.

State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said he'd give White a D for his mayoral tenure -- in part, he said, because the city is on the verge of being bankrupt. White's camp says that's not true -- that the budget is balanced and that the city has been unfairly criticized for tapping into a rainy-day fund built up just for economic downturns like the current one.

And Patrick slammed White's decision to back off a federal program that trains local law enforcement to identify illegal immigrants.

"We have had a number of illegal aliens let out of jail who have gone on to commit crimes, including killing police officers, and he did nothing about it," Patrick said.

Houston police officer Rodney Johnson was killed in 2006 by an illegal immigrant who had a criminal record, city officials said. And after the March shooting of officer Rick Salter by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record who had been deported but returned, White did pursue the federal program, which is known as 287(g). However, when he couldn't come to an agreement with federal officials on customizing the program, he pursued another program, Secure Communities, which gives local law enforcement access to an immigration database, according to Houston Chronicle reports.

"The Secure Communities program is a superior means of providing information to identify those who we bring in through our jails who are wanted for violent crimes and serious narcotic crimes and serious property crimes," White said.

Though White has critics, there are also people like Darrell Miles, who came to hear White's campaign announcement in Houston on Friday. Miles, the state director of Main Street Chamber, a small business group, said of White: "He's a businessman, so he knows how to plan. He knows what success is. I've lived in Houston for 30 years, and I've seen a progression of mayors come through. I'd rate him as one of the top ones. He's not the usual politician."

Austin American Statesman
Additional material from Jason Embry
December 6, 2009

HOUSTON -- Houston Mayor Bill White abandoned his campaign for U.S. Senate on Friday in favor of a run for Texas governor.

The Democrat immediately becomes his party's strongest candidate with $4 million in his Senate campaign fund that he can transfer to a governor's race fund. White, a wealthy attorney, chipped in more than $1 million himself.

''I'll be a Governor who challenges Texans to lead, not leave, the United States,'' White said in a statement, wasting no time in swiping at Gov. Rick Perry's comments earlier this year that Texas could secede from the Union.

He had hinted at the switch two weeks ago when said he would consider a gubernatorial run after Tom Schieffer, the leading Democratic contender, pulled out. White said then that he wanted time to hear from Texas voters. Friday, he said his campaign has received thousands of e-mails urging him to run.

White announced his bid to several hundred supporters who barely filled half of a ballroom at a downtown Houston hotel. His appearance came during a rare Houston snowstorm. Background music ranged from ''Let It Snow'' to ''Play That Funky Music, White Boy.''

White is term-limited after serving three two-year terms as mayor of Texas' largest city. He leaves that office at the end of the month.

Schieffer, from Fort Worth, is a former state lawmaker who served as ambassador to Japan and Australia under former President George W. Bush. Schieffer also had business ties to Bush before joining the administration, and that connection turned off some Democrats.

That, combined with difficulty raising money, prompted Schieffer to withdraw, leaving wealthy Houston hair care executive Farouk Shami, teacher Felix Alvarado and possibly humorist Kinky Friedman in the March primary for the Democratic nomination. Rancher Hank Gilbert dropped out Friday to run for agriculture commissioner.

White's Senate plans were scrambled after Republican incumbent Kay Bailey Hutchison last month backed off from resigning this year to run against Perry, a fellow Republican. Perry's 10 years on the job make him Texas' longest-serving governor.

Hutchison is still hoping to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination in March but has refused to quit her Senate job before then, insisting she's needed in Washington to oppose President Barack Obama's health care legislation and other Democratic initiatives.

White told the AP he anticipates a race against Perry if he wins the Democratic primary.

''When Sen. Hutchison said that she wouldn't resign to campaign full time, it looks as though Gov. Rick Perry will be their nominee,'' White said. ''Texans deserve an alternative.''

White served as a deputy secretary of energy under former President Bill Clinton. He resigned from the Clinton team in 1995 to become state Democratic chairman, made a fortune in private business, then embarked on the costliest mayoral race in Houston history in 2003. He was re-elected twice with large margins and received high marks for his response to Gulf Coast hurricanes, including national recognition for opening Houston to tens of thousands of people who fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

He's drawn criticism, however, for being too reluctant to crack down on illegal immigrants and being too eager to support Democratic efforts to limit carbon emissions.

''Bill White wants Texans to believe that he is a moderate Democrat, but that's not his record,'' Texas GOP chairwoman Cathie Adams said. ''The fact is, Bill White is a liberal in moderate's clothing and his record proves it.''

White has a difficult run ahead of him.

No Democrat has held the Texas governor's office since Ann Richards was ousted by Bush in 1994 after only one four-year term. Republicans now hold all statewide elected offices and have crushed Democrats by huge margins since the late 1990s. Big-city Texas mayors also have traditionally had difficulties winning office statewide.

New York Times
December 4, 2009