Governorship (1991–1995)
In 1990, Texas' Republican governor, Bill Clements, decided not to run for re-election to a third nonconsecutive term. Richards painted herself as a sensible progressive and won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Attorney General (and former U.S. representative) Jim Mattox of Dallas and former governor Mark White of Houston. Mattox ran a particularly abrasive campaign against Richards, accusing her of having had drug problems beyond alcoholism. The Republicans nominated colorful and eccentric multi-millionaire rancher Clayton Williams, of Fort Stockton and Midland. Republican political activist Susan Weddington of San Antonio, a Williams supporter, placed a black wreath that read "Death to the Family" at the door of Richards's campaign headquarters in Austin.
After a series of gaffes by Williams (most notably a joke about rape), Richards narrowly won on November 6, 1990, with 49% of the vote to Williams' 47%. Libertarian Party nominee Jeff Daiell drew 3.3 percent in an effort that included television spots and considerable personal campaigning. Richards was inaugurated governor the following January.
Richards became the second woman to hold Texas's top office, since Miriam "Ma" Ferguson. Her chief of staff was Mary Beth Rogers.
As governor, Richards reformed the Texas prison system, establishing a substance abuse program for inmates, reducing the number of violent offenders released, and increasing prison space to deal with a growing prison population (from less than 60,000 in 1992 to more than 80,000 in 1994). She backed proposals to reduce the sale of semi-automatic firearms and "cop-killer" bullets in the state.
The Texas Lottery was also instituted during her governorship—advocated as a means of supplementing school finances; Richards purchased the first lottery ticket on May 29, 1992, in Oak Hill, near Austin.
School finance remained one of the key issues of Richards' governorship and of those succeeding hers; the famous Robin Hood plan was launched in the 1992–1993 biennium and attempted to make school funding more equitable across school districts. Richards also sought to decentralize control over education policy to districts and individual campuses; she instituted "site-based management" to this end.
One of her first goals was to focus on education. To do so, she held a "school assembly" on January 19, 1991, where she met with students as well as teachers from all over Texas to hear directly from the source what needed to change in the school systems. She found this to be important because these are the people who were directly affected by the education system at the time. She found education to be extremely important and this was clear during her time in office.
In 1993, Richards signed into law the re-codified Texas Penal Code which included anti-homosexual Section 21.06, the state's "Homosexual Conduct" law which states: "(a) A person commits an offense if he engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex. (b) An offense under this section is a Class C misdemeanor.". During her campaign in 1990, Richards had campaigned in Houston to repeal the law. But, as governor, her signature criminalized same-sex sexual relations in Texas. However, according to Bryan Wildenthal, the Associate Professor of Law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Richards sent a proposed criminal code revision that eliminated the sodomy ban to the Texas Legislature, but was overridden. She reluctantly signed the ban into law because vetoing it meant denying other "progressive improvements" in the code, while the ban was likely going to be passed at a different point.
In 1994, Richards ran for re-election against Republican George W. Bush. Despite outspending his campaign by 23%, she was defeated, with 45.88% of the vote to Bush's 53.48% while Libertarian Keary Ehlers received 0.64%. The Richards campaign had hoped for a misstep from the relatively inexperienced Republican nominee, but none appeared, while Richards created many of her own, including calling Bush "some jerk", "shrub" and "that young Bush boy".
