[2], Impeachments have historically been reserved for cases in which a public official committed a criminal act. Lewis L. Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists: Texas Democrats in the Wilson Era (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973; rpt., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1992). Yet the House rejected a broad attempt to impeach Johnson for abuse of power in 1867, because many congressmen felt a president had to commit a crime to be impeached. Its president is in the crosshairs. His father died when he was four. James Edward Ferguson Collection, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. 100% remote. He was elected governor in 1914, his first election. (renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax). "[14], An effort was begun in June 2013 to try and impeach Hall from his position as regent. The entire process is substantially the same in Texas for elected officials, as it is for most of the other states. It proved his undoing. He was a popular figure, singing laws protecting sharecroppers and providing state funding for rural schools. The ruling declared that he could no longer hold office in Texas, but he ran the campaigns of his wife, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson. 1914 campaign literature in which Ferguson fires back against criticisms from his 'dry' opponent, Thomas H. Ball, and others in the prohibition faction. He was indicted and impeached during his second term, forced to resign and barred from holding further Texas office.[1][2][3][4]. Farmer Jim wasnt even much of a farmer, though he owned a few farms and was incredibly loyal to farmers. He only made the ballot in Texas, winning just under 10% of the vote. The chairman of the investigating committee, William H. Bledsoe of Lubbock, called for impeachment. Animals talk; all you have to do is listen. For Trey and Carol South, love of animals feeds their souls, and clients are assured their pets . James Ferguson was brought down by his lunch.Full story: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/. He had been an opponent of Ferguson for the Democratic party's nomination for governor in 1914.[11]. The colleges were permitted to begin building programs, and the educational appropriation bills were more generous than usual. He gave a speech in his own defense and blamed the charges on that N-word loving senator from the north, Senator Johnson. Not Lyndon. Ferguson, had a stormy two-term reign and was impeached in 1917 over charges of misappropriation of funds regarding the University of Texas as well as embezzlement. Ferguson declared that the legislature constituted little more than a "kangaroo court," but only a few Advocates are pushing for legislation to help them. It appears that neither governor was brought to trial. | An argument over spending tax dollars, an attempt to silence political opponents, and charges of a kangaroo court.. Why was Governor James E. Ferguson impeached and convicted in 1917? He lost the 1922 Democratic Primary race for U. S. Senate by a wide margin. Reprinted with permission from the Handbook of Texas Online, a joint project of the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. Impeached: The Removal of Texas Governor James E. Fergusonreveals how power ebbed and flowed in twentieth-century Texas and includes several annotated primary documents critical to understanding the Ferguson impeachment. Impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment. The [Texas House of Representatives] immediately turned its attention to the numerous charges against [Governor James Ferguson] and, after a lengthy investigation, prepared twenty-one articles of impeachment. Five of the articles sustained by the Senate charged Ferguson with the misapplication of public funds, three related to his quarrel with the University, one declared that he had failed properly to respect and enforce the banking laws of the state, and one charged that he had received $156,500 in currency from a source that he refused to reveal. He is interred next to his wife at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Soon after, the alumni group began taking out ads in newspapers calling for the governors impeachment. The regents refused. Nine years later, Ferguson died of a stroke. He was an avowed enemy of the KKK, but to hear him talk about black people, youd have thought he had earned his hood. After he was appointed in 2011, Hall began looking into what he believed to be clout scandals within the University of Texas system. Low 54F. However, the date of retrieval is often important. Hall investigated the university's forgivable-loans program and admissions policies and preferential treatment to politically-connected individuals. You can cancel at any time. James Ferguson died on September 21, 1944, and was buried in the State Cemetery in Austin. While the campaign of 1916 was in progress, the Ferguson administration had been charged with a number of irregularities. He made only a few speeches and must have known long before the votes were cast that Mrs. Ferguson had no chance to win. When James Ferguson failed to get his name on the ballot in 1924, Miriam entered the race for the Texas governorship. Meanwhile, Winkler fought for his job by enlisting the help of his colleagues. When they wouldnt, he started replacing them one by one and withheld state funding from the university to force UT to obey his orders. As a political speaker he had few equals. This ragtag pair, better known as "Pa . Though he was kicked out of office and disgraced in front of his colleagues, Ferguson was still very popular among his hard-core supporters and rallied back. His wife was defeated for re-election in 1926, following questions of improper use of her pardoning power. After a trial, the Senate voted him out of office by a vote of 25-3 and banned him from holding any state office. James Edward Ferguson Jr. (August 31, 1871 - September 21, 1944), known as Pa Ferguson, was an American Democratic politician and the 26th Governor of Texas, in office from 1915 to 1917. Title 6, Chapter 665 of the Texas Government Code addresses the impeachment and removal of public officers by the state house. He became a lawyer in 1897, married Miriam A. Wallace in 1899, and expanded into real estate, insurance and banking. State executives | During the events that led up to the final quarrel, the University of Texas Board of Regents had repeatedly refused to remove certain faculty members whom Ferguson found objectionable. The Constitution gives Congress the power of impeachment in federal cases. But the mere fact that Ferguson had been impeached and made ineligible to hold any office of trust or profit under the state did not in any sense remove him from the field of Texas politics. The Senate can call witnesses to testify and vote to convict with a two-thirds majority vote. Texas History Minute: Jim Ferguson only Texas governor to be impeached, removed. Though no Texas official has been impeached and removed from office at the state level since Ferguson, Texas politics has hardly been scandal-free. Ma placed a distant fifth. James Ferguson was a banker from Temple who would become governor in 1914 - famous, or infamous, as the only Texas governor to face impeachment. The Constitution gives the House power to impeach the president, officials appointed by the president (including cabinet officers), and judges. He loaned himself so much money that he practically bankrupted his own bank. Tags Unlike federal offices, which require formal charges brought against an individual and in most cases criminal charges, the Texas Constitution does not provide specific grounds for impeachment. [5], In 2013, the Texas State Legislature began an impeachment trial for Regent Wallace Hall. Both elected and non-elected officials can be impeached in Texas. The Senate, acting as a court of impeachment, spent three weeks considering the charges and convicted the governor of 10 of them. At age 12 he entered Salado College (a preparatory school) but was eventually expelled for disobedience. Please visit the expanded Texas Politics Project website to learn more about our updated webtext and to find additional educational resources. In his eyes, the university was made up of corruptionists, draft dodgers, two-bit thieves and butterfly chasers, according to a historical account compiled by what is now the Texas Exes. youngest governor in Texas history. Though he was kicked out of office and disgraced in front of his colleagues, Ferguson was still popular among his hardcore supporters and rallied back. Seven related to misapplication of public funds, one to embezzlement and one to the diversion of a special fund. Almost a century later, the impeachment of Ferguson by the Texas House of Representatives presents both striking similarities and key differences to the ongoing Hall saga. But the mere fact that Ferguson had been impeached and made ineligible to hold any office of trust or profit under the state did not in any sense remove him from the field of Texas politics. A part of his appeal as a candidate for governor was his support for white supremacy in the political process. The United States Constitution provides that the President of the United States shall only be removed from office upon "Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. In 1920 he was an unsuccessful candidate for President on his own American party ticket. Impeached provides a new examination of the rise and fall of Fergusons political fortunes, offering a focused look at how battles over economic class, academic freedom, womens enfranchisement, and concentrated political power came to be directed toward one politician. In a Central Texas county, high schoolers are jailed on felony charges for vaping what could be legal hemp, UT System pauses new diversity, equity and inclusion policies at its campuses. He was a popular figure, signing laws protecting sharecroppers and providing state funding for rural schools. Impeachment is the power of a legislative body to address charges of impropriety or criminality by a government official, such as a governor or lieutenant governor. Jim "Pa" Ferguson became the first person in Texas to be impeached. How to vote | An effort was begun in 2013 to investigate the possibility of impeaching University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall. Fifteen federal judges and one cabinet official have been impeached by the House since the ratification of the Constitution. months before, both the House and the Senate had refused to sustain charges against him, and his removal from office was far from certain when the legislature convened in special session. James Ferguson. The Ferguson controversy with the university brought renewed interest in the old charges, however, and at about the same time a number of new charges were made. In 1924, unable to run under his own name, he ran his wife's campaign for the governorship against Judge Felix Robertson, the candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. The excitement that greeted the veto was soon overshadowed by the greater excitement that surrounded the impeachment trial. Cities | In 1928, for the first time since 1914, Ferguson was not an active participant in a political campaign, but even then he took some interest in the race for the governorship and gave his support to Louis J. Wardlaw. [11] Another leading Ferguson critic on the UT campus was the historian Eugene C. Barker. James T. DeShields, They Sat in High Places: The Presidents and Governors of Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1940). Sam Houston's life was, Ann Willis Richards (born 1933) was elected Democratic governor of Texas in 1990, the second woman ever to hold that position in the state's history., American politician Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) gained fame in the 1920s when she was elected governor of Wyoming, becoming the first woman in the, Barbara Jordan (american Congressional Representative), Jordan, Barbara Charline He can be reached by email: Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles. To be the Democratic nominee for governor was the same as being elected governor. He told Vinson that he fought him on this he was in for the biggest bear fight in Texas history. That fairly summarized his attitude about his power. The 1920 presidential election was won by Republican candidate Warren Harding. Samuel Houston (1793-1863), American statesman and soldier, was the person most responsible for bringing Texas into the Union. In 1924, his wife, Miriam Ma Ferguson won election as governor as a stand-in candidate in a tightly-contested race. To impeach, the House simply needs a majority vote on the different charges involved. | by Nicole Shealy [8] Hall, as an individual citizen, filed FOIA requests with the University system after his inquiries via his role as a Regent were rebuffed. Vinson asked what they had done to deserve it and he said, I dont need a reason, Im the governor.. Legislators have accused Hall of abusing his power and targeting University of Texas, Austin President Bill Powers, while Hall maintains he was acting as a responsible regent investigating situations of clout and accountability problems within the University of Texas system. In 1903, Ferguson was elected as city attorney in Belton, Texas. This independence made him critical of existing policies, earning him sufficient popular support to win office, but also the consequent wrath of the establishment that could have protected him from investigation. Despite the Senate's conviction, Ferguson sought to run for governor again in 1924. In 1917, Gov. . System has not protected the privacy rights of students, staff, and patients. Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Norman Kittrell, Governors Who Have Been and Other Public Men of Texas (Houston: Dealy-Adey-Elgin, 1921). The Freddy's Glass legacyPeople who knew our dad and his story say he would be proud of us, but we say, Man, were proud of himHe truly. With charges growing against Ferguson, the House of Representatives drew up 21 charges against him and voted to impeach. No. At the same time, officials had begun looking into Fergusons finances. Pat Neff. Early in his second term the governor became involved in a serious quarrel with the University of Texas. House Speaker Franklin Fuller called a special session to consider charges of impeachment against the governor. The fight with the university touched off a massive scandal. 2003, The Texas State Historical Association. He was barred, but managed to have his wife ("Ma Ferguson") elected governor; she was elected for a second term in 1932. He became a lawyer in 1897, married Miriam A. Wallace in 1899, and expanded into real estate, insurance, and banking. An argument over spending tax dollars, an attempt to silence political opponents, and charges of a kangaroo court. This is not a current story but a faint echo of a notorious event in Texas History, the impeachment of Gov. Though he had signed legislation creating three new colleges, he found himself in a feud with professors at the University of Texas. 27 February 1917 in Floresville, Texas; d. 15 June 1993 in Houston, Texas), governor of Tex, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/ferguson-impeachment. 2-stem governor fro 1921-1924 . He entered Salado College, a local preparatory school, at age twelve but was eventually expelled for disobedience. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Centex baseball preview: What's old, new, borrowed and blue for 2023? There were . The Senate can call witnesses to testify and vote to convict with a two-thirds majority vote. Ferguson was indicted on nine charges in July 1917. 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