She even used the word Christian in the law, implying that Christian forgiveness was appropriate here. There is no regularly scheduled session until 2015. ii) During the period between World Wars I and II, James and Miriam Ferguson were the most powerful couple in Texas. 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. The founders did not invent impeachment. [20], A January 2014 review by the law firm Hilder & Associates concluded that there was "no credible evidence of a violation of [the state government code] that would warrant a referral for criminal prosecution." On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. He was elected governor in 1914, his first election. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. The first had to do with his abuse of power while attempting to micromanage the University of Texas. She would serve one more term as governor from 1933 to 1935. The Arizona House and Senate impeached Mecham, a Republican, in 1988 after a state grand jury convicted him on six felony charges of fraud, perjury and filing false documents. The day before he was thrown out of office he resigned, saying it didn't count. 1917: James 'Pa' Ferguson Jr., Texas. Apply today! 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. This is simply not true. The Texas Senate reduced the charges to 10, half of which dealt with the transfer of the $5,600. It appears that there were no criminal proceedings in this case. Five concerned 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 ($2.9 million in todays dollars) from a source he refused to reveal. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Norman D. Brown, Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921-1928 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1984). https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/ferguson-impeachment, "Ferguson Impeachment In 1925, Miriam became the first female governor of Texas after campaigning as a stand-in for her husband, and James E. Ferguson became the first gentleman of Texas for her two terms. Connally, John Bowden, Jr. James Ferguson is the only governor to be impeached and convicted. In July 1917, he was indicted for misappropriation of funds. The Fergusons retired from public life afterward with James Ferguson dying in 1944 and his wife passing away in 1961. As much as one might appreciate Fergusons homey aphorisms, a word hed likely have found objectionable because of its academic taint his style loses its charm when you learn all that was revealed at his impeachment. In 1917, James Ferguson was impeached and removed from office as governor of Texas while under indictment. When Vinson refused to fire the professors, Ferguson went after the Board of Regents to get them to do his bidding. Only 17 federal officers have been impeached since 1776. At 16, he left home and drifted through the states of the American West, working successively in a vineyard, a mine, a barbed wire factory, and at a grain ranch. 4. In 1913, William Sulzer was impeached and removed from office as governor of New York. With strong support from progressive and anti-Prohibition forces, "Farmer Jim" was elected governor of Texas in 1914. The charges were then sent to the state Senate for trial. You are currently viewing a legacy feature of the Texas Politics Project website. A powerful governor clashes with the University of Texas at Austin. if(document.getElementsByClassName("reference").length==0) if(document.getElementById('Footnotes')!==null) document.getElementById('Footnotes').parentNode.style.display = 'none'; What's on my ballot? When they wouldnt, he started replacing them one by one and withheld state funding from the university to force UT to obey his orders. Ouida Ferguson Nalle, The Fergusons of Texas, or "Two Governors for the Price of One": A Biography of James Edward Ferguson and His Wife (San Antonio: Naylor, 1946). July 2, 20146 AM Central. Millions of Texans have rare diseases. But the day before the conviction was certain to come down. Ferguson was so enraged by the demonstrators that he got into a yelling match with one of the student protestors and had to be restrained from climbing out of his window to fight them, according to The Impeachment of Jim Ferguson, a 1983 book by Bruce Rutherford. There are 150 members of the Texas State House. So to prove this to them, Ferguson called a special session to consider a UT funding bill he could sign. 2] THE IMPEACHMENT OF JAMES E. FERGUSON I85 there, was immediately converted to the legal profession. He started his own newspaper that fall, Ferguson Forum, to promote his views that the impeachment was illegitimate. Interns wanted: Get paid to help ensure that every voter has unbiased election information. Bruce Rutherford, The Impeachment of Jim Ferguson (Austin: Eakin Press, 1983). 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. Oklahoma has impeached and removed two governors, and West Virginia impeached four members of its State Supreme Court at the same time in 2018. Ballotpedia features 395,442 encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. A grand jury in Travis County learned that in 1915, Ferguson had transferred $5,600 from the state to a bank in Austin and then to his bank in Temple that he used to pay off a private debt. Jim Pa Ferguson became the first person in Texas to be impeached. Her most recent publications include contributions to Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives and Discovering Texas History. In July 1917, he was indicted for misappropriation of funds. He became a lawyer in 1897, married Miriam A. Wallace in 1899, and expanded into real estate, insurance and banking. Impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment. 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. Ferguson's attack against Mayes resulted in a drive by the legislature to impeach Ferguson. He was a popular figure, signing laws protecting sharecroppers and providing state funding for rural schools. The convention did not endorse Ferguson, but the other anti-prohibition candidates withdrew from the race. A part of his appeal as a candidate for governor was his support for white supremacy in the political process. To impeach, the House simply needs a majority vote on the different charges involved. Though no Texas official has been impeached and removed from office at the state level since Ferguson, Texas politics has hardly been scandal-free. If the state legislature is not in regular session during the time of impeachment, a special session can be called specifically to handle impeachments. January 1996 in Austin, Texas), first black southern woman in the United States Congress. It was, in his mind, absolute. Though he had signed legislation creating three new colleges, he found himself in a feud with professors at the University of Texas. Almost a century later, the Ferguson impeachment presents both striking similarities and key differences to the ongoing saga involving University of Texas System Regent Wallace Hall. The following sections are outlined in Article 15 of the Texas Constitution. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. In 1917, Gov. James Ferguson. Preliminary investigations failed to uncover any charge that would merit impeachment, and for a time the incident seemed closed. [4], In Texas, two officials have been successfully impeached -- Governor James Ferguson in 1917 and Judge O.P. He submitted his resignation the day before he was scheduled to be formally convicted. He was kicked out of a local prep school, Salado College, at age 12 for misbehavior. Please visit the expanded Texas Politics Project website to learn more about our updated webtext and to find additional educational resources. Elected in 1914 and re-elected in 1916, he faced 21 articles of impeachment and resigned during the trial in the Senate on September 24, 1917, one day before the Senate voted to remove him from office and disqualify him from holding office again. The first and only Texas governor to be impeached is Governor James "Pa" Ferguson. This call was of doubtful legality, but Ferguson removed all question by calling the legislature to meet for the purpose of making appropriations for the University of Texas. In 1917, Gov. Please subscribe to keep reading. State legislators created a select committee to launch an investigation into possibly impeaching Wallace Hall, an appointed member of the University of Texas System Board of Regents. [9] According to historian Dan Utley, Ferguson planned to use state appointments as part of a spoils system to reward his political supporters. Impeached. Mrs. Ferguson served as the first lady of Texas during the gubernatorial terms of her husband (1915-17), who was impeached during his second administration. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. James Edward Ferguson: James E. Ferguson Born Bell County, Texas August 31, 1871 Died Austin, Texas September 21, 1944 Governor of the State of Texas . The Senate, acting as a court of impeachment, spent three weeks considering the charges and convicted the governor of 10 of them. After 20 days have elapsed from article adoption, if the Governor, Lt. 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. 1914 campaign literature in which Ferguson fires back against criticisms from his 'dry' opponent, Thomas H. Ball, and others in the prohibition faction. Ferguson was convinced that Vinson was behind the protest. 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. In 1924, unable to run under his own name, he Mr. Ferguson, known as "Pa", ran his wife's campaign for the governorship against Judge Felix Robertson, the candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. He resigned his office the day before the judgment was announced and contended that it did not apply to him. The accusations, apparently true, were typical of the corruption, graft, and manipulations of American public life. Ferguson declared that the legislature constituted little more than a "kangaroo court," but only a few Soon the talk of impeachment is echoing through the halls of the Capitol. Its our 10th year participating in Amplify, and to celebrate, weve got $15,000 in matching funds from four generous Tribune supporters. Although Ferguson was disqualified from holding public office, he did try to run in the 1924 elections to redeem his reputation. As a result of his actions, in 1917, Ferguson became the only Texas governor impeached and removed from office. Henry S. Johnston of Oklahoma He told the UT president, Dr. Robert E. Vinson, that he wanted them fired. James Ferguson. You can cancel at any time. Angry that two professors had openly criticized his administration, Ferguson demanded that the Board of Regents fire them. 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