Actual quotes from Texas politicians
July 18th, 2005
“It just makes good sense to put all your eggs in one basket.”
- Texas Rep. Joe Salem speaking on an amendment requiring all revenues
to go into the state treasury
“Lemme give ya’ a hypothetic.”
- Texas Rep. Renal Rosson
“Ain’t nothin’ in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead
armadillos.”
- Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower
“And now, will y’all stand and be recognized?”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis to a group of handicapped people in
wheelchairs
“Dallas salutes a person who can buy a piece of art, but not a person who
can create one.”
- A. C. Greene
“No thanks, once was enough.”
- Texas Governor Bill Clements, asked if he had been born again
“Oh good. Now he’ll be bi-ignorant.”
- Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower when told that Texas
Governor Bill Clements had been studying Spanish
“I’d just make a little bit of money, I wouldn’t make a whole lot.”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis defending himself against the charge
that he would personally profit from a bill he had introduced.
“Well, there never was a Bible in the room.”
- Texas Governor Bill Clements, asked about repeatedly lying about the
SMU football scandal.
“I am filled with humidity.”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
“If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin’ rights on that
man’s head.”
- Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower discussing President
George Bush’s policies
“If it’s dangerous to talk to yourself, it’s probably even dicier to
listen…”
- Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower
“I move we recess to go outside and throw up.”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis during a budget hearing
“This is a real competitive business.”
- A gas station owner, when asked to explain the rapid rise in gasoline
prices when Kuwait was invaded
“…idiots, imbeciles, aliens, the insane and women…”
- Law standing in Texas until 1918 regulating who could not vote
“It’s the sediment of the House that we adjourn.”
- Texas House Speaker Wayne Clayton
“Let’s do this in one foul sweep.”
- Texas House Speaker Wayne Clayton
“This is unparalyzed in the state’s history.”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
“I want to thank each and every one of you for having extinguished
yourselves this session.”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
“We’ll run it up the flagpole and see who salutes that booger.”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
“There’s a lot of uncertainty that’s not clear in my mind.”
- Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis
“I can explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
- Anon.
“There are still places where people think that the function of the media
is to provide information.”
- Don Rottenberg
“Which one is that?” “I just voted the way my wife told me to; she knew
what it was.”
- Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, when asked how he had
voted on the only proposition on the Texas ballot