BEN BARNES-- PULLIN BACK THE LAYERS, PART II

After I finished my first post on Ben Barnes, I found this quote from a 2001 feature in Texas Monthly and I just had to include it.

But the resume does not even begin to hint at what he is really like. In person he has an overwhelming presence, partly because of his height (six foot three); partly because of his hair, which today is more orange than red; but most of all, because of the immense energy that bursts forth in his body language and his speech.

Whatever he is trying to tell you-- it could be something as simple as who we are going to see today in Washington or as complex as what the Democratic message should be in Texas-- he is so forceful, so enthusiastic, so optimistic that you cannot help but believe too that it is totally, obviously, the right thing to do. You go into a conversation with him remembering how controversial he has been, vowing to be on guard, but it doesn't matter. You come out thinking, "Wow!"

He advocated policies that were far ahead of his time: making Spanish a required course for every high school student, reducing the penalty for possession of marijuana, raising taxes to address the problems of urban Texas.

I'd have to concur. Governor Barnes remains an amazing presence. At 68 years old he still brings to bear an awesome influence over both Texas and national politics.

Ben Barnes' autobiography brushes over the 34 years after his political career was cut short. There are three reasons for that, I think:

He's been a private citizen since 1972 so it made sense to focus on his public career.

He wanted to focus on what the Lyndon Johnson/John Connally wing of the Democratic Party accomplished in the 1960s: major improvements to public education, laying the groundwork for Texas' technology industry; and Barnes' own progressive spin on that formula: passing minimum wage laws, mentoring Barbara Jordan, etc.

Real estate development and lobbying-- the businesses Barnes has pursued since-- just ain't pretty.

This installment of our series on Ben Barnes is going to focus on one particular chapter of his career, the boom and bust of his real estate partnership with former Texas Governor and U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally. Next time we'll cover his controversial and lucrative relationship with GTech, the private company that runs the Texas Lottery.

Connally and Barnes
In the early 1980's, after Connally's unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination, Barnes went into a real estate partnership with his former mentor. Despite the fact that the two had been on opposite sides of the Nixon administration in the 1970's-- with Barnes holding the Watergate dirty tricks crew responsible for knee-capping his political career while Connally switched parties and served as Nixon's Secretary of the Treasury-- they shook hands and got down to bidness.

Big bidness. Savings and Loan gold. Texas low interest loans. No money down. R-E-A-L E-S-T-A-T-E.

In the 80's with oil prices high and land values soaring everybody and their dog were borrowing money to buy real estate and develop properties. Ben Barnes and John Connally were no exception. Savings and Loans had been deregulated to the point that the money poured out the doors and basically every harebrained scheme was greenlighted.

As all booms do, the great Texas building boom went bust in 1986-1987 when the price of oil tanked and so did land values. For years Texas was dotted with ill-conceived strip malls, shoddily constructed apartments, and vacant office high rises, but most of the damage was temporary. Also most of the harm befell those who took the biggest risks-- like Barnes and Connally who both went bankrupt. Connally never really recovered, but Barnes bounced back.

From the Handbook of Texas entry on Governor Connally:

In 1981 he went into the business of real estate development with his former political protege, Ben Barnes. In the partnership Connally was the "intimidating Olympian eminence," and Barnes was the "sometimes overpowering salesman and legman." Both had superb business and political contacts in the state and nation "and saw no reason why the values of their political life could not work equally well in their business life." The partners "conducted business," however, "as if they were campaigning for higher office." They signed personal notes on loans bearing short-term interest at 18 percent and by June 1983 had sixteen major projects under way totaling $231 million. It was a boom time in the Texas petroleum industry, with world oil prices ranging up to thirty-seven dollars a barrel. When the oil price collapsed, the state's economy collapsed. Connally and Barnes were out on a limb that broke and took them with it, along with many other wealthy Texans and most of the state's major financial institutions. The fiasco led Connally to acknowledge that "we were moving too far too fast and paying dearly for it." He declared bankruptcy, and he and Nellie held a globally publicized auction of their holdings and expensive personal belongings to apply the proceeds to their debt.

Unfortunately, there was another, innocent, victim of the Barnes/Connally real estate spree-- Austin's landmark Barton Springs. Barnes and Connally had used their political connections to get infrastructure approvals-- bridges, highways, waterlines, etc-- for their crown jewel, "Barton Creek Country Club, golf course, and conference center-- the centerpiece of the swank, 2,200-acre Estates of Barton Creek." Ordinary real estate developers would not have been able to get these things done but the former Governor and Lt. Governor were able to do it.

From Austin's SaveOurSprings Alliance:

While the population of Austin has grown steadily after the Civil War, Barton Springs was not threatened with pollution until recently. Major infrastructure-- roads and water and wastewater lines-- were only built in the Barton Springs watershed beginning in the late 1970s. Early activists opposing these development-inducing expenditures included the Zilker Park Posse and the Save Barton Creek Association. Despite their efforts, MoPac (Loop 1) was extended through Zilker Park into the heart of the Barton Springs Recharge Zone, enabling the huge office buildings that hover above Barton Creek to be built, along with the Barton Creek Mall.

The savings and loan deregulation of the 1980s fueled another huge speculative real estate boom, which led to more infrastructure construction in the Barton Springs watershed, such as the extension of South MoPac into Gary Bradley's Circle C development, and construction of Southwest Parkway, led by Texas politicos turned developers Ben Barnes and John Connally. Developers filed applications for enormous projects that were never close to being built, and even today we face developers who claim they are "grandfathered" under development regulations in place in the 80s.

For those of you not from Central Texas, here's a little back ground from the Austin Chronicle:

First of all, of course, there's Barton Springs Pool, the magnificent 68-degree spring-fed swimming hole that's the centerpiece of Zilker Park on the south shore of Town Lake. People call it "The Soul of the City," and if you haven't been in a while, you owe yourself a visit to refresh your soul.

The Barton Creek watershed is the 120-square-mile area within which surface water drains into the creek. Any rain that falls in this area makes its way to the creek, unless it soaks into the ground and goes down to the aquifer, and any pollution or impervious cover development in this area will degrade the water quality in the creek.

Barton Springs Pool, however, is spring-fed; its water comes from the Barton Springs Zone of the Edwards Aquifer-- the vast underground reservoir that underlies much of South Central Texas. The aquifer is replenished by water soaking into the ground and through the porous limestone bedrock within the Recharge Zone, and to a lesser extent the Contributing Zone. Pollution or development in either of these zones will degrade the water quality in the aquifer, and thus in Barton Springs.

They also got the Barton Creek Bridge (aka Barnes-Connally Bridge) built-- blasting away forever the high point once known as Eagle's Nest where generations of Boy Scouts had camped on a mountain top offering a spectacular view of Austin.


And sadly, it didn't even net them that much-- Connally and Barnes went bankrupt and the truly odious Freeport-McMorRan bought the property for $60 million and proceeded to activate Austin's budding environmental activist community with their many political overreaches.

Connally died soon after their partnership went bust but Ben Barnes bounced back big.

-Nate Wilcox

Next: Ben Barnes Wins the Lottery