Bill Clements

William Perry Clements Jr. (April 13, 1917 – May 29, 2011) was an American businessman and Republican Party politician who served two nonconsecutive terms as the governor of Texas between 1979 and 1991.

In the late 1930s, Clements studied engineering at Southern Methodist University before returning to the oil industry.

During World War II, Clements served in the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Born in Dallas, Texas, Clements graduated from Highland Park High School in the Dallas suburb of University Park in 1934.

Although Clements was an all-state offensive guard on the Highland Park football team, after his father lost his job due to the Great Depression, Clements worked as an oil driller in South Texas after graduating from high school.

In 1947, Clements founded the offshore drilling business Southeastern Drilling Company (SEDCO), which would expand to 20 countries and grow into the top drilling contracting company in the world before being sold to Schlumberger in 1984.

Clements was the first governor to be elected to multiple terms since Texas changed its constitution in 1972 to extend their governor's term of office to four years.

Since then, George W. Bush, Rick Perry and Greg Abbott, also Republicans, have all won multiple terms.

Before he became Governor of Texas, Clements made his fortune in crude oil and served as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense for President Richard Nixon.

After his first gubernatorial term ended, Clements joined the administrative staff at Southern Methodist University where he served as chairman of the Board of Governors; while there, he presided over a massive pay-to-play system in the school's football program that resulted in catastrophic consequences for the team and the end of his political career.

From 1973 to 1977, Clements served as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

For 39 days in 1973, Clements served as acting Secretary of Defense.

Among the Secretaries of Defense he served under was Donald Rumsfeld, during the latter's first tenure in the office.

The two men did not get along, yet when Rumsfeld was appointed Clements resisted efforts to be moved to another department, even going so far as to threaten if removed from his office to hold a press conference and label his dismissal a "power play."

Though Clements remained as deputy secretary, Clements later termed his time under Rumsfeld "very unpleasant."

Clements had a personal wealth worth nearly $30 million by 1978, the year he first ran for Texas governor.

He won the general election held on November 8, 1978, by having narrowly defeated Democratic former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Luke Hill, who had also served six years as state attorney general.

Clements polled 1,183,828 votes (49.96 percent) to Hill's 1,166,919 votes (49.24 percent).

His first term was marked by SEDCO's involvement in the largest oil blowout in history, the Ixtoc I oil spill, which caused extensive environmental damage.

Clements faced heavily Democratic state legislatures during his tenure.

When Clements was first sworn in during 1979, he became the first Republican to have served as governor of Texas since Reconstruction.

On January 16, 1979, Clements succeeded Democrat Dolph Briscoe as governor of Texas.

To win the position, he first defeated State Representative Ray Hutchison in the Republican primary by a lopsided vote of 115,345 to 38,268.

In 1979, the legislature overrode one of his vetoes, the last time that Texas lawmakers have completed an override.

In 1980, Clements commuted the death sentence of Randall Dale Adams to life in prison.

His terms bookended the sole term served by Mark Wells White, a Democrat who defeated Clements in the 1982 election only to lose his campaign for reelection in 1986.

Clements ran for reelection in 1982 but was defeated by Democratic Attorney General Mark Wells White by more than 327,000 votes because of sagging economic indicators and weak support from minority voters, who historically support Democratic candidates.

Clements was also damaged politically by the Ixtoc I oil spill disaster; the rig that failed was owned by SEDCO, but leased to Permargo (a Mexican drilling firm), which had an exploration contract with Pemex, despite his shares in SEDCO being held in blind trust at the time; his opponent, White, as attorney general, led the state's lawsuit against SEDCO.

White received 1,697,870 votes (53.2 percent) to Clements's 1,465,537 (45.9 percent).

In between his two terms as governor, Clements was chairman of the board of governors of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

He ran again in 1986 and won a contested GOP primary against U.S. Representative Thomas Loeffler of New Braunfels, the seat of Comal County, and former Democratic turned Republican Congressman Kent Hance of Lubbock.

In the fall, Clements unseated Governor White, who was hurt by the unpopularity of the "no pass/no play" policy involving high school athletics and proposed teacher competency testing.

In gaining his second term, Clements polled 1,813,779 ballots (52.7 percent) to White's 1,584,512 (46.1 percent).

Clements said that the board agreed to "phase out" the slush fund at the end of the 1986 season, but that it felt duty-bound to honor prior commitments to the players.

Clements had turned the tables on White in a near mathematical reversal of the 1982 results and was inaugurated for a second nonconsecutive term on January 20, 1987, just after White came "Striding up to Clements in the Capitol rotunda" and extended a hand for a handshake with congratulations and Clements simply shook it without comment and turned away.

Clements's second term was marred by a startling revelation he made two months after taking office.

On March 3, 1987, Clements admitted that he and the other members of the SMU board of governors had approved a secret plan to continue payments to 13 football players from a slush fund provided by a booster.

Adams, the subject of The Thin Blue Line, an Errol Morris documentary film, was exonerated in 1989 after serving twelve years in prison.

Clements was also governor at the time of the execution of Carlos DeLuna, who was put to death in 1989; evidence questioning the findings of facts that underlay DeLuna's conviction was published in 2012.

When Clements left office for good at the end of his second term in 1991, his eight years in office were the most served by any Texas governor until Rick Perry surpassed his total in 2009.