"I didn't really believe it when I first heard it because I didn't think Whitmire was that stupid," one legislator says of the senator's contract with the probation department.
"I know a lot of legislators up here who aren't that bright but compensate for it and stay out of trouble," adds a Capitol lobbyist. "The danger with John is that he actually thinks he's smart."
Overcome by hubris after making his big splash in 1993, Whitmire may have forgotten an essential element of Capitol etiquette: Those who live in glass houses throw stones at their own peril. As Whitmire told the Austin American-Statesman last summer, "The bottom line is if the public wants a bunch of $600-a-month legislators who have to make a living someplace else, you're going to have potential conflicts of interest -- some large, some small."
In the Texas Legislature, sometimes you have to really piss someone off to bring the big ones to public light.
Whitmire himself is certainly not adverse to poisoning colleagues' wells. One day last summer, the senator, tieless in a work shirt, seemed to have something serious on his mind as he forked a pile of mashed potatoes on his blue-plate special at a cafe a few blocks from his office, and then stuck a verbal fork into a few colleagues' backs.
You reporters, he told a couple of journalists he had bumped into at the eatery and taken on as lunchmates, should be looking into lawmakers who use their position to rake in money from special interests in the private sector. Whitmire singled out Representative Mark Stiles of Beaumont, whose concrete company had contracts with prison builders who had come before his legislative committee, as a particularly egregious example. Whitmire even suggested that someone ought to check out how Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, Whitmire's chief patron in the Legislature, supplemented his income from the state of Texas.
But what did people expect, Whitmire said, when Texans were unwilling to pay their legislators a decent wage?
Of course, Whitmire did not mention his own contract as a consultant with the Harris County Community Supervisions and Corrections Department, which would seem to be an especially egregious example of conflicted interests. As he finished cleaning his plate at the diner, the senator had already consumed some $36,000 in probation department funds for "consultations," supposedly on employee matters. By the time the contract had been "suspended" last month, Whitmire had been paid more than $80,000.
Shortly after the probation contract came to light and before his lawyer advised him to keep mum, Whitmire told the Press in a phone interview, "I am a minor player when in comes to conflicts of interest."
Until now, the longest story ever written about Senator John Whitmire in his decades in office, was, typically, published by Senator John Whitmire. It's the biography of the senator that appeared in a brochure commemorating the celebration late last year for his "Governor for a Day" honor, which is traditionally accorded the Senate's incoming president pro tempore. Perhaps fittingly, one of the previous honorees was Craig Washington, with whom Whitmire shares so many soar, crash and burn similarities.
Reading that program now, it almost seems to provide an eerie premonition of Whitmire's troubles to come. The master of ceremonies is Jim "Mattress Mac" McIngvale, who would later have that Whitmire amendment named after him. Introducing the speakers is Whitmire's old buddy and landlord to the masses, Congressman Gene Green. Then there're laudatory speeches by Israel Galvan, listed as a "businessman" from Houston, and Whitmire staffer Beulah Shepherd, listed as a "community leader," followed by a "Boot Camp Graduation Ceremony" conducted by none other than Larance Coleman, director of the Harris County Community Supervision and Corrections Department.
So play district attorney for a moment and try to sort out the relationships that weren't spelled out in the "Governor for a Day" program: Galvan and Shepherd work for Whitmire. The senator helps set the state funding level for Coleman's agency, but also works for him as well. Whitmire is Mattress Mac's attorney, and helps him out legislatively. Whitmire lives in Green's apartment, the one Galvan listed as his address so he could receive $58,000 in taxpayers' funds and the one Pat Williams also used so he could collect his $5,000 a month from the state while assisting Whitmire in at least one lawsuit -- the one defending Mattress Mac.
For a guy to pull off a dance step like that -- hey, it's no wonder they call him "Boogie.
