Oral History Transcript - Garry Mauro - March 27, 1986
Interview with Garry Mauro
Interviewer: Lori Ann Jones
Transcriber: Lori Ann Jones
Interrupter: Frank Gibberson
Date of Interview: March 27, 1986
Location: Mr. Mauro’s Office, Stephen F. Austin Building, Austin, TX
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Begin Tape 1, Side 1
Garry Mauro: Of course, I am Garry Mauro. I’m thirty-eight years old, and I’m Texas Land Commissioner. I went to high school in Waco, graduated from Reicher [Catholic High School], went to Texas A&M, got a marketing degree from Texas A&M, then came over to University of Texas with a degree in JD. [I] practiced law, worked in Congress for a while for Bob Krueger, worked as deputy comptroller for Bob Bullock, was executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, and I’m now Texas Land Commissioner running for re-election.
Lori Ann Jones: Okay. And you ran for student president when you were at A&M? How did that go? And were you involved with the Young Democrats there?
Mauro: Well, I was—I played football the first two years I was at Texas A&M, and I decided I didn’t like football. Not because I didn’t like football, I did like football, but because in college it limited what else you could participate in. And so I—what I basically did was at that point— [interruption]. At that point, I quit football because I wanted to be involved in more things on campus. I first ran for the student senate and lost. But the next year, I looked around and decided that what I wanted to be was a “yell leader” at Texas A&M because a yell leader served on the resident hall council and the student senate, and he was a yell leader. So I ran for that job and was the first non-member of the corps of cadets selected as a yell leader. Then at that point I served, somewhat controversial, because the corps guys didn’t like the idea that we had a civilian yell leader. [I] ran for student body president; it became kind of a holy war. The day of the election, my opponent was disqualified because he didn’t have [the] grades. So I was elected, somewhat unanimously. Earl Rudder called me in and asked me not to serve and asked that we hold another election, and I agreed to do that and lost.
Jones: Why did you agree to do that? You thought people would—
Mauro: I wanted to be a unity candidate. [Interruption] We’re in the process of settling a lawsuit with King Ranch. And at one o’clock, we’re going to go over to the courthouse and settle with the King Ranch. It’s going to be one of the better settlements in the history of the Texas Land Office, and I’m very proud of it.
Jones: Can we digress and you tell me what that’s about?
Mauro: Well, in 1933, the King Ranch, representing the state’s eighteen thousand mineral acres, signed a lease with Exxon, representing the state of Texas. And as required by law, they got 50% of what they convinced Exxon to pay for that lease. In 1954, they got themselves a much better lease on their lands and took an override on our lands, but did not give us the additional override. So, today, we are going in and basically equalizing our lease with their lease.
Jones: Do they have to pay the fifty years’ or so back tax?
Mauro: They’re paying us $1.3 million, which goes back to the money taken from the lease; the additional money taken from the lease since 1954. We’re very pleased with that. Over the next fifteen–twenty years, it’ll bring in a least, at current prices, at least another $2 million. So it’s a $3 million-plus lawsuit.
Jones: That is something excellent.
Frank Gibberson: I spent the last thirty minutes talking to Jerry Whittenberg from Amarillo. [We] talked about the Canadian River.
Mauro: Is he unhappy with me about the Canadian River? The Canadian River, by the way, belongs to the people of Texas. We dammed it up. It used to be a river that was a mile long in places. We’ve dammed it up so now it’s at least twenty-five feet wide at the widest places. And they want to use all of that riverbed, which belongs to the people of Texas. We’re doing this because it’s being taped for the sesquicentennial.
Gibberson: Oh, maybe I better not talk about it—
Mauro: What did you get?
Gibberson: We did work it out—but I didn’t have any time because I’ve just been on one thing right after another; phone calls and such. We worked out where Flowers, our surveyor from downstairs, is going—maybe you’ve been told about?
Mauro: No, I haven’t.
Gibberson: He’s going to meet with Hank Grover and his brother, the surveyor, we’re going to work that out, survey it out, and see how much property, if any, we owe them there. Once we come back with a survey, then we’ll be in a position to tell you whether there is any disputed acres for sure, and they seemed pretty satisfied with that approach.
Mauro: They are satisfied?
Gibberson: With the approach. We don’t know yet what we’re going to end up with.
Mauro: The solutions—did Mr. Whittenberg agree to let us come on land to survey it?
Gibberson: He didn’t say he wouldn’t do that at all. His problem is, and I told him, I said, you know, we just differ on the law. And he agreed with that. He wants to survey that river as it exists today, and I said, well, that’s not our theory. I said none of us is infallible, but I said nobody has convinced us that that’s the proper way to survey it.” Because anytime you go out in a riverbed, and you dredge or you fill, you can change the riverbed for the benefit of one party or another, and we don’t think that should be considered. So he said, well, as a third party—and I spent thirty minutes. He and I got along—we got along.
Mauro: Did he cuss me?
Gibberson: No, he didn’t. At one point, he says, “Well, I think y’all are just surveying this to try to gain more land for the hunters.” I said, “Let me tell you, Mr. Whittenberg, I say we’re in an elected office here, and we do what the legislature tells us to do, to some extent.” I said we have no reason to want to gain land for the benefit of the hunters. I said that’s not our purpose in life. I said we’re trying to do a true and honest survey for the benefit of the people of Texas, and we don’t care whether they’re hunters or land owners. And finally, I convinced him that by God, we weren’t doing it for their benefit. He had thought that before. But finally, when we ended up the conversation he said, “You know, I want to thank you for being candid with me, for going over the facts with me.” He said, we may not agree, but he said, “I appreciate being able to talk to you.” He said, “I’d like to meet with y’all.” And I said the commissioner is not closed-minded on any of this stuff. I said, “If you can convince him that we’re wrong on the law, I can guarantee you he’ll change.” He called me in reference to our meeting; our meeting’s set for April tenth, up there with the landowners.
Jones: Mr. Whittenburg is a landowner on the Canadian River?
Mauro: Yes, he is the biggest landowner.
Gibberson: He’s the biggest landowner. Big landowner.
Mauro: They own the newspaper. They founded most of that part of the world.
Jones: And in what area is that?
Mauro: In Amarillo.
Gibberson: But anyway, we had a real, what I consider a productive meeting.
Mauro: Well, good.
Gibberson: Because he better understands our position and what we’re trying to do and why we’re doing it.
Mauro: He came to that meeting I had for those people.
Gibberson: You mean when you and I were up there?
Mauro: Uh-huh.
Gibberson: Yeah, I remember him sitting back there.
Mauro: He wasn’t real friendly.
Gibberson: No. But I can honestly say that he and I—
Mauro: You think he’d understand what we’re doing now?
Gibberson: I think he does; I think he absolutely does now, but he didn’t in the beginning. He thought we were going up to survey his land just to increase the acreage so the hunters could use it.
Mauro: In my opinion—
Gibberson: I even said that—
Mauro: What we’re doing up there is we’re going to establish where we think the boundary is, and what’s going to happen is, is it’s going to end up in the courthouse. And then the courts are going to get to decide how we’re supposed to do it, and that’s who’s supposed to decide. I’m supposed to read the law—
Gibberson: I think you’re right.
Mauro: And enforce it the best way I can, and if the courts want to change the law, that’s what they build courthouses for.
Gibberson: But I told him that if he had any law that we didn’t know about or if he could convince us that our theory is wrong legally—I said, “The commissioner would be glad to sit down with you at any time and work with you on the problem.” But, you know, he ended up with a wholly different attitude than he came to the conversation with.
Mauro: Good.
Gibberson: Because we talked about thirty minutes on the phone.
Mauro: Well, that’s good.
Gibberson: Wally sent us $100,000 to put in the permanent school fund, which the CD’s became due at the bank.
Mauro: That’s the Duval County Ranch. We’re operating the Duval County Ranch after the Mobil shootout. And, of course, we make a lot of money for deposits, and he’s telling us our trusts just sent us a $100,000 to put into the school fund.
Jones: Is that for like elementaries, junior highs, and high schools?
Mauro: Secondary and primary education.
Jones: Okay. What I’m just going to do is ask about—is the land commissioner still the chairman for the Board [for] Lease for the University Lands?
Mauro: He is now.
Jones: Okay. What does that entail?
Mauro: It entails setting the policy for leasing lands. I’m one of four members of the board to set policy for leasing the university lands for oil and gas and other mineral development. We meet probably once a year, twice a year. Then decide what we’re going to do.
Jones: Okay. Like, have people come in and they get the mineral rights? Is that what you mean?
Mauro: Well, they bid for the mineral rights. See, the state doesn’t want to get into the business of drilling its own oil wells. So we basically take partners, and they develop the working interest, and we get paid a royalty. Generally, our royalty is 25%. [Interruption]
Jones: Sir, could I—I’m going to talk to him for a second. Could I get you to go ahead and say your full name and position here, just so I could have it on tape?
Gibberson: Frank Gibberson. I’m the chief clerk at the General Land Office.
Mauro: You’d love Mr. Gibberson. He’s been at the Land Office since 1947?
Gibberson: ’53.
Mauro: Okay, ’53. And then Chief Clerk since—
Gibberson: Well, the last what?
Mauro: The last, fourth commissioner. I’m the fifth commissioner, aren’t I?
Gibberson: Yeah.
Mauro: So, he almost taught me how to be land commissioner. Been here a couple of years. Taught a few of them, haven’t you, Chief?
Gibberson: Ah, I wouldn’t say that—[Interruption]
Mauro: What I’m doing here is signing all of the documents which will settle our lawsuit with the King Ranch. It’s a historic settlement—this is a good one.
Jones: Okay!
Mauro: She’s doing an oral history for the sesquicentennial from Southwest Texas State.
Jones: You get ten points for not stuttering when you said that.
Mauro: I’m very proud. The only thing I’m upset about is the sesquicentennial is going to be over just after I learn how to pronounce it. It took me a long time—[Interruption]
Jones: Okay. I’ll just try to shoot out questions. What exactly did you do as Congressman Kruger’s aide in San Antonio and Washington?
Mauro: Well, first thing I did was to run his campaign to get him elected. Once he got elected, he wasn’t supposed to get elected, of course.
Jones: Why did you say that? Are you being sarcastic or?
Mauro: No, no. He was one of twelve candidates running, and he was an ex-Harvard dean or ex-dean from Duke, and most people don’t consider those type[s] of people to be candidates for being congressmen from the largest sheep and goat raising-congressional district in the country. He was able to win that election, and when I went to work for him, I worked as a legislative administrative aide. I was involved in all the energy legislation that he wrote while he was in Congress, and he almost passed deregulation. I wasn’t the chief when he did it, Bill White did, but I was involved in it. And I was basically the guy who made the office work, made it function. It was a fun time.
Jones: And how long ago was that?
Mauro: 1976.
Jones: Okay.
Mauro: His first congressional term was 1974. He got elected in ’74, I guess, and served in ’75.
Jones: And what did you do as deputy under Comptroller Bullock?
Mauro: Well, first thing I did was, I was head of the famous Bullock Raids. [Interruption]
Jones: That was who?
Mauro: Jim Phillips, who is Senior Deputy and Chief Counsel for the office, and Dan Miller is head of the legal division.
Jones: Okay. Let me—go ahead.
Mauro: For Bullock, I ran his—I was head of what was called the “Bullock Raiders,” remember? When we started collecting the sales tax that was due, he thought I did a reasonably good job at that , so he promoted me to head of his field offices, and then he made me deputy comptroller for all of tax administration. I was basically a tax collector for a couple of years. It was a lot of fun, but importantly, I was only twenty-six years old at the time. It gave me an opportunity to learn about budgets and the inner workings of a large organization. I had two thousand employees and a $20 million budget. It was a very good experience for someone, at any age, but particularly at that age.
Jones: How did you come about doing this?
Mauro: I was in law school; I took a job working part-time for Bob Bullock back home. I didn’t want to live in San Antonio or Washington, I like Texas. I like Austin, in particular. So when I got ready to come back to Austin, I called him on the phone and asked him for a job.
Jones: Okay. Let me just get some of your comments on the pipeline problem in the news right now.
Mauro: Well, I think. I hate to say this. This is for history isn’t it?
Jones: Uh-huh.
Mauro: From a historical perspective, it’s not going to be a very big issue. I mean, the fact is, you know, the pipeline from California to McCamey. A good part of it is over state lands. I’ve looked at the environmental impact studies done for that part of the land. And that pipeline, up until McCamey, is very well-planned and very well-engineered and very well done. The problem you have is the pipeline company is so arrogant that they think they can do what they please without public input. I think the public input is going to create a good product; they’ll eventually put a pipeline in. I’m not sure it will go through Edwards Aquifer—if it does, it will be engineeringly safe. If it doesn’t, it’ll be because it’s cheaper to do that rather than to make it engineeringly safe. Fact is we can build a pipeline, which is safe, across the aquifer. But I am absolutely certain the All-American Pipeline Company would not have done that if there hadn’t been the public outcry.
But in the big picture, it’s a small potato thing. I mean, you can always tell when something is very, very popular because politicians are fighting over who’s going to get to be against the pipeline the strongest. But it’s my experience that a few years or six months after something like that happens, nobody remembers the issue or the people involved because it was too popular. The issues that make and show leadership are the ones that aren’t quite as popular and a little more controversial. Where you don’t just get out in front of a parade, you get out in front and form a parade behind you. It’s my impression that anybody with good common sense is going to be against that pipeline. So you’ve got people fighting to be the leaders of the parade. When leaders really step in forward is when they have to get out in front and ask for people to follow them. And that’s the total difference between those two.
Jones: I had a professor say the only thing that was going to be left would be the bumper stickers when all this is over. [It is] about what you’re saying.
Mauro: Yeah, I think it’s much ado about nothing. Not nothing—you know, I think All-American Pipeline created most of its own problem. They’re just arrogant people. They don’t think they have to obey the law.
Jones: Have you had encounters or altercations with them before?
Mauro: I wouldn’t call them altercations. We’ve dealt with them—let’s say we had to explain to them the law very early. They came in here and said we want an easement issued in two days. We said no. They said we’ll get it through condemning the property. We explained to them they ought to go read the Constitution. Pipelines do not have eminent domain ability over state lands. So we were able to slow that down. [Interruption]
Pipelines tended to be very arrogant in this state. Mr. Gibberson is just worried I’m going to raise enough hell that they’ll move it over on his piece of land in Buda. Isn’t that right? It’s crossed your mind.
Gibberson: Oh, yeah. One reason why I didn’t take an active part is because I’m just about, oh, six miles north of where they are right now, and people wanted me to sign a petition, and I said I’m not signing a petition. They’ll move it from where they are right now and move it on to me. But I share in what Garry was telling you, the views and so forth. That’s right. They think because they got power of eminent domain like that they pointed out a minute ago, that they can do anything they want to and run roughshod over people because they don’t have to agree with what people want.
Jones: Uh-huh. Okay. I was going to ask about the Veterans Land Program and the Housing Assistance Program. Any comments you care to make on those?
Mauro: Well, last three years have been the best three years in the history of the program. We’ve made sixteen thousand land loans, certified twenty-seven thousand housing loans, created about $10,000,000 worth of economic activity over that period. And we do it through a bond program that is absolutely self-sufficient. Doesn’t cost the taxpayer a penny. It’s kind of, in my mind, a model government program. It helps people, but it makes them pay for that help themselves. I’m really excited about the program, and I did author the housing program, so I’m a little prejudiced. Now, he authored the land program, so he’s a little prejudiced. He was a legal counsel for them—
Gibberson: Well, you know— this was passed by several legislators, several times in the past, but they were never able to get it going. Garry is the first one who came up with the housing program as it exists today. And he introduced a successful program that’s been successful. That’s the first time anyone’s been able to do it. They, some of them had ideas, but they were never able to write legislation and make a successful, workable program.
Jones: And you did it, huh?
Mauro: You bet!
Jones: We’re almost out of time. Let me ask you about your election into office here. Tell me why and how.
Mauro: Well, a few years—a long time ago, when I worked for Bullock, we had a sub-committee. Bullock was very concerned way back then, in ‘77–78. ‘76–77. That we were going to have to find alternative sources of revenue, that the state current tax structure wasn’t going to be sufficient for the, to develop the state and provide services to its people. So we had a task force to study potential future sources of revenue for the state, and one of the things that kept coming up was the public lands. They played such a big role, coastal areas played such a big role. Of course, those are all managed over in this office. I got excited about the potential over here because since the Baskin-Jaws scandal there’s been a continual tearing-down of the constitutional authority and responsibilities of the land office. Don’t you agree with that, Frank?
Gibberson: Yep, no question about that.
Mauro: And I thought if you had a strict land commissioner, a strong land commissioner, an aggressive land commissioner, it would have a stronger impact on the future economic health of the state. So I—at a cocktail party, I had a couple of drinks too many, and I told Bob Armstrong when he got ready to quit, I was going to run for his job. And I guess in January of ’81, he called me on the phone and told me he was not going to run for re-election. I came to see him in February, and he reiterated he wasn’t going to run. So I announced in May that I was running and ran for basically two years. I had five Democratic opponents and a strong Republican opponent and was still able to win. It was kind of an up-hill battle because the chairman of the Education Committee of the Senate ran, who was very well-known statewide. Chairman of the Agriculture Committee in the House, Ben [Kubiak] ran, and he was very well-known. I was just lucky to sneak into office. But I’m not even close to the youngest land commissioner. The youngest land commissioner is John Borden, he was twenty-three years old. It always irritates me because I get introduced all the time as the youngest land commissioner in history. The truth is I wasn’t even close.
Jones: I remember that. At the Democratic Unity Party I think someone said that.
Mauro: They always say it. What I guess they mean is I’m the youngest current statewide officeholder.
Jones: Are you really?
Mauro: Yeah. But I think Bob Armstrong was elected when he was thirty-five.
Gibberson: No, I think he was a little older than that, Garry. I believe he was thirty-seven when he was elected.
Mauro: Thirty-seven?
Gibberson: Yeah, I believe that’s correct.
Mauro: But, I am not the youngest. I just don’t want to be the oldest.
Jones: Well, okay. Do you want me to let you go?
Mauro: Well, I appreciate you working your schedule around. I hope we got something you’ll find interesting.
End of interview