By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX –
The former "conscience" of the Texas Senate, the man his colleagues called Obi-Wan Kenobi after the legendary Jedi sage in the Star Wars movie - Bill Ratliff - has been named one of the two winners of the 2005 Profile in Courage Award presented annually by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
Ratliff will share this year's Profile in Courage honor with Shirley Franklin, Atlanta's first female African-American mayor, who the Foundation said showed "courageous leadership" by raising city taxes and cutting city payroll when faced with an $82 million budget deficit when she took office in 2001.
The awards will be presented May 16 at the Kennedy Library and Museum by Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy whom the award honors, and by U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, brother of the late president.
Caroline Kennedy called Ratliff and Franklin "an inspiration to all who serve in government, and to all Americans, for their principled and bipartisan leadership, and their willingness to make the difficult and unpopular decisions necessary for good governance."
The award, named for President Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage, was initiated in 1989 to honor the late president by recognizing political courage among public servants.
Ratliff, former Republican Lt. Governor of Texas and a former Texas State Senator, is being honored for his courage in bucking his party's 2003 redistricting plan that garnered national attention when members of both the House and Senate fled the state to try to bring the partisan battle to a close.
His "calm and inclusive'' leadership style helped him secure passage of other controversial measures, the Foundation said, including what has come to be known as the "Robin Hood" school finance plan that redistributes property taxes from wealthier school districts to poorer schools.
Ratliff was one of 11 senators who signed a letter expressing their "unalterable opposition" to any motion to bring the redistricting proposal to the floor of the Senate in 2003. Ratliff was the only Republican in the 11. That led one House member, Rep. Chuck Hopson, to say that Ratliff "has truly shown the entire state what being a statesman is all about."
Ratliff was praised by fellow senator and now Ambassador to Sweden Teel Bivins of Amarillo for his "steady hand and guiding influence" when Ratliff served as lieutenant governor.
President George W. Bush called Ratliff "the gray eminence of the Texas Senate...a calm, ramrod-straight, low-key Southern gentleman."
Sen. Steve Ogden of Bryan, a fellow Republican, once said of Ratliff, "He is a man of principle. Everything he did, he did it believing it was the right thing to do, which is not necessarily common among politicians."
Ratliff has five times been named one of the state's 10 Best Legislators by Texas Monthly magazine, and is known for having tackled issues from public education - he is the "father" of the state's Robin Hood plan and rewrote the entire Education Code on his laptop computer - to the state budget, having served as chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. He contemplated a run for lieutenant governor when the term to which he was elected by his peers ended. But he opted to instead to continue making policy rather than becoming embroiled in statewide politics.
He eventually resigned his Senate seat three years before his term was up, on Jan. 10, 2004, 15 years to the day after his first day in office, saying he had "done everything a member of this body might wish to do" and adding that it's hard "to keep the fire in your belly forever."
The Kennedy Library Foundation offers a quote from President Kennedy from his Pulitzer Prize-winning book that defines the type of courage the award in his honor recognizes:
"In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this, each man must look into his own soul."
It was that kind of courage that set Ratliff apart from other legislators and state leaders. He was elected lieutenant governor by his fellow senators in December 2000 to fill the vacancy when then-Lieutenant Governor Rick Perry became governor when then-Texas Governor George W. Bush was elected to the presidency. It was the first time in the history of state government that the Senate used its constitutional authority to elect one of its own members as its presiding officer.
The Profile in Courage Award, according to the Kennedy Library Foundation, "seeks to make Americans aware of the conscientious and courageous acts of their public servants, and to encourage elected officials to choose principles over partisanship - to do what is right, rather than what is expedient."
The award is presented each year to one or more local, state or federal public officials whose actions best demonstrate the qualities of political courage described in President Kenndey's book. The Foundation notes that Kennedy's own words refer to "elected officials who, acting in accord with their conscience, risk their careers by pursuing a larger vision of the national, state or local interest in opposition to popular opinion or powerful pressures from their constituents."
Ratliff will be awarded a sterling silver lantern, modeled after the lantern on the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy. The lantern was designed by Edwin Schlossberg and crafted by Tiffany & Company.
Ratliff is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a civil engineering degree and in 1990 was named one of the university's Distinguished Graduates. He and his wife, Sally, call Mount Pleasant home.