Benny Frank Barnes (born April 17, 1938) is an American real estate magnate, politician, and crisis manager who served as the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from 1965 to 1969 and as the 36th lieutenant governor of Texas from 1969 to 1973. He was a vice-chair and top fundraiser of John Kerry's presidential campaign. Barnes was also one of only eight persons who raised over $500,000 for Kerry.
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Early life and education
Barnes was born on April 17, 1938, in Gorman in Eastland County, Texas, to peanut farmer B.F. Barnes and Ina B. Carrigan. He was raised with a younger brother, Rick. Barnes' family owned a peanut farm in Comanche County, in central Texas. They cultivated about 40 acres, growing peanuts and corn and raising hogs and chickens. The family was poor, having no working electricity until 1946, when government agents brought electricity to Texas farms as a result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Administration.
Barnes graduated from De Leon High School in 1956. After high school, Barnes enrolled for one semester at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, followed by a semester at Tarleton College in Stephenville, Texas. During that spring, he married his high school sweetheart, Martha Morgan. He then spent the following summer in Climax, Colorado, working at the molybdenum mine there. In 1957, at the age of 20, Barnes began studying at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was on the Dean's List for the Business School. Barnes took several jobs to pay his way through college, including a door-to-door job selling Electrolux vacuum cleaners. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in business.
Career
Politics
While a student at the University of Texas, Barnes worked at the Texas State Health Department. After discovering some financial irregularities that led to the indictment of the state health commissioner, Barnes became interested in politics. At the age of 21, Barnes went back to his home area of the state and ran for state representative, pulling off an upset victory. Advancing quickly through the Texas legislature, by 1963, Barnes was chairman of the powerful Rules Committee. In 1965, the Texas Junior Chamber of Commerce named Barnes as one of "Five Outstanding Young Texans" and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognized Barnes as one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Men in America" in 1970.
In the lead up to 1965, Barnes began accumulating pledges of support from colleagues to succeed Byron Tunnell if the Speaker decided not to seek a third term in 1967. He didn't have to wait that long. Just before the 1965 session, a vacancy occurred on the Railroad Commission and John Connally came up with the idea of appointing Byron Tunnell, who was only a lukewarm supporter of Connally's activist legislative program, to fill the seat. Barnes had advance notice of the maneuver, so when Connally announced Tunnell's appointment, Barnes had already set up a war room in the Driskill Hotel. He started calling members to make good the pledges he had collected.
With the governor and the business lobby and all but a handful of House members behind him, Barnes was an instant powerhouse. The press latched on to the story of the young man. The headlines tell the tale: “Ben Barnes—Man Going Places,” “Boy Wonder of Texas Politics,” “Big Crowd Hears LBJ Predict White House for Ben Barnes.”
During his speakership, Barnes placed a high priority on the state's colleges and universities, with financial support for these institutions rising by 300 percent. Furthermore, he helped establish the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Under Barnes, salaries increased for university professors, the University of Houston merged with the state university system, and Angelo State College and Pan American College turned into four-year institutions.
Furthermore, Barnes won passage of a minimum wage standard for farm workers, played a key role in winning approval for clean air and water legislation, and successfully fought for a bill creating the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. The political future seemed limitless for Barnes, who enjoyed the support of Connally and President Lyndon Johnson who, after leaving the White House, predicted that his young protégé would one day claim the presidency.
Real estate
During the 1970s and 1980s, Barnes developed a multimillion-dollar real estate empire which included the development of such projects as Southwest Parkway and Barton Creek Country Club in Austin. The collapse of oil prices in the mid- to late- 1980s and its effect on the Texas real estate market forced Barnes to file for bankruptcy, following the financial collapse of the Barnes/Connally Partnership, a real estate firm.
Lobbying and business
In the late 1990s, Barnes began working with GTECH Corporation, a company that operated lotteries in 37 states including Texas. Barnes is the founder of the Ben Barnes Group (formerly known as Entrecorp), a business consulting and real estate development firm offering expertise in crisis management, legislative processes and strategy, legal issues, and public-private partnerships. Clients range from major Fortune 500 companies to small family-owned businesses, as from a variety of both international and domestic industries. The Ben Barnes Group maintains offices in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Austin, Texas. He is noted for his success and insider relations in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas. He said: "Every Democratic senator who is running for reelection has been to Texas for a fundraiser. We've got one coming up for Tim Johnson [of South Dakota]." Barnes has also served as a consultant, director, or chairman of more than two dozen companies, including SBC Communications, American Airlines, Dallas Bank and Trust, Grumman Systems Support Corporation, and Laredo National Bank.
Writing
Barnes is the author of the book Barn Burning Barn Building: Tales of a Political Life, From LBJ to George W. Bush and Beyond (ISBN 1-931721-71-8) (with Lisa Dickey), which was first published in 2006. It went on to place on The New York Times Best Seller list.
In 1995, the University of Texas named him a Distinguished Alumnus and an endowed fellowship was created in his name at UT's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Barnes serves on the board of several non-profit organizations, including the Boys & Girls Club of the Austin Area, the Roosevelt Institute and the Development Board of the University of Texas. Barnes also serves as vice-chairman of the LBJ Foundation.
Personal life
Barnes was married to Martha Morgan in 1957, and they had two children together: Greg and Amy. He was briefly linked with Jill St. John. On September 14, 2019, Ben Barnes and Elizabeth Moore McDermott married at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Nantucket.