Chris Bell
Chris Bell
Robert Christopher "Chris" Bellis an American politician, attorney, and former journalist. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and South Texas College of Law. Bell served five years on the Houston City Council from 1997 to 2001, followed by one term in the United States House of Representatives from Texas' 25th Congressional District in Houston from 2003 to 2005. He was then the Democratic nominee in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth23 November 1959
CountryUnited States of America
We've been handed an incredible opportunity and the trick will be getting people to recognize that fact.
The American people expect public servants to be able to police themselves. But instead of designing a system to enforce ethical conduct, Tom Delay and his cohorts have implemented a self protection system. Obviously, it wasn't good for democracy.
The American people do not begrudge anyone his or her power until they start abusing it.
So many people are accustomed to written information that you really have to have a few more bells and whistles in this day and age.
The DeLay story struck a nerve with people all across the United States because Tom DeLay put a face to what Walt Whitman called "the never-ending audacity of elected persons." Suddenly, they could see corruption up close.
Some people have an ongoing poker game. We had an ongoing Twister game.
I think that people need to have the courage of their convictions and not be trying to fool people into thinking that they've changed overnight.
I guess what bothers me so much about what I now see going on in both Washington and in Texas is an effort to keep people from finding out about the mistakes of lawmakers and then when they're uncovered, an effort to fool people and pretend there was nothing wrong.
Ethics in government has always been important to me.
Border state governors are in a position to shine light on these issues and get the ball moving forward.
I've always opposed vouchers, and I will continue opposing vouchers. Texas won't have the best public schools in the country if we're raiding their funding to send kids to private schools.
I want an across-the-board pay raise with a dependable funding source.
Texas is still every bit as great as it ever was. We simply need leaders bold enough to release its greatness.
Texas has a lot of challenges, but if I choose to run I will talk about opening democracy to mainstream Texans and not just to a closed circle of entrenched ideologues.