# Rick Perry James Richard "Rick" Perry (born March 4, 1950) served as the longest-tenured governor in the history of Texas (2000–2015) and as Secretary of Energy in the [[First Trump Administration]] (2017–2019). His career arc — from rural [[Democratic Party]] state legislator to [[Republican Party]] governor to fossil fuel boardroom — traces the intertwining of energy-industry money, [[Deregulation]], and right-wing governance in Texas and beyond. He is a textbook case of the [[Revolving Door]] between government and the industries government is supposed to regulate. ## Early Life and Party Switch Perry grew up on a cotton farm near Paint Creek, Texas, graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in animal science, and served as a U.S. Air Force pilot flying C-130 transports in Europe and the Middle East (1972–1977). He won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1984 as a Democrat, and in 1988 he endorsed [[Al Gore]] in the Democratic presidential primaries, serving as one of 28 Texas legislators backing Gore's campaign. In 1989 Perry switched to the [[Republican Party]], positioning himself within the conservative wave then reshaping Texas politics. As a freshly minted Republican he defeated incumbent Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower in 1990, a post he held until winning the lieutenant governorship in 1998. ## Governor of Texas (2000–2015) When [[George W. Bush]] left the governorship to become president, Perry ascended automatically in December 2000. He won full terms in 2002, 2006, and 2010, making him the longest-serving governor in Texas history across nearly fifteen years in office. ### Energy Deregulation and the Texas Grid Perry oversaw the implementation of Senate Bill 7, the landmark 1999 law that deregulated the Texas retail electricity market and cemented the independence of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) from federal oversight. His administration championed a renewable-energy portfolio standard that made Texas the nation's leading wind-energy producer, but also entrenched an energy-only market model that prioritized cheap power over reserve capacity. The consequences became catastrophic during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, when ERCOT ordered 20,000 MW of rolling blackouts — the largest manually controlled load-shedding event in U.S. history — leaving more than 4.5 million Texans without power for days. Perry, by then long out of office, argued the answer was "technology, not regulation" and opposed interconnecting the Texas grid with the national system, framing federal oversight as a threat to [[States' Rights]] and [[Federalism]]. ### Death Penalty Record Perry presided over more executions than any governor in modern American history — 279 during his tenure. He was unapologetic, writing "If you don't support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don't come to Texas." The most controversial case involved Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004 for an arson-murder that fire scientists later concluded rested on outdated and unreliable forensic evidence. In 2009, just two days before the Texas Forensic Science Commission was set to hear expert testimony that an innocent man may have been executed, Perry replaced three commission members, causing the hearing to be postponed indefinitely. Critics accused him of sabotaging the investigation to protect his political standing. ### Secession Rhetoric At an April 2009 [[Tea Party Movement]] rally in Austin, Perry flirted with secession, joking that Texas joined the union with the understanding it could leave "any time we want" and that Texans were "kind of thinking about that again." He later walked it back, saying there was "absolutely no reason to dissolve" the union, but the remarks fed a strain of Texas-nationalist sentiment and drew sharp Democratic criticism. The episode illustrated how mainstream Republican politicians were willing to deploy neo-secessionist language to energize the Tea Party base. ## Presidential Campaigns (2012 and 2016) Perry entered the 2012 Republican presidential primary as a frontrunner but imploded during a November 2011 debate in Rochester, Michigan, when he could not name the third federal agency he had pledged to eliminate. After naming Commerce and Education, he searched for the third — the [[Department of Energy]] — and finally said "oops." The moment became one of the most memorable debate gaffes in presidential campaign history and effectively ended his candidacy. Perry later attributed his poor debate performances partly to undiagnosed sleep apnea. He ran again in 2016 but dropped out early, having failed to gain traction in a field dominated by [[Donald Trump]]. ## Secretary of Energy (2017–2019) [[Donald Trump]] nominated Perry to lead the very [[Department of Energy]] he had once proposed abolishing. Perry acknowledged the irony, saying he regretted calling for the department's elimination once he learned about its role managing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and national laboratories. His tenure was marked less by policy innovation than by his entanglement in the Ukraine affair that led to Trump's first impeachment. ### The Ukraine Entanglement Perry played a central role in what diplomats described as the "irregular channel" of U.S.–[[Ukraine]] policy. Ambassador [[Gordon Sondland]] testified that Perry, along with envoy Kurt Volker, was "heavily involved" in coordinating with [[Rudy Giuliani]] on Ukraine matters for months. Perry successfully pressured Ukrainian officials to appoint two of his American associates — energy investor Michael Bleyzer and Robert Bensh — to the board of Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned natural gas company. Shortly after the appointments, Ukraine awarded Bleyzer and his partner an oil-and-gas exploration deal potentially worth billions. Congressional impeachment investigators subpoenaed Perry, and [[Donald Trump]] later told House Republicans that Perry was the one who had pushed him to make the July 25, 2019, phone call to [[Volodymyr Zelensky]] that triggered the impeachment inquiry. Perry resigned as Energy Secretary in late 2019, timing his departure to the escalating investigation. ## Fossil Fuel Industry Ties and the Revolving Door Perry's career is a case study in [[Regulatory Capture]] and the [[Revolving Door]]. Before becoming Energy Secretary, he served on the board of Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline company controlled by billionaire GOP mega-donor Kelcy Warren, who had contributed $6 million to a pro-Perry super PAC during his 2016 presidential campaign. Perry stepped down from the board upon his 2017 nomination. Within weeks of leaving the [[Department of Energy]] in December 2019, he rejoined Energy Transfer's board, reportedly receiving up to $100,000 in annual retainers plus stock options. Senator Elizabeth Warren called on Perry to resign from the board, citing the appearance of [[Corruption]] inherent in an ex-Energy Secretary immediately profiting from a company his former department had regulatory authority over. The [[Texas Public Policy Foundation]], a fossil-fuel-funded think tank closely aligned with Perry's governorship, helped shape the deregulatory ideology that defined his energy agenda. ## Significance Perry exemplifies several structural dynamics tracked throughout this vault: the pipeline from [[Democratic Party]] moderate to [[Republican Party]] conservative that characterized the Southern realignment, the fossil fuel industry's capture of energy regulation, the [[Revolving Door]] between government and corporate boards, and the weaponization of [[States' Rights]] rhetoric to shield industry from federal oversight. His career connects [[Climate Change]] denial, [[Deregulation]], [[Dark Money]] in politics, and the consequences of prioritizing ideology over infrastructure resilience — consequences measured in the lives lost during the 2021 Texas grid collapse.