John Sharp, the State's Fixer in Chief, Comes to the Rescue After Harvey

In his State of the State address in January, Governor Greg Abbott told the Legislature that he’d like to issue a death sentence to the state’s business tax. “As far as I’m concerned, the only good tax is a dead tax,” Abbott said. “We must continue to cut the business franchise tax until it fits in a coffin.” But on Thursday, the man who designed that franchise tax, John Sharp, stood beside Abbott in the ornate Governor’s Reception Room. The governor announced that he’d tapped Sharp to lead the state’s efforts to rebuild roads, bridges, government buildings, and schools damaged by Hurricane Harvey.

Abbott explained that he needed someone experienced in dealing with governmental red tape, and who knew the Gulf Coast, energy industry, and how to deal with local officials—all with a smile. “I found all those attributes in a single person, John Sharp,” Abbott said at a news conference. Sharp, who grew up in Placedo in Victoria County, modestly noted that he knows well “the charms and the challenges of living on the Gulf Coast.”

Once again, Sharp has become one of the most influential figures in state government—perhaps one of the most powerful people who will likely never have his portrait hang in the Capitol rotunda. Since the early 1990s, Sharp has been Texas’s Mr. Fix-It, but the state’s changing political culture left him behind as the era of Democratic party dominance faded away.

Abbott first asked Sharp last Friday to head a task force on hurricane infrastructure rebuilding. But the Republican governor’s familiarity with the former Democratic office-holder was not limited to a resume. They once were neighbors in Austin, living across the street from one another. They are both Roman Catholics, have adopted children, and are active in raising money and awareness of adoption. At times, their political agendas aligned. As governor, Abbott has been stridently anti-abortion, and, while a state senator in 1985, Sharp carried the strictest proposed law limiting abortion until current Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick came along. The bill—which then-State Treasurer Ann Richards helped kill—would have required women to give informed consent before receiving an abortion and punished doctors who did not follow the restrictions. Sharp moderated his abortion views once he became a statewide candidate for office, saying he personally opposed abortion, but that government shouldn’t interfere with a woman’s right to have the procedure.

Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/john-sharp-the-states-fixer-in-chief-comes-to-the-rescue-after-harvey/