 If we look at Texas politics since the 1970s, one of the issues that has severely influenced Texas politics was the Sharp Sound scandal of 1971. Frank Sharp, who was a Houston real estate developer, was found guilty by the Securities and Exchange Commission of bribing many Texas politicians. And so this started a throw the rascals out campaign. They wanted to get rid of some of these corrupt, influential politicians in Texas politics. This was led by a group known as the Dirty Thirty and the Texas Legislator. These are a group of about 30 politicians who did everything they could to try to buck the system and challenge the power that these corrupt politicians had over Texas politics. In the 1972 election, you see some challenges to the entrenched system. Some Mexican American voters who found power in a group called La Raza Unida. The Raza Unida party ran Ramzi Muniz as governor. He wasn't successful, but this showed to many politicians how influential the Mexican American voted become. Also women ran a candidate named Sissy Ferenthal who was a reform minded candidate, but again she was not successful. Instead, there was a reform minded governor named Dolph Briscoe who became governor. He was elected in 1972. And Briscoe oversaw some attempts at changing the Texas Constitution, revising it so that it wouldn't be so old fashioned and conservative, but that did not meet voter approval. There were efforts at redistricting to try to change the power base so that Mexican American and African American voters would have more power at the polls. And also there was a group called the Killer B's. Some of these were dirty 30 politicians. They were reformers who were trying to change the way the political system in Texas was running. There were also people outside of politics. Marvin Zendler, newspaper reporter and television show investigative reporter who in 1973 investigated the so-called Chicken Ranch in La Grange, Texas. This was a brothel, a house of prostitution that was allowed to exist. And local police and state police and politicians just kind of ignored it. In fact, many of them often went there. And when Zendler exposed that this illegal operation was going on under the nose of people in Austin, it brought a lot of embarrassment to the state. And then the state moved in to shut it down. For Texas women in national politics, Sarah Weddington, a Dallas attorney, argued the Roe versus Wade decision successfully. Also Barbara Jordan made quite a name for herself during the Watergate hearings where President Richard Nixon was being impeached for crimes, including the Watergate break-in and other crimes against spying and political corruption in Washington. Police brutality also became quite an issue in the 1970s throughout the decade. One example was Carl Hampton who was an African-American activist. He led the new Black Panther Party in Houston and he was shot down by police in 1971. There was also a riot on the Texas State University, so-called riot on the Texas State University dorms when the police raided the dorms because of some commotion that was going on. Some policemen were shot, one was killed during that incident, but it was by another policeman, not by the African-American students who were basically unarmed. And also the mysterious death surrounding Joe Campos Torres, which started the Moody Park riots in Houston. Campos Torres was arrested, Vietnam War vet was arrested by police and was found floating in Buffalo Bayou in places like Dallas and other instances around the state, along with Carl Hampton and the way minorities were being treated in general, brought a lot of attention and some reforms to the way police were treating minority suspects. Also school financing in 1971, one of the poorest districts in the state of Texas. The Edgewood district, there was a case that came out of there, Rodriguez versus SAISD. This was a question of how school finances were allocated, basically by property tax. So if you were in a poor district, your school wasn't going to get as much funding as somebody in a wealthy district. This translated into how students were being taught and how teachers were paid. And wasn't fair, just because by accident of birth you were born in the wrong place that you should get a bad education. And that's what that issue raised. As far as the Texas Republican Party was concerned, some of these reform movements helped it win some elections. And in 1978, in 1986, the first Republican governor is elected to Texas since reconstruction. This is Bill Clemens. Mark White is a Democrat who's also reform minded and he's elected in between Clemens two terms. Some of the issues that were raised, again, the school finance issue, this is a little different version of the same case, the Rodriguez case, reemerges as Edgewood ISD versus Kirby. And again, wondering about school financing, should poor districts be given less money. House Bill 72, as a result of some national attention on the way school children were learning or not learning, however you wanted to interpret it, Texas decided to reform its school system and House Bill 72 was one of the results. It's most famous for its no pass, no play provision. If a student was failing academic courses, he or she should not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. And a lot of people who love football and other Texas sports didn't like this provision. In the Texas Gulf Coast region, after the Vietnam War, many refugees came to the Gulf Coast area between Mississippi and Texas and were involved in shrimping. Now this put them into conflict with white shrimpers and fishermen. And so the Ku Klux Klan came in and made some demonstration against the Vietnamese refugees. There was also an oil bus and the price of oil bottomed out and the Texas economy suffered tremendously as a result of this. We also suffered as a result of the Challenger accident when the space shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff in January of 1986, a lot of sadness across the nation for sure. But also it affected Texas because manned space center is headquartered out of Houston and many of the astronauts were from Houston and it also shut down the program, the shuttle program for a couple of years while NASA investigated. George Herbert Walker Bush, a senator from Texas, becomes the vice president. He had run for president but lost the nomination of the Republican Party to Ronald Reagan. And so he becomes Reagan's vice president in 1980 and later on in 1988 becomes president on his own. But he is reform minded. His idea of being conservative and yet compassionate at the same time was his trademark. In 1992 the elections brought in the year of the woman as it's sometimes called. This started with the election of Ann Richards over her rival West Texas oilman and rancher Clayton Williams. Clayton Williams said some things that discouraged many women from voting for and both Republican and Democrat in Texas and so the votes went to Richards. In the 1992 presidential campaign for US President, Richards, Barbara Jordan and Lena Guerrero, all of Texas made speeches at the Democratic National Convention and so it was called sometimes the year of the woman. Kay Bailey Hutchinson became the US senator from Texas as well. But it was also marked by some negative publicity for Texas and in Waco with the branch Davidian raid when the alcohol, tobacco and firearms division of the government went in to investigate the charges of sex with minors and weapons hoarding going on in a religious separatist cult group in Waco and this resulted in a fire that killed many of the branch Davidians and brought really bad light on the government as a result of it. As the 20th century drew to a close, some issues remained. One was the education issue. The Texas legislature attempted to solve the unequal distribution of public education funds with the so-called Robin Hood plan. This would allow wealthier districts to give money to poorer districts. Some people still didn't like that and the Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court has said that this is unconstitutional and they need to develop a working plan, however the legislature still has not done so. So Robin Hood continues to be in effect. Also the Hopwood case. This was the case over the University of Texas Law School. Should minorities have special provisions that allow them to get in? In set-asides, they get so many seats, the rest go to Anglo students if the minorities aren't equally as capable or as likely to succeed as the regular students. This became a big issue. The Supreme Court says race can still play a role in admissions for universities, so this still hasn't been completely answered. But racism in civil rights in Texas continued throughout the late 1990s. For example, the Klan marched in Vidar to protest the integration of public housing. A few years later, just north of Vidar in Jasper County, James Burton, an African-American man was abducted, tied behind a truck and drug to his death, which brought a lot of attention to racism in East Texas. And also Native Americans were seeking federal recognition that had been denied them in the 1950s, and the state was responsible for them. Now the state was actively encouraging them to get federal recognition again for the Kikapu, the Tigua, and the Alabama Khashada tribes. George Walker Bush, George H.W. Bush's son, was elected governor and then president of the United States in the year 2000. This brought one more president, the third president from Texas in the 20th century. Finally, some issues that continue into the 21st century. The school finance issue remains. Issues over redistricting and the voting power of minority groups and where they live continues to be an issue and will be for the foreseeable future. As is the economy. The economy, the economic recession of the 2000 and above started with the Exxon Bank failure. Also, the September 11 attacks have affected the U.S. economy and society and the way we conduct our daily business as well. The Space Shuttle Columbia, which just integrated on reentry over Texas. Also marked the beginning of the end of the space program. The space program was already wrapping down, but by the year 2011, when you have the last space shuttle flight, you see the end of the space shuttle program. What will this mean for the Texas economy? Finally, you do see some booms in the oil and gas industry, but it's also marked by lower prices as well. There's some booms and busts going on there that are going to continue for the foreseeable future. For minority groups and civil rights, Native Americans saw their casinos closed, but they also have other civil rights issues that they're dealing with. The economic impact of Hurricane Katrina's and Rita both had significant minority and civil rights issues and other socioeconomic concerns. How poor people respond and are treated as a result of natural disasters. There's also immigration and border troubles that are plaguing Texas and other border states as well and the national political scene. Finally, education. How do we teach and what do we teach our students in our public schools is also a political issue because the state board of education has the cloud to determine what textbooks are adopted and what those textbooks say. We saw in recent years in 2009 and 2010 a series of battles that were very public about how history will be taught and the role of minority groups in history in Texas education. This has broader repercussions because Texas, by so many books that many of the books published in the United States in general that are for history textbooks are based upon what Texas wants and so other states are concerned about these issues as well. So these are some of the issues that we're going to see continuing to crop up as the nation moves on into the 21st century.