Rick Perry
James Richard "Rick" Perry served as the 47th Governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. President-elect Donald Trump said in 2016 that he would nominate him to be Secretary of the Department of Energy.
A Republican, Perry was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1998 and assumed the governorship in December 2000 when then-governor George W. Bush resigned to become President of the United States. Perry was elected to full gubernatorial terms in 2002, 2006 and 2010. He served as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2008 (succeeding Sonny Perdue of Georgia) and again in 2011. As the longest serving governor in Texas state history, he is the only governor in modern Texas history to have appointed at least one person to every eligible state office, board, or commission position (as well as to several elected offices to which the governor can appoint someone to fill an unexpired term, such as six of the nine current members of the Texas Supreme Court).
Perry won the Texas 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary election, defeating U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and former Wharton County Republican Party Chairwoman and businesswoman Debra Medina. In the 2010 Texas gubernatorial election, Perry won a third term by defeating former Houston mayor Bill White and Kathie Glass.
Perry campaigned unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 election cycles.
“OOPS!”
“I see a nation filled with good, hardworking people who are wondering what happened to the country they knew. It wasn't long ago that we were expected to pay our bills, we were able to pray at the town meeting, and we believed it was important to rely on ourselves or our families rather than government.”