Rick Perry ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections.
94 Facts About Rick Perry
2.
In 1989, Rick Perry switched parties and became a Republican, and was elected Agriculture Commissioner of Texas the following year.
3.
In 1998, Rick Perry was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas, becoming the state's first Republican Lieutenant Governor since Reconstruction.
4.
Rick Perry was re-elected Governor three times, becoming the longest-serving Governor in Texas history.
5.
Long considered a potential presidential candidate, Rick Perry officially announced his candidacy for the 2012 Republican nomination for President in August 2011.
6.
Rick Perry initially performed well in polling and showed strong fundraising prowess, leading to him being considered a serious contender for the nomination.
7.
Rick Perry declined to seek re-election to a fourth term as Governor and left office in 2015, launching a second presidential campaign shortly thereafter.
8.
Rick Perry was initially a vocal opponent of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for President he later endorsed Trump after he secured the Republican nomination.
9.
On October 17,2019, Rick Perry reported to Trump that he intended to resign as Secretary of Energy at the end of the year.
10.
Rick Perry's ancestry is almost entirely English, dating as far back as the original Thirteen Colonies.
11.
Rick Perry's family has been in Texas since before the Texas Revolution.
12.
Rick Perry's father, a Democrat, was a long-time Haskell County commissioner and school board member.
13.
Rick Perry has said that his interest in politics probably began in November 1961, when his father took him to the funeral of US Representative Sam Rayburn.
14.
Rick Perry was in the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout.
15.
Rick Perry graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science degree in animal science.
16.
Rick Perry was then assigned as a Lockheed C-130 Hercules pilot with the 772nd Tactical Airlift Squadron at Dyess Air Force Base, located in Abilene, Texas.
17.
Rick Perry's duties included two-month overseas rotations at RAF Mildenhall, located in Mildenhall, England, and Rhein-Main Air Base, located at Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
18.
Rick Perry's missions included a 1974 US State Department drought relief effort in Mali, Mauritania and Chad, and, in 1976, earthquake relief in Guatemala.
19.
Rick Perry left the Air Force in 1977 at the rank of captain, returned to Texas, and went into farming cotton with his father.
20.
In 1984, Rick Perry was elected to the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat from district 64, which included his home county of Haskell.
21.
Rick Perry served on the House Appropriations and Calendars committees during his three two-year terms in office.
22.
Rick Perry befriended fellow freshman state representative Lena Guerrero, a staunch liberal Democrat who endorsed Perry's reelection bid in 2006.
23.
Rick Perry was part of the "Pit Bulls", a group of Appropriations members who sat on the lower dais in the committee room who pushed for austere state budgets during the 1980s.
24.
In 1987, Rick Perry voted for a $5.7 billion tax increase proposed by Republican Governor Bill Clements.
25.
Rick Perry supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries and worked for Gore's campaign in Texas.
26.
On September 29,1989, Rick Perry announced that he was switching parties, becoming a Republican.
27.
In 1990, as a newly minted Republican, Rick Perry challenged Jim Hightower, the incumbent Democratic Agriculture Commissioner.
28.
Rick Perry narrowly defeated Hightower in November 1990, garnering 1,864,463 votes to Hightower's 1,820,145 votes.
29.
In 2005, after being questioned on the issue by a potential opponent in the Republican governor primary, Rick Perry said he expressed his support only in order to get Clinton to pay more attention to rural healthcare.
30.
In 1994, Rick Perry was reelected Agriculture Commissioner by a large margin, getting 2,546,287 votes to Democrat Marvin Gregory's 1,479,692.
31.
Rick Perry polled 1,858,837 votes to the 1,790,106 cast for Democrat John Sharp.
32.
Rick Perry became the state's first Republican lieutenant governor since Reconstruction, taking office on January 19,1999.
33.
Rick Perry is one of five governors of Texas to have served three terms, the others being Allan Shivers, Price Daniel, John Connally and later Greg Abbott.
34.
Rick Perry had served for 14 years by the time he left office, making him the second longest-serving US governor at the time, behind Terry Branstad of Iowa.
35.
In 2002, Rick Perry refused to promise not to raise taxes as governor, and in the following years did propose or approve various tax and debt increases.
36.
In 2009, Rick Perry signed Grover Norquist's pledge to "oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes".
37.
In 2003, Rick Perry signed legislation that created the Texas Enterprise Fund, which has since given $435 million in grants to businesses.
38.
Rick Perry's focus in Texas was on tort reform, signing a bill in 2003 that restricted non-economic damages in medical malpractice judgments.
39.
Rick Perry touted this approach in his presidential campaign, although independent analysts have concluded that it has failed to increase the supply of physicians or limit health-care costs in Texas.
40.
Rick Perry's office said that Texas represents a model private-sector approach to health-care.
41.
Rick Perry is anti-abortion and has signed bills with rules or restrictions for abortion procedures and funding for them.
42.
In February 2007, Rick Perry issued an executive order mandating that Texas girls receive the HPV vaccine, which protects against some strains of the human papilloma virus, a contributing factor to some forms of cervical cancer.
43.
In May 2007, the Texas Legislature passed a bill undoing the order; Rick Perry did not veto the bill, saying the veto would have been overruled, but blamed lawmakers who supported the bill for the deaths of future Texan cervical cancer victims.
44.
On July 1,2011, Rick Perry both had adult stem cell surgery in Houston and started "laying the groundwork" for the commercialization of the adult stem cell industry in Texas.
45.
Rick Perry told the Austin American-Statesman that he began attending Lake Hills because it was close to the rental home where he and his wife lived while the Governor's Mansion was being renovated.
46.
In 2006, Rick Perry said he believed in the inerrancy of the Bible and that those who do not accept Jesus as their Savior will go to hell.
47.
In June 2011, Rick Perry proclaimed August 6 as a Day of Prayer and Fasting, inviting other governors to join him in a prayer meeting hosted by the American Family Association in Houston.
48.
Rick Perry has called himself "a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect", and has expressed support for its teaching alongside evolution in Texas schools, but has said that "educators and local school officials, not the governor, should determine science curriculum".
49.
In 2001, Rick Perry expressed his pride in the enactment of the statute extending in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who meet Texas' residency requirements.
50.
Rick Perry stated during a debate his continuous support for the program.
51.
Rick Perry is a firm opponent of LGBT rights and as both Governor of Texas and Secretary of Energy became controversial for his homophobic comments and anti-LGBT positions.
52.
In 2002, Rick Perry described the Texas same-sex anti-sodomy law as "appropriate".
53.
Rick Perry supported Texas Proposition 2 in 2005, a ballot proposition that amended the Texas constitution by defining marriage as "only a union between a man and a woman" and prohibiting the state from creating or recognizing "any legal status identical or similar to marriage".
54.
In 2011, after New York legalized same-sex marriage, Rick Perry said it was their right to do so under the principle of states' rights in the Tenth Amendment.
55.
Rick Perry's comments created immense controversy and drew ire from several LGBT rights groups.
56.
Rick Perry said using foreign aid as a policy tool against foreign countries that violate the human rights of homosexuals was "not in America's interests" and was part of a "war on traditional American values".
57.
In 2007, Rick Perry signed a law ending automatic arrest for cannabis possession.
58.
Cases in which Rick Perry has been criticized for his lack of intervention include those of Cameron Todd Willingham and Mexican nationals Jose Medellin and Humberto Leal Garcia.
59.
Rick Perry commuted the death sentence of Kenneth Foster, who was convicted of murder despite evidence that he was only present at the scene of the crime.
60.
Rick Perry raised doubts about the law and urged the legislature to re-examine the issue.
61.
Rick Perry refused to grant a stay of execution in 2004 in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, even though an investigation by the Texas Forensic Science Commission determined parts of the original investigation may not have looked at all of the evidence correctly.
62.
Rick Perry was a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so that he wouldn't have those kids.
63.
In 2002, Rick Perry proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, a $175 billion transportation network that would include a 4,000-mile network of highways, rail, and utility lines and would be funded by private investors.
64.
Rick Perry has an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association.
65.
Rick Perry possesses a Concealed Carry License and has signed a number of bills that increased CCL access.
66.
In 2005, Rick Perry launched Operation Linebacker, which was intended to prevent terrorists from exploiting the Texas-Mexico border.
67.
Rick Perry touted the border security efforts as he campaigned for re-election.
68.
On July 21,2014, Rick Perry announced he would send in 1,000 National Guard troops to secure the border.
69.
Rick Perry's supporters called the charges political and partisan, and several Democratic commentators, including David Axelrod, believed charges were weak.
70.
However, Rick Perry decided not to run for re-election to a fourth full term, announcing in front of family and supporters at the Holt Cat headquarters in San Antonio on July 8,2013, that he would retire instead.
71.
Rick Perry retired with the 10th longest gubernatorial tenure in United States history at the end of his term on January 20,2015, at 5,143 days as well as the record of the longest serving Texas Governor.
72.
Rick Perry was considered as a potential candidate since as early as the 2008 presidential election, initially denying he was interested in the office but later becoming more open-minded.
73.
Rick Perry formally launched his campaign on August 13,2011, in Charleston, South Carolina.
74.
Rick Perry officially launched his 2016 presidential candidacy on June 4,2015, in Addison, Texas.
75.
Rick Perry then announced his candidacy at the scheduled press conference.
76.
On January 25,2016, Rick Perry endorsed United States Senator Ted Cruz for president.
77.
On May 5,2016, following the suspension of Cruz's presidential campaign, Rick Perry endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency.
78.
The nomination initially faced heavy criticism as Rick Perry had called for the Department of Energy to be abolished during his 2012 presidential campaign and had been unable to remember the name of the department during a Presidential debate.
79.
The next month, Rick Perry ordered a study of the US electric grid with particular consideration to coal power.
80.
On October 17,2019, Rick Perry told Trump he would resign by the end of the year, ultimately departing at the beginning of December.
81.
Rick Perry's spokesperson said that Rick Perry had suggested Trump discuss energy security with Zelensky, but energy was not mentioned in the publicly released memo about the conversations, which instead focused on Trump asking Zelensky to launch investigations into Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Crowdstrike, and the 2016 US presidential election.
82.
Per Trump's direction earlier that year, Rick Perry spoke with Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine, which Mick Mulvaney confirmed.
83.
Rick Perry denied ever mentioning the Bidens in his discussions with Trump or Ukrainian officials.
84.
Rick Perry was mentioned in October 2019 by former US officials in relation to reports he planned to have Amos Hochstein replaced as a member of the board at Naftogaz with someone aligned with Republican interests.
85.
In November 2019, both Sondland and David Holmes, who serves as counselor of political affairs at the USEmbassy in Ukraine, testified that Rick Perry had played a senior role in the Ukraine campaign, with Holmes even describing Rick Perry, along with Sondland and Volker, was one of the "Three Amigos" who directly assisted both Trump and Giuliani.
86.
In February 2015, Rick Perry announced that he would join the board of directors of Energy Transfer Partners, which owns and operates one of the largest energy asset portfolios in the United States, and Sunoco Partners, another major Dallas energy company.
87.
In early January 2020, Rick Perry joined the board of LE GP, general partner of Energy Transfer.
88.
In February 2020, Rick Perry rejoined MCNA Dental's board of directors as chief strategy officer and vice chairman.
89.
Rick Perry was one of the celebrities competing on season 23 of Dancing with the Stars.
90.
In 1982, Rick Perry married Mary Anita Thigpen, his childhood sweetheart whom he had known since elementary school.
91.
Rick Perry has spearheaded a number of health-related initiatives such as the Anita Thigpen Perry Endowment at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, which focuses on nutrition, cardiovascular disease, health education, and early childhood development.
92.
Rick Perry helped develop and host the Texas Conference for Women.
93.
Rick Perry played himself in minor roles for several feature films, including Man of the House, Deep in the Heart, and Hating Breitbart.
94.
Rick Perry is a member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and was awarded its Gold Good Citizenship Medal.