Fourty-first Governor of Texas Dolph Briscoe, Jr. was born in Uvalde, Texas, on April 23, 1923, to Texas cattleman Dolph Sr. and Georgie Briscoe. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he met Betty Jane "Janey" Slaughter. The couple married in 1942. After graduation, Briscoe enlisted in the United States Army, fighting in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II.
Briscoe began a career in politics in 1948, serving as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1949 to 1957. As a state legislator, he held key chairmanships for the agriculture and highway committees and co-authored the Colson-Briscoe Act, which sponsored the state's farm-to-market road system.
Upon his father's death in 1954, Briscoe returned to Uvalde to head his family ranch rather than seek a fifth term as state representative. He became president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raising Association in 1960, the youngest person to do so.
In 1968, Briscoe reentered the political arena, campaigning for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Texas. While he finished fourth in the 1968 primary race, he ran again in 1972, winning not only the Democratic nomination but also the general election. Briscoe was re-elected in 1974.
During his two terms as Governor of Texas, Briscoe attempted to restore integrity to the state government following the Sharpstown scandals surrounding his predecessor, Preston Smith. He focused on the maintenance of existing government agencies rather than the creation of new ones, signing a series of ethics reform and regulation laws as well as presiding over the first revision of the state's penal code in 100 years. Briscoe also appointed a larger number of women and minorities to government positions than any previous governor.
Spending much of his time at his ranch in Uvalde, Briscoe was often considered an absentee governor. Many, both in and outside the Texas Democratic Party, began to question his performance and effectiveness. (Perhaps the most well known example of Briscoe's apparent lack of enthusiasm came when he unknowingly appointed a dead person to the State Health Advisory Commission.) With liberal Democrats increasingly dissatisfied with his administration and the political backlash against his policies over racial, educational, and economic issues, Briscoe was defeated in the Democratic primary during his bid for a third term by then-Texas Attorney General John Hill. Hill ultimately lost the general election to Bill Clements, the first Republican governor since Reconstruction.
Briscoe left the Governor's Mansion in 1979 and returned to the ranching business. He became increasingly active in philanthropy, donating sizable gifts to the Witte Museum, the University of Texas Heath Science Center at San Antonio, the Kate Marmion Regional Cancer Medical Center, and the Center for American History, the latter of which was subsequently renamed in his honor.
Briscoe died on June 27, 2010, at his home in Uvalde following complications from heart and kidney failure. He was 87.
