Pardon Me

Miriam Amanda Ferguson was the first female governor of Texas.  She was the second woman to be elected  governor in  the United States - two weeks before Mrs. Ferguson’s  inauguration, Nellie Tayloe Ross was sworn in as governor of Wyoming.   Ross had won a special election to finish the unexpired term of her late husband. 

Her husband, James Ferguson, served as Governor of Texas from 1915 to 1917. After being re-elected in 1916, Ferguson vetoed the appropriations for the University of Texas. The veto was retaliation against the university because of its refusal to dismiss certain faculty members whom Ferguson found objectionable. This move spurred the drive to impeach Ferguson.

The Texas House of Representatives prepared 21 charges against Ferguson and the Senate convicted him on 9 of those charges. The Senate removed him from the office of Governor and declared him ineligible to ever hold office in Texas again.

After her husband's impeachment and conviction, she ran as a Democrat for the office herself. During the campaign she said she would follow the advice of her husband and that Texas would get "two governors for the price of one.

“Ma” Ferguson served as governor from 1925~27 and again from 1933~35.   Aside from several unproven charges of wholesale corruption, her politics are described as populist and  fiscal conservative. 

She signed the bill that created the University of Houston, and she was (falsely) quoted as saying “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas.” - There are variations of this phrase going back to 1881 that were often used to ridicule the backwardness of various unnamed Christians – but she was most famous for her pardons.  .

There was a story that made the rounds saying that when Ma Ferguson was touring the Walls prison in Huntsville, she bumped into an inmate that was mopping the corridor.  He backed up and said “Pardon me, Ma’am.”  So she did.

Mrs. Ferguson's infamously over-generous granting of pardons was her way of relieving the overcrowded conditions in Texas prisons.  Some said that the pardons were the result of bribes, though that was never proven.

Her actions did cause the Texas Legislature to amend the law so that the Governor could no longer unilaterally issue a pardon. Today, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles must first recommend a pardon. Even if the Board recommends a pardon, the Governor can still choose not to grant it.

For all the pardons she granted, Ma Ferguson never pardoned a dead man.  The current Governor, Rick Perry, became the first governor to issue a posthumous pardon in January of this year.