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Dolph Briscoe, Texas Governor in the ’70s, Dies at 87

Dolph Briscoe Jr., a former governor of Texas who helped restore credibility to its government after a major scandal and later built his ranching family’s already vast enterprise into the largest individual landholder in the state, died Sunday at his home in Uvalde, Tex. He was 87.

The death was of natural causes, said his assistant, Barbara Woodman.

“A moderate conservative Democrat,” in his own words, Mr. Briscoe was governor from 1972 to 1978, serving a two-year term and (after a change in the state’s Constitution) a four-year term. In those six years, Texas’ oil and gas industries boomed and Mr. Briscoe kept his pledge of no new taxes.

“The necessity of fiscal responsibility in all levels of government is second only to world peace in our survival,” he said....
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