Texas Has Big Plans for Bush Presidential Library

President Bush’s aides contend that he hasn’t thought much about what he will do when he leaves office in January 2009. But there are indications that plans are underway.

Bush has named a close friend, former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, to head the search for the location of his presidential library. Evans said he was being assisted by one of the president’s brothers, Marvin Bush, and by Craig R. Stapleton, the husband of a Bush cousin and the nominee to be ambassador to France.

And in comments to the Los Angeles Times, Bush said that his return to private life probably would include work with Texas faith-based organizations that performed social services. He did not elaborate.

Bush will be 62 when his second term ends. The youngest former president was Theodore Roosevelt, who was 50 when he left the White House.

“He’s going to be a very young man,” said Evans, adding that he had not heard Bush talk about an intent to work with faith-based groups. “He will continue to serve his fellow man in some capacity. He’s driven by serving others.”

At the White House, officials declined to offer more details on Bush’s plans.

“The president is focused on his agenda and the big priorities for the nation,” spokesman Scott McClellan said. “He has not put any serious thought into what he may do four years from now.... He was simply speculating about something he might like to be involved with.”

It was at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Assn. in April that Bush said, without hesitation, that he probably would work with faith-based groups and concentrate on establishing his presidential library.

The comments offered the first glimpses of Bush’s thinking about his life after he leaves office.

Evans said the library search committee had not set a target date for soliciting proposals from institutions that wanted to house the library.

But competition is underway.

Southern Methodist University in Dallas -- First Lady Laura Bush’s alma mater -- is perceived as the front-runner.

But Baylor University has purchased more than 100 acres on the banks of the Brazos River near downtown Waco as a potential site for what might be a $100-million-plus library and museum complex. The Bushes’ Texas home is in nearby Crawford.

Others parties declaring an interest include Texas A&M; University in College Station, where Bush’s father placed his library; the University of Texas at Austin, site of the Lyndon B. Johnson library; Texas Tech University in Lubbock; and the cities of Midland, where Bush grew up, and Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers -- the Major League Baseball team where Bush was a managing partner in the early 1990s.

Presidential libraries can be a significant prize for a community, driving tourism and economic growth and drawing an array of political and cultural figures.

Officials at the first President Bush’s library, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M;, estimate that the institution creates $10 million in economic activity each year. That includes spending on meals and hotel rooms by visitors, as well as the museum’s spending on salaries, security and materials for exhibits. About 138,000 people visited the museum last year.

“Whenever you have that many people going into a community, even when it is on a day visit, they are leaving money in the economy. So it’s quite incredible,” said Barry Biggar of the Bryan-College Station Convention and Visitors Bureau.

He said residents had benefited from seminars, lectures and cultural events at the library and museum.

In Texas, political handicappers have placed their bets on Southern Methodist University. Laura Bush not only received her undergraduate degree there, but also serves on the school’s board of trustees. The Bushes are Methodists, and the university is in Dallas, where the president and first lady are expected to buy a home after they leave Washington.

An official said the school was taking nothing for granted in the competition.

“Everyone thinks SMU has an edge, but we haven’t heard that from anybody that counts,” said Tom Barry, the vice president for executive affairs and leader of the school’s presidential library project.

Barry said the 10,900-student university began developing its library proposal shortly after Bush’s inauguration in 2001. It has drafted a detailed plan and is ready to submit it as soon as the White House invites it to do so.

Laura Bush has no involvement in the project, said Barry, who declined to discuss whether the school’s proposal contained any elements that dovetailed with the president’s interest in faith-based programs.

“We’ve had a low profile in this whole process,” Barry said. “That’s the way we want to keep it.”

Baylor has some assets it hopes will catch the president’s eye. Among them is the Center for Religious Inquiry Across the Disciplines, a think tank created last year to study the effect of religion in American life.

The center’s director, sociologist Byron Johnson, has specialized in assessing the effectiveness of using faith-based organizations to confront social problems, such as crime and delinquency. In one study, he found that convicts who attended regular classes on Bible study were half as likely as other inmates to be incarcerated again within three years of release.

Bush has long spoken of the power of faith to transform lives, and he has supported religious groups that provide social services. One hallmark of his presidency has been his faith-based initiative, which has directed federal money to religious organizations that Bush contends are more effective than government in providing counseling, education, drug treatment and other services.

Some critics have said the faith-based initiative is a political tool aimed at wooing pastors and religious voters to the Republican Party.

Most Democratic lawmakers say they support the concept of the initiative, but have opposed some elements -- including a provision that would have permitted faith-based groups that accept federal funds to hire staff based on the applicants’ religious beliefs.

Because of such concerns in Congress, Bush has put much of his program in place through executive order.

“Faith changes lives. I know, because faith has changed mine,” Bush wrote in “A Charge to Keep,” his 1999 autobiography. In the book, Bush described how he drank too much in his 30s but quit shortly after his 40th birthday as part of a profound personal transformation.

Baylor, a 12,700-student university founded by Baptists in 1845, launched its library recruitment drive in late 2000, shortly before Bush took the presidential oath of office.

The university has drafted a 110-page proposal for submission to the White House whenever the call goes out, said Tommye Lou Davis, who chairs the school’s presidential library project.

In the meantime, it has enlisted the support of the city of Waco, the mayors of 400 Texas communities and the university’s alumni network, including graduates who work in the Bush administration.

Baylor held the President’s Economic Forum in 2002 and Bush’s summit with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin this year.

But Bush chose SMU as the site of the final rally of his 2004 election campaign, and Davis acknowledges the Dallas school is the team to beat.

“We feel like we have to work harder because we’re the underdog,” she said. “We just hope that when they look at our proposal, they’ll feel like Baylor is maybe a better fit.”

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Vieth reported from Waco and Chen from Washington.

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Multiple options in Lone Star State

Several universities and cities in Texas are vying for George W. Bush’s presidential library. The state already has two presidential libraries, including that of Bush’s father.

Other presidential libraries:

*--* - Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, West Branch, Iowa - Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, N.Y. - Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, Independence, Mo. - Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kan. - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston - Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace,* Yorba Linda - Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, Ann Arbor, Mich., and Grand Rapids, Mich. - Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Atlanta - Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Simi Valley - William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, Little Rock, Ark. *--*

*Because of Watergate-related court proceedings, Nixon’s presidential papers and recordings were retained by the National Archives in College Park, Md. The Nixon library in Yorba Linda opened in 1994 as a privately funded facility, but it is expected to become the 12th official presidential library in February, and the White House material will be transferred there.

Sources: ESRI, USGS