‘You Won’t See Me at the Food Stamp Line’ : Broke, Connally to ‘Start Making Living’

John B. Connally, who once signed all of the nation’s money, said Saturday that he now has none of his own.

At 70, the former governor, former Treasury secretary, former Democrat and former presidential candidate is a former millionaire with debt that runs deep.

“I’ll have to start making a living now,” he said, a day after filing personal and business bankruptcy actions in federal court here.

Connally’s financial problems stem from real estate deals gone sour. He has asked the federal court to appoint an auctioneer to sell off his personal holdings to help cover his debts.

“I can go to legal work. I can go back to representing people. I can put deals together. I can do a lot of things,” Connally said of his job prospects.

“You won’t see me at the food stamp line . . . and we’re not going to run a telethon and ask for contributions,” he said.

The business bust that brought on bankruptcy involved the Barnes-Connally partnership established in the early 1980s during the boom years of Texas real estate. Connally and former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes borrowed millions of dollars to build shopping malls, office buildings and luxury condominiums.

At one point, their assets totaled $300 million. But they were caught with unwanted property as many wealthy Texans either went broke or turned cautious.

“We just got into an economic environment we couldn’t pull ourselves out of. We worked at it for a year, doing everything we knew how to do, and we still couldn’t do it,” he said.

“John is a very interesting fellow with a lot of charisma, but he didn’t know anything about real estate, in my judgment,” said former state Sen. Charles Herring, a Connally friend and political supporter.

After three terms as a Texas Democratic governor from 1963 to 1969, Connally served as President Richard M. Nixon’s Treasury secretary. And, in 1980, after switching parties, he unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination.