Texas Wine Pioneers by Gretchen Glasscock

Author:Gretchen Glasscock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gretchen Glasscock
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

The first step was to hire Pike Powers, legislative counsel from the firm of Fulbright & Jaworski in Austin. Later Powers was named 2017 Texan of the Year by the Texas Legislative Conference. Pike was known for putting Austin on the tech map. According to a 2016 article in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung: “He was instrumental in attracting MCC, 3M, Sematech and Applied Materials, as well as AMD and Samsung expansions and other manufacturing and research operations to Austin,”13 thrusting the state capital into the epicenter of the sizzling hot tech economy, right behind Silicon Valley. Less known is his critical role in creating, shaping and shepherding through the historic Farm Winery Act.

Pike connected me and helped form a legislative team to sponsor my bill and push it forward. The team included Representative John Wilson, named by Texas Monthly in 1977 as one of the “Best” legislators, who was on the House Committee on Liquor Regulation; Jim Nowlin, a previous member of the Liquor Regulation Committee, who went on to become a judge of the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas; and Senator John Traeger, an Air Force Vet, also serving in the Texas National Guard.

As we began to work the halls of the Texas Legislature, I also found a colleague and a supportive professional friend in my own Bexar County Rep, Frank Tejeda. Frank was warm and personable and a true warrior, a Marine Corps vet who had been awarded a Purple Heart, among other honors.

Luckily for me, in the legislature’s 66th Regular Session (R.S.) in 1979, Tejeda was Vice Chair of the Liquor Regulation Committee, the committee that would first hear my bill and decide on whether to send it out from committee for a vote—in other words, the committee that initially had sole control over the life or death of my bill. Tejeda’s position on that committee meant I had several allies on the inside updating me on either progress or roadblocks put in the way of my bill so I had advance warning and could try to counter any specific negative tactics before they took permanent hold and halted the bill in its tracks.

Crucially, looking back on this time, what I had was a team of fierce warriors determined to succeed and undeterred by the firepower and odds stacked against us.

Strategic Elements of Our Farm Winery Bill

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