The Texas Miracle

In The Texas Miracle, author John Marshall offers a detailed examination of the largest political fraud in Texas since the Sharpstown scandal in the early 1970s. An extension of his earlier book, Playing Possum, he expands on the information surrounding a massive land deal. Marshall offers a political look at what took place in Texas. In 2006, the Staubach Company advised the Brazos River Authority to begin charging a fair market rate at Possum Kingdom Lake to the people who had built their weekend homes around the shoreline. At that time, the average lake lot was three-quarters of an acre and the average rental rate was $76 per month. In 2007, Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, and a handful of Texas legislators attempted to force the Brazos River Authority to sell the shoreline of Possum Kingdom Lake to the wealthy weekenders at a discount. This effort was opposed by Republicans, Democrats, and bureaucrats alike, and it met a humiliating defeat. Two years later, the weekenders and the politicians enlisted the services of the River Card. The Texas Miracle tells that tale.