Could a Loud, Rich, and Scandal-Prone Personal Injury Lawyer Win Control of Houston?
The view from a luxe office on the seventy-third floor of Houston’s tallest building might give anyone visions of dominance, and it’s easy to understand why Tony Buzbee wouldn’t be immune. He grew up wearing cheap jeans and off-brand shoes in tiny Atlanta, Texas, in the state’s northeast corner. Through brains and grit and sharp elbows, he transformed himself into one of the country’s richest and most famous personal injury lawyers, defending, so he likes to say, working people against greedy corporations. Nowadays Buzbee can look down on some of those companies’ headquarters from his aerie in the Chase Tower. The office so high that to reach it requires a change of elevators. The office with gleaming door handles in the shape of sharks.
“I’m a shark, yeah,” Buzbee tells me in a nasal, high-pitched East Texas twang you don’t hear much anymore. “The great white controls the ocean. We go for it. No fear.” As he speaks, the sunlight flooding his office is dazzling, almost blinding, like heaven should be. His very name—Buzzzzzbeeeee—seems almost divinely fitting, given the coiled energy he radiates.
He is a compact, pugnacious man of 51, with wavy brown hair just graying at the temples. When he stands up from his giant mahogany desk, beaming incandescently with hand outstretched, it’s like he’s been waiting for you all his life. Buzbee favors Texas trial lawyer–chic attire: on this day a custom-made, royal-blue linen jacket—Brioni—jeans, a black T-shirt faded just so, custom-made boots, a gold watch sprinkled with diamonds, and a few braided leather bracelets, which direct the eye to the shark tattoo on his forearm. Buzbee’s eyes, just a shade paler than the Houston sky on a clear day, look diabolical only if you stare really closely.
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But he wants more. Specifically, he wants to replace Houston mayor Sylvester Turner in the November 5 election. That race is nonpartisan, which suits Buzbee, who considers himself politically nonbinary. He ran unsuccessfully for the Texas House as a Democrat in 2002, served as chair of the Galveston County Democratic party, and supported Bill Clinton for president. He also supported Republican governor Rick Perry and served as Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst’s debate coach. He hosted a 2016 fundraiser for Donald Trump and wrote a six-figure check to his inauguration committee.
Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/could-tony-buzbee-sylvester-turner-houston-mayor-race/
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