Cecile Richards, 1957-2025

The life of Cecile Richards, who died yesterday, should inspire us all to “Make Trouble,” the title of her 2018 book.

Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. I offer insight, analysis and context on Texas and national politics, as well as entertaining stories of life its ownself in the Lone Star State. If you like what you read, please 1) smash the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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But first, your moment of Zen … The Milky Way, as seen from the Terlingua cemetery on September 27, 2024. Photographed by Mark Cunningham.

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Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Quote of the Day:

“Texas is not quite ready for me.”

- Cecile Richards, in 2016, on whether she would run for Texas Governor in the future.

I.

Yesterday was a rough day for the American Dream. Donald Trump, a serial rapist and convicted felon who had called for the violent overthrow of the government in 2021, was inaugurated as the 47^th President.

Meanwhile, in a cozy apartment in New York City, surrounded by her family and her dog, Cecile Richards passed away at the age of 67.

Much more will be written and spoken about Trump’s inauguration than about Cecile’s passing, which is a shame, since Cecile was a better person than Donald Trump was, is, or could ever hope to be.

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II.

I met Cecile sometime after her mother, Ann Richards, was elected governor of Texas in 1990. I was a bit of an outsider in the new Richards Administration. I had not worked for or with Ann previously; I was not a known Democratic “operative;” I had no long-established policy credentials. But everyone welcomed me, Cecile and her husband Kirk especially.

They had a big house overlooking Pease Park then, and I was occasionally invited to parties and backyard barbecues. Later on, a small group of us – Cecile and Kirk and their kids, my colleagues Chuck McDonald and Margaret Justus and their families – took a couple camping trips together.

Cecile had her mother’s charisma and flinty determination, and her father David’s smarts and strategic thinking. She’d been a labor organizer when she and Kirk met, and by the time her mother ran for Governor in 1990, she was a full-time activist.

A year after Ann Richards was defeated in her bid for re-election in 1994, Cecile formed the Texas Freedom Network to counter the increasing influence of the Religious Right in Texas, particularly on education issues.

The groups she tangled with on public education issues were a template of modern MAGA America – self-righteous, intolerant, and willing to spew vitriol and even threaten the safety of their opponents. Given their sanctimonious religosity, this was considered shocking at the time. Nowadays, it is no longer a bug but a feature.

Cecile became a national figure when she took over the presidency of Planned Parenthood in 2006. There again, she weathered hate and death threats from the worst people on earth, and showed grit and composure in constant fights with national and state figures determined to sabotage the organization.

She led it through its most consequential battles, fighting off attempts at the national and state levels to defund the organization. She frequently had occasion to remind people that only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s health care services are abortions, and that it is in fact the leading provider of women’s health care services to poor and uninsured women.

Cecile finished her tenure at Planned Parenthood in 2018, caught her breath, and then jumped into the dynamic 2020 election, co-founding Supermajority, a nonpartisan organization “focused on making women the most powerful voting bloc in the country.”

In 2023, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a vicious form of brain cancer. Last November, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden.

IV.

Cecile was the first child of one of the most influential political couples in Texas history. Her father David was a groundbreaking lawyer, winning major cases in redistricting, voting rights, and school finance. Her mother Ann was the most consequential woman politician in Texas of the 20^th century, serving as a county commissioner, state treasurer, and governor.

But the Texas she grew up in, however hostile it was to her parents, had made itself totally unworthy of her by the turn of the 21^st century. It truly was “not quite ready for her.”

Well done, good and faithful servant. We’ll take it from here.