Ron Kirk

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Ron Kirk

Ronald "Ron" Kirk (born June 27, 1954) was the first African American mayor of Dallas, Texas; he also ran for the United States Senate in 2002.

Born in Austin, Texas, Ron Kirk attended Austin College and The University of Texas School of Law. Upon his graduation in 1979, he practiced law until 1981 when he left to work in the office of then-Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Kirk continued to work with Bentsen after his appointment as Treasury Secretary in the first Clinton administration.

In 1994, Kirk worked for then-Texas Governor Ann Richards as Texas Secretary of State. The following year, Kirk ran for mayor of Dallas. With support of Dallas' business community and influential members of the city's African American community, Kirk was successful in his bid, winning 62 percent of the vote.

During his tenure as mayor, Kirk earned the reputation of being a coalition-builder, managing to keep the always-tumultuous Dallas City Council and Dallas School Board together. Under his leadership, he proposed the "Dallas Plan," a vision for the next 25 years, which included the controversial Trinity River Project, a $246 million plan that called for constructing a network of parks and highways in the flood plain of the Trinity River. Under his leadership he also pushed the construction of the American Airlines Center, whose opening he oversaw in 2002.

In 1999, Kirk was re-elected as mayor of Dallas in a landslide with 74 percent of the vote.

In 2001, Kirk resigned as mayor of Dallas in order to run for the Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Phil Gramm. Facing then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, Kirk lost with 43 percent of the vote to Cornyn's 55 percent.

Following his failed bid for Senate, Kirk returned to the law firm of Gardere Wynne Sewell in Dallas, and was briefly a candidate for chairman of the Democratic National Committee after the 2004 elections. He is now a partner with the Houston-based law firm Vinson and Elkins, where according to Texans for Public Justice, he is currently (March 2007) one of the four highest paid lobbyists for TXU, the Texas Utility that proposed building 11 new dirty-coal plants across Texas.