Putting on My First Official Hat
In the late summer of August 1992, out in western Texas.
The truck radio was filled with the dry voice of a news anchor.
The view of Garden Queens Main Street slid past the truck window.
Until just a year ago, the place had been nothing but empty storefronts and groups of Hispanic unemployed men warming themselves by burning scrap wood in drums set at street corners. But after Lee Energy put down roots in Garden Queens, workers and businesspeople flooded in from all over Texas, turning the little town into a bustling oil boomtown.
And in the middle of that prosperity, the place I was driving toward today was practically the center of the whole region.
La Estrella Grand Hall.
The banquet hall of the oldest hotel in Garden Queens County, and a social club for the local power brokers.
Cadillacs, Lincolns, and other luxury cars were lined up out front.
When my truck came to a stop at the entrance, a waiting employee hurried over and opened the door for me.
“Welcome, Mr. Lee.”
He must have seen me enough times by now to memorize my truck number.
I gave him a slight nod and got out.
As soon as I stepped into the hotel, a cool wash of air-conditioning met me.
Along the edge of the banquet hall, waiters were carrying bourbon and iced tea through the crowd.
Under the yellow glow of the chandeliers, the real powers of Garden Queens County had gathered, and every one of their gazes landed on me at once.
“Oh! Our young hero has arrived!”
The first person to greet me was a big, middle-aged man in cowboy boots.
Judge Randall McCallister.
He was the local heavyweight, serving as County Judge of Garden Queens County.
County Judge.
The title made it sound like a judicial office, but in Texas the position was not about judging at all; it was the county’s administrative head. A unique institution inherited from the days of the Texas Republic, the County Judge also served as the chair of the local commissioners’ court. With budget authority, emergency-declaration power, and even approval over land condemnation all in one set of hands, the office was effectively the supreme authority in a county.
If a state in the American federation was like a country, then a county was a little kingdom inside it—and the County Judge was the monarch.
“Good to see you, Judge McCallister.”
“We’re the ones who should be honored that our Sanha Lee would make time to come see us in the middle of such a busy schedule! Come on now, this way. Everyone’s been waiting for you.”
He grabbed my hand with both of his and laughed heartily.
Judge McCallister led me straight toward the center of the hall.
The county commissioners and local notables around us parted like the Red Sea, greeting me as they made room.
A real-estate developer who owned a five-thousand-acre ranch seized my hand with both of his and shook it as if he had just received the glory of three generations.
“Mr. Lee, the pipeline running across the idle land beside my ranch has been bringing in some nice lease income. Next year I’m thinking of developing the land by the refinery too. Hahaha—”
The branch manager of a major insurance company rushed up and handed me a glass of wine.
“Our branch’s performance is now in the top three across all of Texas. That’s thanks to Lee Energy signing a group policy with us. Because of that, I even received a commendation from headquarters. Above all, it’s an honor to finally meet you in person today, Chairman Lee.”
The chairman of the local credit union looked as though he’d gladly hand over his liver and gallbladder too.
“Thanks to Chairman Lee, our credit union’s assets have quintupled. At this rate, conversion into a commercial bank doesn’t sound like a dream anymore. It’s all due to your benevolence. Please continue to look after us, sir. We’ll do our absolute best to serve you as well.”
The head of a heavy-equipment rental company with dozens of subsidiaries raised a toast to me and laughed loudly.
“The equipment rental company I run just hit a new quarterly sales record. Demand for drilling rigs never lets up. Before Chairman Lee showed up, we were just a tiny roadside shop in the sticks.”
The county health director approached respectfully and extended his hand.
“Thanks to your support for the medical aid fund, our emergency helicopter service is now running. Last month alone, we flew a heart-attack patient all the way to Houston and saved his life. Countywide access to medical care is completely different now. It’s all because of your dedication, Chairman Lee.”
Next to him, the chairman of the school board also spoke with proud enthusiasm.
“Twelve students are going on to major universities this year thanks to the scholarship fund. Three to UT Austin, two to Texas A&M. It’s an unprecedented result in Garden Queens history.”
A gray-haired rancher who ran a ten-thousand-acre cattle operation tipped the brim of his Stetson and greeted me.
“I hear you’re heading to Washington? At last, Garden Queens will have a channel to speak directly to the federal government. That’ll change the standing of our county.”
Every pair of eyes on me was full of expectation.
A man who would soon enter the White House and sit down with the president one-on-one.
A pipeline that could send their petitions straight into the federal government.
The local power brokers gathered around me were already starting to discuss matters of consequence.
Judge McCallister spoke first.
“Chairman Lee, let me get straight to the point. There was a matter I absolutely wanted to discuss with you today. It concerns the severance tax—specifically, how the revenue is distributed.”
At his signal, an aide beside him handed over a chart.
It was a breakdown of Texas state tax revenue distribution.
I scanned it and nodded.
“The Severance Tax. Just as I expected. The gap between where the wealth is produced and where it ends up benefiting people.”
“As expected of Chairman Lee. You got right to the heart of it.”
Judge McCallister nodded.
Severance tax.
“Severance” means “to separate.” In other words, it was a tax imposed when resources buried underground were separated up onto the surface.
In the United States, companies that extracted natural resources such as oil, natural gas, coal, and minerals were taxed this way. In resource-rich states like Texas, Alaska, and Louisiana, severance tax was a core source of state revenue.
But Texas’s severance tax structure was deeply distorted.
Whenever crude oil came out of a field, about 4.6 percent of production value went to the state government as tax.
The problem was where that money went.
Garden Queens’s severance tax flowed into the state’s general fund, then was prioritized for education budgets and infrastructure projects in major cities like Houston, Dallas, and Austin, while the rural county that had actually pulled the oil from the ground got only scraps.
In other words, tiny towns like Garden Queens were effectively feeding much larger cities on their own.
Judge McCallister pulled out a document and read from it.
“To give you the specific numbers… last year, Garden Queens County paid $6.2 million in severance tax to the state. Yet the state subsidy we got back was only $400,000. The $5.8 million difference was absorbed into infrastructure budgets for Austin and Houston. And because Garden Queens’s population still doesn’t compare to those cities, our influence in elections is correspondingly small.”
The issue was not just money.
Garden Queens’s population was only 12,000.
Compared to Houston’s 1.7 million or Dallas’s 1 million, it was adorable.
The United States was a nation of representative democracy through and through.
Seats in the state legislature were allocated by population, and politicians lined up where the votes were plentiful.
No matter how much tax Garden Queens paid, in the electoral arena it could not deliver even half the votes of a single Houston district.
The result was obvious.
Politicians from Austin would come shaking hands only during election season, scoop up the votes, and once elected, handle the complaints of the big cities with the most people first.
Repair requests for Garden Queens roads gathered dust in the bottom drawer of a desk.
Requests to build a new high school gym had been “under review” for seven years.
The petition to expand the fire station had not even been assigned an intake number.
The water pipe replacement project had been pushed aside by a new suburban development outside Houston and postponed indefinitely, and the plan to expand the county hospital emergency room failed every year at the budget review stage.
If you called the state representative’s office, an aide would only repeat that the person in charge was unavailable.
Garden Queens paid the money, the big cities took the benefits, and there were no votes with which to protest.
In plain language, they were getting played for suckers.
“To be honest….”
Judge McCallister paused and looked at me.
“I don’t know whether we even have the right to raise our voices like this. The very fact that Garden Queens’s tax revenue has grown this much is entirely thanks to Chairman Lee.”
“You’re too kind.”
“No, no. Chairman Lee pays his taxes transparently, gives generously to the local development fund, and even maintains a policy of hiring local talent first. We all know this is your dedication to saving Garden Queens.”
He let out a heavy sigh.
“And yet the fact that the taxes you so carefully pay are filling the coffers of other regions… for us, it is truly heartbreaking. Your goodwill is being consumed in the wrong place.”
“I feel the same way.”
I looked around at everyone gathered there.
“What we want is simple: for the wealth created in Garden Queens to be returned to Garden Queens. Isn’t that the bare minimum of justice?”
“Exactly!”
The local notables hurried to agree with me.
“While highways in the big cities are being built with taxes collected from Garden Queens, the main roads here have remained unpaved for ten years.”
“The state fire department acquired the latest equipment, I hear. Of course, that equipment was deployed in Midland. A city that already has three fire stations. Garden Queens is still relying on a volunteer fire brigade.”
“A new public library opened next to the county office in Odessa this year. Garden Queens kids still have to go all the way into town just to borrow books.”
“Just the corporate taxes paid by Chairman Lee’s company could easily build one elementary school. And yet our children are still studying in a forty-year-old building and worrying about asbestos.”
“Garden Queens was left off the list again for the state hospital expansion approved last year. Even though if a resident here has an emergency, they practically have to call a helicopter.”
“We’ve never once seen the wealth created in Garden Queens used for Garden Queens.”
I nodded along to their complaints one by one.
Then I gave them exactly the words they most wanted to hear.
“I’ll bring this up quietly at the White House dinner.”
“Ohhh!”
“Something like, the residents of Texas’s major oil-producing regions are turning their backs on the Republican Party… that should be enough, right? Election season is coming soon, and nothing is scarier than voter sentiment.”
“Incredible. How can Chairman Lee be so young and yet so insightful….”
Everyone gave me a thumbs-up.
Of course, they were pursuing their own interests, but there was genuine admiration in the reaction as well.
I laid out a more concrete proposal.
“The alternative is fairly clear too. We push the Department of Energy or the EPA to attach conditions when they give subsidies to the Texas state government. Something like: if the state doesn’t raise the proportion of revenue returned to mining communities, then federal subsidies get cut. Once federal funding is on the line, Austin will have no choice but to move.”
“There was a method like that? I’d thought long and hard about this problem myself, but I couldn’t come up with a proper countermeasure… As expected!”
Color returned to the notables’ faces.
“So, Chairman Lee,”
Judge McCallister’s tone grew even more serious.
“If you’re going to raise your voice in the White House, won’t you need a title?”
“A title?”
“No matter how outstanding Chairman Lee is, to the bureaucrats in Washington you’re still… well, it’s only because they don’t know any better….”
“Feel free to say it plainly. In their eyes, I’m just a young businessman from the countryside, aren’t I?”
“Absolutely not! Absolutely not how we see you! But those idiots who can’t tell people apart might think that way, that’s all I mean. Still, what if we put the title County Commissioner after Chairman Lee’s name?”
“...Hmm.”
I stroked my chin once.
County Commissioner.
Literally, it meant a county commissioner.
The word “commissioner” came from the Latin committere, meaning “to entrust,” and carried the sense of someone entrusted with authority by the voters.
In Texas, county administration was overseen by a committee called the Commissioners Court. It consisted of one County Judge and four County Commissioners, with the County Judge serving as chair while the other four represented their respective precincts.
A commissioner was an elected official serving a four-year term and exercised real administrative authority over road construction and maintenance, bridge management, budget review, and approval of local infrastructure projects. It was a position of genuine power in the county.
The smaller and more rural the county, the greater the influence of each commissioner. In a place with as little population as Garden Queens, the office had the stature of a local strongman.
Judge McCallister leaned forward.
“Precinct Three is about to become vacant, as it happens. It’s one of the key districts inside Garden Queens. One of the current officeholders has announced their intention to resign for health reasons. Although county commissioners are elected positions, if a vacancy opens midterm, I, as County Judge, have the authority to appoint a successor. If Chairman Lee accepts, I can make the appointment tomorrow.”
“Wouldn’t there be a problem with that, since it’s an elected office?”
“No matter what Chairman Lee does, there isn’t a single person in Garden Queens who can stand in your way. Everyone gives you absolute support. Young or old, men or women, everyone.”
The other county commissioners chimed in around him.
“That’s right. A Texas county commissioner is someone even Washington can’t ignore. You’d be a proper public official with a mandate from the voters.”
“We know what gratitude is. We should be giving Chairman Lee more leverage.”
“Unanimous, unanimous. No one here doubts Chairman Lee’s dedication or sincerity.”
“If there’s anyone who does, I’ll just give them one good whack with these thick arms of mine and fix their attitude! Hahaha—”
Judge McCallister’s eyes turned serious.
“Chairman Lee. Please take it.”
He stood from his seat and bowed deeply.
“On behalf of Garden Queens County, I’m asking you.”
One by one, the local notables also rose to their feet.
“Chairman Lee, we’re begging you too.”
“Please accept.”
“Garden Queens needs a young hero with vision, someone like you.”
I thought about it for a moment.
Just as Harvard credentials opened doors to trust and connections, a public office title did the same.
In a country where racial discrimination was still rampant, an Asian immigrant youth needed two or three times as many credentials as anyone else to earn trust.
Academic pedigree, and an official title.
And above all….
It would keep my family safe even while I’m away from the United States.
If I expanded into Britain or Russia later, there would be many times when I’d have to leave America behind.
At those times, if the politicians of Garden Queens became the fence around my home, what better insurance could there be?
Politicians can’t be trusted, but there’s one thing they do care about: they’ll protect the people tied to their own interests with terrifying thoroughness.
I let out a helpless sigh.
“...You’ve asked this far. I can’t exactly refuse. I’ll do my best.”
“Ohhh! Excellent! Very excellent! This is wonderful news!”
Color flooded Judge McCallister’s face.
And just like that, I had acquired an official title.
County Commissioner.
A position that gave me a basis for legitimacy and influence in the local community.
And a hidden shield that would protect my family when I was out of the country.
In other words, I had secured a fairly useful stepping-stone on the road beyond the White House and out into the wider world.
---