AUSTIN - Less than a year after being elected to lead the oldest state agency in Texas, Land Commissioner George P. Bush has dramatically remade the General Land Office by ousting a majority of its longtime leaders and replacing many of them with people with ties to his campaign and family.
Eleven of the top 18 officials on the agency's organizational chart a year ago have been fired, forced out or quit, and more could leave soon under an ongoing overhaul that Bush has described as a "reboot."
In their place, Bush has given top jobs to two of his law school classmates, two relatives of members of two Bush presidential administrations and at least three others with ties to the family or other political leaders.
Everybody's friends will get rich(er).