Travis Johnson, an El Paso attorney who was prominent in Texas political and business circles for decades, died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 89.
Johnson was appointed El Paso County judge, the highest executive position in county government, in 1965, when he was 29 years old. He was influential in El Paso and Texas Democratic politics for four decades.
He was an adviser and longtime friend of Lloyd Bentsen, the last Democrat elected to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. Bentsen was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 1988 and served as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of the treasury from 1993 to 1994.
Johnson was an honorary pallbearer at Bentsen’s funeral in 2006, along with former presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush and former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, James Baker and Madeline Albright.
In a 1987 article for Texas Monthly on power in Texas, journalist Paul Burka described Johnson as the person to reach out to in El Paso if you had “one call to make.”
“From the ’40s into the ’60s, banker Sam Young was a true kingmaker (in El Paso). Johnson has held the top spot more through political acumen than through raw power,” Burka wrote.
It was through Bentsen that Johnson became acquainted with Herb Kelleher, the founder of Southwest Airlines.
“When Bentsen ran for senator in 1970, Herb was his campaign manager in San Antonio and I was his campaign manager in El Paso. We got to be good friends going to Bentsen meetings,” Johnson said in a 2019 interview with El Paso Inc., shortly after Kelleher’s death.
Johnson joined the board of Southwest Airlines in 1978, serving for more than three decades as Southwest grew from a regional carrier to one of the nation’s largest airlines.
He was a graduate of Texas A&M University and the University of Houston School of Law. He served on the University of Houston Board of Regents.
He and Annabelle Bean met at Ysleta Elementary School in the 1940s and married in 1963. She died in 2020. They are survived by their daughter, Heather Johnson.
Johnson is the second former El Paso County judge to pass away in the past week. Alicia Chacón, county judge from 1991 to 1995, died Nov. 25.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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