National In 1972, Smothers gained national attention as an alternate delegate for then
Governor George Wallace at the
Democratic National Convention. Without any expectation of success, Smothers nominated himself for
vice president to run with nominee
George McGovern but polled support from only seventy-four delegates, more than twice that received by
Governor Jimmy Carter of
Georgia, the
1976 Democratic presidential nominee who was not an announced candidate for vice-president. Smothers warned the national Democrats meeting in
Miami Beach, that Wallace, who had been the victim of an assassination attempt in
Maryland several weeks earlier, held the allegiance of 20 million voters and had to be recognized. Smothers did not endorse either McGovern or Republican
Richard M. Nixon but instead supported the
1972 American Independent Party ticket of
U.S. Representative John G. Schmitz of
California and
Thomas J. Anderson of
Tennessee. AIP had been Wallace's party in the 1968 presidential election. Schmitz and Anderson polled more than 1 million popular votes but carried no state. The
liberal author
Hunter S. Thompson ridiculed Smothers as "some black
Stepin Fetchit-style Wallace delegate from Texas."
State Smothers lost the runoff election for Dallas City Council Place 8 to
Lucy Patterson in 1973. The large number of Black voters at the polls are partially credited for Patterson's win, especially in
South Dallas and Southeast
Oak Cliff. Officials speculated that Black voters were responding to Smothers longstanding anti-
busing position. Smothers was elected to the first of his two terms in the Texas legislature in 1976, when Jimmy Carter became the last Democrat to win the
electoral votes of Texas. After some four months in office, the
Austin American-Statesman reported on May 20, 1977, that Smothers had been named "Freshman of the Year" of the 65th legislative session by his colleagues. However, that same year
Texas Monthly magazine named him to its "Ten Worst List" of legislators. In 1977, Smothers was one of eight House members named to the select committee on
child pornography: Its Related Causes and Control. Three non-legislators were also appointed, including future
Houston Mayor Bob Lanier and
Margaret Formby of
Hereford, the founder of the
National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in
Fort Worth. In his second term, Smothers served on the House Elections Committee with
Tom DeLay of
Sugar Land, later a high-ranking Republican member of the
United States House of Representatives. He was vice chairman in that same session of the House Liquor Regulation Committee. In 1977, Smothers unsuccessfully proposed a state constitutional amendment to double the length of House terms from two to four years. In 1978, Smothers was awarded the American Patriots Medal by the
Freedoms Foundation of
Valley Forge,
Pennsylvania. He was selected from several thousand nominees by a panel of thirty persons, one-third of whom were justices of state supreme courts. The previous winner of the medal had been the
western singer, actor, and businessman
Gene Autry. Smothers supported
Jonas Savimbi of the
National Union for the Total Independence of Angola in the
Angolan Civil War in the middle 1970s and accused the
Communist Cuban forces, which fought on the side of the
People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola government against Savimbi, of atrocities. ==Later years==