John Connally and fellow Texan president. In May 1973, Connally joined the Republican Party. When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned five months later because of scandal, Connally was one of Nixon's potential choices to fill the vacancy. Nixon tapped Gerald Ford, the House Minority Leader from Grand Rapids, Michigan, because he believed that the moderate Ford could be easily confirmed by both houses of Congress, as required by the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution. A Connally nomination presumably could have been blocked by liberal Democratic opposition. The weakened Nixon did not want a fight for the vice-presidential selection. Connally's party
Sam Garrison Roanoke, and by 1969, at age 27, became the youngest person elected as the Commonwealth's Attorney. In 1971, he moved to Washington to be staff counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, and just 16 months later, he joined the staff of newly elected Vice President Spiro Agnew as legislative liaison. After Agnew resigned in 1973, Garrison began working on the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment staff, and eventually replaced the committee's chief minority counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., who called the impeachment case against Nixon persuasive. In an obituary "The Washington Post" wrote: Garrison, then 32, was the last-minute replacement chosen