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
Spiro Agnew Washington University Law School found four residents of the state of Maryland willing to put their names on a case that sought to have Agnew repay the state $268,482, the amount it was said he had taken in bribes, including interest and penalties, as a public employee. After two appeals by Agnew, he finally paid the sum in 1983. In 1989, Agnew applied unsuccessfully for this sum to be treated as tax-deductible. Agnew also was briefly in the news in 1987, when as the plaintiff in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, he gave the public some insight into his recent