Glenn Beck might no longer be joking about moving to Texas

By Bud Kennedy

bud@star-telegram.com

On his way out at Fox News, entertainer Glenn Beck may be on his way to a new home in North Texas.

Beck has often joked about moving his family to Texas when his New York-based subscription talk show on GBTV.com starts in September.

Nobody at his company, Mercury Radio Arts, could talk Tuesday. But some folks in Tarrant County seem convinced that Beck will move here, maybe into a leased mansion in a Westlake neighborhood which also has been home to the Jonas Brothers.

Beck fueled the guessing by telling Gov. Rick Perry he'll move to Texas.

"I could run for governor," Beck said Monday.

In his final week of a three-year career at Fox, Beck joked with Perry about incentives.

Maybe it wasn't a joke.

Beck said Mercury has 150 employees: "I'll move my company to Texas, but I need you to give me zero income tax -- do you see what I'm saying?"

Perry, who already named Beck an honorary Texan, grinned.

"I think we can work with you," he said.

Beck, a former radio shock jock in Houston, knows Texas doesn't have an income tax.

Last year, Beck joked about moving here and using the state's oil to build a "giant moat of fire" so Texas could secede.

Maybe that was a joke.

He's been hinting since April that he might choose Dallas-Fort Worth, according to Web comments by viewers and listeners to his radio show, carried here on KLIF/570 AM.

A $3 million, seven-bedroom home in Westlake was recently leased, according to a real estate agent in the Southlake office of Austin-based Keller Williams Realty.

Beck would join two other national talk hosts living near Dallas/Fort Worth Airport: Mark Davis of WBAP/96.7 FM and Mike Gallagher of Fox and KSKY/660 AM.

Beck's friend and sidekick, Pat Gray, used to work in Houston with host-turned-state Sen. Dan Patrick.

"Glenn could go anywhere in the country," Patrick said by phone from Austin, "but he's coming here because we are pro-business and because he loves the independent streak and conservative influence we have in Texas."

Patrick said Beck will be "proud to call Texas home and we'll be proud to have him here."

If only this were a joke.

Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

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Twitter@budkennedy

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