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Created page with "{{Infobox officeholder |name=Robert Allen Eckels |image = |caption= |nationality=American |office=Texas State Representative<br>for District 133 (Hous..."
{{Infobox officeholder
|name=Robert Allen Eckels
|image =
|caption=
|nationality=[[United States|American]]
|office=[[Texas]] State Representative<br>for District 133 ([[Houston, Texas|Houston]])
|term_start=January 11, 1983
|term_end=January 10, 1995
|preceded=New district following [[redistricting]]
|succeeded=[[Joe Nixon]]
|office2=County Judge of Harris County, Texas
|term_start2=1995
|term_end2=March 6, 2007
|preceded2=Jon Lindsay
|succeeded2=[[Ed Emmett]]
|party=[[Republican Party|Republican]]
|birth_date=March 14, 1957
|death_date=
|death_place=
|death_cause=
|resting_place=
|birth_place=Houston, Texas
|occupation=[[Attorney]] and [[business]]man
|residence=Houston, Texas
|spouse=Jet Winkley Eckels
|children=Daughter Kirby Eckels
|religion=
|alma_mater=Houston Christian High School<br>
University of Houston<br>
South Texas College of Law
}}
'''Robert Allen Eckels''' (born March 14, 1957)<ref name=statecemetery/> is an [[attorney]] and [[business]]man from his native [[Houston, Texas|Houston]], [[Texas]], who was from 1983 to 1995 a [[Republican Party|Republican]] state representative and from 1995 to 2007 the administrative judge for Harris County.<ref name=reckels/>
==Background==
Eckels' father, Robert Young "Bob" Eckels, Jr., was a trustee of the Houston Independent School District who in 1972 was elected the Precinct 3 county commissioner, a position that he filled until shortly before his death on Christmas eve in 1989.<ref>Each Texas county regardless of population has four county commissioners from single-member districts. The county judge, who is elected countywide, can break a 2-2 deadlock on the commission.</ref> As commissioner, the senior Eckels was accused of having tapped his office [[telephone]]s and engaged in mail fraud and theft of timber used on county bridge construction. In 1987, he pleaded [[Nolo contendere|no contest]] to charges that he had accepted from a county contractor the construction of a road on his farm in Austin County (not to be confused with the capital of [[Austin]]) within the Houston metropolitan district. Eckels told ''The Houston Chronicle'' that his father "played the [political] game by their rules. The world has moved."<ref name=thesonalsorises>{{cite web|url=http://www.houstonpress.com/2005-05-05/news/eckels-the-son-also-rises/|author=Craig Malisow|title=Eckels: The Son Also Rises: The county judge comes into his own on Commissioners Court|date=May 5, 2005|publisher=''The Houston Press''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
The senior Eckels had close political ties with [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[George Herbert Walker Bush]]. In 1984, while his son was a first-term legislator, Commissioner Eckels is said to have turned the Harris County government into a virtual arm of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]]-Bush re-election campaign. He used county telephones, computers, and employees to establish an organization called the National Conference of Republican County Officials. An official in Roanoke County, [[Virginia]], said that the conference was "a working arm for the [[White House]] and the national [Republican] Party." Eckels later said that he had used at least $20,000 of his own funds for Reagan-Bush mailings and did not report the expenditure to the [[Federal Election Commission]]. Eckels died less than a year after Bush became the [[U.S. President]].<ref>{{cite book|url=http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/chapter-22-bush-takes-the-presidency/|author=Webster Griffin Tarpley et al|title=George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography'': Chapter 22 – Bush Takes The Presidency, fn22-past fn24|publisher=tarpley.net|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref> The seventeen-year commissioner was convicted of theft and forced to resign. For a number of years his name was synonymous withpolitical corruption in the Houston area.<ref name=eckelsandryan/>
Eckels' uncle, Paul Glenn "Buck" Eckels, Sr. (1931-2011), for many years owned the Lawyers Title Insurance Company of Houston.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/houstonchronicle/obituary.aspx?pid=150919222|title=Paul Glenn Eckels obituary|publisher=''The Houston Chronicle]'|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
Eckels graduated from Houston Christian High School, the University of Houston, and the South Texas College of Law in Houston. He practices with Looper Reed & McGraw, P.C. He is also the president of Texas Central High-Speed Railway, also known as the Lone Star High Speed Rail.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/robert.eckels|title=Robert Eckles|publisher=[[Facebook]]|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref> He was formerly affiliated with Fulbright & Jaworski in Houston.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.intelius.com/results.php?ReportType=1&formname=name&qf=Robert&qmi=A&qn=Eckels&qcs=Houston%2C+TX&focusfirst=1|title=Robert A. Eckels|publisher=intelius.com|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
His wife, the former Jet Winkley (born c. 1957), was a [[Lobbying|lobbyist]] for the Metropolitan Transit Authority while she and Eckels were engaged and he was a state legislator. Eckels said that because of their relationship he avoided sponsoring transit authority bills. The couple has a daughter, Kirby Eckels.<ref name=thesonalsorises/>
==Political life==
In 1982 at the age of twenty-five, Eckels was elected to the first of his six terms in the House. At the time [[Bill Clements]], the first Republican [[governor]] of Texas since [[Reconstruction]], was simultaneously unseated by the [[Democratic Party|Democrat]] [[Mark White]], then the state attorney general. Eckels did not seek a seventh term in 1994, when [[George W. Bush]] was elected governor. He represented the newly-numbered House District 133 in Harris County.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legeLeaders/members/memberDisplay.cfm?memberID=290&searchparams=chamber=H~city=~countyID=0~RcountyID=~district=133~first=~gender=~last=~leaderNote=~leg=68~party=~roleDesc=~Committee=|title=Robert Eckels|publisher=Texas Legislative Reference Library|accessdate=January 16, 2021}}</ref>
In his last [[general election]] for the legislature in 1992, Eckels had no Democratic opponent but defeated Clyde Garland, nominee of the [[Libertarian Party]], 39,518 votes (88 percent) to 5,413 (12 percent).<ref>Texas Secretary of State, Election Returns, November 3, 1992.</ref>Eckels was succeeded in the House in 1995 by the Houston lawyer [[Joe Nixon]], a Republican who also served District 133 for six terms.
Upon leaving the house, Eckels began a twelve-year stint as the county judge of the most populous county in Texas. He succeeded the 20-year incumbent, [[Moderate Republican]] Jon Lindsay who was caught up in scandal did not run again for county judge. Lindsay and the senior Eckles had been colleagues and occasional rivals on the commissioners court. However, Lindsay supported the younger Eckels for county judge in 1994,<ref name=thesonalsorises/> when Eckels defeated the Democrat Vince Ryan (born c. 1947).<ref name=eckelsandryan>{{cite web|url=http://www.houstonpress.com/1994-09-29/news/son-of-lindsay-son-of-driscoll/|title=Tim Fleck, Son of Lindsay ... Son of Driscoll: Robert Eckels and Vince Ryan fight the battles of the past as they fight each other for county judge|date=September 29, 1994|publisher=''Houston Press''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
Lindsay himself rebounded politically to win election in 1996 to the District 7 seat in the state Senate.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Some-say-the-GOP-Sen-Jon-Lindsay-is-vulnerable-1625655.php|author=Kristen Mack|title=Some say the GOP Sen. Jon Lindsay is vulnerable|date=April 21, 2005|publisher=''The Houston Chronicle''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
As county judge, Eckels also chaired the Harris County Toll Road Authority, the only county-owned [[toll road]] system in the United States.<ref name=reckels>{{cite web|url=http://www.texascentral.com/about-texas-central/leadership/robert-eckels|title=America's Bullet Train: Texas Central Railway: Robert Eckels|publisher=texascentral.com|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>Judge Eckles received international recognition for the response by Harris County to [[Hurricane Katrina|Hurricanes Katrina]] and Rita. The Astrodome and Reliant Park became the largest shelter operation in American history, with more than 250,000 residents given refuge during the storm. In 2005, ''Esquire'' magazine' named Eckels the "Best and Brightest - Citizen of the Year" for his leadership during the storms: "When the City of [[New Orleans]] evacuated to Houston, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels was an island of competence in the face of catastrophe." The ''American City and County Magazine'' named Eckels "County Leader of the Year 2006."<ref name=reckels/>
In 2006, Eckels was actually elected to a fourth term as county judge but left some four months later to enter the private sector.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Harris-County-Judge-Eckels-may-resign-early-1650004.php|title=Harris County Judge Eckels may resign early, February 1, 2007|publisher=''Houston Chronicle''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>Commissioners named transportation consultant and former state Representative [[Ed Emmett]] of Kingwood in northeast Houston to succeed Eckels as county judge.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=2690|title=Edward Martin Emmett|publisher=Texas State Cemetery|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
Upon his death, Eckels will be interred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.<ref name=statecemetery>{{cite web|url=http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=5630|title=Robert Allen Eckels|publisher=Texas State Cemetery|accessdate=January 16, 2021}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eckels, Robert}}
[[Category:Texas]]
[[Category:Attorneys]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:State Representatives]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Judges]]
|name=Robert Allen Eckels
|image =
|caption=
|nationality=[[United States|American]]
|office=[[Texas]] State Representative<br>for District 133 ([[Houston, Texas|Houston]])
|term_start=January 11, 1983
|term_end=January 10, 1995
|preceded=New district following [[redistricting]]
|succeeded=[[Joe Nixon]]
|office2=County Judge of Harris County, Texas
|term_start2=1995
|term_end2=March 6, 2007
|preceded2=Jon Lindsay
|succeeded2=[[Ed Emmett]]
|party=[[Republican Party|Republican]]
|birth_date=March 14, 1957
|death_date=
|death_place=
|death_cause=
|resting_place=
|birth_place=Houston, Texas
|occupation=[[Attorney]] and [[business]]man
|residence=Houston, Texas
|spouse=Jet Winkley Eckels
|children=Daughter Kirby Eckels
|religion=
|alma_mater=Houston Christian High School<br>
University of Houston<br>
South Texas College of Law
}}
'''Robert Allen Eckels''' (born March 14, 1957)<ref name=statecemetery/> is an [[attorney]] and [[business]]man from his native [[Houston, Texas|Houston]], [[Texas]], who was from 1983 to 1995 a [[Republican Party|Republican]] state representative and from 1995 to 2007 the administrative judge for Harris County.<ref name=reckels/>
==Background==
Eckels' father, Robert Young "Bob" Eckels, Jr., was a trustee of the Houston Independent School District who in 1972 was elected the Precinct 3 county commissioner, a position that he filled until shortly before his death on Christmas eve in 1989.<ref>Each Texas county regardless of population has four county commissioners from single-member districts. The county judge, who is elected countywide, can break a 2-2 deadlock on the commission.</ref> As commissioner, the senior Eckels was accused of having tapped his office [[telephone]]s and engaged in mail fraud and theft of timber used on county bridge construction. In 1987, he pleaded [[Nolo contendere|no contest]] to charges that he had accepted from a county contractor the construction of a road on his farm in Austin County (not to be confused with the capital of [[Austin]]) within the Houston metropolitan district. Eckels told ''The Houston Chronicle'' that his father "played the [political] game by their rules. The world has moved."<ref name=thesonalsorises>{{cite web|url=http://www.houstonpress.com/2005-05-05/news/eckels-the-son-also-rises/|author=Craig Malisow|title=Eckels: The Son Also Rises: The county judge comes into his own on Commissioners Court|date=May 5, 2005|publisher=''The Houston Press''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
The senior Eckels had close political ties with [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[George Herbert Walker Bush]]. In 1984, while his son was a first-term legislator, Commissioner Eckels is said to have turned the Harris County government into a virtual arm of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]]-Bush re-election campaign. He used county telephones, computers, and employees to establish an organization called the National Conference of Republican County Officials. An official in Roanoke County, [[Virginia]], said that the conference was "a working arm for the [[White House]] and the national [Republican] Party." Eckels later said that he had used at least $20,000 of his own funds for Reagan-Bush mailings and did not report the expenditure to the [[Federal Election Commission]]. Eckels died less than a year after Bush became the [[U.S. President]].<ref>{{cite book|url=http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/chapter-22-bush-takes-the-presidency/|author=Webster Griffin Tarpley et al|title=George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography'': Chapter 22 – Bush Takes The Presidency, fn22-past fn24|publisher=tarpley.net|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref> The seventeen-year commissioner was convicted of theft and forced to resign. For a number of years his name was synonymous withpolitical corruption in the Houston area.<ref name=eckelsandryan/>
Eckels' uncle, Paul Glenn "Buck" Eckels, Sr. (1931-2011), for many years owned the Lawyers Title Insurance Company of Houston.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/houstonchronicle/obituary.aspx?pid=150919222|title=Paul Glenn Eckels obituary|publisher=''The Houston Chronicle]'|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
Eckels graduated from Houston Christian High School, the University of Houston, and the South Texas College of Law in Houston. He practices with Looper Reed & McGraw, P.C. He is also the president of Texas Central High-Speed Railway, also known as the Lone Star High Speed Rail.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/robert.eckels|title=Robert Eckles|publisher=[[Facebook]]|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref> He was formerly affiliated with Fulbright & Jaworski in Houston.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.intelius.com/results.php?ReportType=1&formname=name&qf=Robert&qmi=A&qn=Eckels&qcs=Houston%2C+TX&focusfirst=1|title=Robert A. Eckels|publisher=intelius.com|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
His wife, the former Jet Winkley (born c. 1957), was a [[Lobbying|lobbyist]] for the Metropolitan Transit Authority while she and Eckels were engaged and he was a state legislator. Eckels said that because of their relationship he avoided sponsoring transit authority bills. The couple has a daughter, Kirby Eckels.<ref name=thesonalsorises/>
==Political life==
In 1982 at the age of twenty-five, Eckels was elected to the first of his six terms in the House. At the time [[Bill Clements]], the first Republican [[governor]] of Texas since [[Reconstruction]], was simultaneously unseated by the [[Democratic Party|Democrat]] [[Mark White]], then the state attorney general. Eckels did not seek a seventh term in 1994, when [[George W. Bush]] was elected governor. He represented the newly-numbered House District 133 in Harris County.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legeLeaders/members/memberDisplay.cfm?memberID=290&searchparams=chamber=H~city=~countyID=0~RcountyID=~district=133~first=~gender=~last=~leaderNote=~leg=68~party=~roleDesc=~Committee=|title=Robert Eckels|publisher=Texas Legislative Reference Library|accessdate=January 16, 2021}}</ref>
In his last [[general election]] for the legislature in 1992, Eckels had no Democratic opponent but defeated Clyde Garland, nominee of the [[Libertarian Party]], 39,518 votes (88 percent) to 5,413 (12 percent).<ref>Texas Secretary of State, Election Returns, November 3, 1992.</ref>Eckels was succeeded in the House in 1995 by the Houston lawyer [[Joe Nixon]], a Republican who also served District 133 for six terms.
Upon leaving the house, Eckels began a twelve-year stint as the county judge of the most populous county in Texas. He succeeded the 20-year incumbent, [[Moderate Republican]] Jon Lindsay who was caught up in scandal did not run again for county judge. Lindsay and the senior Eckles had been colleagues and occasional rivals on the commissioners court. However, Lindsay supported the younger Eckels for county judge in 1994,<ref name=thesonalsorises/> when Eckels defeated the Democrat Vince Ryan (born c. 1947).<ref name=eckelsandryan>{{cite web|url=http://www.houstonpress.com/1994-09-29/news/son-of-lindsay-son-of-driscoll/|title=Tim Fleck, Son of Lindsay ... Son of Driscoll: Robert Eckels and Vince Ryan fight the battles of the past as they fight each other for county judge|date=September 29, 1994|publisher=''Houston Press''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
Lindsay himself rebounded politically to win election in 1996 to the District 7 seat in the state Senate.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Some-say-the-GOP-Sen-Jon-Lindsay-is-vulnerable-1625655.php|author=Kristen Mack|title=Some say the GOP Sen. Jon Lindsay is vulnerable|date=April 21, 2005|publisher=''The Houston Chronicle''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
As county judge, Eckels also chaired the Harris County Toll Road Authority, the only county-owned [[toll road]] system in the United States.<ref name=reckels>{{cite web|url=http://www.texascentral.com/about-texas-central/leadership/robert-eckels|title=America's Bullet Train: Texas Central Railway: Robert Eckels|publisher=texascentral.com|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>Judge Eckles received international recognition for the response by Harris County to [[Hurricane Katrina|Hurricanes Katrina]] and Rita. The Astrodome and Reliant Park became the largest shelter operation in American history, with more than 250,000 residents given refuge during the storm. In 2005, ''Esquire'' magazine' named Eckels the "Best and Brightest - Citizen of the Year" for his leadership during the storms: "When the City of [[New Orleans]] evacuated to Houston, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels was an island of competence in the face of catastrophe." The ''American City and County Magazine'' named Eckels "County Leader of the Year 2006."<ref name=reckels/>
In 2006, Eckels was actually elected to a fourth term as county judge but left some four months later to enter the private sector.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Harris-County-Judge-Eckels-may-resign-early-1650004.php|title=Harris County Judge Eckels may resign early, February 1, 2007|publisher=''Houston Chronicle''|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>Commissioners named transportation consultant and former state Representative [[Ed Emmett]] of Kingwood in northeast Houston to succeed Eckels as county judge.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=2690|title=Edward Martin Emmett|publisher=Texas State Cemetery|accessdate=March 31, 2014}}</ref>
Upon his death, Eckels will be interred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.<ref name=statecemetery>{{cite web|url=http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=5630|title=Robert Allen Eckels|publisher=Texas State Cemetery|accessdate=January 16, 2021}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eckels, Robert}}
[[Category:Texas]]
[[Category:Attorneys]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:State Representatives]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Judges]]