David Watts

David Lee Watts (born 1967) is a business consultant and conservative activist from Upshur County in east Texas, who is a Republican candidate in the primary election scheduled for March 1, 2016, for the District 7 seat in the Texas House of Representatives, which encompasses Gregg and Upshur counties. He faces competition from former Longview Mayor Jay Dean.

Background

Watts was born in Texas, location unavailable. He moved to Longview in Gregg County c. 1999 and worked and resided there for a decade. He since moved to East Mountain, a rural area between Longview and Gilmer. He and his wife, the former Desiree Anne Hansen (born 1961), have two daughters, Hannah and Natasha, and a son, James. He studied from 1988 to 1989 at California State University at Northridge, thereafter the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky (bachelor's degree), and the Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Downers Grove in DuPage County, Illinois. He is a minister of the Church of Christ.

Political life

In 2014, Watts was defeated for the Republican nomination for Texas land commissioner by George P. Bush of Fort Worth, son of presidential candidate Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida. George P. Bush polled 934,571 primary votes (73 percent) to Watts' 345,565 (27 percent). Watts received only 36 percent of the ballots cast in his own county of Upshur. Bush then defeated the Democrat John Cook, a former mayor of El Paso. Watts has been critical of Land Commissioner Bush's out-of-state campaign appearances in 2015 on behalf of Jeb Bush's presidential aspirations. He said that Bush should remain in Austin to tend to his elected duties as Watts would have done had he won the 2014 election, rather than campaigning across the country.

Watts is seeking to succeed Republican Representative David Simpson of Longview, who is instead a candidate for the Texas State Senate seat vacated by the retiring Republican Kevin Eltife of Tyler. Simpson faces fellow representative Bryan Hughes of Mineola. Watts is known for his constitutional stands, he uses the slogan "Less Government, More Liberty". He is strongly pro-life and in unwavering support of the Second Amendment. He even opposes property taxes, long a mainstay of local governments in Texas. Watts takes the view that such taxes deny homeowners full possession of their land and dwelling because annual payments must be rendered to city, county, school district, community college, and various other entities as well. He calls this phenomenon "perpetual rent that you pay to the government for your property, for the rest of your life." Until these taxes can be ended, Watts said legislators must hold appraisal district accountable to voters. He supports the election of appraisal board members, rather than the long-term system of appointment by the governmental entities.

He favors using state military personnel to guard the lengthy border with Mexico, considering the lack of consistent federal involvement in such patrols. Like Governor Greg Abbott, he opposes the admission of Syrian refugees into Texas for fear of terrorist threats. "We must fully fund law enforcement efforts on the border and provide them with the tools to get the job done," said Watts on his Facebook page. He opposes sanctuary cities in Texas, which harbor illegal immigrants; departing Senator Eltife, a moderate Republican, helped to kill a measure to ban sanctuary cities in the 2015 legislative session. Watts opposes the legalization of marijuana.

Watts carries the endorsements of two high profile Texas Republicans, Agriculture Commissioner Sidney Miller and U.S. Representative John Ratcliffe of the Fourth Congressional District in the Dallas suburbs.