John Frullo

John Michael Frullo, Sr.​
Texas State Representative for District 84 (Lubbock​ County)
Incumbent
Assumed office  November 2010​​
Preceded by	Carl Isett​
Born	August 1, 1962​ Rock Springs, Wyoming, USA
Nationality	American​
Political party	Republican ​
Spouse(s)	Patti Howard Frullo (married 1992)​
Children	John Michael Frullo, Jr.​ Braden Frullo​​
Alma mater	University of Wyoming​
Occupation	Businessman Certified Public Accountant​
Religion	United Methodist​

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John Michael Frullo, Sr. (born August 1, 1962), is a businessman from Lubbock, Texas, who is a Republican state representative for District 84.

Since 1993, Frullo has owned Midtown Printing Company in Lubbock. In November 2010, he succeeded fellow Republican Carl Isett, like Frullo a Certified Public Accountant, who had served as state representative with little opposition from 1997 until his resignation in the summer of 2010.

Background

Frullo was reared in Rock Springs in Sweetwater County in southwestern Wyoming, where his father, John L. Frullo (born 1930), is a retired architect in Rock Springs.

Frullo holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, completed in 1984, from the University of Wyoming at Laramie. He formerly worked in the accounting field in Golden, Colorado, for the Denver-based (Goldfields Mining Company). He was also formerly employed for three years each by the former Coopers & Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers, and for the firm McGladney & Pullen in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In 1992, Frullo married to the former Patti Howard, a Lubbock native. The couple has two sons, John Michael Frullo, Jr. (born 1993) and Braden Frullo (born 1994), both of whom graduated from Lubbock High School. Frullo attends the Lakeridge United Methodist Church in Lubbock.​ ​ A licensed pilot, Frullo is a member of the board of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce. He is also an officer of the Mid-America region of the Printing and Imaging Association, which represents eight hundred concerns in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas. He has been a volunteer for the Boy Scouts and is active in the Texas Bighorn Society, which restores bighorn sheep to the state.​ ​ Frullo is a former precinct captain, executive committee member, and treasurer of the Lubbock County Republican Party.​ ​

Political career

​ On March 2, 2010, Frullo, with 4,992 votes (43 percent), trailed Mark Griffin (born July 27, 1954) in a three-candidate field with 5,652 votes (48.7 percent). A third candidate, former county commissioner Ysidro Gutierrez, a former Democrat, polled a critical 952 votes (8 percent). Turnout on primary day was so small that the majority of the ballots was cast during early voting. In the runoff election held on April 13, Frullo, who carried the endorsement of Isett, the Tea Party movement, and Gutierrez, defeated Griffin, a former regent of Texas Tech and the favorite of the party "establishment," including then state Senator Robert Duncan of Lubbock, later a Texas Tech chancellor. Turnout declined further in the runoff, as Frullo polled 4,219 votes (53.2 percent) to Griffin's 3,717 (46.8 percent).​

In the general election on November 2 and the special election for the two months remaining in Isett's final term, Frullo defeated the Democratic nominee, Carol Morgan, a retired educator from Lubbock, 15,494 votes (68.2 percent) to 7,208 (31.8 percent).​

Frullo was also endorsed by then U.S. Representative Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock, who defeated Isett in the 2003 special election for Congress. In his initial statement of candidacy, Frullo said that he is committed to "making sure that government doesn't take away freedoms and overtax us. We need to hold our government accountable on how it spends our money." Frullo, a member of the National Rifle Association, listed the critical issues as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, property tax reform, U.S.-Mexican border security, photographic identity of voters, and public education, which he describes as "a huge part of our budget and we need to make sure that we are spending our money properly."

Joining Frullo in the Texas House were two other newly elected Republican members from West Texas and the Panhandle, Jim Landtroop, Charles Perry, also of Lubbock, and Four Price of Amarillo. Landtroop was unseated in 2012 by Moderate Republican Ken King of Canadian in Hemphill County. With Perry in the state Senate, the District 83 House seat was occupied in 2015 by still another Republican, Lubbock attorney, Dustin Burrows.​

Frullo won his third term in the general election held on November 4, 2014. He defeated the Democratic candidate, Ed Tischler, 16,890 (72.7 percent) to 6,336 (27.2 percent).

In his bid for a fourth term in the House, Frullo turned back an intra-party challenge in the March 1, 2016, primary from the former District 85 Representative Jim Landtroop, a conservative, who relocated to Lubbock from Plainview in Hale County. One of the differences between the two candidates centered on then Speaker Joe Straus, a Moderate Republican from San Antonio. From 2009 to 2019, Straus held the Speaker's post with significant Democratic backing. In his one-term in the House, Landtroop voted against Straus's second term as Speaker in 2011. Frullo, however in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017o backed Straus in each election for presiding officer. Frullo also had a fund-raising advantage over Landtroop. Between January 22 and February 20, 2016, Frullo raised $237,912, Landtroop, $58,845. In three campaign finance reports filed since January 15, 2016, Frullo raised $418,000; Landtroop, $132,000. Landtroop's employer, State Farm Insurance, through its political action committee, gave $7,500 to Frullo, the chairman of the House Insurance Committee, but nothing to Landtroop.​

In 2018, Frullo ran for his fifth term without conservative opposition in the Republican primary. He then defeated in the general election the Democrat Samantha Carrillo Fields, 27,528 votes (60.2 percent) to 18,237 (39.9 percent).

References

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