Difference between revisions of "John Shields"

Revision as of 15:51, April 1, 2020

​ John Howard Shields (born October 20, 1954) is an attorney^[1] from San Antonio, Texas, who is a Republican former state representative for District 121 in Bexar County. Shields is also an investor in Retama Park racetrack in San Antonio. His father-in-law is powerful San Antonio businessman Billy Joe "Red" McCombs. Marsha McCombs Shields is Red McCombs's youngest daughter.^[2]​

Background

Shields received a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and a Master of Arts from Trinity University in San Antonio.^[3] In 1988, Shields received the Juris Doctorate from St. Mary's University School of Law, also in San Antonio.^[4] In addition to his law practice, Shields is a former adjunct lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Texas at San Antonio.^[3]​

Political career

From 1993 to 2003, Shields held the District 22 seat in the House.^[5] In his first election in 1992, Shields won the Republican primary outright by a margin of .4 of 1 percent over two opponents, William E. "Bill" Harrison and Lonnie Wulfe. Shields polled 5,203 votes (50.4 percent) to Wulfe's 3,286 (31.8 percent) and Harrison's 1,833 (17.8 percent).^[6] In the general election, when Bill Clinton was elected as U.S. President, Shields faced no Democrat but defeated the Libertarian Party choice, Phil E. Sanford, 38,838 votes (88.5 percent) to 5,024 (11.5 percent).^[7] In his last successful election in November 2000, Shields again scored a lop-sided victory over a Libertarian nominee.^[8]​

In 1999, Shields, along with then fellow Representative Will Ford Hartnett of Dallas, opposed hate crimes legislation in the Texas House, taking the view that some victims should not have greater protection of the law than others in regard to age or race.^[9]​

After five two-year terms in the House, the conservative Shields in 2002 challenged the San Antonio Moderate Republican state senator, Jeff Wentworth in Senate District 25. A conservative political action committee known as FreePAC, dispatched mailing branding Wentworth as "pro-gay, pro-assisted suicide, and pro-abortion."^[10] Shields denied personal involvement with the FreePAC mailings. However, Shields's campaign literature quoted a supporter, pastor John Hagee of San Antonio's large fundamentalist Cornerstone Church, located at the intersection of Anderson Loop 1604 and Stone Oak Parkway, which dubbed Wentworth "the most pro-abortion" legislator in [the capital city of Austin, Texas. Wentworth in turn charged that Red McCombs was trying to "buy" his son-in-law a seat in the state Senate.^[10] McCombs served as Shields's campaign treasurer.^[11] Then state Republican chairman Susan Weddington, herself from San Antonio, broke the tradition of neutrality in primaries and endorsed the conservative Shields.^[12] By contrast former state senator and Bexar countyadministrative judge, Cyndi Taylor Krier, a Moderate Republican, cut commercials for Wentworth, her state Senate successor.^[13] After his defeat for the state Senate in the 2012 primary by conservative Donna Campbell, Wentworth became a Bexar County justice of the peace.

Final returns showed Shields with 25,265 votes (48.8 percent) to Wentworth's 26,481 votes (51.2 percent).^[14]​ Shields was succeeded in House District 122 by the Republican Frank Corte, Jr., who had represented District 123 prior to the 2001 round of House redistricting. Corte retired from the House in 2011. District 122 is now represented by another Moderate Republican, Lyle Larson, a former member of the San Antonio City Council and the Bexar County Commission.^[5]​ ​

References

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