John Shields (Texas politician)

John Howard Shields (born October 20, 1954) is an American attorney and politician. A native of San Antonio, Texas, he was a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1993 through 2003. Shields is also an investor in Retama Park racetrack in San Antonio. His father-in-law is San Antonio businessman Red McCombs.^[1]

Background

Shields received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University and a Master of Arts from Trinity University.^[2] In 1988, Shields received his Juris Doctor degree from St. Mary's University School of Law.^[3] In addition to his law practice, Shields is a lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Texas at San Antonio.^[2]

Political career

From 1993 to 2003, Shields held the District 22 seat in the Texas House of Representatives.^[4] 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).^[5] In the general election, when Bill Clinton was elected as U.S. President, Shields faced no Democrat but defeated the Libertarian candidate, Phil E. Sanford, 38,838 votes (88.5 percent) to 5,024 (11.5 percent).^[6] In his last successful election in November 2000, Shields again scored a lopsided victory over a Libertarian nominee.^[7]

In 1999, Shields, along with 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.^[8]

After five two-year terms in the House, in 2002 Shields challenged Republican State Senator Jeff Wentworth in Texas Senate, District 25. A conservative political action committee known as FreePAC, dispatched mailing branding Wentworth as "pro-gay, pro-assisted suicide, and pro-abortion."^[9] 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 Austin. Wentworth in turn charged that Red McCombs was trying to "buy" his son-in-law a seat in the state Senate.^[9] McCombs served as Shields's campaign treasurer.^[10] Then state Republican chairman Susan Weddington, herself from San Antonio, broke the tradition of neutrality in primaries and endorsed the conservative Shields.^[11] By contrast, former state senator and Bexar county judge Cyndi Taylor Krier, a moderate Republican, cut commercials for Wentworth, her Senate successor,^[12] who not only prevailed but held the District 25 seat until his defeat in the Republican primary in 2012.^[4]

Final returns showed Shields with 25,265 votes (48.8 percent) to Wentworth's 26,481 votes (51.2 percent).^[13]

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.^[4]

References