John Shields

Background

His father-in-law is powerful San Antonio businessman B. J. "Red" McCombs.

Education

Duke University.

Career

Shields is also an investor in Retama Park racetrack in San Antonio. Marsha McCombs Shields is Red McCombs"s youngest daughter. Shields received a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and a Master of Arts from Trinity University in San Antonio.

In 1988, Shields received the Juris Doctor degree from Saint Mary"s University School of Law in San Antonio.

In addition to his law practice, Shields is a lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Texas at San Antonio. From 1993 to 2003, Shields held the District 22 seat in the House.

Shields polled 5,203 votes (504 percent) to Wulfe"s 3,286 (318 percent) and Harrison"s 1,833 (178 percent). In the general election, when Bill Clinton was elected as United States. President, Shields faced no Democrat but defeated the Libertarian choice, Philosophy East. Sanford, 38,838 votes (885 percent) to 5,024 (115 percent).

In his last successful election in November 2000, Shields again scored a lop-sided victory over a Libertarian nominee.

After five two-year terms in the House, the conservative Shields in 2002 challenged the San Antonio Republican State Senator Jeff Wentworth in District 25. A conservative political action committee known as FreePAC, dispatched mailing branding Wentworth as "pro-gay, pro-assisted suicide, and pro-abortion." 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.

McCombs served as Shields"s campaign treasurer.

Then state Republican chairman Susan Weddington, herself from San Antonio, broke the tradition of neutrality in primaries and endorsed the conservative Shields. By contrast former state senator and Bexar county judge Cyndi Taylor Krier, a moderate Republican, cut commercials for Wentworth, her Senate successor, who not only prevailed but still holds the District 25 seat.

Final returns showed Shields with 25,265 votes (488 percent) to Wentworth"s 26,481 votes (512 percent). Shields was succeeded in House District 122 by the Republican Frank Corte, Junior., who had represented District 123 prior to the 2001 round of House redistricting.

Corte retired from the House in 2011.

Achievements

• 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.

Politics

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.

Membership

District 122 is now represented by the Republican Lyle Larson, a former member of the San Antonio City Council and the Bexar County Commission.