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James Franklin Landtroop, Jr. (born January 18, 1968), known as Jim Landtroop, is a businessman from Lubbock, Texas, who is a Republican former one-term member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 85 in the South Plains. He is seeking to return to the House through his challenge to incumbent Representative John Frullo in the Republican primary election on March 1, 2016.

In the general election held on November 2, 2010, Landtroop, who then resided in Plainview in Hale County, unseated two-term Democratic incumbent Joseph P. Heflin of Crosbyton, 17,426 votes (61.6 percent) to 10,853 (38.4 percent). Landtroop won fifteen of the sixteen counties in the district, losing only in Heflin's own Crosby County. He secured comfortable margins in two of the larger counties in the district, Hale County and Howard County, which includes Big Spring.^[1]

In the Republican runoff election held on July 31, 2012 in District 88, Landtroop was defeated for a second term by Ken King, the president of the Canadian Independent School District in Canadian, the county seat of Hemphill County in the northeastern Panhandle. King received 7,541 votes (54 percent) to Landtroop's 6,426 ballots (46 percent).^[2]

Background

A fifth-generation Texan, Landtroop is a son of James, Sr., and Bobbie S. Landtroop (both born c. 1940) of Ranger in Eastland County east of Abilene. Landtroop was born in Fort Worth. He graduated in 1986 from Keller High School, in which he was starting point guard in the basketball team, in Keller in suburban Tarrant County. He subsequently enrolled at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, at which from 1986 to 1988 he played basketball and was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He then transferred to Texas A&M University in College Station, where he majored in business management. He was a member of Sigma Iota Epsilon, the national management honor society. Landtroop is currently employed by State Farm Insurance, originally in Plainview in 1999 and currently Lubbock. He has been a member of the Lions International, Chamber of Commerce, United Way, and the American Cancer Society. He was a founding member of the Plainview Bible Church (established 1999) and served as the boys' varsity basketball coach at Plainview Christian Academy, at which his team went to the state semi-finals in 2009.^[3] He now attends Harvest Christian Fellowship at 5201 University Avenue in Lubbock.^[4]

Legislative races

In 2006, Heflin defeated Landtroop, who made his first bid for the state House, by 217 votes to claim the seat vacated by James "Pete" Laney, a former Texas House Speaker. Heflin received 14,323 votes (49 percent) to Landtroop's 14,106 votes (48.3 percent) and David K. Schumacher (born 1946) of Anson, nominee of the Libertarian Party, who polled 793 ballots, or 2.7 percent.^[5]

Landtroop said that he re-entered the state legislative race in 2010 after his 2006 defeat because he is "tired of our big-spending, over-reaching government." ^[3]Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, later the governor, came to Plainview to campaign for Landtroop, citing their mutual opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law in March 2010 by U.S. President Barack H. Obama.

Landtroop declares himself a "conservative voice for West Texas". In victory, Landtroop said that "God has just blessed us with this victory, and we look forward to representing the people of this district in this next session". He ran with the support of the Tea Party movement.^[4]

In addition to Hale and Hemphill, the home counties of Landtroop and King, the 88th District includes these other counties (listed alphabetically): Armstrong, Bailey, Briscoe, Castro, Cochran, Donley, Gray, Hansford, Hockley, Lamb, Lipscomb, Ochiltree, Roberts, Swisher, and Yoakum. Few of the counties in District 88 had been in Landtroop's District 85.

Landtroop is a recipient of the 2004 "Ronald Reagan Republican Gold Medal Award." He has worked in the campaigns of his friend, U.S. Representative Randy Neugebauer, a Lubbock Republican who first won Texas' 19th congressional district seat in a special election in 2003. He was the congressman's Hale County co-chairman in 2004 and has since served on the Neugebauer campaign finance board. Neugebauer, who is retiring in 2017, endorsed Landtroop's legislative candidacy in 2010. In 2009, Governor Rick Perry appointed Landtroop to the Brazos River Authority Board.^[3]

In 2011, Landtroop joined three other newly elected state legislators from West Texas and the Panhandle, Four Price of Amarillo and Charles Perry and his current opponent, John Frullo, both of Lubbock.

Election of 2012

In the Republican primary held on May 29, 2012, Landtroop led a four-candidate field with 6,358 votes (34.4 percent). Ken King trailed with 5,569 votess (30.2 percent). Two other candidates held a critical 35 percent of the ballots cast, Mac Smith, who received 3,368 votes (18.2 percent), and Gary Walker, who finished with 3,162 votes (17.1 percent).^[6]

Canadian, Texas futures trader Salem Abraham donated $100,000 to Ken King, Abraham's then colleague on the Canadian School Board.^[7] In the heated race, Abraham attended a meeting in Levelland in Hockley County west of Lubbock, at which Governor Rick Perry endorsed Landtroop. As the gathering closed, Abraham rose to challenge Landtroop's campaign tactics against King. He was asked to hold his questions for a later time and then to leave the premises. Michael Quinn Sullivan, a conservative activist and founder of the group Empower Texans, which supported Landtroop, questioned the Canadian School Board's high rate of educational spending (nearly $38,000 per pupil in 2010-2011, with only $7,000 directly in the classroom) and property tax increases (five cents per $100 in assessed value in 2011).^[8]

Abraham subsequently sued Daniel Greer and the group, Fix The Facts Foundation, also known as AgendaWise, for libel regarding the King-Landtroop campaign. The Texas 31st District Court in Canadian threw out the suit on grounds that Abraham had not proved malice on the part of the defendants. But the dismissal was overturned in July 2014 and remanded to the trial court by the Texas Seventh District Court of Appeals in Amarillo. The circuit court said that Abraham's complaint is unrelated to his being a public figure. Greer had not mentioned Abraham's school board tenure in the report of the Levelland meeting.^[7]

Election of 2016

In his attempt to return to the legislature, Landtroop faces fellow Republican John Frullo. One of the differences between the two candidates centers upon Moderate Republican Joe Straus of San Antonio, the state House Speaker since 2009. In his term in the House, Landtroop voted against Straus as Speaker in 2011; since he entered the House, Frullo has backed Speaker in each election for presiding officer. Frullo has a large fundraising 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, through its political action committee, gave $7,500 to Frullo, the chairman of the House Insurance Committee, but nothing to challenger Landtroop.^[9]

Family

Landtroop and his wife, Catherine D. "Cathy" Landtroop (born May 24, 1969), a 1991 graduate of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, operates the consulting firm, Landtroop Strategies.^[4] The couple resides in Lubbock. They have four children, Braden (born ca. 1995), David, Ken Kenneth Kenny Kennedy (born ca. 1996), and Lauren Grace (born ca. 2000).^[3]

See also

List of Tea Party politicians

References