Ronald Ellis Simmons, known as Ron Simmons (born September 21, 1960) is an investment advisor from Carrollton, Texas, who is a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 65 in suburban southeastern Denton County.
First elected in 2012, Simmons won a third two-year term in the general election of 2016, where he defeated for the second time Democrat Alex Mendoza of Lewisville, Texas. Mendoza ran unsuccessfully against Simmons in the 2012 general election as the nominee that year of the Green Party. He is currently seeking his fourth term in 2018.
Background
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The son of public school teachers, Simmons was reared in southern Arkansas. He studied at Southern Arkansas University. Simmons is married to the former Lisa Dickson. After several years of marriage, the couple left Arkansas in 1985 and settled in Dallas, where he completed his Bachelor of Business Administration degree at Dallas Baptist University. In 1991, Simmons founded Retirement Advisors of America.
Retirement Advisors of America manages nearly $1.7 billion in assets for families across the country and employs thirty-five employees and fifteen independent contractors. In 2010, Simmons was named by D Magazine as one of the top financial advisors in the Dallasâ€"Fort Worth metroplex. The trade publication Investment News has named Retirement Advisors of America among the top thirty financial advisors in the United States.
Simmons and his wife have three children.
Simmons is a teacher in Bible Fellowship at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, of which he was a church director from 2007 to 2009. He is a former deacon at First Baptist Church of Dallas. He is a supporter of the Liberty Institute, which seeks to protect the sanctity of human life, religious liberty, and traditional marriage. He was a national board member of the Autism Society of America and a life member of the National Rifle Association.
Political life
When long-term Republican Representative Burt Solomons of North Carrollton declined to seek a tenth term in 2012, Simmons, who had no previous political experience, entered the primary election to nominate a successor candidate. With 4,844 votes (61.6 percent), he handily defeated two intraparty rivals, David Edmund Loerwald (born c. 1956) of Carrollton, with 1,754 votes (22.3 percent), and Michael Hugh "Mike" Hennefer (born c. 1952) of Carrollton, a California native and an active figure in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with 1,260 votes (16 percent). In the higher-turnout general election on November 6, 2012, Simmons won with 31,386 votes (59.1 percent) to 20,481 votes (38.6 percent) for the Democrat Gary E. Brown and Alex Mendoza's 1,224 votes (2.3 percent).
Simmons serves on the House committees of (1) Appropriations, (2) Transportation, and (3) Local and Consent Calendars.
In 2017, Simmons obtained House passage, 88-57, of his bill to abolish straight-ticket voting in Texas, a procedure still allowed in eight other states. With a straight ticket, a voter pulls one lever or touches one computer square to vote for all nominees of the same party. Most of the opponents of the legislation are Democrat though straight-ticket Republican voters have constituted the majority statewide since at least 1996. Instead the Democrats claim the legislation would disenfranchise some elderly, disabled, or minority group voters. Simmons said that his intent is to encourage voters to make selections down ballot, including proposition and tax measures, instead of concentrating on a few offices at the top of the ticket.
In 2017, Simmons sponsored the House version of the privacy act, which would have required no local ordinance to add a protected class beyond what state law currently provided for. With the continued opposition of House Speaker Joe Straus, who contends that the measure would impair business growth and discriminate against transgender persons, Simmons predicted on August 10, 2017, that there was no chance that the House would hold a vote in the special legislative session on the Senate-passed version of the bill authored by Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham and strongly pushed by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. State Representative Byron Cook of Corsicana, the chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, said that he will not hold hearings on the legislation.
Legislative positions
A pro-life legislator, Simmons co-sponsored in 2013 the ban on abortion after twenty weeks of gestation; the measure passed the House, 96-49. He also co-sponsored companion legislation to increase medical and licensing requirements of abortion providers, a measure which opponents claim could lead to the closure of certain abortion clinics in Texas. These issues brought forth an unsuccessful filibuster in the Texas State Senate by Wendy R. Davis of Fort Worth, who in 2014 was the Democratic nominee for governor. The Texas Right to Life Committee rated Simmons 80 percent favorable.
Simmons opposed the bill to establish a taxpayer-funded breakfast program for public schools; the measure passed the House, 73-58. He co-sponsored legislation to provide marshals for school security as a separate law-enforcement entity. He co-sponsored the successful bill to extend the franchise tax exemption to certain businesses. Simmons voted against the bill to prohibit texting while driving, which nevertheless passed the House, 97-45. He voted to require testing for narcotics of those individuals receiving unemployment compensation. He voted against the "equal pay for women" measure, which nevertheless passed the House, 78-61.
Simmons co-sponsored the measure to forbid the state from engaging in the enforcement of federal regulations of firearms. He co-sponsored legislation to allow college and university officials to carry concealed weapons in the name of campus security. He voted to reduce the time required for one to obtain a concealed-carry permit. He backed the redistricting bills for the state House, the Texas Senate, and the United States House of Representatives. Simmons voted against term limits for certain state officials.
Interest group ratings
In 2017, the Young Conservatives of Texas scored him 82 percent. The Texas League of Conservation Voters rated him 50 percent. The interest group, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, founded by Michael Quinn Sullivan, rated him 58 percent; the Texas Association of Business, 90 percent. The National Rifle Association scored him 92 percent.
Simmons won his third term in the state House in the November 8, 2016, general election. He defeated the Democrat Alex Mendoza, 34,418 votes (56.3 percent) to 26,759 (43.7 percent). He is currently running in the 2018 primary against Kevin Simmons, and expects to face Democrat candidate Michelle Beckley, in the 2018 midterms general election in November.
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