The Collin County Observer

Collin County is represented by 4 Texas Legislators whose districts are include large portions of the county. I list here all those candidates I know about. If I've missed someone, it is inadvertent. Please send me a note and I'll make the correction.

District 66

Brian McCall has been the District 66 representative for the last 20 years. In the last legislative session, McCall was appointed chair of the House Calendars Committee, making him one of Texas' most powerful legislators. Nevertheless, this weekend, he announced he would not be seeking re-election.

WAYNE S. RICHARD

Wayne Richard is founder and CEO of ICglobal, a provider of new media and advertising technologies. Mr. Richard received his Bachelors of Business Administration in 1980 from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is Chairman of the SMU Cox Alumni Board of Directors and sits on The Salvation Army Plano Advisory Board.

Richard's campaign aims to appeal to the exreme right wing Republican. He has been campaigning at numerous local "Tea Parties" on a platform against secularism and socialism and for sovereignty and limited government. His campaign website features videos of his speeches at several local Tea Parties. In one he stands on a street corner with a bullhorn, as Collin County Judge Keith Self offers encouragement.

Richard is the founder of National Coalition for the Defense of American Sovereignty (NCDAS), whose mission statement is, "to educate and encourage Americans who are hungry for a factual account on domestic and international events and the subsequent governmental actions that frequently undermine the US Constitution."

Richard has been endorsed by the North Texas Tea Party.

MABRIE GRIFFITH JACKSON

Mabrie Jackson resigned her seat on the Plano City Council to make a run for the District 66 seat. She was elected to the City Council in 2008, upsetting long term incumbent Loretta Ellerbe. Jackson earned a degree in communications from the University of Texas. She works for Microsoft Corp. as an account manager. She has previously served as a Legislative Assistant to the Texas Legislature.

Jackson was the former chair of Collin County's Child Protective Services Board, and has served on the boards of the Collin County Assistance Center, and the Visiting Nurses Association. She has been active in community affairs in the city, county and schools and was named one of the “21 Leaders For the 21st Century” by Inside Collin County Business.

District 67

JERRY MADDEN

Jerry Madden has served Plano's 67th district in the Texas Legislature since 1992. He is the former chair and now the vice-chair of the House Corrections Committee. He also serves on the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudene Committee.

Madden has retired from the ownership of Jerry Madden Insurance.

He is a West Point graduate, and a Viet Nam veteran. In 1979, he earned a Master of Science in Management and Administration Sciences from the University of Texas at Dallas.

In 2007, Rep. Madden was designated by Texas Monthly as one of its 10 Best Legislators. He is the first recipient in 2007 of the Carmen Miller Michael Mental Health Advocate Prism Award, a University of Texas at Dallas Distinguished Alumnus Award, was named as a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of State Government’s Justice Center, and was nominated to serve as Chairman of the Law and Criminal Justice Committee of the National Council of State Legislatures.

Madden's campaign web site has not been updated yet for the 2010 campaign, and touts his accomplishments in the passage of, "highly successful 2007 criminal justice system reforms which sought to divert individuals from prison through mental health and drug treatment programs, provide more opportunities in prison for rehabilitation, and properly utilize probation and parole mechanisms to avoid greater costs if new prisons were built."

JON COLE

This is Plano resident Jon Cole's second attempt to unseat Jerry Madden. In 2008, Cole ran a much criticized campaign which included "push polling", misleading flyers and mean-spirited attacks.

The Collin County Observer wrote of the 2008 campaign, "This is old-fashioned, shoot-em-up, nasty Texas politics." Cole's tactics almost worked; he garnered 48.27% of the votes in the March, 2008 GOP primary.

Jon Cole received his bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in history and government and graduated from the Institute of Comparative Political and Economic Systems at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He is the Marketing Director for Total Physician Review, a healthcare consulting group based in Collin County. He has served as a legislative aide in the Texas House of Representatives, has worked in the Governor's Criminal Justice Division analyzing Texas' drug court system and assisting the Texas Crime Stoppers program. He also assisted the Governor's Office of Homeland Security produce the state's emergency communication network.

Mr. Cole's campaign web site is "under construction". He is endorsed by the North Texas Tea Party.

District 70

I am not aware of any challengers to 4 term incumbent Ken Paxton. There are, however persistent rumors that Rep. Paxton is wanting to toss his hat in the ring for Shapiro's Senate District 8 seat. We shall see.

District 89

I am not aware of any challengers to 4 term incumbent Jodi Laubenberg.

Bill

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In this series of previews of the 2010 election:

* Collin County Court at Law #2
* Collin County Court at Law #3
* Collin County Court at Law #4
* Collin County Court at Law #6
* Collin County District Attorney
* Collin County Legislative races
* Collin County's 219th District Court
* Collin County Commissioners Court
* State Board of Education