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King, Phil rep

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gerry

trump BS 8 25

Senator Phil King will chair the redistricting committee in Texas. He faced a series of questions from Senators last week on the issue. Eye on Politics: https://bit.ly/4kXZfUD

campaign corruption

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How evangelicals influence US foreign policy in the Middle East | EP2 | Witness Documentary - YouTube

Why evangelicals influence US foreign policy in the Middle East | EP1 | Witness Documentary

phil king tx had tkt: called to arrenge interv, sec threw out this is tex we do not want anti anything anti israel 24 min i will report you to fbi; for what? --> 0

8 25 no talk ai pix?

Phil King (Texas politician) - Wikipedia

Phillip Stephen King (born February 29, 1956) is an American attorney from Weatherford, Texas, who has been a Republican member of the Texas State Senate since 2023. He previously served in Texas House of Representatives from 1999 to 2023.[1] House District 61 encompasses Parker and Wise counties located west of Fort Worth. In 2022, he was a candidate for the District 10 seat in the Texas Senate, which he won unopposed in the general election, due to the democratic opponent dropping out of the race in April 2022.[2]

Election history

King was nominated without opposition in the 1998 Republican primary when the incumbent, Ric Williamson, did not seek re-election. In the general election, King defeated the Democratic candidate, Brenda Brown Rotramble, 21,200 (65%) to 11,626 (35%). (At the time, the district included a portion of neighboring Cooke County.)[3]

Legislative history

King has supported legislation that would institute parental notification and parental consent.[6]

In the regular and then the three special legislative sessions of 2003, King authored the congressional redistricting legislation favored by the Republican Party,[7] which won more than 55 percent of the total votes cast in thirty-two separate congressional races in the 2002 midterm elections even though the Republican Party obtained just fifteen of the U.S. House seats.[8] The result gave the Texas delegation to the U.S. House a temporary 21–11 Republican majority.[8] After the 2006 elections, that margin was reduced to 19–13 Republican and after 2008, 20-12 Republican.[9]

In 2005, King was the House sponsor of Senate Bill 5, which deregulated Texas telecommunications laws and banned Texas cities from participating in projects that offer free wi-fi in airports and public spaces.[10][11][6][12]

King was involved in other legislative matters, including the testing of high school athletes for steroid use,[11] and methods for preventing the circumvention of the parental notification law by abortion clinics.[6] In 2011, he sponsored Senate Bill 14 which required proof of U.S. citizenship by voters at the time of registration.[12]

King authored a bill in the Texas House, HB 347 of the 86th Session, to ban the process of forced annexation by cities over suburban and rural areas. The bill will require a Texas city to get the approval of the people and businesses that are affected by the annexation. It passed both chambers of the Texas legislature and was signed by Governor Greg Abbott on May 24, 2019.[13][14]

In 2023, King introduced SB 1515 of the 88th Session of the Texas Senate, which would require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom of every public school in Texas.[15][16] The bill failed to pass.[17][18][19]

It was later passed in 2025 as Texas Senate Bill 10.[20]

Personal life

Prior to his legislative service, King was a captain in the Fort Worth Police Department. He was also an instructor at Dallas Baptist University which is his alma mater, and he served as a justice of the peace in Parker County, Texas. He currently serves as an officer in the Texas State Guard, but never served in the U.S. Armed Forces.[1]

King obtained his Bachelor of Arts and M.B.A. degrees (1980 and 1986) from Dallas Baptist University in Dallas.[21] He also attended Texas Wesleyan University where he obtained his Juris Doctor degree.[1] King and his wife, Terry, are active members of Trinity Bible Church in Weatherford. The couple have six children and sixteen grandchildren.[22]

refs slate

Former Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) participated in a how-to-gerrymander training for right-wing lawmakers in August.

For years, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been the place where right-wing state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists go to conspire in secret. But thanks to Slate, the leaked audio from a recent session on how to get away with gerrymandering has been made public.

The presentation was moderated by voter suppression advocate Cleta Mitchell and featured voter fraud conspiracy theorist Hans von Spakovsky, unsuccessful Trump judicial nominee and alleged white supremacist Thomas Farr, former Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), and Texas state Rep. Phil King (R). Their focus was on teaching the 1,413 attendees that gerrymandering is a "political adult blood sport" and that those doing it should pretend to be transparent but destroy the real evidence of how they devise maps.

Mitchell warned that since Republican lawmakers devising maps to overrepresent their share of the population were likely to be sued, they should not keep anything incriminating.

"My advice to you is: If you don’t want it turned over in discovery, you probably ought to get rid of it before you go home," Mitchell said.

But perhaps most shocking were the comments from Westmoreland, who represented Georgia in Congress from 2005 to 2017. Before that, he served as Republican leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, where he opposed gerrymandering by the Democratic majority in 2001.

When Westmoreland went to the House of Representatives in 2005, he pushed Georgia Republicans — who has regained control of the state legislature in the 2004 election — to ram through a controversial mid-decade redistricting plan.

Westmoreland bragged that he expressly tricked Democratic lawmakers in the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus into undermining their own interests.

In 2010, he recalled, he co-chaired a GOP gerrymandering effort called called "REDMAP" and relied on a map-making computer system. He invited black Democrats in Georgia to try the software to devise "perfect districts" that packed in the most minority voters possible and left neighboring districts more Republican. Then he would use these racially packed districts in the redistricting.

According to the Slate article:

Westmoreland recalled inviting the members of the "black caucus" to his office, "off campus," to create their "perfect map." One incumbent, he said, "finally fell into the trap and came over there and drew his perfect district." To show the redistricting plan benefited black Democrats too, he "immediately got the local paper down there" to run an article on that lawmaker’s perfect district. Westmoreland then included a district as close as possible to that overwhelmingly black and Democratic one in the state’s official map. The legislator, he said, voted against the map and soon lost his seat.

"I promise you it’ll be beneficial to you," he told the ALEC attendees. "They still want to be reelected. They still want to have the best district they can have."

Dan Vicuña, Common Cause's national redistricting manager, said Wednesday that this is "about as clear an example as you can have" of illegal racial gerrymandering without having a court trial.

Noting that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that race-based gerrymanders like the ones Westmoreland described are unconstitutional, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, he observed that Westmoreland effectively admitted to illegal activity.

"You've got clear admission by a Republican leader of conspiring with sitting legislators to pack black voters into as few districts as possible to ensure white dominance of the rest of the state," he said. "If that's not illegal racial gerrymandering, I don't know what is."

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a progressive watchdog group, helped sound the alarm about two ALEC gerrymandering panels before they took place at the August conference.

In an interview on Wednesday, the group's advocacy program manager, Dominic Renfrey, said the leaked audio confirmed "the suspicions that activists have had for years that ALEC is a bootcamp for corporate executives and conservative lawmakers determined to rig the system in their favor."

He added that Westmoreland's admissions are "just as shocking as can be."

"ALEC has been the platform for the development and passage into law of many initiatives over the years that have directly attacked black and brown communities," Renfrey said, pointing to model legislation like so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws and voter ID requirements. "This initiative, with this recording, doesn't seem to be changing that trajectory for ALEC."

Vicuña noted that the leaked audio is "important evidence of a process gone terribly wrong."

"There is a public process for show," he added, "a dog-and-pony show where legislators with serious looks on their faces are accepting public testimony — and then they go back to smoke filled rooms ... and devise legislative districts to advantage themselves."

Patrick Rodenbush, communications director for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in an email that the audio should be a "wake-up call."

"Republicans are plotting behind closed doors to ensure they can manipulate the redistricting process in 2021 to lock in power in state legislatures and congressional delegations across the country," he wrote. "If we don’t win back power at the state and local level over the next couple of years, the next Democratic president will have her (or his) agenda hobbled by a gerrymandered House of Representatives and conservative state legislatures around the country."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

spitfire  extensive on gerry

https://spitfirelist.com/news/john-roberts-gives-bad-faith-blessing-to-hyper-partisan-gerrymandering-and-paved-the-way-for-the-kochstitution/comment-page-1/

...here was a recent article in Slate about a audio recording leaked from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting this year. The audio was of the closed-door “How to Survive Redistricting” panel discussion, so this was a panel that’s particularly important for understanding what the GOP has in mind for its 2021 hyper-gerrymandering schemes. The panel’s advice included helpful tips like destroying evidence under the expectation that the district maps they draw up are guaranteed to end up challenged in court. The evidence they recommended attendees destroy included evidence they had attended this panel discussion. It’s that kind of panel discussion.

the panel had four experts: North Carolina election lawyer Thomas Farr, former Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (who co-chaired Project REDMAP in 2010),Texas state Rep. Phil King, and Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation who happens to be one of the GOP’s biggest backers of voter suppression schemes. In particular, von Spakovsky has specialized in issuing fraudulent warnings about illegal immigrants voting in US elections and using those scare stories as justification for voter suppression laws. Von Spakovsky was also on Trump’s short-lived presidential commission aimed at uncovering proof of this alleged rampant voter fraud. In keep with this theme of whipping up fears about immigrants, von Spakovksy has been one of the chief advocates for using only population based on citizenship, and not the total number of people in a state, for redistricting purposes during the 2021 redistricting process.

Slate

How to Get Away With Gerrymandering

A leaked audio recording reveals how state lawmakers are taught to trash evidence, avoid the word gerrymander, and create an appearance of bipartisanship.

By David Daley

Oct 02, 2019 ...

https://documented.net/investigations/exclusive-documented-obtains-recording-of-3-hour-long-voter-suppression-strategy-session-hosted-by-alec

https://slate.com/news-and-politics**/2019/10/**alec-meeting-gerrymandering-audio-recording.html

slate no lnx audio

luxury cabanas atop Austin’s JW Marriott kept state legislators cool poolside as August-in-Texas temperatures soared above 103 degrees during each day of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s 2019 annual meeting. The gathered Republican officials could enjoy a $14 rooftop Peppered Paloma cocktail with Patrón silver, housemade grapefruit poblano soda, and Chilean salt, all while gazing over Lady Bird Lake and the nearby state Capitol, or catching a ballgame on the cabana’s 55-inch private TV.

Downstairs, meanwhile, five of the GOP’s most seasoned redistricting minds and über-lawyers would teach them the finer points of tilting maps and drawing districts that would allow them to retain such spoils for another decade.

Slate has obtained an exclusive audio recording of the closed-door panel called “How to Survive Redistricting,” moderated by influential Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell. The panel’s four experts—Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, North Carolina election lawyer Thomas Farr, former Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, and Texas state Rep. Phil King—are among the architects and defenders of some of the most notorious gerrymanders and voter suppression plans of this decade.

During the session, the legislators were advised to treat redistricting as “political adult blood sport,” trash potential evidence before it can be discovered through litigation, avoid the word gerrymander, and make deals with black and Latino legislators that guarantee them easy reelections by packing as many minority voters as possible into their districts, thereby making the rest of the map whiter and more conservative.

“You are going to be sued. Let’s start with that.” — Cleta Mitchell

Panelists offered complicated technical advice, such as adding a legal provision that would allow a legislature to defend its maps in court even if the state attorney general refuses. And then there was less-technical advice, like being sure to put “sharp” legislators on redistricting committees because they’ll spend a lot of time explaining the maps in court.

“You are going to be sued. Let’s start with that,” Mitchell told a packed room at the ALEC gathering, attended by more than 1,400 people, including Trump administration officials and top conservative lawmakers, thinkers, donors, and activists.Mitchell made light of ALEC’s reputation as a conveyor belt for cookie-cutter conservative legislation enacted by state after state. “Mindless state legislators, we’re just pouring in information and we’re indoctrinating you, pouring into your empty skulls!” she said, sarcastically. “We’re going to teach you how to gerrymander.”:{

}::{:{

And then she did.}: “Let us begin with the fact that, probably, your notes from this conference, and this workshop, will probably be part of a discovery demand,” Mitchell said on the recording, dropping the sarcasm. “My advice to you is: If you don’t want it turned over in discovery, you probably ought to get rid of it before you go home.”}:

View Transcript

Farr, the veteran North Carolina election lawyer whose nomination to the federal bench in North Carolina ended amid persistent allegations that he had defended efforts to suppress the black vote, compared lawsuits against GOP redistricting plans to a cancer diagnosis. “You better get some chemotherapy,” he said, “because if you don’t, things aren’t going to turn out real well for you.” He also told legislators that they needed to think about any trial as a play that he would direct as the counsel, and to be sure that they created a script that an attorney could work with before a judge.

Westmoreland, the former Georgia congressman who co-chaired a Republican 2010 redistricting initiative called REDMAP, told a story about giving black Democrats in his state mapmaking software and encouraging them to draw their “perfect district,” knowing that districts filled with minority voters would make surrounding districts whiter and more Republican.

:{“We ended up being very successful with it,” Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland recalled inviting the members of the “black caucus” to his office, “off campus,” to create their “perfect map.” One incumbent, he said, “finally fell into the trap and came over there and drew his perfect district.” To show the redistricting plan benefited black Democrats too, he “immediately got the local paper down there” to run an article on that lawmaker’s perfect district. Westmoreland then included a district as close as possible to that overwhelmingly black and Democratic one in the state’s official map. The legislator, he said, voted against the map and soon lost his seat.}:

“I promise you it’ll be beneficial to you,” he told the ALEC attendees. “They still want to be reelected. They still want to have the best district they can have.”

View Transcript

The speakers repeatedly insisted that there is no such thing as a nonpartisan redistricting process. Farr argued that maps can never be neutral. “Every time you draw a districting line, it benefits one party and hurts the other party,” he said.

:{

The idea that Republicans are simply fighting similarly skewed Democratic gerrymanders has been debunked}:. According to a University of Southern California study, 59 million Americans live in states where at least one chamber of the state legislature is controlled by the party that won fewer votes in 2018. In every case, Republicans drew the lines, and hold minority control. That the process is inherently political has been disproved as well: Several states, including California, Iowa, and New Jersey, use independent commissions or various neutral or bipartisan processes that have successfully created fairer and more competitive maps. Three-quarters of the seats that flipped during the 2018 U.S. House elections were drawn by commissions or courts. Studies show that maps become more representative and equitable when more parties have a seat at the table.

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Nevertheless, Farr urged these lawmakers to make their processes appear as open as possible, even though they are driven by partisanship behind closed doors.

The legislative record, he told them, must appear to be business as usual, following every statute, with every transcript and debate filed for the record.

Given that every map could end up in court, Farr advised extraordinary caution. “You never know what you might say, even if it’s unjust, that the left can take out of context and try to use to make the Republicans look like they’re evil.”

Then, in court, Farr could take it from there.}:

“It’s like I’m a director of a play,” he explained to the room. “I know what I want the play to look like for the judges when we actually have to go and defend what we’ve done in court, and so this is why you want to make it look like—I know most of you know this already—you’re very cordial, cooperative with the minority party or the opposing party. … The more you take the high road in the legislative process, the better it’s going to look in court when you have to defend what you’ve done.”

View Transcript

Republicans, Farr suggested, are outgunned by the litigation power and the expert witnesses on the side of fair maps. He complained that Republicans have only five or six expert witnesses, while Democrats have between 18 and 20 “really outstanding and smart people” able to explain “newfangled theories” about identifying gerrymanders.

Many of those expert witnesses create tens of thousands of neutral maps using nonpartisan, legal redistricting criteria. Courts in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio were all persuaded to overturn maps as partisan gerrymanders by relying, in part, on simulated maps that demonstrate that the ones drawn by legislators are wild partisan outliers. This technological advancement offers the potential of using the same technology that partisans use to rig maps to strip their intent bare. For Farr, this is a great threat. He warned the legislators that computer-assisted maps would be the tactic deployed against their maps as partisan gerrymandering moves to state courts during the upcoming 2020 redistricting cycle—and that he would help them defeat those maps.

“Garbage in and garbage out,” he said. “You can read these things to get the results that you want.” Farr said that the professors working on these simulated maps were “very smart” and that the work is “very complex.” “You’ve got to get the right experts to look at their algorithm and all the backup that they have. But there’s a definite way to defeat the concept of computer-simulated maps.”

View Transcript

As Farr and Westmoreland taught lawmakers to conceal the true intent of their maps and appear to play by the rules, Von Spakovsky envisioned a longer game to change the rules of redistricting entirely.

Von Spakovsky, a member of the Trump-Kobach “election fraud” commission,urged GOP lawmakers to use citizenship data to redistrict state legislatures rather than count the total populations of districts, the latter being the constitutional standard for U.S. House districts and the longtime norm for states, as well. Most state legislatures, however, could redistrict state legislative lines based on citizen population, in most cases simply by passing a statute. (Recent revelations from the files of late GOP redistricting mastermind Thomas Hofeller demonstrated that Republicans attempted to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census to gather citizenship data for this purpose.)

“All of you need to seriously consider switching to using citizen population to do redistricting,” he said, asserting that the concept of “one person, one vote” was just something that liberal justices on the U.S. Supreme Court “created … out of whole cloth.”

Von Spakovsky also told lawmakers that census data is important for two reasons: the apportionment of U.S. House seats, and state and federal redistricting. Congressional apportionment based on total population, as the Constitution mandates, is “fundamentally unfair,” he said, because “states with large numbers of aliens, particularly illegal aliens, are getting more political power.”

“Liberals do not want you doing this,” he said, because “the higher the number of noncitizens in a district, the greater the chances they’re going to vote for a liberal.”

View Transcript

Von Spakovsky also praised Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority, 5–4 opinion earlier this year in Rucho v. Common Cause,which essentially closed the federal courts to partisan gerrymandering claims. But he warned that other legal avenues are still open to proponents of fair maps. “What you have to understand is this is not the end of this,” he said.

Gerrymandered maps could get challenged under state constitutions as a political question, he said, or in federal courts for unconstitutional use of race data and for diluting the votes of minorities contrary to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. He called this “the Goldilocks principle of redistricting,” noting that “you can’t use too much race,” but if you don’t use race at all, “Hispanics, African Americans are going to claim you didn’t create a district in which they can elect a candidate of their choice.”

To withstand these inevitable legal challenges, the panelists said, it is important to control not only legislative majorities but also the judges approving or rejecting redistricting plans.

“Always know who’s going to end up ruling on your maps,” Westmoreland, the Georgia lawmaker, advised. “It’s important to work with the judges, the judicial system. You need to work for your attorney generals. … You need to work with as many organizations that you can to make sure that not only you win the majority, but that you elect people that are going to be able to supervise what these maps, or what you, come up with.”

Enticing more “dance partners” from minority groups to protect their own seats is another key part of that plan.

“It’s not rocket science,” Westmoreland said. “It’s politics.”

Read the full transcript of the ALEC meeting here.

This story is part of Slate’s Who Counts? project, which investigates who has decision-making power in America and what happens to those who don’t. Read more from Dahlia

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_King_(Texas_politician)

Phillip Stephen "Phil" King (born February 29, 1956) is a Weatherford, Texas, attorney who has been a conservative Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives since 1999.[1] He represents District 61, which encompasses Parker and Wise counties to the west of Fort Worth.

1 Election History

Election History

King was nominated without opposition in the 1998 Republican primary when the incumbent, Ric Williamson, did not seek re-election. In the general election, King defeated the Democratic candidate, Brenda Brown Rotramble, 21,200 (64.6 percent) to 11,626 (35.4 percent). (At the time, the district included a portion of neighboringCooke County.)

King ran unopposed in 2000.

In 2002, King defeated the Democratic candidate Mack Dobbs, 25,525 (69 percent) to 11,475 (31 percent).

In 2004, King once again ran unopposed.

In 2006, King defeated the Libertarian candidate Richard Forsythe, Jr., 27,470 (80.4 percent to 6,696 (19.6 percent), in the general election the Democratic Party did not field a candidate.

In 2008, King faced two opponents in the general election, Democratic candidate Charles William Randolph and (once again facing) Libertarian candidate Forsythe, defeating them 48,879 (72.52 percent) to Randolph's 16,308 (24.19 percent) and Forsythe's 2,205 (3.27 percent).

Legislative History

In 1999, King's colleagues named him "Freshman Legislator of the Year", and Texas Monthly magazine designated him "Rookie Legislator of the Year".[citation needed] He received the designation "Crime Fighter of the Year" from the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas.[citation needed]

In his second term, King was named a "Fighter for Free Enterprise" by the Texas Association of Business for his work on pro-business issues.[citation needed] He was cited by the Texas State Rifle Association for legislation implementing a firearms safety program in public schools.[citation needed]

King was recognized as "Legislator of the Year" by the Texas Association of Builders for his work on HB 730, which was designed to reduce litigation costs for home builders and buyers, and has been utilized as model legislation in other states.[citation needed] King was named "Outstanding Legislator of the Year" by the Texas Alliance for Life.[citation needed]

King has supported legislation that would institute parental notification and parental consent. In 2006 he received the "Defender of Life" award from The Justice Foundation.[citation needed] He has been awarded the "Freedom and Family Award" by Texas Eagle Forum, an interest group founded by Phyllis Schlafly of Missouri.[citation needed]

In the regular and then the three special legislative sessions of 2003, King authored the congressional redistricting legislation favored by the Republican Party, which won more than 55 percent of the total votes cast in thirty-two separate congressional races in the 2002 midterm elections even though the Republican Party obtained just fifteen of the U.S. House seats.[citation needed] The changes led to a temporary 21-11 Republican majority within the Texas delegation to the U.S. House. After the 2006 elections, however, that margin was reduced to 19-13 Republican. After 2008, it became 20-12 Republican.[citation needed]

In 2005, King was the House sponsor of Senate Bill 5, which deregulated Texas telecommunications laws.[citation needed] In a perk to telecommunications companies, a provision of the bill banned Texas cities from participating in projects that offer free wi-fi in airports and public spaces .[2] Later that year Texas Monthly listed Phil King as one of the worst legislators on their annual "Best and Worst Legislators," saying, "Unfortunately, negotiation is not among King’s strong points. He is a zealot, a true believer in his own rightness."[3]

In the 2005 special session on school finance, King proposed a one-cent increase in the state sales tax (6.25 cents) in order to lower the property tax cap for school district funding.[citation needed]

King has been involved in many other legislative matters, including tests for steroid use by high school athletes, ways to prevent abortion clinics from circumventing the parental notification law, and the proposal that voters at the time of registration be able to furnish proof of U.S. citizenship.[citation needed] His opponents referred to the latter measure as King's "Voter Suppression Law" on the theory that it would discourage registration by the poor and downtrodden.[citation needed]

King was mentioned as a potential candidate for Speaker of the House at the start of the 2007 legislative session, but he quickly deferred to Tom Craddick of Midland, who was elected to his third term as the presiding officer.[citation needed] Opposition broke out against Craddick during the 2007 session from a group of Democrats and disaffected Republicans.[citation needed]

Ethics Violations and Claims of Corruption

In 2005, King drew criticism for a dinner hosted by lobbyist Neal "Buddy" Jones whose clients include AT&T and FPL Energy, companies that are regulated by the Regulated Industries committee that King was the Chair of at the time.[4][5]

In 2008, an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram found that the president of AT&T had written a letter urging employees to help re-elect King, then head of the House Regulated Industries Committee.[6][7] During the 2008 primary election cycle, King was given over $200,000 from utility and energy company PACs.[8][9] King's primary opponent, Joe Tison, stated, " "While he was accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from utility companies and their representatives, the rest of us were paying an average of 56 percent more to heat our homes and keep the lights on in our businesses."[10][11] Texas Monthly reporter Paul Burka observed that even the Fort Worth Star Telegram had documented this problem, claiming, "You have to hand it to Phil King. No matter how many stories the Star-Telegram writes about his taking campaign cash from the industries he represents, the chairman of Regulated Industries keeps right on doing it."[12] King also took gifts from CenterPoint Energy Vice President Scott E. Rozzell, a violation of the state’s law governing gifts to public officials.[13][14][15]

In 2009, Phil King was found guilty of using campaign funds for personal expenses and fined $1,300 by the Texas Ethics Commission.[16][17][18][19]

In 2014, Phil King, along with Tom and Christi Craddick, were accused of laundering $25,000 in campaign funds.[20][21] Furthermore, Tom Craddick reported making this $25,000 donation to King on his semiannual campaign finance report, though King's campaign finance reports do not make note of it.[22]

Personal life

Prior to his legislative service, King was a captain in the Fort Worth Police Department, an instructor at his alma mater, Dallas Baptist University, and a Parker County justice of the peace. He currently serves as an officer in the Texas State Guard.[citation needed]

King obtained his Bachelor of Arts and M.B.A. degrees from Dallas Baptist University in Dallas. He procured the Juris Doctor degree from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. King and his wife, Terry, are active members of Trinity Bible Church in Weatherford. The couple has six children and eight grandchildren. Terry King is a direct descendant of Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford.[

^

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "Phil King Biography". Texas House of Representatives. 2008. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "Wireless networks don't click with some: Telecom bill would ban free Internet access like that in model East End program". Houston Chronicle. 2005. Retrieved 2010-06-14.
  3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/best-and-worst-legislators-2005/page/0/5
  4. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://info.tpj.org/page_view.jsp?pageid=1247&pubid=1013
  5. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://glenrosenews.com/default.asp?view=plink&id=578
  6. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ https://www.texastribune.org/bidness/explore/phil-king/
  7. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://media.star-telegram.com/smedia/2008/01/15/20/ATTletter.source.prod_affiliate.58.pdf
  8. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.ethics.state.tx.us/php/filer.php?acct=00036483COH
  9. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.startelegram.typepad.com/politex/tison-aims-for-a-knockout.html
  10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.startelegram.typepad.com/politex/tison-aims-for-a-knockout.html
  11. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.chron.com/business/article/Many-call-energy-deregulation-in-Texas-a-failure-1824046.php
  12. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://blogs.star-telegram.com/politex/2008/02/burka-dings-phi.html
  13. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Texas-Pol-Allegedly-Accepted-Super-Bowl-Tickets028119
  14. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://startelegram.typepad.com/politex/2008/02/super-bowl-tick.html
  15. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://info.tpj.org/page_view.jsp?pageid=1247&pubid=1013
  16. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ https://www.texastribune.org/bidness/explore/phil-king/
  17. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/local/x1155970054/King-reports-gifts-ethics-commission-levies-1-000-penalty
  18. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://lubbockonline.com/stories/120306/sta_120306106.shtml
  19. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/4811201.html
  20. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://lonestarproject.net/father-daughter#.U4i3QSi8_Ds
  21. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://quorumreport.com/Quorum_Report_Daily_Buzz_2014/democrats_allege_ethics_violations_by_christi_crad_buzziid22065.html
  22. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;-webkit-user-select:none;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://lonestarproject.net/sites/default/files/Craddick%20Sworn%20Complaint.pdf

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Analysis

gOP state Rep. Phil King announces he'll run for new Republican-friendly Senate seat held by Democrat Beverly Powell

State Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, questions a fellow lawmaker regarding a proposed amendment to HB 10 on March 30, 2021.

State Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, announced Monday he is running for the newly redrawn Senate District 10, which has been primed for a GOP pickup under the proposed map.

Within half an hour of declaring his bid, King got the endorsement of the Senate's presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

"Since a new Texas Senate map has been proposed that places Parker County in Senate District 10, I have received many encouraging calls from conservatives urging me to enter the race so we can defeat a liberal Democrat," King said in a statement. "After prayerful consideration with my wife Terry and my family, should this map be adopted, I will make a formal announcement that I will be running for this seat."

SD-10 is currently held by Democratic Sen. Beverly Powell of Burleson, who flipped the seat in 2018. Powell has denounced her proposed new district as an "act of intentional discrimination."

Under the proposed new map, SD-10 would reach beyond Tarrant County into more conservative Parker and Johnson counties. The district would go from one that elected President Joe Biden by 8 points to one he would have lost by 15.

King, a former police officer, has served in the House since 1999.

“I have known and worked with Chairman Phil King of the Texas House for 14 years," Patrick, a former senator, said in a statement. "His lengthy legislative experience, his background in law enforcement, and his strong leadership skills are what we need in the Texas Senate."

Warren Norred, an Arlington lawyer who serves on the State Republican Executive Committee, was already running for SD-10 before the new lines were proposed. He is touting the "supportive words and encouragement" from of Matt Rinaldi, the chairman of the state Republican Party. Rinaldi spoke at Norred's campaign kickoff in late August.

Norred confirmed Tuesday morning he is "of course" still running.

"I always expected to see a competitor or two along the way from the status quo side of the GOP," Norred wrote in an email.

Earlier Tuesday, state Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, said he had been encouraged to run for the newly redrawn SD-10 but would instead seek reelection his House seat.

King is the second new Republican candidate that Patrick has thrown his weight behind since the first draft of the new Senate map was released earlier this month. Patrick has also backed former state Sen. Pete Flores of Pleasanton for the newly reconfigured Senate District 24.

no lnx BS?

Analysis: Maps bolster Republicans in the Texas Senate, especially the top one

[State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick speak at a press conference held regarding Democrats breaking quorum and voting legislature at the Texas Capitol on July 21, 2021.

Editor's note: If you'd like an email notice whenever we publish Ross Ramsey's column, click here.

(Audio unavailable. Click here to listen on texastribune.org.)

:{

Redistricting is when politicians choose their own voters. It’s political as all get out. Officeholders draw districts that contain the highest possible number of supporters and the lowest possible number of opponents, try not to cross any legal lines when they’re doing it and extend their incumbencies by rigging the game from the outset.

It’s a well-known, despised and yet persistent way to hold on to legislative power.

But there’s another game going on after those districts are drawn, best illustrated by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, at the moment the most adept politician in Texas government.

He’s choosing his own senators.

Patrick is backing a current senator, Dawn Buckingham of Lakeway, in her bid for land commissioner, a statewide office. That departure gave Senate mapmakers some room on their redistricting maps, and the redrawn district now includes the home of former Sen. Pete Flores of Pleasanton. Flores lost to Democrat Roland Gutierrez in 2020, and now the Republican is Patrick’s hand-picked candidate for the reconfigured Buckingham district. Patrick wants Flores back in the Senate, where he was a reliable vote for the boss’ priorities.}:

Republican Ellen Troxclair, a former Austin City Council member, was in that contest for a hot minute, but the big donors and influential trade and interest groups — spurred by endorsements from Buckingham, Patrick and Donald Trump — lined up with the lieutenant governor’s pick.

Troxclair is now running for the Texas House.

Last month, Patrick went to Midland to tell a group of oil and gas people that they weren’t well represented in the Senate. That would have been a surprise to Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo — who represents Midland — if he and Patrick hadn’t tussled before.

The redistricting maps included changes that cut into Seliger’s chances, weakening the strength of the Panhandle, where he lives, while bolstering the political clout of the Permian Basin. Midland produced a Republican challenger, a former board member of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation named Kevin Sparks, who quickly won a Trump endorsement.

Seliger decided not to seek another term.

Consider the case of Fort Worth Democrat Beverly Powell, whose Tarrant County district was stretched to the west to include the home of Weatherford Republican Phil King, a House member who wants to move up to the Senate. Patrick likes the idea; he quickly endorsed the new entrant, who would be the difference between a Democratic vote and a conservative Republican vote.

You might hear an echo here. After the 2019 legislative session, freshman Speaker of the House Dennis Bonnen and state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, met with a political activist to talk about the House and the coming election year. Among other things, they listed the members of the House, including fellow Republicans, whose tenure they wouldn’t mind ending.

Patrick is doing what Bonnen threatened, pointing out a difference between the political powers of lieutenant governors and speakers of the House in Texas. Both answer to their constituents, but Bonnen made the mistake of plotting against his.

When Bonnen suggested to an outsider — who recorded the conversation and later made it public — which members should stay and which ones should go, the backlash within the House forced him to give up the speakership. Had he hung on, he’d have been much less powerful in a room of 150 people who choose leaders from their own ranks. Politics is rough and tumble, and the participants have sharp elbows, but electing a speaker is an exercise of trust. Plotting against the people who elected him turned out to be a fatal mistake.

But lieutenant governors aren’t chosen by senators; they’re chosen by the state’s voters. Speakers answer to their members in a way that lieutenant governors don’t. And turning against senators — so long as you don’t turn against too many of them at once — can even enhance a lite guv’s powers. It’s a punishment to whoever is in the dog house, and it’s an object lesson for the rest of the senators: See what happens when you’re in my way?

Redistricting offers a bigger opportunity for ambitious legislative leaders — to do with political maps what might not be possible in elections. Patrick’s political team went after Seliger in his last election and got beat. The duty to draw new maps gave his foes another chance, and now Seliger’s on his way out. Powell got into the Senate by defeating a Republican ally of the lite guv.

:{

The new maps favor Republicans, as you should expect when they’re drawn by a Republican majority. But the hidden feature is that those Republicans are indebted to Patrick as they enter the Senate.

It’s good to be king. Or lieutenant governor.}:

Disclosure: Texas Public Policy Foundation has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune,a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

ggl 7 22

texas Rep. Phil King announces he'll run for new GOP ...

https://www.texastribune.org › 2021/09/27 › texas-legis...

Sep 27, 2021 — Phil King announces he'll run for new Republican-friendly Senate seat held by Democrat Beverly Powell. Within half an hour of declaring his bid, ...

Texas Representative, Phil King details in our Elected Officials ...

https://www.texastribune.org › directory › phil-king

Editor's note: Texas has new political maps, but this directory lists lawmakers currently serving under the old maps that were drawn after the 2010 census.

Party: Republican

Salary: $7,200

Seat up for election: 2022

Phil King (Texas politician) - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Phil_King_(Texas_pol...

Phillip Stephen King (born February 29, 1956) is an American attorney from Weatherford, Texas, who has been a Republican member of the Texas House of ...

Political party: Republican

Spouse(s): Terry King

Residence(s): Weatherford, Texas, U.S‎

Children: Six children

Election history · ‎Legislative history · ‎Personal life

Phil King for Texas Senate

https://www.philking.com

Principle-Driven Conservative Leadership. Thank you for your strong support in the Republican primary. I am honored to be your nominee, and look forward to ...

Contact · ‎Meet Phil · ‎District · ‎Issues

Phil King (Texas) - Ballotpedia

https://ballotpedia.org › Phil_King_(Texas)

He assumed office in 1999. His current term ends on January 10, 2023. King (Republican Party) is running for election to the Texas State Senate to represent ...

Next election: November 8, 2022

Years in position: 23

Last elected: November 3, 2020

Contact: Official website Campaign website C...

Phil King (Tennessee) - Ballotpedia

https://ballotpedia.org › Phil_King_(Tennessee)

Phil King (Republican Party) ran for election to the Knox County Board of Education to represent District 9 in Tennessee. He lost in the Republican primary ...

Republican Phil King Secures Nomination to Challenge ...

https://thetexan.news › republican-phil-king-secures-no...

Mar 2, 2022 — Powell narrowly won the seat in 2018 and her reelection is unlikely after the Texas Legislature redrew the district to favor the GOP.

Phil King - Texas Directory

https://directory.texasscorecard.com › phil-king

Phil King is an Attorney from Weatherford, Texas. He earned his BA Degree and MBA from Dallas Baptist University and his JD from Texas Wesleyan.

GOP state Rep. Phil King announces he'll run for new ...

https://fortworthreport.org › 2021/09/27 › gop-state-re...

Sep 27, 2021 — “Since a new Texas Senate map has been proposed that places Parker County in Senate District 10, I have received many encouraging calls from ...

Phil King - Click2Houston

https://www.click2houston.com › topic › Phil_King

The new political maps drawn by the Texas Senate don't just favor Republicans; that much was expected from a Republican majority. The maps help Lt. Gov. Dan ...