Elizabeth Ames Jones (photo)
South Texas Republicans can confirm today that Texas Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones will be running for United States Senate in 2010.
The Republican hopes to replace U. S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison who is set to run for Governor of Texas in 2010. This is an exclusive from South Texas Republicans.
Official Bio:
A sixth generation Texan from San Antonio, Elizabeth Ames Jones was first elected to the Texas Legislature in 2000. She bested an incumbent to win the Republican nomination to represent District 121 in the Texas House of Representatives and increased her margin of victory in the general election.
She was the first woman to be elected to represent that District, which is a growing urban/suburban district in San Antonio and Bexar County. She was subsequently elected two more times until her appointment by the Governor to a vacancy on the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) in 2005.
Accordingly, she had stepped down from the Legislature to accept the Railroad Commission appointment, and after soundly defeating opponents in the statewide primary and general elections last year, she was elected to a full term on the Railroad Commission in November 2006.
Elizabeth is only the 2nd woman to win election to the Railroad Commission in its 116-year history.The Railroad Commission is a three-person state agency that oversees many facets of Texas energy, from levels of the oil and gas industry to the permitting and reclamation of coal and uranium mines. It originally oversaw railroads, but over the years, it has given up those duties completely.
The Commission's mission now is to serve Texas by protecting personal safety, by encouraging sound stewardship of our natural resources and the environment, and by supporting responsible development of those resources for the long-term economic vitality of all Texans. Commissioner Jones is a solid conservative with a proven track record. In the Texas House, she served on committees important to a growing economy. Those included Energy Resources, Appropriations, Local and Consent Calendars, and Select School Finance.
While a member of the Appropriations Committee, she worked to craft a budget that cut actual state spending for the first time since World War II in order to overcome a $10 billion revenue shortfall without raising taxes. She was - and still is - a stalwart defender of homeowners' and private property rights and was instrumental in crafting property appraisal reform legislation. Commissioner Jones worked to lower homeowners' insurance premiums, and in order to ensure meaningful medical malpractice reform, she actively traveled the state to promote passage of Proposition 12.
Designated a "Fighter for Free Enterprise" during both full terms she served, she has also been recognized for her outstanding contributions to law enforcement. During her second term, she became the first woman elected to a leadership position in the House Republican Caucus when her colleagues elected her Vice Chairman of the Caucus. She served in that position until she accepted the Governor's appointment to the Railroad Commission.
She was elected Chairman of the Railroad Commission in September 2005.Currently, Commissioner Jones is a member of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. She serves on the Coastal Coordination Council (CCC), which implements the Federal Coastal Management Program (CMP) funding for coastal communities, and the Coastal Land Advisory Committee (CLAB).
A daughter of the "oil patch," Elizabeth is committed to firm but fair leadership of an agency that is important in so many different ways to our state, and she is dedicated to making her stewardship of our energy resources something all Texans can be proud of. Elizabeth and her husband of 24 years, Will, are both graduates of the University of Texas at Austin and are the proud parents of two college-aged children.
Texans for Elizabeth Ames Jones
P.O. Box 684564
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