|
Robert Allen Eckels (born March 14, 1957)〔 is a lawyer and businessman from his native Houston, Texas, who was from 1983 to 1995 a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives and from 1995 to 2007 the county judge of Harris County.〔 ==Background== Eckels' father, Robert Young "Bob" Eckels, Jr., was a trustee of the Houston Independent School District who in 1972 was elected the Precinct 3 county commissioner, a position that he filled until shortly before his death on Christmas eve in 1989.〔Each Texas county regardless of population has four county commissioners from single-member districts. The county judge, who is elected countywide, can break a 2-2 deadlock on the commission.〕 As commissioner, the senior Eckels was accused of having tapped his office telephones, mail fraud, and theft of timber used on county bridge construction. In 1987, he pleaded no contest to charges that he had accepted from a county contractor the construction of a road on his farm in Austin County within the Houston metropolitan district. Eckels told ''The Houston Chronicle'' that his father "played the () game by their rules. The world has moved."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Craig Malisow, Eckels: The Son Also Rises: The county judge comes into his own on Commissioners Court, May 5, 2005 )〕 The senior Eckels had close political ties with Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush. In 1984, while his son was a first-term legislator, Commissioner Eckels turned the Harris County government into a virtual arm of the Reagan-Bush re-election campaign. He used county telephones, computers, and employees to establish an organization called the National Conference of Republican County Officials. An official in Roanoke County, Virginia, said that the conference was "a working arm for the White House and the national () Party." Eckels later said that he had used at least $20,000 of his own funds for Reagan-Bush mailings and did not report the expenditure to the Federal Election Commission. Eckels died less than a year after Bush became the U.S. President. The seventeen-year commissioner was convicted of theft and forced to resign. For a number of years his name was synonymous with political corruption in the Houston area.〔 Eckels' uncle, Paul Glenn "Buck" Eckels, Sr. (1931-2011), for many years owned the Lawyers Title Insurance Company of Houston.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Paul Glenn Eckels obituary )〕 Eckels graduated from Houston Christian High School, the University of Houston, and the South Texas College of Law in Houston. He practices with Looper Reed & McGraw, P.C. He is also the president of Texas Central High-Speed Railway, also called Lone Star High Speed Rail.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Robert Eckles )〕 He was formerly affiliated with Fulbright & Jaworski in Houston.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Robert A. Eckels )〕 His wife, the former Jet Winkley (born c. 1957), was a lobbyist for the Metropolitan Transit Authority while she and Eckels were engaged and he was a state legislator. Eckels said that because of their relationship he avoided sponsoring transit authority bills. The couple has a daughter, Kirby Eckels.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Robert Eckels」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|