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Larry Ed Combest (born March 20, 1945) is a retired American Republican
politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...
who represented
Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
in the
U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
from 1985 to 2003.


Early life

Combest was born in Memphis, Texas, a small town in
West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the desert climate, arid and semiarid climate, semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Texa ...
and the seat of Hall County. In 1969, he earned his
bachelor of business administration A Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is an undergraduate degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of four years and typically 120 credits of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of busine ...
degree from
West Texas State University West Texas A&M University (WTAMU or WT) is a public university in Canyon, Texas, United States. It is the northernmost campus of the Texas A&M University System and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Southern Associat ...
in
Canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...
. His family operated a farm for four generations. In 1971, he served briefly as director of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He then became legislative assistant to Republican
U.S. Senator The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...
John Tower John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was an American politician and military veteran who represented Texas in the United States Senate from 1961 to 1985. He was the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas si ...
from 1971 to 1978, having left after Tower won his fourth and final term in office. From 1978 until his election to Congress six years later, Combest was in private
business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...
.


Congressional career

In 1984, Democratic Congressman Kent Hance did not run for a fourth term but instead ran unsuccessfully for his party's nomination for the
United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...
. Combest won the Republican nomination in a runoff over fellow Lubbock conservative Ron Fleming. Combest was elected in November amid
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
's landslide reelection victory that year. Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale barely managed 20 percent of the vote in much of the district. Combest received 102,805 votes (58.1 percent) to 74,044 (41.9 percent) for Democrat Don R. Richards, a former Hance aide. Combest was only the third person to represent the 19th District since its creation in 1934, and the first Republican. Combest was thus one of six freshmen Republican congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 known as the Texas Six Pack. Although the 19th had become increasingly friendly to Republicans over the years (a Democratic presidential candidate has not carried the district since
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
in 1964), conservative Democrats continued to win most races at the state and local level until 1994's
Republican Revolution The "Republican Revolution", "Revolution of '94", or "Gingrich Revolution" are political slogans that refer to the Republican Party's (GOP) success in the 1994 U.S. midterm elections, which resulted in a net gain of 54 seats in the House o ...
. However, proving just how Republican this district had become at the national level, Combest was reelected nine times with no substantive Democratic opposition. He ran unopposed in 1990 and 1994 and with no major-party opposition in 2000 and 2002. Combest served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in the 104th Congress (1995–1997) and chairman of the House Agriculture Committee in the 106th and 107th Congresses (1999–2003). After the deaths of his father and a daughter within a short period of time, Combest announced his pending resignation on November 12, 2002 – a week after winning a tenth term. He said that he and his wife, Sharon, "realize how fragile life and health are. They certainly caused us to rearrange our priorities and we want to spend as much time together while we have our life and health." He resigned from the House on May 31, 2003. Fellow Republican Randy Neugebauer won the
special election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...
to replace Combest and was sworn into office on June 3, 2003. In 2006, lawyers for the NAACP discovered that Combest was one of six Republican congressional leaders who secretly requested an IRS investigation into the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
's tax-exempt status after NAACP chairman
Julian Bond Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the ea ...
called Bush's policies racially divisive. One of Combest's interns, Morgan Meyer, was in 2014 elected as a Republican to the
Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. There are no Term limits in the United States, term limits. The ...
from District 108 in Dallas County.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Combest, Larry Ed 1945 births Living people Politicians from Lubbock, Texas People from Memphis, Texas West Texas A&M University alumni People from Amarillo, Texas Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas United States congressional aides Members of Congress who became lobbyists 21st-century members of the United States House of Representatives