Ron Simmons (politician)

The son of public school teachers, Simmons was raised in southern Arkansas. He studied at Southern Arkansas University. Simmons is married to the former Lisa Dickson. After several years of marriage, the couple left Arkansas in 1985 and settled in Dallas, where he completed his Bachelor of Business Administration degree at Dallas Baptist University. In 1991, Simmons co-founded Retirement Advisors of America from which he recently retired as its Chairman of the Board. [6]

Retirement Advisors of America manages nearly $3.0 billion in assets for families across the country and was acquired in 2020 by Allworth Financial out of Sacramento, CA In 2010, Simmons was named by D Magazine as one of the top financial advisors in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The trade publication Investment News has named Retirement Advisors of America among the top thirty financial advisors in the United States.[6] Currently Simmons is the Senior Distinguished Fellow for Right on Work at Texas Public Policy Foundation, a bi partisan conservative think tank in Austin, Texas. Simmons also serves as Chairman of the Board for Texas Mutual Insurance Company.

Simmons and his wife have three children.[7][6]

Simmons and his wife are active members at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. He is a former deacon at First Baptist Church of Dallas. He is a supporter of the Liberty Institute, which seeks to protect the sanctity of human life, religious liberty, and traditional marriage. He served as the Vice Chairman of the national board of directors for the Autism Society of America and a life member of the National Rifle Association.[6]

When long-term Republican Representative Burt Solomons of North Carrollton declined to seek a tenth term in 2012, Simmons, who had no previous political experience, entered the primary election to nominate a successor candidate. With 4,844 votes (61.6 percent), he handily defeated two intraparty rivals, David Edmund Loerwald (born c. 1956) of Carrollton, with 1,754 votes (22.3 percent), and Michael Hugh "Mike" Hennefer (born c. 1952) of Carrollton, a California native and an active figure in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,[8] with 1,260 votes (16 percent).[9] In the higher-turnout general election on November 6, 2012, Simmons won with 31,386 votes (59.1 percent) to 20,481 votes (38.6 percent) for the Democrat Gary E. Brown and Alex Mendoza's 1,224 votes (2.3 percent).[4]

Simmons served on the House committees of (1) Appropriations, (2) Transportation, and (3) Local and Consent Calendars.[7]

In 2017, Simmons obtained House passage, 88-57, of his bill to abolish "one-punch" straight-ticket voting in Texas, a procedure no longer allowed in 42 other states. With a straight ticket, a voter pulls one lever or touches one computer square to vote for all nominees of the same party. Most of the opponents of the legislation are Democratic, though straight-ticket Republican voters have constituted the majority statewide since at least 1996. Instead the Democrats claim the legislation would disenfranchise some elderly, disabled, or minority group voters. Simmons said that his intent is to encourage voters to make selections down ballot, including proposition and tax measures, instead of concentrating on a few offices at the top of the ticket.[10]

Simmons won his third term in the state House in the November 8, 2016, general election. He defeated the Democrat Alex Mendoza, 34,418 votes (56.3 percent) to 26,759 (43.7 percent). He ran in the 2018 primary against Kevin Simmons, but was then defeated by Democratic candidate Michelle Beckley in the 2018 midterms general election in November.[11]