James M. Collins

For other people named James Collins, see James Collins (disambiguation).
James M. Collins
Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from Texas's 3rd district
In office
August 24, 1968  January 3, 1983
Preceded by Joe R. Pool
Succeeded by Steve Bartlett
Personal details
Born James Mitchell Collins
(1916-04-29)April 29, 1916
Hallsville, Texas, U.S.
Died July 21, 1989(1989-07-21) (aged 73)
Dallas, Texas, U.S.
Political party Republican
Children

Nancy Miles Collins Fisher
Michael J. Collins

Dorothy C. Weaver
Residence Dallas, Texas
Alma mater

Woodrow Wilson High School
Southern Methodist University

Harvard Business School
Profession Businessman
Military service
Service/branch United States Army
Battles/wars World War II

James Mitchell "Jim" Collins (April 29, 1916 July 21, 1989), was a Republican who represented the Third Congressional District of Texas from 1968-1983. The district was based at the time about Irving in Dallas County.

Background

Collins was born in Hallsville in Harrison County in East Texas. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas. In 1989, Collins was inducted into the Woodrow Wilson High School Hall of Fame the same year it was created in celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the institution. Collins graduated thereafter from Southern Methodist University in University Park (a part of Dallas) and from Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Collins then entered the United States Army, having served as a lieutenant in the Third Army of General George S. Patton, Jr., during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

Collins was first elected to the U.S. House in a special election caused by the death in 1968 of Democratic U.S. Representative Joe R. Pool. In the general election that fall, he received 81,696 votes (59.4 percent) to 55,939 (40.6 percent) for Democrat Robert H. Hughes. His victory was part of a strong trend toward the GOP in north Dallas; this district has been in Republican hands without interruption since then.

Barbara Staff, later one of the three co-chairmen in Texas for the Ronald W. Reagan challenge to U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. in the 1976 Republican presidential primary, worked in Collins' campaigns and in the congressional office for a time. As the president of the Council of Republican Women's Clubs of Dallas County, she had launched a successful membership program known as "I Believe" and was known in particular for her conservative political views and organizational skills.[1]

Opposing Lloyd Bentsen, 1982

At sixty-six in 1982, Collins relinquished his House seat to challenge the entrenched Texas Democratic U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, of Houston, at sixty-one a political icon in Texas. The conservative Collins won the Republican primary for senator by defeating an even more conservative rival, Walter Mengden, also of Houston. As a state senator, Mengden had been an advocate of instituting the initiative and referendum in Texas, two reforms never implemented. Collins polled 152,469 (58 percent) in the primary to Mengden's 91,780 (34.9 percent). A third contender received 7.1 percent of the vote.

Collins subsequently lost the general election by a large margin. Bentsen polled 1,818,223 (58.6 percent) to Collins' 1,256,759 (40.5 percent). The 1982 elections ended the political careers of both Mengden and Collins, but they represented a triumph for Lloyd Bentsen, who led his party to victory in all statewide races that year, including judgeships, the last year thus far that Democrats have swept all statewide races, including judgeships, in Texas.

Personal life

Collins' son-in-law, Richard W. Fisher of Dallas, who married Collins's daughter, Nancy Miles Collins, worked for the Independent presidential campaign of H. Ross Perot in 1992. In 1994, five years after Collins' death, Fisher ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic nominee against freshman Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who emerged as Bentsen's long-time Senate successor.

Collins was succeeded in Congress by fellow Republican Steve Bartlett, who had defeated future U.S. Senator Hutchison in the GOP primary in 1982. Bartlett left Congress in 1991, when he was elected mayor of Dallas. Bartlett was succeeded by current Third District Republican Representative Sam Johnson, a popular former POW from the Vietnam War.

Collins is interred at Restland Memorial Park in Dallas. His grave marker reads "God, Family, and Country".[2]

References

  1. Billy Hathorn, "Mayor Ernest Angelo, Jr., of Midland and the 96-0 Reagan Sweep of Texas, May 1, 1976," West Texas Historical Association Yearbook Vol. 86 (2010), p. 81
  2. "James Collins". findagrave.com. Retrieved July 28, 2014.
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
Joe R. Pool (D)
United States Representative for the 3rd Congressional District of Texas

James M. Collins (R)
19681983

Succeeded by
Steve Bartlett (R)
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