| James M. Collins | |
|---|---|
| U.S. Representative from Third District of Texas | |
| In office 1968 – 1983 |
|
| Preceded by | Joe R. Pool |
| Succeeded by | Steve Bartlett |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Mitchell Collins April 29, 1916 Hallsville, Harrison County Texas, USA |
| Died | July 21, 1989 (aged 73) |
| Political party | Republican |
| Children | Mrs. Richard W. Fisher Michael J. Collins |
| Residence | Dallas, Texas |
| Alma mater | Southern Methodist University |
| Profession | Businessman |
James Mitchell Collins, often known as 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.
Collins was born in Hallsville in Harrison County, in East Texas. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School and 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 of Rep. Joe R. Pool in 1968. 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.
One of Collins' campaign workers and office volunteers was Barbara Staff, the president of a group called the Council of Republican Women's Clubs of Dallas County. She describes working in Collins' office as "quite a training ground. After you've worked in that office, you're equipped to do anything."[1] In 1976, Staff became co-chairman of the Texas Ronald Reagan presidential primary campaign."[2]
At sixty-six in 1982, Collins relinquished his House seat to challenge the entrenched Texas Democratic U.S. Senator Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr., of Hosuton, then sixty-one. The conservative Collins won the Republican primary for senator by defeating an even more conservative rival, Walter Henry Mengden, Jr., 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, the last year thus far that Democrats have swept all statewide races, including judgeships, in Texas.
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' son-in-law, Richard W. Fisher of Dallas, worked in 1992 the Independent presidential campaign of H. Ross Perot. 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.
| 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) |
Succeeded by Steve Bartlett (R) |