Bill Siebert

William Earl Siebert, known as Bill Siebert (born September 22, 1947), is a businessman in San Antonio, Texas, who is a Republican former member of the Texas House of Representatives from Bexar County, having served from 1993 to 2001.^[1]

Siebert served in the United States Army and attended Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. He thereafter relocated to San Antonio and founded American Health Insurance Services and Siebert and Associates. He is a registered lobbyist with expertise on insurance, health care, transportation, and telecommunications.^[2][3]

In 1993, Siebert assumed the District 121 House seat when Alan Schoolcraft vacated the post to run unsuccessfully against Jeff Wentworth for the Texas State Senate. In the primary on March 10, 1992, Siebert finished second with 2,552 votes (21.6 percent) to Libba Barnes, who led a five-candidate field with 4,322 votes (36.6 percent). Three other candidates, Judy Sisk Millspaugh, Robert X. Johnson, and Davene Jonas, held the remaining 41 percent of the ballots.^[4] In the April 14 runoff, Siebert defeated Barnes, 4,877 (58.7 percent) to 3,429 (41.3 percent).^[5] Siebert was then unopposed in the 1992 general election.

In 1996, Siebert was named "National Legislator of the Year" by the National Republican Legislators Association.^[2] Though he had been unopposed for the Republican nomination in 1998, Siebert was handily unseated in 2000 in the primary election by Elizabeth Ames Jones, later a member of the Texas Railroad Commission appointed by Governor Rick Perry. Siebert's work as a lobbyist while also serving in the legislature was denounced by the San Antonio Express-News, which urged voters to "clean house and dump [Siebert], the local GOP's biggest embarrassment."^[6] The 2000 primary results were 8,053 (66.4 percent) for Jones and 4,082 (33.6 percent) for Siebert.^[7]

In 2002, Siebert considered running for Texas's 23rd congressional district seat in the United States House of Representatives but deferred to the incumbent, Henry Bonilla, who ran again successfully for Congress in 2002 and 2004.^[8] Meanwhile, the District 121 House seat is now held by Joe Straus of San Antonio, the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

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