Rick Green (Texas politician)

Richard Arlin Green, known as Rick Green (born March 23, 1971), is an attorney and politician from Dripping Springs in Hays County, Texas, who is a Republican former member of the Texas House of Representatives. He was defeated in the April 13, 2010, Republican runoff election for the Place 3 seat on the Texas Supreme Court by Judge Debra Lehrmann of Colleyville near Fort Worth, Texas. She was originally appointed to the court by Governor Rick Perry.

Green graduated from high school in 1989 in Wylie in Collin County, north of Dallas, Texas, and entered Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. Having carried a double-course load, Green received a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1991 and then entered the University of Texas Law School where at the age of twenty he was the youngest student in law school. He subsequently focused his law practice on contract law and assisting entrepreneurs in the establishing their own businesses.^[1] Green and his wife, Kara R. Green (born October 30, 1974), have four children, Trey, Reagan, Kamryn, and Rhett.^[1]

Legislative Elections

Green won his first term in the legislature by thirty-six votes over the incumbent Democrat Alec Rhodes. He served from 1999 to 2003 in District 45, which comprises Blanco, Caldwell, and Hays counties in Central Texas.^[2] He sponsored legislation in 1999 to exempt gun and ammunition manufacturers, traders, and sellers from frivolous lawsuits in Texas. In the 2001 session, he sponsored "Celebrate Freedom Week", with emphasis on the teaching of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Green was defeated for a third two-year term in 2002 by Democrat Patrick Rose, who received 48.81 percent of the vote to Green's 47.93 percent. Green Party nominee John D. Schmidt received the remaining 3.24 percent.^[3]

Green is associated with WallBuilders, an organization that seeks to present America's "forgotten" history as a Christian nation.^[4] WallBuilders was founded by former Texas Republican vice-chairman David Barton of Aledo, Texas. Green has shared the lecture stage with, among others, Zig Ziglar and Alan Keyes.^[1]

Green produced the 1994 video The Legacy of President Ronald Reagan: The Truth About the Eighties, developed in the aftermath of the 1992 presidential election.^[5] In 2000, Green founded the Torch of Freedom Foundation, which trains and equips young people to become more involved in the political process.^[1]

Supreme Court election

Green led Judge Lehrman by approximately eight thousand votes in the six-candidate primary election held on March 2, 2010. Green polled 212,797 votes (18.9 percent); Lehrmann received 204,547 ballots (18.20 percent). The four remaining candidates split a combined 63 percent of the vote. In third place was Jim Moseley, with 203,720 votes (18.13 percent).^[6] In the runoff, however, Green lost by more than twelve thousand votes. Lehrmann polled 172,813 votes (51.8 percent) to Green's 160,572 (48.2 percent). In his own Hays County, Green prevailed 66-34 percent in a low turnout. Lehrmann led in her own Tarrant County, 61-39 percent.^[7]

Lehrmann defeated Democrat Jim Sharp, a First Court of Appeals judge from Houston, in the November 2, 2010, general election. The position opened when Justice Harriet O'Neill did not seek reelection. Lehrmann received 2,902,003 votes (59.9 percent) to Sharp's 1,805,837 (37.3 percent).^[8]

In his race for the state Supreme Court, Green carried the support of former Justice Scott Brister of Austin as well as former Judge Paul Pressler of Houston. On April 5, Green won the backing of Gary M. Polland's Texas Conservative Review, the former Harris County Republican chairman.^[9] He also procured endorsements from actor Chuck Norris, Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel and Liberty University School of Law, and Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Legal Institute, as well as numerous conservative state legislators, including Warren Chisum and Dan Flynn.

In 2016, Green again sought to win election to the Texas Supreme Court, this time in Place 5. However, he was defeated in his intraparty challenge to incumbent Justice Paul W. Green, who was first elected in 2004, when he unseated the Republican former Justice Steven Wayne Smith. Rick Green received 991,785 votes (47.9 percent) to Justice Paul Green's 1,077,507 (52.1 percent).^[10] In the 2016 campaign, Rick Green carried the backing of several conservative figures, including former state Representative Ken Mercer of San Antonio, a member of the Texas State Board of Education.

References

External links

• Rick Green Official Website
• Torch of Freedom Foundation
• WallBuilders