Todd Ames Hunter
Encyclopedia
Todd Ames Hunter currently serves as State Representative of District 32 in the 82nd Legislature, 2011, of the Texas House of Representatives
Texas House of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the Texas Legislature. The House is composed of 150 members elected from single-member districts across the state. The average district has about 150,000 people. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...

. He was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma
Bartlesville, Oklahoma
Bartlesville is a city in Osage and Washington counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 43,070 at the 2010 census. Bartlesville is located forty-seven miles north of Tulsa and very close to Oklahoma's northern border with Kansas. It is the county seat of Washington County, in...

 to Patricia London (formerly Hunter), and Richard Hunter. Hunter attended Kansas University from 1971 to 1975 where he received a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Speech and Human Relations, and Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...

 from 1975 to 1978 for law school.

Hunter moved to Corpus Christi, Texas
Corpus Christi, Texas
Corpus Christi is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties. The MSA population in 2008 was 416,376. The population was 305,215 at the 2010 census making it the...

 in 1978 where he currently practices civil defense law as the senior partner of Hunter & Handel, P.C.1 He is married to Alexis Taylor Hunter, who is the eldest daughter of Marcella and Leroy Taylor. Alexis and Todd raised all three of their children, Todd A. Hunter Jr. (B:1986), Michael Taylor Hunter (B:1987), and Christina Allison Hunter (B:1991), in Corpus Christi.

Legal & Business Experience

When Hunter graduated from Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...

, he moved to Corpus Christi to work for the Meredith, Donnell and Edmonds law firm and then the Kleberg, Dyer, Redford & Weil law firm. Eventually, he left these firms and opened up Hunter & Handel P.C. with his law partner Rod Handel in March 1992. Hunter's areas of practice include insurance, commercial, banking, tort trial and appellate practice, and mediation. He was also involved in a number of insurance defense cases regarding mold.

Legislative Experience

Hunter is serving his sixth term in the Texas House of Representatives
Texas House of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the Texas Legislature. The House is composed of 150 members elected from single-member districts across the state. The average district has about 150,000 people. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...

. He was first elected to public office in 1988 and retired from public service in 1997 so he could help raise his three young children with his wife Alexis. In 2008, Todd was elected as a Republican representing District 32 composed of Aransas, Calhoun, San Patricio and part of Nueces County.

82nd Legislative Session

At the start of his sixth term, during the 82nd Legislative Session, the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Joe Straus
Joe Straus
Joseph R. Straus, III, known as Joe Straus , is the current Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He represents District 121, which comprises northeastern Bexar County, including part of San Antonio, Texas, and several surrounding communities...

, named Hunter as Chairman of the Calendars Committee. Speaker Straus also appointed Hunter to the Corrections, Human Services, Redistricting, General Investigating & Ethics committees, and Chairman of the Special Committee on Election Contest.

81st Legislative Session

During the 81st Legislative Session, Hunter served as Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence. Representative Hunter was the only new member named as a Chairperson. As Chairman, he oversaw a committee with jurisdiction over all appellate courts in the state, including the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Hunter also served on the Insurance and the General Investigating and Ethics Committees. Hunter was also named to the House Select Committee on Transportation Funding and was Co-chairman of the joint committee on Redistricting and Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence.

Additional awards for his efforts during the 81st Legislative Session include the James Madison Award presented by the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas for his work on the “Free Flow of Information Act”, Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc.’s Free Enterprise Champion Award, Texas Medical Association’s Friend of Medicine Award, Texas Civil Justice League’s Jobs for Texas Award, TLR’s Civil Justice Leadership Award, Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas’ “Best of the House” Legislative honors, and the Central Texas Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse’s Champion award.

71st - 75th Legislative Sessions

During his 1988 to 1997 tenure in the legislature, Hunter served as Chairman of the House Committee on Civil Practices and was a key player in important issues, such as tort reform and education. He served on numerous other important House committees, including the Ways and Means, Elections, Calendars, Urban Affairs and Higher Education committees. Additionally, Hunter served on the Appropriations Committee for two terms and was named Chairman of the Subcommittee on Education and Vice Chair of the State Affairs Committee.

Hunter has received numerous accolades throughout his legislative career. He was named the “Newsmaker Of The Year” for 1996 by the Corpus Christi Caller Times. Following the 74th legislative Session in 1995, Hunter was honored by a number of groups for his leadership and accomplishments. He was selected by the Harte-Hanks newspapers as one of the “Best of the Best” legislators, was given an honorable mention by Texas Monthly
Texas Monthly
Texas Monthly is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Austin, Texas. Texas Monthly is published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. and was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, Texas Monthly chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education...

 magazine and was cited as one of the five legislators who had a “career year”.

Hunter was also instrumental in passing legislation that made Texas A&M University Corpus Christi a four-year university. He co-sponsored the Tuition Revenue Bond Bill and passed legislation to give statutory existence to the Texas Coastal Ocean Observation Network (TCOON). He was the author of the bill creating a Distance Learning Master Plan for colleges and universities in Texas. He sponsored a bill protecting the privacy of boat and outboard motor owners requiring written, rather than oral, request for information from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Hunter passed windstorm insurance reform legislation in 1991 and 1993 and slab foundation reform legislation in 1995. He passed legislation allowing Gulf Coast counties to use part of the hotel-motel tax it generates for tourism promotion efforts and was responsible for a law that transferred the state beach cleaning funds to the General Land Office.

External links

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