John Frullo

John Frullo
Texas State Representative for District 84 (Lubbock County)
Incumbent
Assumed office November 2010
Preceded by	Carl Isett
Personal details
Born	August 1, 1962 Rock Springs Sweetwater County Wyoming, United States
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Patti Howard Frullo (married 1992)
Children	John Michael Frullo Braden Frullo
Parents	John L. and Mrs. Frullo
Alma mater	University of Wyoming
Occupation	Businessman Certified Public Accountant
Religion	United Methodist

John Frullo (born August 1, 1962) is a businessman from Lubbock, Texas, who is a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 84. Since 1993, Frullo has owned Midtown Printing Company in Lubbock. In November 2010, he succeeded fellow Republican Carl Isett, like Frullo a Certified Public Accountant, who had served as state representative with little opposition from 1997 until his resignation in the summer of 2010.

Background

Frullo was reared in Rock Springs, the county seat of Sweetwater County in southwestern Wyoming.^[1] His father, John L. Frullo (born 1930), is an architect in Rock Springs.^[2] Frullo holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, completed in 1984, from the University of Wyoming at Laramie. He formerly worked in the accounting field in Golden, Colorado (Goldfields Mining Company), in Denver (Coopers & Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers), and Cheyenne, Wyoming (McGladrey & Pullen). Since 1992, Frullo has been married to the former Patti Howard, a Lubbock native. The couple has two sons, John Michael Frullo (born 1993) and Braden Frullo (born 1994), both of whom in 2010 were students at Lubbock High School. Frullo attends Lakeridge United Methodist Church in Lubbock.^[3]

A licensed pilot, Frullo is a member of the board of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce. He is also an officer of the trade association, the Mid-America region of the Printing and Imaging Association, which represents eight hundred concerns in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas. He is a volunteer for the Boy Scouts of America and is active in the Texas Bighorn Society, which restores bighorn sheep to the state.^[1]

Frullo is a former precinct captain, executive committee member, and treasurer of the Lubbock County Republican Party.^[1]

Election record

On March 2, 2010, Frullo, with 4,992 votes (43 percent), trailed Mark Griffin (born July 27, 1954) in a three-candidate field with 5,652 votes (48.7 percent). A third candidate, former county commissioner Ysidro Gutierrez, a former Democrat, polled a critical 952 votes (8 percent). Turnout on primary day was so small that the majority of the ballots was cast during early voting.^[4] In the runoff election held on April 13, Frullo, who carried the endorsement of Isett, the Tea Party movement, and Gutierrez, defeated Griffin, a former regent of Texas Tech^[5] and the favorite of the party "establishment", including State Senator Robert L. Duncan of Lubbock.^[6] Turnout declined further in the runoff, as Frullo polled 4,219 votes (53.2 percent) to Griffin's 3,717 (46.8 percent).^[7]

In the general election on November 2 and the special election for the two months remaining in Isett's final term, Frullo defeated the Democratic nominee, Carol Morgan, a retired educator from Lubbock, 15,494 votes (68.2 percent) to 7,208 (31.8 percent).^[8]

Frullo was also endorsed by U.S. Representative Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock, who defeated Isett in the 2003 special election for Congress. In his initial statement of candidacy, Frullo said that he is committed to "making sure that government doesn't take away freedoms and overtax us. We need to hold our government accountable on how it spends our money." Frullo, a member of the National Rifle Association, listed the critical issues as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, property tax reform, U.S.-Mexican border security, photographic identity of voters, and public education, which he describes as "a huge part of our budget and we need to make sure that we are spending our money properly."^[9]

Joining Frullo in the Texas House were two other newly elected Republican members from West Texas and the Panhandle, Jim Landtroop, Charles Perry, also of Lubbock, and Four Price of Amarillo. Landtroop was unseated in 2012 by "Republican" Ken King of Canadian, Texas. With Perry now in the state Senate, the District 83 seat was occupied in 2015 by still another Republican, Lubbock attorney Dustin Burrows.

Frullo won his third term in the general election held on November 4, 2014. He defeated the Democratic candidate, Ed Tischler, 16,890 (72.7 percent) to 6,336 (27.2 percent).^[10]

In his bid for a fourth term in the House, Frullo faces an intra-party challenge in the March 1, 2016, primary from former District 85 Representative Jim Landtroop, who has relocated to Lubbock from Plainview in Hale County. One of the differences between the two candidates centers upon Moderate Republican Joe Straus of San Antonio, the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives since 2009, who has retained the post with significant Democratic backing. In his one-term in the House, Landtroop voted against Straus as Speaker in 2011; since he entered the House, Frullo has backed Speaker in each election for presiding officer. Frullo has a large fundraising advantage over Landtroop. Between January 22 and February 20, 2016, Frullo raised $237,912, Landtroop, $58,845. In three campaign finance reports filed since January 15, 2016, Frullo raised $418,000; Landtroop, $132,000. Landtroop's employer, State Farm Insurance, through its political action committee, gave $7,500 to Frullo, the chairman of the House Insurance Committee, but nothing to Landtroop.^[11]

See also

• List of Tea Party politicians

References

1. "About John Frullo, candidate State Representative, District 84". kcbd.com. Retrieved November 10, 2010.
2. "John L. Frullo, AIA, Architect, Rock Springs, Wyoming". archiplanet.org. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
3. "John Frullo". texastribune.org. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
4. "Republican primary election returns, March 2, 2010". Texas Secretary of State. Retrieved March 7, 2010.
5. Governor Rick Perry appointed Debbie Montford of San Antonio to succeed Griffin on the Tech board.
6. "Anatomy of Perry's victory over Jones could hold key to party's direction". blogs.lubbockonline.com. Retrieved April 16, 2010.
7. "Texas primary election returns, April 13, 2010". Texas Secretary of State. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
8. "Texas general election returns, November 2, 2010". Texas Secretary of State. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
9. "Enrique Rangel, "Frullo to run for seat left by Isett", January 8, 2010". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
10. "General election returns, November 4, 2014". Texas Secretary of State. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
11. Enrique Rangel (February 23, 2016). "Frullo outraises Landtroop in House 84 fundraising race". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Retrieved February 24, 2016.