LISD School Board President Running For State Legislature
Lufkin businessman and LISD School Board President Trent Ashby says he's throwing his hat in the ring and he will run for the Republican nomination for the newly redrawn Texas House District 57.
Trent Ashby is a 1996 graduate of Texas A&M who worked six years for former Congressman Jim Turner in Washington and east Texas. He says that was a great experience, but he didn’t care for all the partisan bickering. When Turner retired in 2002, Ashby moved his family to Lufkin.
Ashby is President of Community Title, which has offices in Angelina, Nacogdoches and Polk counties. He's served on the Lufkin school board for five years.
He says he believes he can serve east Texas in the State House because he has seen firsthand “how unfairly the state government can treat parts of society.”
Although he admits to voting in both Democratic and Republican primaries in the past, he said the Republican party more closely resembles his own personal beliefs.
“Over the years, I have felt the Democratic party has moved away from any values that I share or I thought I might have shared,” Ashby said, adding he believes in less government involvement and a low tax structure, and that he is pro-life without exception. “I’m a strong conservative.”
The legislature has redrawn district lines for congressional and state legislative seats, but implementation of the lines is on hold while a federal court reviews them in keeping with federal voting rights act.
If they suvive court scrutiny, redistricting has taken Angelina and San Augustine Counties out of Rep. James White's House District 12. They're now in District 57, along with Houston, Leon, Madison, San Augustine and Trinity counties.
District 57 is now represented by Rep. Marva Beck, a Republican whose district office is in Centerville, nearly a hundred miles from Lufkin. Beck has indicated plans to run for re-election, and she now has at least one opponent in the March primary.
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