Ethics Explorer A Guide to the Financial Interests of Elected Officials

Rep. John Smithee District 86 (R-Amarillo)

Committees

Financial Statements

Smithee is an Amarillo-based lawyer with the firm Templeton, Smithee, Hayes, Heinrich & Russell. His specialties are listed as personal injury, deceptive trade practice, environmental law and general commercial litigation.
Smithee lists a few additional sources of income (from interest, dividends, royalties/rents), such as Toot 'n Totum, a gas station and convenience store chain.
According to his 2011 personal financial statement, Smithee owns shares of Bank of America, Xcel Energy (the power supplier for Amarillo), the Amarillo Club, Century Link, AT&T, Chimera Investment Corp, Verizon Communications and Frontier Communications.
He owns shares in Smithee Properties, which focuses on real estate, oil and gas and ranching. Smithee is the president of Smithee Properties, but is not compensated for that role, according to his personal financial statement.
He has some working interests in natural gas leases in Hemphill County.

Smithee, who chairs the insurance committee in the House, and is also on the oversight committee for the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, receives campaign contributions from the insurance industry and the real estate industry. Smithee, who once worked as an attorney for insurance companies, says he does not solicit contributions and returns most of those contributions.
He was behind HB 1864, a 2011 bill "relating to a prohibition on the coercion of therapeutic optometrists and ophthalmologists by managed care plans." The Texas Optometric PAC is one of his biggest donors. The bill did not pass.