Jim Keffer


James Lloyd Keffer is a businessman from Eastland, Texas, who is a former Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 60, which includes Eastland County located east of Abilene, as well as Brown, Callahan, Coleman, Shackelford, Stephens Palo Pinto, and Hood counties.

Biography

Keffer was born in San Angelo in Tom Green County in West Texas. A lifelong Republican, Keffer is a former Eastland County GOP chairman. A graduate of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Keffer is president of EBAA Iron Sales in Eastland. Keffer previously served as chairman of the House Ways and Means and Economic Development Committee.
Keffer was initially elected to the Texas House in 1996, when he narrowly unseated the Democratic incumbent John R. Cook, 21,922 to 21,409.
In 2010, he co-founded the "Debt Busters Program" for the Texas Republican Party, an endeavor that brought solvency to party coffers under the administration of GOP state chairman Steve Munisteri.
In 2011, Texas Monthly magazine named Keffer one of the "Top Ten Legislators" in the state.
A group called the Texas Conservative Roundtable's grading system dubbed him a "Lone Star Conservative Leader" in 2012 because of his pro-business voting record.
Keffer was reelected without opposition to a ninth House term in the general election held on November 6, 2012.
As of 2013, he was the chairman of the House Committee on Energy Resources and a member of the Natural Resources and Redistricting committees.
In the Republican primary on March 4, 2014, Keffer won re-nomination with 14,160 votes against his lone opponent, Cullen Crisp, who received 10,992 votes.
Keffer's younger brother, William R. "Bill" Keffer, a Dallas lawyer who was born in Upton County in 1958, was from 2003 to 2007 a member of the Texas House from District 107 in the Lake Highlands section of northern Dallas County. Bill Keffer lost a Republican runoff election in District 114 on July 31, 2012, to Jason Villalba, a Dallas lawyer who then won the seat in the general election over former Democratic Representative Carol Kent.

Personal life

Keffer has served as a deacon and Sunday school teacher in the First Baptist Church of Eastland, past president of the Eastland Little League and is active with economic development through his local Chamber of Commerce. Keffer and his wife, Leslie, who married c. 1975, have three sons and two grandchildren.