John True Smithee is an Amarilloattorney who has been since January 1985 a long-term Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 86 in the Texas Panhandle. Although Smithee succeeded a Democrat, Robert Dwight "Bob" Simpson, who had served for a decade, District 86 is now considered the most Republican state House jurisdiction in the entire state. Voters there cast more than 83 percent of their ballots for Republican Mitt Romney in his 2012 race against Democrat Barack H. Obama. District 86 includes ruralDallam, Hartley, Oldham, and Deaf Smith counties. With his district office in Amarillo, Smithee represents some 40 percent of the Amarillo population, located to the south of the central city within adjacent Randall County. The remainder of Amarillo, the county seat of Potter County, is represented by Smithee's Republican colleague, Four Price, also an Amarillo lawyer. Smithee is chairman of the House Insurance Committee and serves on the Higher Education Committee. Smithee was first elected to the Texas House in 1984, when he was thirty-three. He was reelected to his twelfth two-year term in 2006 with 86.5 percent of the vote over a Libertarian Party opponent. Democrats rarely contest the district any more. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from West Texas A&M University in Canyon, the seat of Randall County, and his Juris Doctor from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He is married to Becky Lynn Smithee.
On December 29, 2008, Smithee announced, via the online political newsletter, Quorum Report, that he had received "more than twenty calls" from fellow Texas House members and that he would announce within forty-eight hours whether or not he would seek unseat incumbent Republican Texas speakerTom Craddick of Midland. Smithee did not enter the race, won instead by another Republican, Joe Straus of San Antonio, who upset the incumbent Tom Craddick of Midland.
Smithee is a long-term opponent of the Texas Lottery Commission; he voted against the lottery when it was submitted to voters for approval in 1991. In 2013, he offered an amendment that would have abolished the commission by 2017. The amendment received ninety-five votes, five short of the two thirds required. The vote gave renewed hope to opponents that the lottery may yet be abolished in the future. Smithee said his bill was a compromise because of the degree of opposition that has emerged against the lottery, which funds about $1.2 billion annually to the state. The House, however, renewed the lottery for twelve years, but the issue is expected to arise again in future sessions. According to Smithee, there is "some discontent on how the lottery has operated, that there are too many persons that have profited from the lottery and not the children of Texas... only about 25 cents of each dollar go to the schoolchildren."
Smithee overwhelmingly won his seventeenth legislative term in the general election held on November 6, 2018. With 46,237 votes, he defeated Democrat Mike Purcell, who polled 9,968 votes.
