Larry Combest
| Larry Combest | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee | |
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In office January 3, 1999 – January 3, 2003 |
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| Speaker | Dennis Hastert |
| Preceded by | Bob Smith |
| Succeeded by | Bob Goodlatte |
| Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee | |
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In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 1997 |
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| Speaker | Newt Gingrich |
| Preceded by | Dan Glickman |
| Succeeded by | Porter Goss |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 19th district |
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In office January 3, 1985 – May 31, 2003 |
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| Preceded by | Kent Hance |
| Succeeded by | Randy Neugebauer |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Larry Ed Combest March 20, 1945 Memphis, Texas |
| Political party | Republican |
Larry Ed Combest (born March 20, 1945) is a retired Texas Republican U.S. politician who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1985 to 2003.
Combest was born in Memphis, Texas, a small town in West Texas and the seat of Hall County. In 1969, he earned his bachelor of business administration degree from West Texas State University in Canyon. His family operated a farm for four generations. In 1971, he served briefly as director of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He then became legislative assistant to Republican U.S. Senator John Tower from 1971 to 1978, having left after Tower won his fourth and final term in office. From 1978 until his election to Congress six years later, Combest was in private business.
In 1984, Democratic Congressman Kent Hance did not run for a fourth term but instead ran unsuccessfully for his party's nomination for the United States Senate. Combest won the Republican nomination in a runoff over fellow Lubbock conservative Ron Fleming. Combest was elected in November amid Ronald Reagan's landslide reelection victory that year. Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale barely managed 20 percent of the vote in much of the district. Combest received 102,805 votes (58.1 percent) to 74,044 (41.9 percent) for the Democrat Don R. Richards, a former Hance aide. Combest was only the third person to represent the 19th District since its creation in 1934. He was also the first Republican. Combest was thus one of six freshmen Republican congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 known as the Texas Six Pack. Although the 19th had become increasingly friendly to Republicans over the years (a Democratic presidential candidate has not carried the district since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964), conservative Democrats continued to win most races at the state and local level until 1994. He was reelected nine times with no substantive Democratic opposition. He ran unopposed in 1990 and 1994 and with no major-party opposition in 2000 and 2002.
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