Tom Loeffler

Tom Loeffler
House Republican Chief Deputy Whip
In office January 3, 1983 – January 3, 1987
Leader	Bob Michel
Preceded by	David F. Emery
Succeeded by	Edward Rell Madigan
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 21st district
In office January 3, 1979 – January 3, 1987
Preceded by	Bob Krueger
Succeeded by	Lamar Smith
Personal details
Born	Thomas Gilbert Loeffler (1946-08-01) August 1, 1946 Fredericksburg, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Susan Loeffler
Children	3
Education	University of Texas, Austin (BBA, JD)

Thomas Gilbert Loeffler (born August 1, 1946) is an American politician and Republican former member of the United States House of Representatives from central Texas. He served four terms from 1979 to 1987.

Biography

Loeffler was born in Fredericksburg in the heart of the Texas Hill Country and attended school in Mason in Mason County. He earned a BBA and a Juris Doctor degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas School of Law. In 1971, after just one year of private practice, he was hired by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Republican U.S. Senator John Tower made Loeffler his chief counsel in 1972. Two years later, he became a deputy for the United States Department of Energy.

Political career

Loeffler was a legislative assistant to U.S. President Gerald Ford, from 1975 to 1977. He successfully ran for Congress in 1978 against the Democrat Nelson Wolff, now the county judge of Bexar County. The two-term Democratic incumbent, Bob Krueger, gave up the seat to make an unsuccessful run for the Senate. Loeffler polled 57 percent of the ballots cast in the campaign against Wolff–a sharp turnabout from 1976, in which Krueger took 71 percent of the vote. However, the district had been moving away from its Democratic roots for some time.

Loeffler was a delegate to all three Republican National Conventions during the 1980s. He would never face another contest nearly as close as his first one, and was reelected three more times by over 70 percent of the vote.

Later career

After four terms in the House, he stepped down to run for governor of Texas but lost a hard-fought Republican primary election to the eventual winner, Bill Clements. Another losing contender was former U.S. Representative Kent Hance, who had defeated George W. Bush for Congress in 1978 in the Lubbock-based district. After his congressional career, Loeffler was appointed to the Office of Legislative Affairs as the coordinator for Central American policies.

In 1989, Loeffler became a University of Texas administrator. He later co-founded the lobbying firm Gray Loeffler LLC, representing clients including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Like Loeffler, Clements also is active in the McCain presidential campaign.

Loeffler is the father of former Minnesota Vikings long snapper Cullen Loeffler. His other son, Lance Loeffler, became an oil and gas executive with Halliburton. Lance previously worked in investment banking, holding senior level positions with both Deutsche Bank in their energy practice and UBS in their energy and healthcare practices.

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN