Introduction
Jesse David Sheffield II, known as J. D. Sheffield (born August 13, 1960), is a physician and clinic medical director from Gatesville,Texas, who is a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives. His District 59 seat encompasses Comanche, Coryell, Erath, Hamilton, McCulloch, Mills, San Saba, Somervell in Central Texas. On July 14, 2020, Sheffield was defeated in his re-election effort by attorney Shelby Slawson by over 20% in the Republican primary runoff.
Background
Sheffield was born in Loraine in Mitchell County in West Texas. He attended Western Texas College, a community college in Snyder in Scurry County, where he played in a jazz band. Thereafter, he graduated from Howard Payne University, a Southern Baptist-affiliated institution in Brownwood. He subsequently procured a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. He did his medical residency in Pueblo, Colorado. He is a former physician at the Scott & White Memorial Hospital clinic in Gatesville. He is a current board member and former chief of staff of Coryell Memorial Hospital in Gatesville. He is currently the medical director and physician at Coryell Medical Clinic in Gatesville.
Dr. Sheffield attends First Baptist Church, a congregation in Gatesville.
Political career
In the Republican primary in 2010, Sheffield polled 44.2 percent in his challenge to incumbent Sid Miller. Two years later, with 54.8 percent of the ballots cast, he unseated Miller.
Miller subsequently ran for Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, a post vacated by Todd Staples, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor. In the runoff election on May 27, 2014, Miller defeated another former colleague, Tommy Merritt of Longview.
Because Dr. Sheffield and an adjoining Republican state representative, Ralph Sheffield, a restaurateur from Temple, share surnames, voters in both districts often confuse the lawmakers though they are unrelated. Ralph lost his reelection bid in 2014.
Sheffield won re-nomination to a second term in the Republican primary held on March 4, 2014. He defeated the more conservative Danny Wayne Pelton (born 1958), a medical equipment salesman and rancher from Hico. A former Erath County Republican chairman and a member of the Texas Republican Executive Committee, Pelton is allied with former Representative Sid Miller and recruited Miller's long-time campaign consultant, Todd Smith, to manage Pelton's campaign against Sheffield. Sheffield polled 9,389 votes (60.9 percent) to Pelton's 4,798 (31.1 percent), and 1,225 votes (7.9 percent) for a third contender, Howard "Eddie" Ray.
Sheffield serves on the House committees of (1) Corrections, (2) Public Health, and (3) Rules and Resolutions.
Legislative Voting Record
In his first legislative session in 2013, Dr. Sheffield voted to forbid abortion after twenty weeks of gestation and to increase medical requirements and licensing of abortion providers. He supported a taxpayer-funded breakfast program for public schools; the measure passed the House, 73-58. Sheffield supported legislation to provide marshals for school security. He sponsored the law authorizing the immunization of minors without parental consent, a measure which the House approved, 71-61. He co-sponsored the law to extend the franchise tax exemption to certain businesses. Sheffield voted to prohibit texting while driving and to require testing for narcotics of those receiving unemployment compensation. He voted for a bill relating to unlawful employment practices regarding discrimination in the payment of compensation, which passed the House, 78-61. He voted to forbid the state from enforcing federal regulations of firearms and in support of another law allowing college and university officials tocarry concealed weapons in the name of campus security. He voted for term limits for certain officials.