1. James Albon Mattox was an American lawyer and politician from Texas who served three terms in the United States House of Representatives and two four-year terms as Texas Attorney General, but lost high-profile races for governor in 1990, the US Senate in 1994, and again as attorney general in 1998.
In 1961, Jim Mattox graduated in Dallas from Woodrow Wilson High School.
Jim Mattox received his Bachelor of Arts in 1965 from Baylor University in Waco and his juris doctor degree from the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.
In 1983, Jim Mattox was indicted for commercial bribery and prosecuted by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat close to the late Governor Ann Richards.
Jim Mattox had received a campaign contribution of $125,000 from his sister Janice, a Dallas lawyer.
Janice Jim Mattox, in turn, had obtained a similar amount from Seafirst Bank in Seattle, which had close ties to Jim Mattox supporter Clinton Manges, a controversial South Texas rancher-oilman who was the successor to George Parr, the corrupt "Duke of Duval".
Secretly recorded by the recipient of the threats, Jim Mattox did not deny threatening the law firm, nor did he deny the Seafirst transactions, his defense being based on the legal definition of the crime of "commercial bribery".
In 1989, Jim Mattox was inducted into the Woodrow Wilson High School Hall of Fame.
Five days before his death, Jim Mattox testified to a Texas Democratic Party Committee on the Party's method of awarding presidential delegates based on a primary vote plus evening caucuses.
Jim Mattox said the system, known as the Texas Two-Step, was an embarrassment to the party.
In 2008, Jim Mattox worked in Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Jim Mattox died eight months thereafter at the age of 65 of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Dripping Springs in Hays County west of Austin.
Jim Mattox's body lay in repose at the Texas House of Representatives chamber inside the Texas Capitol rotunda on Monday, November 24,2008.
Jim Mattox is interred at the Texas State Cemetery, 909 Navasota Street in Austin.