Gregory Wayne Abbott is an American attorney serving as the 48th and current governor of Texas. Abbott previously served as the 50th attorney general of Texas from 2002 to 2015. He is the third governor of any U.S. state to permanently use a wheelchair. In 1984, at age 26, Abbott was paralyzed below the waist when an oak tree fell on him while he was jogging.
About Greg Abbott in brief
Gregory Wayne Abbott is an American attorney serving as the 48th and current governor of Texas. Abbott previously served as the 50th attorney general of Texas from 2002 to 2015. He is the third governor of any U.S. state to permanently use a wheelchair. Abbott was born on November 13, 1957, in Wichita Falls, Texas, of English descent. In 1984, at age 26, Abbott was paralyzed below the waist when an oak tree fell on him while he was jogging following a storm. He sued the homeowner and a tree service company, resulting in an insurance settlement that provides him with lump sum payments every three years until 2022 along with monthly payments for life. As of August 2013, the monthly payment amount was US$14,000. In 2003, Abbott supported the Texas Legislature’s move to move to the right to bear arms on the issue of voter fraud. He has spoken out against concerns such as fraud, voter infringement and voter fraud, on one one occasion calling for a ban on the use of the arms on election day. He also created a new division called the Fugitive Unit to track down convicted sex offenders in violation of their paroles or probations. Abbott is married to Cecilia Phelan, a former state senator and current state senator nominee, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, and has a son and daughter-in-law, both of whom live in Texas. He was a member of the National Honor Society and was in the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and the Young Republicans Club at the University of Texas at Austin.
He earned his Juris Doctor degree from the Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee. Abbott’s judicial career began in Houston, where he served as a state trial judge in the 129th District Court for three years. In 1996, Abbott had no Democratic opponent but was challenged by Libertarian John B. Hawley of Dallas. In 1998, Abbott defeated Democrat David Van Os by 60% to 40%. In 2001, after resigning from the Supreme Court, Abbott went back to private practice and worked for Bracewell & Giuliani LLC. Abbott resigned from the Texas Supreme Court in 2001 to seek the position of Lieutenant Governor ofTexas. He then switched his campaign to the open attorney general’s position in 2002, following fellow Republican John Cornyn’s election to the U. S. Senate. Abbott was the third Republican to serve as Attorney General of Texas since Reconstruction. In 2004, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives by a margin of 84% to 16%. In 2006, he won the Texas Senate seat vacated by fellow Republican and current senator Kirk Watson by 57% to 41%. In 2008, he defeated Democrat Kirk Watson, the former Austin mayor, 57% to 41%. He was sworn in on December 2, 2008. In 2009, Abbott became the state’s attorney general. In 2010, he became the first Republican to hold the position since Reconstruction to serve a full term. In 2011, he took the post of Texas Attorney General.
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This page is based on the article Greg Abbott published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
