James Albon Mattox (August 29, 1943 – November 20, 2008) was an American lawyer and politician who served three terms in the United States House of Representatives and two four-year terms as state attorney general, but lost high-profile races for governor in 1990, the U.S. Senate in 1994, and again as attorney general in 1998. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

I was Assistant District Director for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). I was based in my hometown of Dallas, Texas where my duties included engaging in politics. Along with the rest of the unions in the region, we supported a guy named Jim Mattox who got elected as a dem to the House of Representatives in 1976, a noteworthy election result in arch conservative Dallas. We helped him get re-elected twice, largely due to our precinct walking and a very aggressive yard sign campaign.

In early 1982, along with most of the top officials of most of the unions operating in the Dallas area, I was shocked to hear that "Jimmy" was planning to run for state Attorney General. We were naive as hell to imagine that Mattox cared about what we thought, but we demanded that he meet with us to talk about his plans. Amongst ourselves, we did not feel like we had to put up with any back-sass from the guy we elected to Congress. We resolved to tell him, en masse, that we needed him in Congress -- not the AG's office in Austin. We were no more than five minutes into the meeting before he made it perfectly clear that he was going to move up the ladder, and if we did not like it, we could go fuck ourselves for all he cared.

In hindsight, I can't find anything wrong about him following his own dream and us union guys were acting like rubes to try to push him around. But the story shows how democracy works in reality.

It takes a surplus of ego to run for office. It is a career choice rather than a moral calling.

That was the peak time for the beleaguered "liberals" of Texas, including Ann Richards and Jim Hightower who, along with Mattox were the last Democrats and the only overtly progressive statewide officials ever elected.

Other than get elected, none of them did a hell of a lot, but I still respect all three as human beings.