At the 1874 and 1876 Republican State Conventions he represented St. James Parish along with four other delegates from the parish.[3][4]
In 1876 he was working as sheriff for the Parish of St. James.[5]
Approaching the end of the session in October 1878 he again ran for the position of parish sheriff, but lost out coming second to Victor Miles.[7]
He was a member of the State Central Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Louisiana in 1879 when P. B. S. Pinchback was president.[8]
Simms was nominated to run on the Republican ticket for State Senator in a long and "stormy session" at the Republican Senatorial Convention October 15, 1879.[9]
He was one of two nominations the other being G. H. Hill and the first fifty-three ballots were deadlocked and on the fifty-forth ballot he succeeded by eight to seven.[9]
Simms was then elected to serve in the Louisiana State Senate for three session from 1880 until 1892.[1][10]
He along with the other four black senators voted against a bill put forth by Charles Parlange in 1884 to put convicts to work on levees and to break the current lease of the prison.[11]
In some of the contemporary newspaper articles his name was given as Richard Simmes, including the reporting of his nomination on the Republican ticket for the senate.[14]
