Establishment The Legislature is the constitutional successor of the
Congress of the Republic of Texas since Texas's 1845
entrance into the
Union. The Legislature held its
first regular session from February 16 to May 13, 1846. Like many other southern states at the time, Texas explicitly barred
clergy from membership in the legislature.
Quorum was defined as 2/3rds of the membership, and it is only one of four states (the others being
Indiana,
Oregon, and
Tennessee) to require a supermajority.
Civil War and Reconstruction Following the
election of
Abraham Lincoln, the Texas legislature was involved in the
Secession crisis. There was a campaign for Texas to call a convention to vote on the issue, but only the Governor can call a special session of the legislature. Governor
Sam Houston was a unionist and refused. Chief justice of the
Texas Supreme Court Oran M. Roberts went around him and began organizing a convention. Houston called a special session in January 1861, hoping to the legislature would declare a secession convention illegal. This backfired and the legislature validated the convention and granted the use of the House of Representatives chamber for such a purpose. The
Secession ordinance was overwhelmingly adopted, but unlike other southern states put the issue to a popular vote. The vote on February 23, 1861 approved secession by 44,317 to 13,020. Texas began the process of joining the new
Confederate States by making a new Constitution, and in doing so made all officeholders swear a loyalty oath to the Confederacy. Sam Houston refused to do so and the legislature declared the office of governor vacant, effectively removing him from office. At the conclusion of the Civil War, a new constitution was drafted in 1866. But the legislature refused to ratify the
Thirteenth and
Fourteenth amendments to the
Federal Constitution and
Congress placed the state under a
military district. In 1869, a new constitution was written by Republicans and expanded the size of the legislature and moved the legislature to annual sessions. The
Reconstruction amendments were adopted and
Edmund J. Davis as the new governor called the legislature into session for the first time in 5 years. The state struggled during
Reconstruction, Governor Davis frequently called
martial law and the legislature reflected the chaotic energy and instability of the era. In 1870, the legislature passed a law postponing the date of the next election by a year in violation of the 1869 Constitution. Republican Speaker of the House
Ira Evans opposed the law, and for his siding with the Democrats on the issue was removed from his speakership. That same year in the Senate, a group of Democratic senators
broke quorum to prevent the passage of legislation creating a
state police force and expanding the Governor’s power in declaring martial law. Several of the senators were arrested and told they could no longer vote on bills and one was expelled for allegedly resisting arrest. This led the chamber to known as the “Rump Senate”, a reference to the
Rump Parliament of
King Charles I. The senate later voted to undo this expulsion, but a special election was held to fill the seat and a replacement was sworn in. In 1873,
Richard Coke was elected governor in a
controversial election and Edmund Davis refused to leave office. The State Supreme court ruled the election was unconstitutional because the polls had not been opened long enough, but the ruling was not enforced and militia removed Davis from the Capitol after a brief standoff.
United States President Ulysses S. Grant refused to send federal troops to support Davis and Coke was sworn in as Governor. As a
white supremacist he worked to undo the changes brought by the Republicans and Reconstruction. This culminated in the
Constitution of 1876, which is the current Constitution.
20th Century During the first half of the 20th century, under the new constitution the norms and traditions of the legislature began to be established. The biannual session was reinstated and the legislature grew to its current size of 150 members in the House. In the Senate, instead of electing a president pro tempore only when the Lieutenant governor was absent, an election was held regularly at the start of every session to fill the role. Dr. Read Granberry became the first
parliamentarian of the House in 1915 and helped to develop its precedents of procedure. In the House a tradition of a speaker only serving a single term became the norm in addition to a tradition that when a candidate won the speakership the other candidates would move to have the Speaker elected unanimously by the body. Notable speakers during this time include
Austin Milton Kennedy (1909) who was forced to resign after accusations of improper spending, and
Samuel T. Rayburn (1911) who would go on to become the longest serving
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Due to this total domination over the political process, the Democratic Primary was effectively the only election of consequence. Like the rest of the south, Texas had also instituted legal
segregation and
Jim Crow laws against the African American population.
Robert Lloyd Smith’s election in 1896 was the last African American to serve in the state House until 1966.
Mexican Americans were also the subjects of discrimination in Texas, and were often the victims of violence and
lynching. This violence peaked in the 1910s during an era known as
La Matanza (the massacre). This violence was often conducted by or with the implicit consent of local government authorities, including the
Texas Rangers. In 1919, state representative
José Tomás Canales conducted an
investigation into the Rangers in response to the
Porvenir Massacre which found that up to 5,000 people had been killed by the Rangers during the decade. During the 1920s, a new iteration of the
Ku Klux Klan returned to prominence in the South and found success in the state. At their height in 1922, a majority of the State Legislature were members and
Earle Bradford Mayfield was elected to the
U.S. Senate by openly seeking the Klan’s support. In 1923, there was a demonstration by robed Klan members in the House Chamber.
Progressive Era Texas was heavily involved in the major political movements of the early 1900s such as
prohibition and
women’s suffrage. Texas held multiple failed referendums to attempt to pass statewide prohibition of alcohol in 1887, 1908, and 1911. The effort did eventually succeed as the state was one of the first to ratify the
Eighteenth amendment in 1918 and passed a statewide prohibition law the following year. Prohibition stayed in place in Texas until 1935. Women’s suffrage had been discussed in the state since a proposal was brought up during the writing of the 1869 state constitution. In 1915 and 1917, a majority of the state House voted in favor of expanding the right to vote but fell short of reaching the 2/3 majority needed for a constitutional amendment. In 1918 a special session was called on the issue and representative Charles B. Metcalfe introduced legislation to allow women to vote in primary elections. This legislation did not need a constitutional amendment and as such was passed. The next year Texas was one of the first states to pass the
Nineteenth amendment. In 1922
Edith Wilmans was the first woman elected to the Texas House and in 1927
Margie Elizabeth Neal was the first woman elected to the Senate. In
1914,
James E. Ferguson used his skills as an orator to win election as governor on a
populist,
anti-prohibition platform. He became a deeply divisive figure and legislative pro and anti-Fergusonian factions emerged. He was reelected in
1916, but soon after was
impeached by the State House. He was convicted by the Senate and removed from office and barred from running in the future. He became the first official to be successfully removed in this manner. Ferguson contested his removal on the grounds that he had technically resigned prior to his conviction and as such was still eligible to run for office. His political philosophy influenced the state for decades as he remained active in state politics for many years running for multiple offices including a run for President in
1920 but failing to win any. He entered the
1924 gubernatorial race, but after the state supreme court upheld his ineligibility to run for office, his wife
Miriam “Ma” Ferguson ran in his place. She lost re election in
1926 to an opponent of her husband, but she was elected to a nonconsecutive second term in
1932.
Civil Rights Era Many changes came to the legislature the second half of the century. The
Civil Rights movement and fight to end legal segregation were major political undertakings in the legislature. Texas was at the center of multiple legal cases that worked towards ending segregationist policies including
Sweatt v. Painter (1950) which integrated the
University of Texas Law School and
Hernández v. Texas (1954) which ruled that Jim Crow laws could not apply to Mexican Americans. Following the landmark
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, Texas like most of the south moved to resist the orders from the court. Conservative members of the legislature, known as "Shivercrats" for their allegiance to governor
Allan Shivers, actively attempted to circumvent
desegregation. In 1955, the Texas Advisory Committee on Segregation in Public Schools was formed and produced a 58 page report detailing ways to nominally fulfill the courts orders while preserving the status quo. The legislative package introduced in the next legislative session included items such as removing the mandate of
compulsory attendance at integrated schools and providing
education vouchers to white parents who wished to send their children to private “
segregation academies”. However, most of this legislation was blocked in the state Senate by a 36 hour long
filibuster from senators
Henry Gonzalez and
Abraham “Chick” Kazen. As the Civil Rights era progressed, African American representation returned to the legislature in 1966, including
Barbara Jordan who was the first black woman elected to the legislature, and later the first black woman elected to Congress from the south.
Legislative Reform and Modernization In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled in
Reynolds v. Sims that state senate districts had to be drawn based on equal population which forced the restructuring of the body. A constitutional amendment was proposed to expand the chamber to 39 members but this failed. During this time, several other reforms came to the government such as an annual salary for legislators was set for the first time in 1960 and in 1975 the salary was expanded to its current level. Starting in
1974, the length of the term for the Governor and other statewide officials was extended to four years. This lengthening of term was also reflected in the lengthening of the tenure and influence of the Lieutenant governor and the Speaker of the House. Lt. Governor
Bill Hobby Jr. served a record 6 terms from 1973 to 1991 and Speaker
Bill Clayton cleanly broke the tradition of the Speaker of the House only serving one or two terms by serving from 1975 to 1983 and he was followed by other long serving speakers
Gib Lewis and
Pete Laney who both served previously unheard of five terms. The greatest shakeup to the legislature came during this time as the result of scandal. In 1971, a massive
stock-fraud ring was uncovered. Known as the
Sharpstown Scandal, it implicated the Speaker
Gus Mutcher, Governor
Preston Smith, and Lieutenant Governor
Ben Barnes. While most of those involved avoided legal punishments, many had their political careers ended with almost half of the legislature being voted out of office due to their connection to the corruption. The fallout of the scandal, and others like "Chicken-gate", resulted in the passage of many ethics, campaign finance, and other “good government” regulations. In 1974, the legislature assembled in a constitutional convention in an attempt to revamp and modernize the nearly 100 year old state constitution, but the new document failed to pass by 3 votes. Later legislatures attempted to incorporate some of the proposed changes into amendments to the current document, such as annual sessions, veto sessions of the legislature, pre-session organizational meetings, term limits on the governor, and increased legislative salaries, but many of those also failed. In 1975, the legislature impeached and removed Judge
O. P. Carrillo. In 1979, a group of State senators known as the
Killer Bees broke quorum and successfully blocked passage of a bill that would alter the presidential primary in the state. A 1983 fire in the capitol building triggered a complete renovation and expansion of the Capitol complex to better meet the need of the legislators and their staffs, and also provided the opportunity to incorporate modern technologies. In 1991,
Glen Maxey became the first
openly gay member of the legislature.
21st Century and partisan shift The end of the 20th century saw the weakening of the Democratic Party’s dominance in the state, and the influence of the Republican Party increasingly grew. In 1961,
John Tower was elected as the first Republican US senator from the state since Reconstruction. In 1978,
Bill Clements was the first Republican elected to the Governor’s office in over 100 years. At the presidential level since
1980 Texas has voted for the Republican presidential candidate after having voted for Democratic candidates in all but 3 elections previously (
1972,
1952, and
1928). In the 1990s, more statewide and legislative offices would be won by Republicans. The State Senate has been majority Republican since
1997, the House of Representatives followed suit in
2003. Since 1999 all statewide offices have been held by Republicans. During this era, the so called “Big Three” of Texas government (the governor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of the house) have increased their influence on their roles in the legislative process. Major events from recent history include three quorum breaks, one in 2021 over voting legislation, and two brought about by mid-decade redistricting (
2003,
2025). In 2007, Speaker of the House
Tom Craddick, was almost removed from his position over his leadership style in the chamber, but the motion was withdrawn in a controversial manner. In 2023, the Texas House expelled Representative
Bryan Slaton in a unanimous vote. This followed the Texas House General Investigating Committee finding that Slaton had violated House Rules by supplying alcohol to a 19-year-old aide before the two had sexual relations at his Austin apartment. Slaton resigned on May 8, 2023, but would have continued receiving his salary and per diem under Texas law unless he was expelled. Also during the 2023 legislative session, the House impeached Attorney General
Ken Paxton on charges of bribery and abuse of office. The State Senate would later acquit him of all charges. The modern Texas Legislature is seen as very conservative, and the major legislation debated by the body is often seen as influencing in the national discourse on
culture war issues such as
abortion, education vouchers,
gambling,
LGBT issues, and
legalized cannabis. ==Structure and operations==