79th Texas Legislature

The 79th Texas Legislature met from 11 January to 30 May 2005 in regular session, and in consecutive called sessions from 21 June to 20 July and 21 July to 19 August 2005. It met again in 2006 from 17 April to 16 May. Most of the members of the House of Representatives and 15 members of the Senate were elected in the 2004 general election; the other House members were elected in special elections held in 2006.

Sessions

79th Regular session: 11 January 2005 – 30 May 2005
79th First called session: 21 June 2005 – 20 July 200579th Second called session: 21 July 2005 – 19 August 2005
79th Third called session: 17 April 2006

Officers

Senate

Lieutenant Governor: David Dewhurst, Republican
President Pro Tempore:

House of Representatives

Speaker of the House: Tom Craddick, Republican

Members

Members of the Seventy-ninth Texas Legislature at the beginning of the regular session, 11 January 2005:

Membership changes

Senate

None

House of Representatives

District	Outgoing Representative	Reason for Vacancy	Successor	Date of Successor's Installation
District 48	Todd Baxter	Representative Baxter resigned on 1 November 2005 for personal reasons.	Donna Howard	To be determined
District 106	Ray Allen	Representative Allen resigned on 20 January 2006 for personal reasons.	Kirk England	To be determined
District 121	Vacant	Representative Elizabeth Ames Jones was re-elected but declined her seat after being appointed to the Railroad Commission of Texas.	Joe Straus	10 February 2005
District 143	Joe Moreno	Representative Moreno was killed in a one-car rollover accident 6 May 2005.	Ana E. Hernandez	20 December 2005

District 48: A special election was held on 17 January 2006. No candidate received a majority of the votes on that date, so the top two candidates will face each other in a runoff. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, as acting governor, set the date of the runoff for 14 February 2006. . Donna Howard won the runoff and was later sworn in.District 106: A special election was held on 28 February 2006 . Kirk England won, but, as of 6 March 2006, has not yet been sworn in.District 121: A special election was held on 5 February 2005. Joe Straus received a majority of the votes. He was sworn in five days later, on 10 February 2005.District 143: A special election was held on 8 November 2005. No candidate received a majority of the votes on that date, so the top two candidates faced each other in a runoff on 10 December 2005. Ana E. Hernandez won the runoff and was sworn in 10 days later, on 20 December 2005.

Notable events

Sushree, Vice-President of Barsana Dham Hindu Temple, delivered the first ever Hindu prayer in the Texas Senate.