Texas Legislature
The Texas State Legislature is the legislative branch of Texas. The Texas Legislature is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. It meets every two years in regular session, starting on the second Tuesday in January of odd-numbered years, and sessions can last up to 140 days. It’s a powerful part of the Texas government because of its control over state spending, its strong connection to the lieutenant governor, and Texas’s plural executive system.
In the 89th Legislature, Republicans hold 88 of the 150 seats in the House and 20 of the 31 seats in the Senate.
History
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. Under the newly adopted State Constitution, the original memberships in the House was 66 members and the Senate 19 to 33 members. Neither the regular biennial session nor the special sessions of the legislature had limits in duration. In the House, leadership consisted of a Speaker of the House who was elected by and from the membership. In the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor served as President of the Senate. On occasions when the Lieutenant Governor was absent, the senators elected from their members a "president for the time being". 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 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, 2861 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. This period of time also saw the first African-American members of the legislature elected. Three in the Senate and 32 in the House.
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. The legislature moved into the current Capitol building in 1888. 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 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 who was forced to resign after accusations of improper spending, and Samuel T. Rayburn who would go on to become the longest serving Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.Jim Crow
With the state government “Redeemed” by the end of Reconstruction, Texas became part of the “Solid South” and moved into an era of the Democratic party leading as a single party. From 1874 to 1978 all of Texas’ statewide offices were held by Democrats. From 1881 to 1969 there was never more than a single Republican in the Senate and it wasn’t until 1973 that there were more than 10 Republicans serving in the House. 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.Prominent practices that developed during this era to limit African American participation in the legislative process were the poll tax, literacy tests, and the White primary. Starting in 1923, the legislature passed a law that prevented black voters from participating in the primary election. As the only election of consequence this effectively disenfranchised all black voters. The legality of the white primary was challenged multiple times on constitutional grounds and it was eventually ended by the 1944 Supreme Court Case Smith v. Allwright.
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. 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 robbed 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 placed 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 won the race, on the campaign of getting “two governors for the price of one" and became Texas’ first female governor and the second female governor in the country. She lost re election in 1926 to an opponent of her husband, but she was elected to a nonconsecutive second term in 1932.