When Senfronia Thompson was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1972, there were only two women in the entire legislature.
Five and a half decades later, a lot has changed. Tuesday’s historic election won the state’s first Latino governor, Gina Hinojosa; the first female lieutenant governor, Vikki Goodwin; and enough Democrats to guarantee the right to nominate the Speaker of the House.
On Friday, Thompson announced she has the votes to become speaker when the Legislature convenes in January under its first Democratic majority since 2003.
If Thompson’s coalition holds, Texas will have its first all-female “Big Three”: governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House. Two women, Miriam “Ma” Ferguson and Ann Richards, have served as governor. No woman has ever held the other two jobs.
“It’s time — well past time — for women to lead in Texas, and Texas has spoken up by electing these women,” said state Rep. Christina Morales, a Houston Democrat. “Look at the records of these women. You see they are qualified and they are now going to lead Texas.”
Each of the jobs that make up the “Big Three” has influence in its own right. But together, they have considerable power over which bills become law. Over the past dozen years, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have held two of the three positions at the top of state government, with a rotation of white male House speakers rounding out the roster.
When the Big Three have common goals and work well together, the entire legislative session tends to go more smoothly. When they find themselves in disagreement, the internal functioning of the Legislative Assembly can come to a halt. A test case of the latter occurred in 2023, when Patrick and then-Speaker Dade Phelan deadlocked over property tax cuts and the House failed to pass a school voucher program sought by Abbott and Patrick.
Had Patrick and House Republicans held firm, as pre-election forecasts predicted, Hinojosa likely would have faced a contentious relationship with Patrick and Republican Party Chairman Dustin Burrows, who could have stifled Hinojosa’s progressive agenda and seen their own conservative bills die because of his veto.
Everything is different now. Goodwin will still struggle to oversee a Senate where Republicans hold 19 of 31 seats. But Democrats hope that having a politically and personally aligned trio at the top will help the party make the most of its strongest hold on power in three decades.
Jennifer Clark, a political scientist at the University of Houston who studies women in politics, said research shows that female lawmakers from both parties are more likely to be collaborative and bipartisan than their male colleagues.
“Certainly, compromise will be the name of the game, especially with Republicans still controlling the Senate,” Clark said. “It’s going to be really critical that they can work together and across the aisle.”
At a news conference announcing she had received enough votes to secure the speaker’s gavel, Thompson said she intended to lead the House in a bipartisan manner. She highlighted her long history in both the political majority and minority and made clear that GOP members would not be sidelined like Democrats were in last year’s session.
“It’s going to take all of us working together. The expertise of the Republicans and the expertise of the Democrats, working as a unit to get things done for this state,” she said. “I’m not here to punish anyone. I did that when I was a parent, and all my children are adults now.”
Hinojosa, Goodwin and Thompson served together in the Legislature, overlapping for the past eight years and working together on legislation regarding school funding, women’s health and human trafficking. On the campaign trail, Hinojosa called Thompson a “living legend.” Goodwin and Hinojosa are both members of Austin’s delegation and represent bordering House districts.
During the 2021 legislative session, when Democrats left the state to deny the House the staffing needed to pass a bill that would have restricted voting rights, Goodwin quoted Thompson on social media.
“The dean of the TX House Dems, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, said something that stuck with me,” Goodwin wrote. “She said there was a difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician acts based on the impact it will have on his next election; a statesman takes actions that serve the common good.”
In a contentious election cycle where Democrats tried to focus on affordability, neither Hinojosa nor Goodwin made their gender a central part of their campaigns. In August, Hinojosa shrugged off the importance of his candidacy when speaking to KUT, saying it should be “natural and normal that there is a Latino governor for Texas.”
But Thompson, 87, grew up in a very different climate than Hinojosa and Goodwin, who are both in their 50s and entered the Legislature in the last decade. When Thompson started, she faced both racism and sexism, such as when a male colleague called her his “beautiful black mistress.” She gave a speech protesting his comments, and after that, she told Texas Monthly, all of her bills were dropped.
“I couldn’t do anything for a while,” she said in 2023. “I had gone into men’s world to tell them I wasn’t going to take that away from anyone, and that was a no-no for women.”
Today, Thompson is poised to make history with a series of firsts: the first female speaker of the Texas House, the first Black speaker, and the first speaker to be part of an all-female Big Three.
Having diverse representation at the highest levels of power can pave the way for major change, not only in what policies are enacted, but also in Texans’ understanding of who deserves to be a leader, Clark said, adding that it can inspire other women to consider running for office.
As Morales left the Capitol Friday afternoon after Thompson’s news conference, she saw a group of little girls on the grounds with their mothers.
“I thought, I wonder if they know they could be governor, president, lieutenant governor,” she said, choking up at the memory. “I just realized that Texas is going to be different for these little girls.”
Disclosure: Texas Monthly has been a major financial supporter of the Texas Tribune. The University of Houston has provided financial support for the past five years. The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that is funded in part by donations from its members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial support plays no role in our journalism. Find a full list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here.
Gn usa
