Women Poised to Hold Top 3 Leadership Positions in Texas Government

The Texas Tribune

AUSTIN, TX — 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. Last week’s historic election swept in new governor Gina Hinojosa; the first female lieutenant governor, Vikki Goodwin; and enough Democrats to secure House speaker naming rights. 

On Friday, Thompson announced she had 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 House speaker. 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 in electing these women,” said state Rep. Christina Morales, a Houston Democrat. “Look at these women’s records. You can see that they are qualified, and now they’re going to be in charge of Texas.”

Each of the jobs that make up the “Big Three” is influential in its own right. But together, they have massive power over what bills become law. For the last dozen years, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have occupied two of the three spots at the top of state government, with a rotating cast of male House speakers filling out the roster. 

Goodwin will still face a hard road overseeing a Senate where Republicans hold 19 of 31 seats. But Democrats are hopeful that having a politically and personally aligned trio at the top will help the party make the most of its strongest grasp on power in three decades. 

At a news conference announcing she had enough votes to secure the speaker’s gavel, Thompson said she intended to run the House in a bipartisan manner. She emphasized her long history in both the political majority and minority and made clear GOP members would not be sidelined the way Democrats were in last year’s session. 

“It’s gonna take all of us working together. The expertise of the Republicans and the expertise of the Democrats, working as a unit to get the things done for this state,” she said. “I’m not here to punish anybody. I did that when I was a parent, and all of my children are adults now.”

Hinojosa, Goodwin and Thompson served in the Legislature together, overlapping for the last eight years and working together on legislation about 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 the Austin delegation and represent House districts that border one another.

During the 2021 legislative session when Democrats left the state to deny the House the headcount 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 in my mind,” Goodwin wrote. “She said there’s a difference between a politician & a statesman. A politician acts based on how it will impact her next election; a statesman takes actions that serve the greater good.” 

In a contentious election cycle where Democrats tried to focus on affordability, neither Hinojosa nor Goodwin made their gender a central plank of their campaigns. In August, Hinojosa shrugged off the significance of her run while speaking to KUT, saying it should be “natural and normal that there would be a Latina governor for Texas.” 

As Morales was leaving the Capitol Friday afternoon after Thompson’s press conference, she saw a group of little girls on the grounds with their mom. 

“I thought, I wonder if they know they could be the governor, the speaker, the lieutenant governor,” she said, choking up at the memory. “It just dawned on me that Texas is going to be different for those little girls.”