- Rick Perry
James Richard Perry (b. March 4, 1950) is a Republican politician and the Governor of Texas. He assumed office in December 2000 when then-Governor George W. Bush resigned to prepare for his inauguration as President of the United States. Gov. Perry was elected to full terms in 2002 and 2006. In the 2006 November general election Perry defeated a Democrat, former Congressman Chris Bell of Houston; a Libertarian, sales consultant James Werner; and two independent candidates, …
- Tom Craddick
Thomas Russell “Tom” Craddick is the first Republican to serve as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives since Reconstruction.
- Kay Bailey Hutchison
Kathyrn Ann Bailey Hutchison, usually known as Kay Bailey Hutchison (born July 22 1943), is the senior United States Senator from Texas. She is a member of the Republican Party. In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by "Ladies Home Journal".
- Rick Noriega
Richard Joel "Rick" Noriega is a member of the Texas House of Representatives, representing District 145 in eastern Houston as a member of the Democratic Party. He has formed an exploratory committee for the Texas United States Senate election, 2008 and if he decides to run, will face lawyer Mikal Watts in the Democratic primary.
- Dolph Briscoe
Dolph S. Briscoe (born April 23, 1923 in Uvalde, Texas) is a wealthy Uvalde rancher and businessman who was the Democratic Governor of Texas between 1973 and 1979. He was the last governor to serve a two-year term and the first to serve a four-year term, when the state doubled the length of gubernatorial terms, effective in 1975.
- Price Daniel
Marion Price Daniel, Sr. (October 10, 1910 - August 25, 1988) was a Democratic Party U.S. senator and politician from the state of Texas. Daniel was born in Dayton, Texas, and he graduated from Baylor University. He worked as a lawyer in Liberty County, Texas. Daniel won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1939 as a Democrat. Daniel opposed Texas adopting a sales tax and he was elected Speaker of the House in 1943.
- Pete Laney
James E. "Pete" Laney (1943-) is a Democratic U.S. political figure from West Texas. He was a member of the Texas House of Representatives for thirty-four years from Hale Center (the seat of Hale County) near Plainview. Laney served as Speaker for ten years from 1993 to 2003, a record which tied his predecessor, fellow Democrat Gibson D. "Gib" Lewis of Fort Worth (the seat of Tarrant County), who served as speaker from 1983 to 1993.
- Henry Cuellar
Henry Roberto Cuellar (born September 19, 1955) is a Democratic politician from Laredo, Texas, representing the state's 28th Congressional district (map) in the United States House of Representatives. Cuellar's district extends from the Rio Grande to the suburbs of San Antonio
- Bob Bullock
Robert D. (Bob) Bullock was an American Democratic politician from Texas. With a political career spanning over forty years in Texas, Bullock ended this long career as Lieutenant Governor of Texas from 1991–1999 during the terms of Governors Ann Richards and George W. Bush. After a stint as an assistant attorney general and in the private practice of law, Bullock returned to public life when he was appointed secretary of state, …
- Warren Chisum
Warren Darrel Chisum (born July 4, 1938) is a staunchly conservative Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from the Panhandle city of Pampa, a community of some 20,000 people and the seat of Gray County. He has served in the state House since 1989. A key lieutenant of Speaker Thomas Russell "Tom" Craddick, Sr., of Midland, Chisum is the incoming 2007 chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee.
- Price Daniel Jr.
Marion Price Daniel, Jr. was a United States politician from Texas who served as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from 1973 to 1975.
- John Culberson
John Abney Culberson (born August 24, 1956), American politician, is a Republican congressman from Texas, representing that state's 7th congressional district (map) in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2001. The district takes in large portions of western Houston and surrounding Harris County. Culberson has been one of President Bush's staunchest allies regarding the war in Iraq.
- Nelson Wolff
Nelson W. Wolff (born 1940) is a San Antonio, Texas political figure. He represented Bexar County as a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives from 1971 to 1973, and the Texas Senate from 1973 to 1975. He served on the San Antonio City Council as the representative of Council District 8 and then as mayor of San Antonio, Texas from 1991-1995 and currently serves as Bexar County Judge.
- Preston Smith
Preston Earnest Smith was a Democratic governor of Texas from 1969-1973, and the lieutenant governor from 1963-1969. Smith was born into a tenant farming family of thirteen children in Williamson County near Austin. The family later moved to Lamesa in Dawson County on the Texas South Plains, where Smith graduated from high school. He thereafter graduated from Texas Tech University in Lubbock and built a movie theater business by the middle 1940s.
- Gib Lewis
Gibson Donald "Gib" Lewis (born 1936) is a Democratic U.S. political figure from Fort Worth, Texas. He was the first person to be elected five times as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He was elected Speaker in 1983 to succeed Billy Wayne "Bill" Clayton of Springlake in Lamb County. He was a key figure in passing the 1984 education act, designed by Ross Perot and Democratic Governor Mark Wells White, …
- Garnet Coleman
Garnet F. Coleman (born 1961) has served the people of District 147 (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/District147.jpg map) in the Texas House of Representatives continuously since 1991. Coleman graduated from Jack Yates High School in Houston and the University of Saint Thomas in Houston. Coleman's legislative efforts have been recognized in numerous ways including being named to the prestigious "Texas Monthly" Ten Best Legislators List on two occasions.
- John Carona
John Joseph Carona (born 14 December 1955) is a Republican member of the Texas Senate representing the 16th District. First elected to the Texas Legislature in 1990, Carona is now in his fourth term in the Texas State Senate, representing District 16 in Dallas County. His current senate term runs through the end of the Eightieth Texas Legislature in 2009. Previously, Carona was elected to three terms in the Texas House of Representatives.
- Eddie Bernice Johnson
Eddie Bernice Johnson (born December 3, 1935) is a politician from the state of Texas, currently representing the state's 30th Congressional district (map) in the U.S. House.
- Dan Morales
Daniel C. "Dan" Morales (born 1956) served as Texas attorney general from 1991 through 1999, during the administrations of Governors Dorothy Ann Willis Richards and George W. Bush. As attorney general, Morales reached a $17 billion settlement with big tobacco companies. He also authored the controversial state interpretation of the <i>Hopwood v. Texas</i> case, …
- Ciro D. Rodriguez
Ciro Davis Rodriguez (born December 9 1946) is a Democratic Congressman who represents Texas's 23rd congressional district. Rodriguez has served in public office for over 30 years, first on a school board, then as a member of the Texas House of Representatives. After leaving Congress in January 2005, he joined with his former chief of staff, Jeff Mendelsohn, to create Rio Strategy Group LLC, a boutique government relations firm to assist clients at the local, …
- Gene Green
Raymond Eugene "Gene" Green (born October 17, 1947) is a Democratic politician and a U.S. Congressman from the state of Texas, representing that state's 29th Congressional District. (map). The district includes most of eastern Houston, along with large portions of Houston's eastern suburbs. Green was born in Houston and he graduated from the University of Houston with degrees in business administration and law.
- Sam Rayburn
Samuel Taliaferro (pronounced "Tolliver") Rayburn was a Democratic politician from Bonham, Texas. "Mr. Sam", as he was widely known, served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives for 17 years, and is regarded by historians as the most effective Speaker in history.
- Ben Barnes
Ben Barnes (born April 17, 1938) is an American politician and lobbyist, who was once the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. He was a vice-chair and top fund-raiser of the John Kerry campaign, being one of only eight persons who raised over $500,000 for Kerry
- Gonzalo Barrientos
Gonzalo Barrientos, Jr. (born 20 July 1941) was a Democratic member of the Texas Senate representing the 14th District from 1985 to 2007. He was also a member of the Texas House of Representatives from Austin from 1975 to 1985.
- Phil King
Phillip Stephen "Phil" King (born February 29, 1956) is a Weatherford, Texas, attorney who has been a conservative Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives since 1999. He represents District 61, which encompasses Parker and Wise counties to the west of Fort Worth.
- Sarah Weddington
Sarah Ragle Weddington (born February 5, 1945 in Abilene, Texas) is a Texas attorney and lecturer who gained world-wide fame when she and Linda Coffee represented "Jane Roe" (real name Norma McCorvey) in the landmark "Roe v. Wade" case in the United States Supreme Court.
- Kevin Brady
Kevin Patrick Brady (born April 11, 1955) is a Republican politician from the state of Texas. Brady was born in Vermillion, South Dakota, one of five children of William and Nancy Brady. His father, a lawyer, was killed in 1967 in a courtroom shooting in Rapid City, S.D.when Brady was 12 years old. Brady graduated from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. A chamber of commerce executive who also served on the Rapid City Common Council, …
- Suzanna Hupp
Suzanna Gratia Hupp (born 1959) is a former Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, who represented traditionally Democratic District 54 (Bell, Burnet, and Lampasas counties) for ten years from 1997-2007. Hupp is recognized worldwide as a leading advocate for the Second Amendment and an individual's right to carry a concealed weapon. She was elected to her first term in 1996 but did not seek a sixth two-year term in 2006.
- Juan M. Garcia
Juan Garcia is the member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 32.
- Carl Isett
Carl Hawkins Isett (born March 7, 1957) is a Certified Public Accountant from Lubbock who has been a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives since 1997. Isett was initially elected in House District 84 in 1996 to succeed Robert L. Duncan of Lubbock, who was elected to the Texas State Senate. Isett defeated the Democrat Don Richards in what has become a strongly Republican legislative district.
- Scott Hochberg
Scott Hochberg (born 1953) is a member of the Texas House of Representatives representing District 137 in southwest Houston. The district includes Gulfton, Sharpstown, Briarmeadow, Shenandoah, Piney Point, and nearby communities.
- Hubert Vo
Hubert Vo (born 30 May 1956) is a member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 149. He is the first and only Vietnamese American to be elected to the Texas legislature. Vo was born in South Vietnam and emigrated to the United States with his family to leave the communist government of Vietnam. Vo and Republican California State Assemblyman Van Tran are the highest-ranking Vietnamese American elected officials in the United States.
- Jim Dunnam
James R. (Jim) Dunnam (born 1963) is an American state politician and lawyer who currently serves in the Texas House of Representatives. As the House Democratic Leader, Dunnam is best known for engineering the Killer D's walkout to Ardmore, Okla., to postpone consideration of Tom DeLay's mid-decade redistricting plan. The walkout is credited with starting serious media inquiry into DeLay's actions as majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, …
- Carlos Uresti
Carlos Ismael "Charlie" Uresti (born September 12, 1963) is a Democrat representing the 19th District in the Texas Senate. Uresti previously represented portions of Bexar County and the City of San Antonio in District 118 in the Texas House from 1997 to 2006. Uresti, the youngest of eight children, was born in Bexar County, Texas, reared in San Antonio and graduated from McCollum High School. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve at age eighteen, …
- John Whitmire
John Harris Whitmire (born 1949) is the longest-serving of current members of the Texas State Senate representing District 15, which includes much of northern Houston. Whitmire was born 13 August 1949 in Hillsboro, Texas to James M. Whitmire and Marie Harris Whitmire, and graduated from Waltrip High School and the University of Houston. Whitmire served as the Acting Governor of Texas in 1993 as part of the Governor for A Day tradition.
- Norma Chavez
Norma Chavez (born 29 June 1960) is a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 76 covering Ysleta and parts of El Paso in El Paso County. Chavez is seeking reelection in 2006 and faced challenger Martha "Marty" Reyes, an Ysleta Independent School District trustee, in the Democratic primary on March 7, 2006. Chavez easily won the Democratic primary election with seventy percent of the votes cast.
- Melissa Noriega
Melissa Meisgeier Noriega (1954-) is a member of the Houston City Council in Houston, Harris County, Texas, holding Place 3 At-Large. Noriega is an educator and civic leader in Houston and Harris County, Texas and former member of the Texas House of Representatives.
- Steve Ogden
Steve Ogden (born 21 September 1950) is a Republican member of the Texas Senate representing the 5th District. Ogden was elected to the Texas Senate in January 1997, and chairs the Texas Senate Finance Committee. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy and a Master of Business Administration degree at Texas A&M University.
- Jeff Wentworth
Earl Jeffrey “Jeff” Wentworth (born November 20, 1940) is a Republican member of the Texas Senate from the 25th District, based about San Antonio to the north. He has been in the Senate since 1993. In 2002, Wentworth had a close primary challenge waged by the then conservative state Representative John Shields of San Antonio, son-in-law of the popular businessman Red McCombs.
- Al Edwards
Al Edwards (born 19 March 1937) was a member of the 78th and 79th Texas Legislature representing District 146. Edwards is most famously known for sponsoring a bill to ban the use of suggestive clothing by high school cheerleaders. In 1989, Edwards also sponsored a bill to punish drug dealers by having their fingers cut off. Edwards is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.