1974 Texas Senate election

← 1972 November 5, 1974 1976 →
15 of the 31 seats in theTexas Senate 16 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Party Democratic Republican Last election 28 3 Seats won 28 3 Seat change Popular vote 515,612 141,751 Percentage 78.43% 21.56% Swing 2.29% 1.59%
Senate results by district      Democratic hold     Republican hold      No election
President Pro Tempore before election Democratic ElectedPresident Pro Tempore Democratic

The1974 Texas Senate elections took place as part of thebiennialUnited States elections. Texas voters elected state senators 15 of the 31State Senate districts. The winners of this election served in the64th Texas Legislature for four-year terms.

Democrats had controlled theTexas Senate since the1872 elections.^[1] Long a part of theSolid South, Republicans had gained a foothold in the state in the past two decades, electing U.S. SenatorJohn Tower in1961 and electingRichard Nixon with 66% of the vote in1972, but these gains rarely made much impact in downballot, local races. Democrats had controlled every statewide office since the end ofReconstruction and controlled largesupermajorities in thelegislature. Even these small numbers were an improvement from the past decade, however, such as after the 1964 election when they held a single seat in theHouse and none in the Senate.^[2]

In the fallout of theSharpstown stock-fraud scandal, which had rocked Texas politics during the62nd legislature in 1971, nearly a majority of the entire legislature was composed of newly-elected members after the 1972 election. Led by the "Dirty Thirty," who had kept the scandal at the forefront of the previous session, thenew legislature passed a wave of reforms. These included the Texas Open Records Act, campaign finance disclosure requirements, regulations on deceptive trade practices, and new regulations on lobbyists.^[3][4][5]

The legislature in 1971 had also proposed the calling of a new constitutional convention, which voters approved in 1972. The convention met in the Spring of 1974, but by the time the convention concluded, the vote to pass the new constitution failed to reach the required two-thirds supermajority of the unicameral body by three votes.^[6]

Alongside DemocratDolph Briscoe's landslide victory in theconcurrent gubernatorial election, Democrats held onto all of their seats in the Senate, maintaining their 28–3supermajority in the chamber.^[7]

• Kingston, Mike (1975).Texas Almanac, 1976-1977. Dallas, Texas:The Dallas Morning News.

• 1974 Texas elections
• 1974 state legislature elections in the United States
• Texas Senate elections

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