1980 Texas Senate election

The 1980 Texas Senate elections took place as part of the biennial United States elections. Texas voters elected state senators 16 of the 31 State Senate districts. The winners of this election served in the 67th Texas Legislature for two-year terms, with all senators up for election in 1982.

Democrats had controlled the Texas Senate since the 1872 elections.^[1] Texas had historically been a solidly-Democratic state, owing to its history as a part of the Solid South, but this changed dramatically in the 1970s. Republican Richard Nixon won the state in a landslide in the 1972 presidential election and Bill Clements became the first Republican to win the governorship in over 100 years in a narrow 1978 victory. These victories rarely extended far down the ballot, however, with Democrats still holding large supermajorities in both houses of the legislature.^[2]

The most controversial bill to come up during the regular session of the 66th legislature was a bill to split the state's primary election, creating a separate March primary for the state's presidential nominating delegates while retaining a May primary date for all other offices.^[3] Supporters argued it would give the state more influence in presidential politics, while critics accused them of using the measure to support former governor John Connally, who had recently switched to the Republican Party, in his 1980 presidential campaign. A split primary would have allowed conservative Democrats to vote in the Republican presidential primary while voting in the Democratic primary for other offices.^[4] Twelve liberal Democratic Senators left the capitol in May 1979 to break quorum, preventing the chamber from conducting any business. They continued to do so for over four days until Republicans and conservative Democrats agreed to drop the bill.^[5]

Republicans made a net gain of three seats from the Democrats, bringing their caucus to seven out of thirty-one seats. This large shift came on the coattails of Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in the state in the 1980 presidential election. Republicans won their largest share of legislative seats since the end of Reconstruction over 100 years prior.^[6]

Among the defeated Democrats was longtime Galveston Senator Babe Schwartz, a fixture of the Senate's liberal "yellow-dog" faction who was a leader of the "Killer Bees" who broke quorum during the 1979 legislative session.^[6][7] Two other members of the "Killer Bees," Gene Jones of Garland and Ron Clower of Houston, also lost re-election.

• Kingston, Mike (1981). Texas Almanac, 1982-1983. Dallas, Texas: The Dallas Morning News.