Senfronia Thompson Says She Has the Votes: a Historic Speaker Waits on Opening Day in a Divided Texas House
The longest-serving woman — and longest-serving Black legislator — in any American statehouse announced Friday she has locked down the speakership. The formal vote comes Jan. 12, and the gavel will decide which of the new majority's bills ever reach the floor.
AUSTIN — Before a single bill was filed Monday, the Texas House may already have its next speaker. Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson announced Friday that she had locked down enough votes to claim the speaker's gavel, according to Texas Tribune reporting carried in Monday's Capitol coverage — a claim that, if it holds on the floor, makes her elevation one of the session's most consequential moments before a single bill is called. Thompson is the longest-serving woman and the longest-serving Black legislator in any state in the country.
The arithmetic behind her is the 83–67 Democratic majority the election produced — against a current House split of 62 Democrats and 88 Republicans, per the Texas District & County Attorneys Association's post-election rundown. The speakership itself is not hers yet: the House elects its speaker on the session's opening day, Jan. 12, when Thompson would replace Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock. Between now and then, a claim of locked-down votes is a position to defend, not a result — members-elect cannot even file bills until they are sworn in that same day.
What the gavel controls is the new majority's whole agenda. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on unwinding Republican education priorities — most notably the school voucher program passed in 2025 — alongside data-center guardrails, looser consumable-hemp restrictions and cost-of-living measures; the speaker decides which of those ever reach the floor, and the Republican Senate, 19–12, waits at the other end of the building. Hinojosa has signaled she intends to negotiate, announcing a transition team of both parties: "I would hope that elected leaders from both parties don't get in the way of the progress we can make together to deliver for working people," she said. For Dallas–Fort Worth's large House delegation, the speaker's race is the session's first real vote — and it happens before the session's first bill.
