The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful arm of the Texas government not only because of its power of the purse to control and direct the activities of state government and the strong constitutional connections between it and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, but also due to Texas's plural executive.
The Texas State Capitol is the capitol and seat of government of the U.S. state of Texas. Located in downtown Austin, Texas, the structure houses the offices and chambers of the Texas Legislature and of the Governor of Texas. Designed in 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers, it was constructed from 1882 to 1888 under the direction of civil engineer Reuben Lindsay Walker. A $75 million underground extension was completed in 1993. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.
Gregory Wayne Abbott is an American politician, attorney, and jurist serving as the 48th governor of Texas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 50th attorney general of Texas from 2002 to 2015 and as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court from 1996 to 2001.
Dan Goeb Patrick is an American radio talk show host, television broadcaster, and politician. He has been serving as the 42nd lieutenant governor of Texas since January 2015, under Governor Greg Abbott.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT) is an American organization that operates Texas's electrical grid, the Texas Interconnection, which supplies power to more than 25 million Texas customers and represents 90 percent of the state's electric load. ERCOT is the first independent system operator (ISO) in the United States. ERCOT works with the Texas Reliability Entity (TRE), one of six regional entities within the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) that coordinate to improve reliability of the bulk power grid.
The Texas Interconnection is an alternating current (AC) power grid – a wide area synchronous grid – that covers most of the state of Texas. The grid is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Kelton Gray Seliger, known as Kel Seliger, is a former Republican member of the Texas State Senate for District 31, which stretches from the Panhandle south to the Permian Basin.
Rodney Glenn Ellis is an American politician who has served on the Harris County Commissioners Court Precinct 1 since 2017. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Wind power in Texas, a portion of total energy in Texas, consists of over 150 wind farms, which together have a total nameplate capacity of over 30,000 MW. If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world; the installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power. ERCOT set a new wind output record of nearly 19.7 GW at 7:19 pm Central Standard Time on Monday, January 21, 2019.
Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. is an American politician and lawyer who has served as the attorney general of Texas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Texas Senate representing the eighth district and as a member of the Texas House of Representatives.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Texas have some protections in state law but may face legal and social challenges not faced by others. Same-sex sexual activity was decriminalized in Texas in 2003 by the Lawrence v. Texas ruling. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled bans on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Douglas Bryan Hughes is an American attorney and politician who is a Republican member of the Texas State Senate for District 1. He was first elected to the Texas Senate in November 2016. Previously, Hughes was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 2003 through January 2017 as state representative for District 5, which includes Camp, Harrison, Upshur, and Wood counties in northeastern Texas. Senator Hughes authored some of the more significant legislation to come out of the 87th Session of the Texas Legislature. His bills on abortion, voting reform, and social media censorship prompted significant debate but were passed by both houses of the legislature and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott.
Charles Brandon Creighton is an American attorney and politician from Conroe, Texas, who is a Republican member of the Texas Senate from District 4, and a former member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 16.
Steve Hixson Toth is an American businessman and politician serving as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 15, The Woodlands area.
Kenneth Kyle Biedermann, known as Kyle Biedermann, is an American politician who served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 73 from 2017 to 2023. Biedermann owns and operates a hardware store within the district.
Texas Senate Bill 5 is a bill that implements a form of voter identification law in the state of Texas. It is a revamped version of a previous Texas voter ID law that was introduced in 2011.
The 87th Texas Legislature was a meeting of the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Texas, composed of the Texas Senate and the Texas House of Representatives. The Texas State Legislature met in Austin, Texas, from January 12, 2021, to May 31, 2021. Governor Greg Abbott has announced three special legislative sessions during summer 2021.
In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered a major power crisis, which came about during three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States on February 10–11, 13–17, and 15–20. The storms triggered the worst energy infrastructure failure in Texas state history, leading to shortages of water, food, and heat. More than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, some for several days. At least 246 people were killed directly or indirectly, with some estimates as high as 702 killed as a result of the crisis.
The Texas Heartbeat Act, Senate Bill 8, is an act of the Texas Legislature that bans abortion after the detection of embryonic or fetal cardiac activity, which normally occurs after about six weeks of pregnancy. The law took effect on September 1, 2021, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request for emergency relief from Texas abortion providers. It was the first time a state has successfully imposed a six-week abortion ban since Roe v. Wade, and the first abortion restriction to rely solely on enforcement by private individuals through civil lawsuits, rather than having state officials enforce the law with criminal or civil penalties. The act authorizes members of the public to sue anyone who performs or facilitates an illegal abortion for a minimum of $10,000 in statutory damages per abortion, plus court costs and attorneys' fees.
The 2022 Texas elections were held on November 8, 2022. Primary elections were held on March 1, with runoffs held on May 24 for primary candidates who did not receive a majority of the vote.
