Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are looking
at something that honestly at first glance might
just seem like a well like a pretty standard
piece of administrative record keeping. Right.
A dry historical document. Exactly. Our focus
today is a comprehensive Wikipedia article and
it is simply titled List of United States Senators
from Texas. And I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, why are we reading a spreadsheet?
Yeah. If you are just looking at this plain list
of names, dates, party affiliations, it is so
easy to let your eyes just sort of glaze over.
Absolutely. But if you read between the lines
here, looking at these specific terms, these
really sudden vacancies and the massive shifts
in power, what you are actually looking at is,
well, it's a perfect seismograph for American
political upheaval. That is a great way to put
it. It functions as this. Timeline of institutional
stress tests. Right. Because a legislative roster
doesn't exist in a vacuum. You know, every single
time a seat changes hands unexpectedly or sits
empty for a prolonged period or flips from a
century of one party rule to another. Which we
see happen here. Right. Which we absolutely see.
It reflects these massive tectonic shifts in
the broader culture and the economy. The whole
drama of American history is basically written
right there in the margins of these dry tables.
And that is the mission for today's deep dive.
We are going to look past the dates and extract
the actual stories of how Texas's representation
in Washington has evolved since the state was
admitted to the union in 1845. It is quite the
ride. It really is. Now. Before we get into the
actual mechanics of these seats, we do need to
make one thing absolutely clear to you, our listeners.
Yes, very important point here. We are going
to be discussing political tardies heavily today.
specifically the Democrats and the Republicans,
along with major ideological shifts that have
redefined the country over the last century and
a half. Right. It's unavoidable with this topic.
Completely unavoidable. But we want to assure
you that we are strictly reporting the factual
history exactly as it is laid out in the historical
record from our source. We aren't taking any
sides. Not at all. And we are not endorsing any
political viewpoints from the left or the right.
Our objective is simply to impartially convey
the historical realities that are contained in
this data. Exactly. We are just tracing the historical
timeline and the strategic maneuvers of the people
who held these offices. The data itself provides
the narrative, and we are just mapping it out
to understand how representation functions in
practice. Okay, let's unpack this, starting right
at the very beginning of Texas's statehood. Because
even the initial entry into the United States
Senate comes with this built in logistical delay.
It's actually kind of funny when you look at
the dates. It is. Texas officially became a state
on December 29th, 1845. But if you look at the
congressional record, they didn't actually elect
their first two senators until nearly two months
later. Right. Thomas Jefferson Ruskin, Sam Houston.
Exactly. They weren't elected until February
21st, 1846. So for almost two entire months,
those two Senate seats. Class one and class two,
they just sat completely empty. And that class
one and class two designation is a really crucial
piece of legislative machinery to understand
right off the bat. Let's break that down for
a second. Sure. So the framers of the Constitution
didn't want the entire Senate turning over all
at once. You know, they didn't want a situation
where every single senator could be replaced
in one single election cycle. That would be chaotic.
Total chaos. So they divided the seats into three
staggered classes. When a new state joins the
union, their two senators are randomly assigned
to two different classes so their elections won't
overlap in the future. Oh, that makes total sense.
Yeah. So in this case, Thomas Jefferson Rusk
drew the class one seat and Sam Houston drew
the class two seat. But there was still that
two -month gap. Right, because the logistical
reality of the 1840s meant that even after the
momentous occasion of statehood, just organizing
a new state legislature and physically dispatching
two men to Washington, it took significant time.
You couldn't just hop on a flight. Exactly. The
transition of power is rarely instantaneous.
It sets this precedent that the machinery of
government can be slow to start. But honestly,
that initial two month delay looks like an absolute
blink of an eye compared to what happens next
on this list. Oh, yeah. The next big gap is,
well, it's staggering. It really is. If you follow
this timeline down into the 1860s, the normal
rhythm of terms and elections hits a massive
catastrophic wall. Here's where it gets really
interesting. The Civil War era. Yes. In 1861,
Senators Louis Wigfall and John Hemphill didn't
lose an election. And they didn't resign. No,
they did not. The historical record explicitly
shows they were expelled. They were outright
removed from the United States Senate following
Texas's secession from the union. What's fascinating
here is the sheer scale of the institutional
void that followed those expulsions. I mean,
when a state secedes and goes to war against
the federal government, the legislative ties
are obviously severed. Right. You're not sending
delegates to a government you're actively fighting.
Exactly. But looking at the timeline from the
source, the class one seat was entirely vacant.
from March 1861 all the way until March 1870.
Wow. And the Class II seat was vacant from July
1861 to March 1870. That is an astonishing nine
-year gap. For almost an entire decade, Texas
had absolutely no representation in the United
States Senate. Nine years is an eternity in politics.
I mean, think about the legislation being passed
during the 1860s. Monumental legislation. You
have the funding of the Civil War itself. You
have the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments. The entire framework of Reconstruction.
And all of that was happening in a chamber where
Texas and millions of people living there had
zero voice. And that gap wasn't just a matter
of the Civil War itself. At all. Because the
war ended in 1865. Oh, right. So why does the
vacancy stretch all the way to 1870? Because
of the Reconstruction. After the war, the former
Confederate states weren't just automatically
welcomed back into the halls of Congress with
open arms. They had to earn their way back in.
Essentially, yes. They were placed under military
districts and they had to meet very strict conditions
for readmission. That included drafting new state
constitutions that recognize those sweeping new
federal amendments you just mentioned. Right.
So the congressional table simply read vacant.
for those nine years. But that single word encapsulates
a period where the state was effectively suspended
from the federal legislative process. It wasn't
until Texas was formally readmitted to representation
in 1870 that J .W. Flanagan and Morgan C. Hamilton
were elected to finally close that gap. Yes,
exactly. It just paints such a vivid picture
of a broken country trying to stitch itself back
together. One day you have two senators, the
next day they are expelled in absentia, and then
there is just a blank space on the record for
nearly a decade. It's chilling when you really
think about it. It is. Now, once representation
did resume in 1870, the history of these seats
turns into something of a high stakes game of
political musical chairs. Let's look at the overarching
numbers for a moment from our source. Out of
all the senators who have ever represented Texas,
there have been 27 Democrats, seven Republicans
and precisely one liberal Republican. We have
to pause on that one anomaly. Yeah. Morgan C.
Hamilton. Yeah, that stood out to me immediately.
He is the only person in the entire history of
Texas Senate representation to serve under that
specific liberal Republican Party label, which
he did during the 43rd Congress in the 1870s.
It's such a unique outlier. It really is. In
a historical data set that is overwhelmingly
dominated by just two main columns, Democrat
and Republican, that single entry is a perfect
snapshot of a highly fragmented era. So who are
the liberal Republicans? They were a very specific
short -lived faction that emerged right after
the Civil War. They were primarily organized
to oppose the re -election of President Ulysses
S. Grant and his administration's approach to
Reconstruction. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it was
a brief rebellion within the ranks that managed
to permanently carve its name into the Texas
congressional record. It is a great reminder
that the two -party system we know today has
had these fascinating, chaotic offshoots throughout
history. Absolutely. And speaking of fascinating
deviations, as you read through the electoral
history column of these Senate seats, you start
to notice some really unexpected reasons for
people leaving office. The resignations. The
resignations are wild. Today, we generally view
the United States Senate as the ultimate destination,
like it's the absolute peak of a political career.
Right. You fight your whole life to get there
and you stay as long as you can. Exactly. But
in the late 19th century, that wasn't always
the case. Take John H. Reagan. In 1891, he voluntarily
resigned from the United States Senate. And not
for a promotion, by today's standards. Oh, right.
He didn't leave for the president's cabinet.
He didn't leave for the Supreme Court. He resigned
to become the chairman of the Railroad Commission
of Texas. Which tells you everything you need
to know about the economic realities of the 1890s.
Explain that because it sounds crazy today. To
modern ears, leaving the federal Senate to join
a state regulatory commission sounds like a massive
demotion. But if we look at the context of the
Gilded Age, railroads were the absolute lifeblood
of the American economy. And they wielded monopolistic
power. They were the tech giants of their day.
Even bigger. Arguably. In Texas, the farmers
and the agrarian populist movements were fighting
a bitter battle against price gouging and unfair
freight rates. Because if you couldn't afford
to ship your crops, you were ruined. Exactly.
So the creation of the Railroad Commission of
Texas by Governor James Stephen Hogg was a monumental
attempt to rein in the most powerful corporations
on Earth. OK, I'm starting to see it. Yeah. So
when John H. Reagan stepped down from the Senate
to lead that commission, it wasn't a step backward
at all. He was stepping into a role that controlled
the economic levers of the entire region. It
was a massive power move. That reframes it completely.
He traded legislative prestige for raw, immediate
economic authority. Precisely. Now, alongside
the power players like Reagan, you also have
the placeholders. The caretakers. Yes, the individuals
whose terms really highlight the unpredictable
human element of government. The record surrounding
Bill Blakely is just incredible trivia. Such
a unique political career. He was a Democrat
who was appointed to the Senate twice, both times
specifically to fill vacancies. and both times
his tenure was incredibly brief. Right. First,
in 1957, he stepped in when Price Daniel resigned,
likely served for a few months, and then just
opted not to run in the special election, completely
allowing his successor to take over. He just
walked away. Yeah. Then, in 1961, he is appointed
again, this time to sit in Lyndon B. Johnson's
seat. He actually runs in that special election,
but he loses to finish out the term. He basically
operates as the ultimate political understudy.
It's fascinating. He was a very wealthy businessman,
often referred to as a cowboy billionaire. And
his appointments really highlight how gubernatorial
machinery handles sudden vacancies. How so? Well,
when a senator leaves unexpectedly, the state's
governor has to appoint someone to keep the seat
warm until a special election can be held. Sometimes
governors specifically look for someone who has
no ambition to hold the seat long term. Why would
they want that? So as not to disrupt the upcoming
electoral primary, they don't want to give someone
an unfair incumbent advantage if the party already
has chosen a successor in mind. Blackley fit
that caretaker role perfectly in 1957. That makes
a lot of sense. You just need someone to cast
votes for a few months without shaking up the
political landscape. Exactly. And we see an even
more extreme and tragic example of the unpredictable
nature of these terms with Andrew J. Houston.
Oh, right. He is appointed to a vacant seat in
April 1941, but the record shows he died just
two months later in June of that same year. Oh,
wow. Yeah. The Senate isn't just a theoretical
body. It's made up of mortal people, and the
logistical framework is constantly having to
adapt to sudden illness, death, or career changes.
Looking at some of these other career changes
in the data, there seems to be a real pattern
of using the Texas Senate seats as a launchpad
for executive power. Like we said earlier, it
wasn't always the final stop. If we connect this
to the bigger picture, the Senate has frequently
served as a strategic talent pool for the highest
levels of both state and federal executive government.
We weren't surprised Daniel resigning in 1957.
He left the Senate specifically to become the
governor of Texas. A huge step up in direct state
authority. Exactly. And Lyndon B. Johnson is
perhaps the most famous example on this list.
The record shows he actually won reelection to
his Senate seat in 1960. But he was simultaneously
on the presidential ticket with JFK. Wait, you
can do that? Run for both at the same time? Usually
no. But a special law was passed, sometimes literally
called the LBJ law, that allowed him to run for
both offices at once in Texas. Talk about covering
your bases. Right. When the Kennedy -Johnson
ticket won, Johnson resigned his newly won Senate
seat in January 1961 to become the U .S. Vice
President. Leaving the seat for Bill Blakely
to keep warm again. Exactly. And decades later,
you see Lloyd Benson, who had a formidable tenure
spanning from 1971 to 1993. He resigned his seat
to become the U .S. Secretary of the Treasury
under Bill Clinton. Another massive executive
role. Yes. These politicians viewed the Senate
as a formidable base of power, sure, but they
absolutely leveraged it as a stepping stone to
executive authority. It really is a who's who
of political titans passing through these two.
two specific desks on the Senate floor. Yes.
But as we move closer to the present day in our
historical timeline, we hit what might be the
most dramatic shift of all. The grand realignment.
Yes. Earlier, we established that historically,
Texas has been represented by 27 Democrats. And
for a very long time, that Democratic hold was
absolute. Rock solid. The record highlights Morris
Shepard as the longest serving senator in Texas
history. He was a Democrat who served continuously
from 1913 until his death in 1941. That is almost
three decades of unbroken representation by one
man. Which perfectly reflects the solid South
era. That was a time when the Democratic primary
was the only election that truly mattered in
the state. If you won the primary, you won the
seat. But when you look at the modern era on
this Wikipedia list, the data completely flips.
It is a profound transition. You have this long,
solid block of Democratic representation that
defines the first century of Texas statehood.
But the pivotal moment of transition recorded
here is the election of John Tower. Right. In
1961. Yes. After LBJ vacated his seat for the
vice presidency and after Bill Blakely's brief
caretaker appointment, John Tower, a Republican,
won the special election in 1961 to finish out
the term. And that broke the monopoly. That broke
the Democratic monopoly. Tower held onto that
seat for over two decades. And his election signaled
the beginning of a massive realignment in Southern
politics. That realignment eventually became
total. When we look at the current state of affairs
on this list today, the Texas Senate delegation
is entirely Republican. Entirely. You have John
Cornyn holding the class two seat, serving since
2002. And you have Ted Cruz holding the class
one seat, serving since 2013. The party flip
in statewide Senate elections over the last few
decades is complete. It's a night and day difference
from the Morris Shepard era. But the transition
of power isn't just about winning the election.
election is it it's also about how you leverage
your exit there is a brilliant strategic move
detailed here in the exit of Phil Graham a Republican
who served from 1985 to 2002. oh this is one
of my favorite details the mechanics of Phil
Graham's exit are an absolute master class in
institutional leverage break it down for us so
in 2002 Graham didn't just retire at the end
of his term in January like most senators do.
He officially resigned a few weeks early. Just
a few weeks. Just a few weeks. Specifically to
give his successor, John Cornyn, preferential
seniority. Why does a few weeks matter so much?
Because in the United States Senate, power isn't
just about the party majority. It is heavily
dictated by seniority. Your rank. determines
your committee assignments, your ability to chair
those committees, and even your physical desk
placement on the Senate floor. It is literally
a game of inches played with the calendar. A
few weeks head start sounds trivial, but it has
massive implications, right? Absolutely massive.
When a new class of freshman senators is sworn
in on January 3rd, they're all essentially tied
for seniority. Okay. But by resigning early during
the lame duck session, Graham allowed the governor
of Texas to formally appoint John Cornyn to the
equity immediately. Oh. This meant Cornyn entered
the Senate slightly ahead of the entire incoming
freshman class of 2003 nationwide. That is incredibly
clever. It is. That tiny bump in the hierarchy
translates directly into better committee placements,
which in turn translates into more influence
over federal legislation and more federal dollars
directed back to Texas. Wow. It was a highly
calculated maneuver to ensure the incoming Republican
didn't start at the very bottom of the ladder.
It just goes to show that the exact dates listed
next to these names aren't just arbitrary markers
of time. They are fiercely negotiated political
weapons. Without a doubt. Now, while the statewide
Senate delegation for Texas is currently all
Republican, it is important to balance this with
the other half of Congress. The historical data
we are reviewing also includes a breakdown of
Texas's current delegation to the United States
House of Representatives. Right. Which provides
crucial context. It does, because that list paints
a much more complex picture of the state's modern
political geography. It really highlights the
difference between a statewide winner -take -all
election and district -level representation.
The Senate gives you the macro consensus of the
state. Because senators are elected by the entire
voting population of Texas. Exactly. And the
sheer numerical advantage of Republican voters
statewide has kept those two seats red for decades.
But the House of Representatives reflects the
micro regional variations across a massive geographic
area. And Texas is massive. Huge. Texas has 38
congressional districts. And while Republicans
certainly hold a majority of those seats with
representatives like Nathaniel Moran, Dan Crenshaw
and Michael McCaul. There is a very... prominent
and entrenched Democratic presence as well. Right.
Looking at the list, you see districts represented
by Democrats like Lizzie Fletcher, Al Green,
Veronica Escobar, Joaquin Castro and Lloyd Doggett.
Yes. And these districts often correspond to
the massive, rapidly growing urban centers like
Houston, Austin, Dallas and El Paso, as well
as regions along the southern border. Exactly.
The House delegation reflects the demographic
or geographic polarization of modern American
politics. You have massive expanses of rural
and suburban areas that vote overwhelmingly conservative,
contrasted with densely populated urban centers
that vote reliably progressive. It's two different
worlds in one state. It is. District lines and
the complex, often controversial process of gerrymandering
dictate exactly how those populations are grouped.
So while the Senate data might suggest a monolithic
political culture, the House delegation proves
that modern Texas is incredibly diverse politically
and demographically at the local level. It is
a necessary counterbalance to keep in mind so
we don't oversimplify the electorate. Definitely.
So what does this all mean? We started with a
simple list of names and dates. We traced the
delayed start of a new state in 1845. We looked
at the profound void of the Civil War expulsions.
We saw politicians trade federal seats for railroad
monopolies. Yes. We watched vice presidents use
the chamber as a stepping stone. And we analyzed
the strategic calendar math of modern Senate
seniority. Why should you, our listener, care
about the intricacies of this congressional history?
You should care because analyzing a state's congressional
record is one of the most effective ways to realize
that political landscapes are never static. That's
a great point. It is a natural human instinct
to assume that the reality we live in today is
the permanent state of affairs. But the data
unequivocally proves otherwise. We're looking
at a state that was so thoroughly dominated by
the Democratic Party that a single senator could
serve for almost 30 continuous years without
a serious challenge. More Shepard. Yes. And yet,
over the span of just a few decades, the political
culture shifted so dramatically that the opposing
party now holds that same absolute advantage
state -wide. Change is the only constant. These
seemingly dry tables of terms and vacancies are
actually a testament to the evolving, restless
will of the voters over generations. That is
the core takeaway. Democracy is not a fixed object.
It is an ongoing, turbulent process that we are
all currently participating in. The current names
on that list are just the latest chapter in a
very long, very unpredictable book. And as we
reflect on all of this history, this raises an
important question. What's that? We spent time
discussing the 1861 expulsions, which left Texas
completely unrepresented in the Senate for nine
whole years. We talked about the Reconstruction
Acts and the legislative void. But it makes you
wonder. How did everyday citizens navigate nearly
a decade without a voice in the Senate during
the most tumultuous, violent, and transformative
period in American history? That is intense to
think about. When the federal government was
fundamentally rewriting the social contract and
the Constitution itself, the millions of people
living in that region had no one in the room
to advocate for them, to negotiate, or to push
back. Beyond the politics of secession, What
does it truly mean to be a citizen of a state
that has entirely lost its say in the federal
machinery? That is a staggering thought to leave
on. Imagine watching the news today knowing that
monumental legislation was being drafted that
would alter the trajectory of your life, your
economy, and your rights, and knowing your state
had zero representation in the chamber where
the votes were being cast. It changes your perspective
completely. It really strips away the political
theater and reminds us of the raw, fundamental
privilege of having a seat at the table. Well,
that is all the time we have for today. We want
to thank you for joining us on this deep dive
into the hidden narratives of the Texas Senate
delegation. Thanks for listening. We hope we've
demonstrated that even the most clinical administrative
records hold some of the most compelling stories
of American history, provided you take the time
to read between the lines, keep exploring the
context behind the data, and most importantly,
keep questioning the history behind the facts.
We will see you next time.