Texas's 17th congressional district of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

includes a strip of Central Texas and

Deep East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region con ...

stretching from

Nacogdoches Nacogdoches ( ) is a small city in East Texas and the county seat of Nacogdoches County, Texas, United States. The 2020 U.S. census recorded the city's population at 32,147. Nacogdoches is a sister city of the smaller, similarly named Natchitoch ...

Waco Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...

and Round Rock, including former

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

McLennan County McLennan County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in Central Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 260,579 . Its county seat and largest city is Waco. The U.S. census 2021 county population estimate is 263,115. The county i ...

ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most ofte ...

. The district is currently represented by

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

Pete Sessions. From 2005 to 2013, it was an oblong district stretching from south of

Tarrant County Tarrant County is located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of 2020, it had a population of 2,110,640. It is Texas' third-most populous county and the 15th-most populous in the United States. Its county seat is Fort Worth. Tarrant County, one of 2 ...

to Grimes County in the southeast. The 2012 redistricting made its area more square, removing the northern and southeastern portions, adding areas southwest into the northern Austin suburbs and east into Freestone and

Leon Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again f ...

counties. The district included two major universities,

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

in College Station and

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the ...

in Waco. Before 2005, the district stretched from the Abilene area to the outer western fringes of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

Representation

After the

2003 Texas redistricting The 2003 Texas redistricting refers to a controversial mid-decade state plan that defined new congressional districts. In the 2004 elections, this redistricting supported the Republicans taking a majority of Texas's House seats for the first ...

, engineered by former House Majority Leader

Tom DeLay Thomas Dale DeLay (; born April 8, 1947) is an American author and retired politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1985 until 2006. He was Republic ...

, TX-17 was (along with MS-4) the most heavily

district in the nation to be represented by a Democrat, according to the

Cook Partisan Voting Index The Cook Partisan Voting Index, abbreviated Cook PVI, CPVI, or PVI, is a measurement of how strongly a United States congressional district or U.S. state leans toward the Democratic or Republican Party, compared to the nation as a whole, based ...

, which rated it R+20. The district was drawn to make it Republican-dominated and unseat its longtime incumbent, conservative Democrat Chet Edwards. While several of his colleagues were defeated by Republicans in 2004, Edwards held on to the seat in the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections. But in the

2010 Congressional elections The 2010 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 2, 2010, in the middle of Democratic President Barack Obama's first term. Republicans ended unified Democratic control of Congress and the presidency by winning a majority in the H ...

, the district elected Republican

Bill Flores William Hose Flores Sr. (; born February 25, 1954) is an American businessman and politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2011 to 2021. The district, located in the middle of the state, includes Waco, College Station, and Bryan. ...

over Edwards by a margin of 61.8% to 36.6%.2010 Texas Election Results
''New York Times''. November 13, 2010. Flores was the first Republican to be elected to represent the district since its creation in 1919. Flores retired after five terms and former Texas 32nd district Congressman Pete Sessions, a Waco native, was elected in 2020. After passage of civil rights legislation and other changes, through the late 20th and early 21st centuries, white conservatives began to shift into the Republican Party in Texas. They first supported presidential candidates, and gradually more Republicans for local, state and national office, resulting in the 2010 switch in party representation.

List of members representing the district

Election results from presidential races

Election results

Historical district boundaries

References

Sources

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Congressional Biographical Directory of the United States 1774–present
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