Texas has had at-large congressional seats at various times in its history. It was often the case when the state received new congressional seats as a result of

reapportionment Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionme ...

, that it would have a representative elected from an at-large seat, voted on by all voters in the state. This enabled the legislature, which was dominated by legislators from rural districts, to postpone re-districting that would reduce their power by apportioning districts to recognize the increased population and economic power of the developing major cities.

History of at-large seats

From its admission to the Union in 1845, Texas has had single-member congressional districts; the first congressional delegation consisted of two House members from single-member districts. This remained the case until after the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

and

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. In 1869 Texas was awarded four seats and two more as a result of the

1870 census The United States census of 1870 was the ninth United States census. It was conducted by the Census Bureau from June 1, 1870, to August 23, 1871. The 1870 census was the first census to provide detailed information on the African-American popu ...

. In 1870, the two new seats were designated as

at-Large At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather than ...

and were elected statewide. Each citizen voted for three Members of Congress (one from their district and two statewide). By the elections of 1874, the legislature still delayed redistricting the state into six single-member districts, although the districts were of unequal populations. The Texas Constitution of 1876 required that the Legislature pass a redistricting plan during the first session after the publication of the decennial national census of the population. But, the Texas legislature, like others across the country, sometimes did not follow through on this obligation. The rural-dominated legislature had little taste for giving up power. After the 1880 decennial census, Texas had the largest percentage gain in its congressional apportionment, from 6 members to 11. The legislature defined 11 single-member districts for the 1882 elections. When Texas received additional congressional seats as a result of the

1890 Census The United States census of 1890 was taken beginning June 2, 1890, but most of the 1890 census materials were destroyed in 1921 when a building caught fire and in the subsequent disposal of the remaining damaged records. It determined the reside ...

and 1900 Census, it quickly accomplished redistricting to have equal populations in single- member districts. After the 1910 Census, Texas received two additional seats. Rather than redistrict, it added these as at-large seats. They remained at-large seats until shortly before the 1918 elections. The legislature decided to redraw the state's 18 districts almost at the end of the decade in an effort to punish Rep. A. Jeff McLemore of

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

for his opposition to President

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

(a fellow- Democrat) based on Wilson's decision to seek U.S entry into

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. McLemore and fellow Houstonians

Daniel E. Garrett Daniel Edward Garrett (April 28, 1869 – December 13, 1932) was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Texas, elected at large and later from the 8th District of Texas. Early life and career in politics Garrett was born near Springfield, Te ...

(also an at-large congressman) and Joe H. Eagle were all drawn into the 8th congressional district. As Texas received no additional seats until 1931, it had no need to redistrict. In 1931, three more seats were allotted to Texas; the legislature waited until 1933 to redraw the districting plan. "This resulted in the under-representation of the people in those districts where population grew faster than the rest of the state. The failure to redistrict favored the rural areas at the expense of Texas's growing urban centers. The latter's faster population growth meant they deserved additional seats in the state Legislature and the U.S. Congress." ''Texas Politics'', Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services, University of Texas at Austin, 2006

Voters amend the Constitution

The great imbalance in representation between declining rural populations and growing urban interests that had developed over the decades finally resulted in the voters adopting a state constitutional amendment in 1948 that gave the Legislature a deadline to enact a redistricting plan as specified under the original Constitution. The amendment provided that, if in the first legislative session after the publication of the decennial census of the population a redistricting plan was not adopted, the responsibility passed to a newly formed board, the Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB). The LRB is composed of the

Lieutenant Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...

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, Comptroller of Public Accounts, and Commissioner of the General Land Office. "The prospect of the LRB determining district boundaries represented a significant incentive to the Legislature to seriously engage its redistricting obligation, as a LRB-authored plan would diminish significantly lawmakers' control over their own reelection fates." The next time that Texas received additional seats in Congress was as a result of the 1950 Census, in which Texas gained one additional seat. That seat remained at-large throughout the decade; the legislature finally adopted the next redistricting plan in time for the 1958 general election. In 1960, Texas received one more member; again, the state legislature did not redraw the seats. .

Equal population—the courts act

The Apportionment Clause of Section 2, Article I, of the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

, together with the amendment to that section made by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to be apportioned among the states according to the "whole number of persons in each State" and to be elected "by the People of the several States." These provisions have been construed by the United States Supreme Court to require not only that congressional seats be divided among the states according to population, but also that congressional districts within a state be drawn according to population. In the 1964 case of '' Reynolds v. Sims'', the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

determined that the general basis of apportionment should be " one person, one vote." This rule means that electoral districts, within reasonable bounds, must be equal in population according to the most recent census so that each person's vote is equally weighted. This holding was applied explicitly to congressional districts by the Supreme Court in the 1964 case of '' Wesberry v. Sanders''. In ''Bush v. Martin'', plaintiffs from two congressional districts asserted that, in the round, those in Texas were unconstitutional. The Federal District Court in Houston held Texas' Congressional Districting act to be such and stated that the Texas Legislature must redraw them in compliance with ''Wesberry v. Sanders''. '' Bush v. Martin'', 224 F. Supp. 499 (S.D. Tex. 1963), ''affirmed'', 376 U.S. 222 (1964). The three-judge Federal District Court found that the population disparity among Texas congressional districts—ranging from 216,371 to 951,527—was "indeed spectacular." It noted that marked under-representation was "not surprisingly" found in metropolitan districts. Although Texas boasted a total of 254 counties, more than half of the population of the state was living in only eighteen counties; fifteen areas in the state qualified for the classification of "metropolitan" according to US Census standards. During the 1965 legislative session, the state legislature passed a plan on May 31, 1965, realigning the state's 23 congressional districts into single-member districts.''Washington Post,'' May 31, 1965, p.A3 Governor

John Connally John Bowden Connally Jr. (February 27, 1917June 15, 1993) was an American politician. He served as the 39th governor of Texas and as the 61st United States secretary of the Treasury. He began his career as a Democrat and later became a Republic ...

signed the bill allowing the new districts to take effect for the 1966 elections. Through most of the 20th century, until after passage of the

Voting Rights Act of 1965 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights m ...

, another kind of under-representation was enforced in Texas. The Texas legislature passed a

poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...

in 1901, which had to be paid by people wanting to register to vote. It was a barrier to voter registration for many minorities and poor whites, as they often had little cash to spend. After this, voter rolls declined dramatically. Another way Texas Democrats kept power was to establish

white primaries White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in Sout ...

. In what essentially became a one-party Democratic state after minorities were disenfranchised, Texas said that only whites could vote in primaries - effectively the only competitive races.

List of members representing the district

1873 – 1875

From 1873 to 1875, Texas elected two members at-large, as well as electing others from districts.

1913 – 1919

Texas re-established an at-large seat in 1913; it elected two members at-large following the 1910 United States Census, as well as electing others from districts until 1919.

1933 – 1935

Texas re-established an at-large seat in 1933, electing three members at-large following the

1930 United States Census The United States census of 1930, conducted by the Census Bureau one month from April 1, 1930, determined the resident population of the United States to be 122,775,046, an increase of 13.7 percent over the 106,021,537 persons enumerated durin ...

, as well as electing others from districts until 1935.

1953 – 1959

Texas re-established an at-large seat in 1953, electing one member at-large following the

1950 United States Census The United States census of 1950, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States to be 150,697,361, an increase of 14.5 percent over the 131,669,275 persons enumerated during the 1940 census. This wa ...

, as well as electing others from districts until 1959.

1963 – 1967

Texas re-established an at-large seat in 1963, electing one member at-large following the 1960 United States Census, as well as electing others from districts until January 1967, by which time the effects of the Supreme Court judgment banning at-large districts in multi-district states had been applied to the election prior.