Who Represents You

Find Your Legislators

To find your state senator and state representative, use Who Represents Me?, run by the Texas Legislative Council. Texas Legislature Online says you can search by address or ZIP code. The Texas Senate's own guidance tells you to enter a street address.

The same tool shows your districts and members for the Texas Senate, the Texas House, the Texas delegation to the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, and the State Board of Education.

City, county, and school district officials are not in this tool. The guide Local Government in Texas explains who holds those offices and how they are chosen.

Districts and Terms

The Texas Senate has 31 members and the Texas House has 150 (Texas Constitution, Article 3, Section 2).

Senators serve four-year terms. Half of the Senate is chosen every two years. After each redistricting, the whole Senate is elected at once and senators draw lots to decide who serves a two-year term the first time, so the staggered schedule can start again (Section 3).
Representatives serve two-year terms, so every House seat is on the ballot every two years (Section 4).

Each Senate district elects one senator (Section 25). New members take office on the day set by law for the Legislature's regular session to convene (Sections 3 and 4).

District lines are redrawn after each federal census. The Legislature does this at its first regular session after the census is published. If it does not, the Legislative Redistricting Board draws the districts. That board has five members: the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the House, the attorney general, the comptroller, and the commissioner of the General Land Office (Section 28).

Contacting Your Legislators

Each member has a page on the House or Senate website. Find yours on the House members list or the Senate members list.

Member pages list a Capitol address and phone number, plus one or more district office addresses and phone numbers. The Capitol office is in Austin. District offices are in the district. House members share the mailing address P.O. Box 12910, Austin, Texas 78711-2910, with each member's room number on the page.

Email is up to each legislator. If a member accepts email, the form is on that member's own page. The Senate asks the public not to send legislative concerns to its website administrator, because those messages are not answered or forwarded.

Following a Bill on Texas Legislature Online

Texas Legislature Online (TLO) at capitol.texas.gov is the Legislature's official record of bills. To look one up, open Bill Lookup, pick the session, and enter the bill number, such as HB 1 or SB 1.

Sessions are labeled by number. "89(R)" is the regular session of the 89th Legislature. "89(1)" and "89(2)" are its first and second called sessions.

A bill's History page shows:

Last Action, the most recent step and its date;
the caption, a one-line description of the bill;
the author and any coauthors;
the committee the bill was sent to and its status there, such as "In committee";
a list of every action, newest first, each marked H for House or S for Senate, with the date and the journal page.

The Bill Stages tab shows the same path as a row of steps. For a House bill, they are: Filed, Out of House Committee, Voted on by House, Out of Senate Committee, Voted on by Senate, Governor Action, and Bill Becomes Law. Each stage is marked complete, pending, or failed.

The Text tab has each version of the bill. In bill text, underlined words are new language and struck-through words are being removed from current law.

To see how a member voted, check the House or Senate journal. Individual votes appear only when a record vote was taken or a member asked to have a vote recorded.

With a MyTLO account, you can keep a bill list and get an email when a bill on it has a new action. You can also get emails when committee meeting notices and calendars are posted.

Once a bill becomes law, it is added to the Texas statutes at statutes.capitol.texas.gov. For each step a bill takes, see How Texas Makes Laws.

Testifying at a Committee Hearing

TLO posts notice of committee hearings so the public can take part. The chair of each committee decides when it meets and which bills it takes up. In the House, testimony is heard at a public hearing. A House committee can also hold a formal meeting, where it votes without testimony. The Senate requires a public hearing with public testimony before a committee can report a bill (The Legislative Process in Texas).

Hearings are announced ahead of time on TLO under House committee meetings and Senate committee meetings.

A House committee must post notice of a public hearing at least five calendar days ahead during a regular session, and at least 24 hours ahead during a special session.
A Senate committee must post notice at least 24 hours ahead.

Registering in the House

The House requires electronic registration to testify at a committee hearing. You register at the Capitol, either at a touch-screen kiosk in the Capitol Extension (levels 1 and 2) or on your phone through the Capitol's public Wi-Fi network, called Public-Capitol, at hwrs.house.texas.gov.

You can create a profile ahead of time to save a step, but you still have to register for the specific bill once you arrive. Bring:

the bill number;
the name of the committee hearing it;
the hearing time;
the room.

Registration opens when the committee clerk decides. The clerk of that committee can help with any problem. Details are on the House Witness Registration page.

Senate Hearings

Senate committee pages on TLO post each meeting's schedule, minutes, witness list, and the bills referred to the committee. Check the meeting notice before you travel, and contact the committee if you plan to testify.

Sources

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