Republicans hold 88 of the 150 seats in the Texas House of Representatives, and Democrats hold 62. That’s the current party breakdown in the Texas House, and it reflects a two-seat Republican gain in the November 2024 elections, when the GOP flipped two historically Democratic border districts.1Texas Tribune. Texas 2024 General Election Results
How the Current Split Was Built
All 150 House seats were on the 2024 ballot, but only a fraction were genuinely in play. Of those races, 57 ran uncontested, a measure of how few districts are competitive under the maps now in use. Republicans picked up two border seats that had leaned Democratic, pushing their caucus from 86 to 88 and leaving Democrats at 62.1Texas Tribune. Texas 2024 General Election Results
The 88-seat majority is large enough to carry Republican priorities without Democratic votes, and it was large enough in January 2025 to resolve a bitter internal speaker fight on Republican terms alone.
What’s in Play for 2026
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has identified 15 Texas House districts as 2026 battlegrounds: 12 Republican-held seats it wants to flip and three Democratic seats it is defending.2Texas Tribune. National Democrats Target Texas House GOP Districts for 2026 Midterms Fourteen of those 15 districts went for Donald Trump in 2024, by margins ranging from 1.4 to 14.7 percentage points, which gives a sense of how uphill the Democratic path to the majority remains even in the targeted seats.
A super PAC analysis cited in that reporting suggested a friendlier environment could expand the map by another 13 seats. Even in that optimistic scenario, Democrats would need to run the table in a chamber where their current deficit is 26 seats.
Who Controls the Chamber
Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who has represented House District 83 since 2014, was elected the 77th Speaker of the Texas House in January 2025.3Texas House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Before taking the gavel, Burrows chaired the Calendars Committee under two prior speakers and led the legislative investigation into the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.4Texas House of Representatives. Dustin Burrows Biography
His election followed a public intraparty fight. A faction of conservative Republicans, angry over former Speaker Dade Phelan’s support for the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and the chamber’s failure to pass a school voucher program, backed Rep. David Cook of Mansfield.5KERA News. David Cook Is Challenging Dade Phelan for Texas House Speaker Cook pledged to end the longstanding Texas practice of appointing some Democrats as committee chairs.6Texas Tribune. David Cook Dade Phelan Texas House Speaker Phelan withdrew in December 2024, and the caucus settled on Burrows.7Texas Tribune. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan
What the 88-seat majority bought, in practical terms, is a chamber the Speaker runs without Democratic help. Burrows referred every bill, appointed every member and chair, and interpreted procedural rules whose precedents will shape future sessions.8Texas House of Representatives. House Rules of Procedure For 2025 he reduced the standing committees from 34 to 30, added 12 new subcommittees, and made every committee and subcommittee chair a Republican, breaking with the tradition of giving a handful of chairmanships to Democrats.9Texas Tribune. Texas House Committee Assignments Dustin Burrows Democrats received vice chairmanships of all 30 standing committees and chairs of six subcommittees.
What the Majority Did With Its Numbers
The 89th Legislature’s regular session ended June 2, 2025, and the Republican majority used its margin to move a stack of long-stalled priorities. Senate Bill 2 authorized $1 billion for private school tuition and homeschool expenses through new Texas Education Freedom Accounts, taking effect in the 2026–27 school year.10Texas Tribune. Texas Legislature Ends Session Republican Agenda House Bill 2 put roughly $8.5 billion into public school salaries, operations, campus safety, and early childhood learning.11Raise Your Hand Texas. 89th Legislative Recapp>
Lawmakers also passed roughly $51 billion in property tax cuts, raising the homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000 and exempting up to $125,000 of business inventory, both subject to voter approval in November 2025. Other bills required the Ten Commandments in public classrooms (Senate Bill 10), required school boards to vote on time for student prayer (Senate Bill 11), banned diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in K-12 schools (Senate Bill 12), banned intoxicating THC products (Senate Bill 3), restricted cashless bonds (Senate Bill 9), clarified medical exceptions to the state’s abortion ban, and gave political appointees authority to review university courses and faculty hiring (Senate Bill 37).10Texas Tribune. Texas Legislature Ends Session Republican Agenda A second called session later in the summer added a new statewide student assessment system under House Bill 8, criminal offenses for real property fraud, and restrictions on spaces and facilities based on sex.12Texas Legislative Reference Library. Bills Effective 89th Legislature
The Redistricting Fight and the Democratic Walkout
The sharpest confrontation of 2025 was not about any of those bills. In the summer, Governor Greg Abbott called a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. congressional map, and the proposed plan was engineered to net Republicans as many as five additional U.S. House seats.13Houston Public Media. Congressional Redistricting Map Passes House Committee On August 2, 2025, more than 50 House Democrats left the state, denying the chamber the 100-member quorum it needs to do business.14NPR. Quorum Break Texas Democrats Walkout
Abbott cited the state constitution’s requirement that the legislature “shall meet” during a special session and pointed to a 2021 attorney general opinion authorizing the removal of absent lawmakers for abandoning their seats.15Office of the Governor. Governor Abbott Statement on House Democratic Quorum Break Attorney General Ken Paxton called for the Democrats’ arrest. The first special session expired with no action on the map, and Abbott immediately called a second.
About two dozen Democrats returned to Austin on August 18, 2025, restoring the quorum after roughly two weeks away.16Texas Tribune. Texas Democrats Return Redistricting Map Illinois Speaker Burrows ordered returning members escorted around the clock by the Texas Department of Public Safety and said they would be billed for costs incurred during the walkout.17PBS NewsHour. Texas Legislature Begins Special Session for Redistricting as Democrats End Standoff House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu said the return was strategic, aimed at building a court record. An effort to remove Wu from office over the walkout was rejected by the Supreme Court of Texas in May 2026.
Quorum breaks have a thin track record in Texas. Democrats fled to Oklahoma in 2003 over redistricting and to Washington, D.C., in 2021 over voting restrictions, and in both cases the targeted bills eventually passed.18Texas Tribune. Texas Quorum Breaks History Texas governors can call unlimited 30-day special sessions, which makes sustained absence very hard to maintain.
One boundary worth marking: the redistricting fight was about the U.S. congressional map, not the Texas House’s own district lines. The 2021 state House map (PLANH2316) faces a separate challenge in federal court. A bench trial ran from May 21 to June 11, 2025, but the court stayed further proceedings in August 2025 pending Supreme Court guidance in related Voting Rights Act cases, and no final ruling has been issued.19Loyola Law School. LULAC v. Abbott The 88–62 split for 2026 will stand on the current state House map.
Terms, Eligibility, and Pay
Every House seat is up every two years, and there are no term limits. A candidate must be a U.S. citizen, a qualified voter, at least 21 years old, a Texas resident for two years, and a resident of the district for one year before the election.20Texas House of Representatives. Frequently Asked Questions
The job pays $600 a month under the Texas Constitution, a figure unchanged since 1975, plus a per diem set by the Texas Ethics Commission during session. A raise requires both an Ethics Commission recommendation and voter approval.21Texas Higher Education OER. Texas Legislator Compensation Members who serve at least eight years qualify for a pension calculated on a state district court judge’s salary rather than the $600 legislative salary, which is where the real financial stake in the job lies.