World War II and ensuing industrialization impacted Texas in many ways. The growing strength of minorities and feminism challenged Anglo-male elites’ control of the cities, state government and the Democratic party structure. The emergence of the modern Republican party, embracing conservative fiscal and political positions, expressed basic discontent over national Democratic party policies. Discord between liberal and conservative political views intensified. By the 1960s, Texas became a two-party state.

The Politics of Beauford Jester

The 1940s were characterized by political tumult. Tensions increased over charges of communist-infiltrated labor unions and the demands of blacks and Mexican Americans. The Smith v. Allright decision and the court-ordered integration of the University of Texas law school also heightened tensions, impacting the gubernatorial race in 1946. With Coke Stevenson’s retirement, Beauford Jester emerged victorious with his platform of no new taxes, no federal interference with state laws, and firm opposition to labor unions. However, the “Establishment’s” candidate was not able to accomplish much due to the legislature’s obstinacy in coping with the Heman Sweatt decision, ignoring problems that festered during the depression and war years.

The senatorial election of 1948 in Texas was extremely close and controversial. The State Democratic Election Committee upheld the count in Box 13 by a vote of 29 to 28, casting suspicion of fraud on Lyndon Johnson. Coke Stevenson took the dispute to the U.S. District Court in order to keep Johnson’s name off the general election ballot. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black set aside the restraining order, and the full Court later upheld Black’s decision. From 1955 until 1961, Johnson and his fellow Texan, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, were a daunting legislative team. Johnson assumed the position of majority leader in 1955 and remained in the position until John F. Kennedy handpicked him as his running mate in 1960.

Meanwhile, Governor Jester and Lieutenant Governor Shivers demanded an anti-lynching bill, appropriation of more monies for higher education (including the Texas State University for Negroes), and improvement of state hospitals. A board to oversee crowded conditions in the state’s prisons was created. Jester also pushed the legislature to approve constitutional amendments to repeal the poll tax and establish annual sessions and salaries for the legislature. Even though these measures were rejected by the voters in November 1950, Governor Jester was the first to address the problems of an urban Texas.

Allan Shivers and the Political Battles of the 1950s

Jester, who died in office, was succeeded by his two-term lieutenant governor, Allan Shivers. Despite the fact that he attempted to modernize state government, Shivers held strong racist views and weakened the office of governor through his administrative changes, enlarging the powers of the offices of lieutenant governor and speaker of the house.

Meanwhile, President Truman proved very unpopular in Texas. Tideland petroleum discoveries made after World War II became the focus of the controversy. When Truman vetoed Texas’ claim, the state took its case to the U. S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, Shivers announced his support of Eisenhower who promised to sign a quitclaim bill, while the Johnson/Rayburn forces endorsed Democrat Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower carried the state, and Shivers defeated challenger Ralph Yarborough, a liberal Austin lawyer.

Ultimately, Texas was granted absolute control of the tidelands, but the president’s victory was more a personal victory than a political coup. Conservative Democrats were not enticed into the GOP. Eisenhower’s actions — his reluctance to endorse McCarthyism, his sending of troops into Little Rock in 1957, and his support of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 — were considered too liberal. The Republicans lost control of Congress in 1954. Although Eisenhower carried the state with an even greater margin in 1956, the state Republican Party did not thrive in the state until later.

The 1950s also proved tumultuous. The U.S. Supreme Court announced the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision in the midst of the Democratic primary, compelling Shivers to charge Ralph Yarborough with endorsing a completely integrated society.  Earlier, in the seventeen months preceding the 1954 campaign, Shivers claimed that his challenger owed his support to Communist labor racketeers. No Communist activities in Texas labor unions were actually documented. Shivers’ third unprecedented term was plagued by lax regulation of the insurance industry and unethical conduct in the State Land Commission. One farsighted accomplishment was the creation of a Texas Water Research Committee to research water resources.

Governor Daniel – Into the 1960s

Distrust between the liberal and moderate wings of the Democratic party continued into the 1960s. Known liberals joined with the AFL-CIO to create the Democrats of Texas (DOT), with the purpose of abolishing the poll tax, broadening liberal influence in the state party, and endorsing national Democratic Party goals. DOT endorsed Ralph Yarborough in the special election called to fill Daniel’s unexpired Senate term. Yarborough won a full senatorial term in 1958, but DOT and Yarborough lost control of the party machinery in 1956 when Johnson, Rayburn, and Daniel forces took hold of the State Democratic Executive Committee and refused to seat liberal delegations to the convention.

Meanwhile, Governor Daniel’s most vexing problem was taxation. Opposing the general sales tax, he preferred to impose taxes on tobacco and alcohol, with a large share of taxes imposed on businesses. By 1970, 62 percent of the state’s revenue came from the sales tax. The state now had a predictable annual revenue income. The first laws in over a quarter of a century to look into legislative misconduct were also passed.  Most importantly, Texas began to depart from its southern racial customs.

The Decade of Johnson and Connally

The 1960s was dominated by Lyndon Johnson on the national level and John Connally on the state level. Although Johnson failed to secure the Democratic nomination for president, John F. Kennedy offered him the vice-presidential nomination. To the surprise of many, Johnson accepted. Meanwhile, Republicans nominated seasoned politician and two-term vice president Richard M. Nixon for president. In Texas, Allan Shivers organized Democrats for Nixon while radical conservatives decried Kennedy’s Catholicism and the civil rights planks of the Democratic platform. In extremely close races, Johnson won the senatorial race and the vice-presidency as a result of cross-filing. Allegations of election tainting of votes from South Texas remained unproven. However, there was never any doubt that Johnson had insured Kennedy’s victory in the South.

Even so, the Republican Party looked upon the results with optimism. Never had a Republican candidate received more votes in Texas. John Tower became a strong contender in the 1961 special election to replace Johnson in the Senate against some very well-known liberal Democrats and a Democrat conservative.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s political protégé John Connally won the governorship in early 1963. John F. Kennedy traveled to Texas in November of that same year to try to patch up a long-brewing quarrel between Lyndon Johnson and Ralph Yarborough. An assassin’s bullet changed the direction of Texas politics. Johnson became president, but his administration was soon mired in an unpopular war that destroyed his vision of a Great Society. In Texas, Connally succeeded in fostering economic growth, increasing university building programs and faculty salaries, increasing tourism, and attracting out-of-state industry. A major criticism voiced by liberals was that Connally’s method of taxation was regressive and that economic expansion excluded minorities and the poor. They were also annoyed at his control of the state party machinery.

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Johnson’s surprise announcement that he would not seek a second term offered opportunities for conservative Democrats who won hard-fought primaries by appealing to middle-and high-income voters to edge out candidates who had won the support of African Americans, lower-income whites, and Mexican Americans. The 1970 election witnessed the high point of conservative Democratic success in Texas.

Challenges to the White Male Elite

Federal intervention hastened the political modernization of the state. Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964) mandated that legislative reapportionment target the principle of “one man, one vote,” thus strengthening both minority voices and the Republican Party in Texas. Another challenge to the white male elite came with the ratification of the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution that abolished the poll tax in federal elections. The Twenty-sixth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 also eliminated strategies that had diluted the potential voting strength of racial and ethnic minorities.

World War II had great impact on Mexican Americans and African Americans who fought for democracy abroad only to have it denied to them at home. Black organizations like the Progressive Voters League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) instituted lawsuits against suffrage restrictions and gerrymandering. Barbara Jordan became the first African American woman to serve in the state senate, the first woman to give a keynote address at a national party convention, and the first black congresswoman from Texas and the South. Her eloquence and her integrity continue to inspire Americans of all races.

De jure segregation also came to an end—not through lengthy court cases but through sit-ins, boycotts, protests and demonstrations. Texas experienced few violent confrontations but the white backlash insured that Texas would not entirely desegregate. Rampant unemployment and unequal access to educational and professional opportunities persisted into the next decades.

Organizations like LULAC and the G.I. Forum mobilized the Mexican American community during Henry B. Gonzalez’s campaign for governor in 1958. These became “Viva Kennedy” clubs in 1960. When Kennedy failed to appoint Hispanics to federal posts, the Political Association of Spanish-speaking Organizations (PASO) was formed. PASO and the Teamsters played a role in electing an entire slate of Mexican American candidates to the city council of Crystal City. When a new coalition was elected two years later, the old order ceased to exist.

A broader and more intense political movement was taking shape. The fragmented Chicano movement could not resolve their ideological differences. The more radical element remained in the Raza Unida party; the moderate factions preferred more legalistic methods and worked within the system.  The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), an outgrowth of the movement, instituted legal challenges.

Women also became more politically involved throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Still confronting many of the same problems that had plagued them throughout the 1950s—gender-defined jobs, unequal wages, lack of social and economic opportunities—women benefited from new birth control techniques and feminist awareness that encouraged delaying marriage to pursue career and educational goals. The federal government’s intervention was beneficial especially in addressing the discrimination of women in the workplace.

In 1972, Sarah Weddington, a lawyer from Texas, won the landmark Roe v. Wade case in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws forbidding abortions during the first trimester. Even though Frances (Sissy) Farenthold unsuccessfully sought the gubernatorial seat ten years earlier, 698 women won public offices in 1982, including Ann Richards as state treasurer and then governor in 1990.

Sharpstown and the End of an Era

Although women and minorities made major inroads, Preston Smith’s ambivalence made him a weak governor. Governor Smith’s small successes included a minimum wage law, increased spending for vocational education and the development of medical schools in Houston and Lubbock; but after his reelection in 1970, key administration figures were implicated in financial malfeasance.

A major scandal erupted involving Frank Sharp, Houston banker and insurance company executive. Sharp’s scheme involved granting loans to state officials with the understanding that they would purchase stock to be resold later at a huge profit. In 1971 the Securities and Exchange Commission filed criminal and civil charges against key participants in the scheme, including Speaker Gus Mutscher and two top aides, who were convicted and sentenced to five years' probation. Sharp was convicted of violating federal banking and securities laws.

Candidates even remotely connected to the scandal were defeated in 1972 state contests by more moderate Democrats, Republicans or other reform candidates. Seventy-two new members to the house and fifteen to the senate were elected. Mutscher, running for reelection, lost as did Governor Smith. Lawmakers in 1973 passed a series of reforms that required state officials and politicians to disclose their personal and campaign finances and required lobbyists to register with the state government. Dolph Briscoe, a millionaire rancher, won the gubernatorial seat and Frances “Sissy” Farenthold who had denounced the speaker’s exonerating report came in second. Ramsey Muniz, La Raza Unida’s nominee for governor, garnered 214,118 votes.

Democratic politics of the 1970s and 1980s stressed party harmony, moderation, and inclusion above all else. The tension of the 1960s lessened considerably and the party held the governorship until 1979 when William P. Clements’ victory illustrated the state Republican Party’s increasing strength.