The 1972 Texas Senate elections took place as part of the biennial United States elections. Texas voters elected state senators in all 31 state senate districts. The winners of this election served in the 63rd Texas Legislature, serving staggered terms, with half of them up for election in 1974 and the other half up in 1976.
Background Democrats had controlled the Texas Senate since the 1872 elections. In 1971, a number of high-profile Democratic politicians came under scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged illegal stock trading. The ensuing scandal, which became known as the Sharpstown stock-fraud scandal, enveloped figures such as Governor Preston Smith, Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, and House Speaker Gus Mutscher. Mutscher, among others, would later be convicted for his part in the scandal.Kingston 1973, p. 585
Redistricting The legislature failed to pass new districts for the Senate during its regular session, and they did not pass them during the subsequent special session, either. This forced the Legislative Redistricting Board, made up of four statewide elected officials and the Speaker of the House, to convene for the first time to draw them, instead.Bickerstaff, Heath 2020, pp. 87–89 The board had been established by a 1948 constitutional amendment passed in response to the legislature's failure to redraw state legislative boundaries after the 1930 or 1940 censuses. The board was made up entirely of Democrats, and they passed a map that was gerrymandered to favor them.Bickerstaff, Heath 2020, pp. 89–90 The map drew two lawsuits, one by Republicans who challenged the districts in Bexar County, and another by Dallas Democrat Curtis Graves, who argued that the districts in Harris County illegally diluted the votes of minority voters.
The board's map indeed dispersed the county's African American neighborhoods between several districts to shore up their Democratic voting bases. This dismantled the seat held by Barbara Jordan, the first African American elected to the chamber since the 19th century, but she instead ran for congress in the newly-created majority Black 18th congressional district. The lawsuits against the plan were consolidated with two other suits against the board's map for the House of Representatives under Graves v. Barnes. The district court denied both claims, upholding the board's map, a decision which would later be upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court in Archer v. Smith.Bickerstaff, Heath 2020, pp. 90–93
Results The Sharpstown scandal rocked both the primary and general elections. Reform-minded candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, ousted dozens of incumbents across both chambers. Of the 31 seats up for election to the Senate, 15 elected new members. Alongside Republican Richard Nixon's landslide victory in the concurrent presidential election, Republicans gained one seat, reducing the Democratic supermajority to 28 out of 31 seats.Kingston 1973, p. 529 With the dismantling of Barbara Jordan's seat in Harris County, the chamber no longer had any African American members.
Results by district +DistrictDemocraticRepublicanOthersTotalResultVotes%Votes%Votes%Votes%District 177,063100.00% - - - -77,063100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 277,857100.00% - - - -77,857100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 381,098100.00% - - - -81,098100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 474,940100.00% - - - -74,940100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 582,568100.00% - - - -82,568100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 623,802100.00% - - - -23,802100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 769,03258.37%49,23641.63% - -118,268100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 8 - -88,708100.00% - -88,708100.00%Republican holdDistrict 955,68957.16%41,73342.84% - -97,422100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1058,01663.59%33,21536.41% - -91,231100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1128,895100.00% - - - -28,895100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1256,08748.04%60,65451.96% - -116,741100.00%Republican gainDistrict 1353,68136.12%94,93463.88% - -148,615100.00%Republican holdDistrict 14107,12891.41% - -10,0718.59%117,199100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1559,05755.54%47,28244.46% - -106,339100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1656,12651.99%51,83348.01% - -107,959100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1758,65954.54%48,89745.46% - -107,556100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1857,91771.34%23,26428.66% - -81,181100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 1954,993100.00% - - - -54,993100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2077,390100.00% - - - -77,390100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2173,318100.00% - - - -73,318100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2286,297100.00% - - - -86,297100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2362,338100.00% - - - -62,338100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2483,735100.00% - - - -83,735100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2583,949100.00% - - - -83,949100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2660,50469.14%27,01030.86% - -87,514100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2749,65461.54%22,27527.61%8,75710.85%80,686100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2882,109100.00% - - - -82,109100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 2953,98470.28%22,82829.72% - -76,812100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 3084,753100.00% - - - -84,753100.00%Democratic holdDistrict 3181,943100.00% - - - -81,943100.00%Democratic holdTotal 2,012,582 76.14% 611,869 23.15% 18,828 0.71% 2,643,279 100.00% Source: Kingston 1973, p. 540 Election Returns: November 7, 1972, Texas Secretary of State election registers. Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
References
Further reading Kingston, Mike (1973). Texas Almanac, 1974-1975. Dallas, Texas: The Dallas Morning News. Bickerstaff, Steve. Heath, C. Robert (ed.). Gerrymandering Texas (2020).