The Legislature of the state of Texas is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Texas. The legislature is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The Legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. The Legislature is arguably considered the most powerful arm of the Texas government not only because of its power of the purse to control and direct the activities of state government and the strong constitutional connections between it and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, but also due to Texas's plural executive.

The Legislature is the constitutional successor of the Congress of the Republic of Texas since Texas's 1845 entrance into the Union. The Legislature held its first regular session from February 16 to May 13, 1846.

The Legislature meets in regular session on the second Tuesday in January of each odd-numbered year. The Texas Constitution limits the regular session to 140 calendar days. The lieutenant governor, elected statewide separately from the governor, presides over the Senate, while the Speaker of the House is elected from that body by its members. Both have wide latitude in choosing committee membership in their respective houses and have a large impact on lawmaking in the state.

Texas (ⁱ/ˈtɛksəs/) (Alibamu: Teksi ) is the second most populous and the second most extensive of the 50 United States, and the most extensive state of the 48 contiguous United States. The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas. Located in the South Central United States, Texas shares an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south, and borders the US states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km²), and a growing population of 25.7 million residents.

During the Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas: La Provincia de Texas. Antonio Margil de Jesús was known to be the first person to use the name in a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico in July 20, 1716. The name was not popularly used in daily speech but often appeared in legal documents until the end of the 1800s.

Wendy Davis (b. June 30, 1966) is an American actress. She is currently appearing in the hit Lifetime Television series, Army Wives, as Colonel Joan Burton.

Wendy grew up in Joppatowne, Maryland a small town outside of Baltimore. She attended Joppatowne High School and graduated with a degree in Theater from Howard University. Davis is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Wendy Davis has one child, a daughter. The father is Jacobi Wynne, whom Ms. Davis recently divorced. She and her daughter now live in Charleston, South Carolina, where her hit series Army Wives is filmed.

Davis was regular on the 1991 series The New WKRP in Cincinnati as receptionist Ronnie Lee, and appeared in the 1996-97 police drama High Incident as Lynette White. She appeared in an episode of Grey's Anatomy, in Season One, Episode 9, as Holly Adams, the pregnant wife of Dr. Preston Burke's best college friend. She has also appeared in Cold Case, Coach, Martin, Smart Guy (as Blake's mother), Angel, and other shows.

Joseph R. Straus, III, known as Joe Straus (born September 1, 1959), is the current Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He represents District 121, which comprises northeastern Bexar County, including part of San Antonio, Texas, and several surrounding communities. Straus joined the House after defeating fellow Republican Glenn Scott Starnes, later the city manager in Eagle Pass, Texas, in a special election held in February 2005. Straus was first elected Speaker on January 13, 2009. He was elected to a second two-year term on January 11, 2011.

A lifelong San Antonian, Straus currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Cancer Therapy and Research Center as well as on the Texas Cord Blood Bank. Previously, he served on the board of directors of the San Antonio Zoological Society, the Texas Nature Conservancy, the Southwest School of Art and Craft, and the Winston School.

Representative Straus has previously served on the Management Committee of the Bexar County Republican Party, as a precinct chairman, and on numerous campaign committees for federal, state, and local candidates. He served in the administration of U.S. President George H. W. Bush from 1989 through 1991 as Deputy Director of Business Liaison at the U.S. Department of Commerce and also under Ronald W. Reagan as Executive Assistant to the Commissioner of Customs. In 1986, he was U.S. Representative Lamar Smith's campaign manager in Smith's first race for Congress.