page_title: Judith Zaffirini
section_title: Legislative tenure
hierarchical_section_title: Judith Zaffirini / Legislative tenure
caption_attribution_description: English: I took photo on July 5, 2009.
context_page_description: Judith Pappas Zaffirini is a Democratic member of the Texas State Senate from the 21st District, which includes her home city of Laredo in south Texas. On January 9, 2007, Zaffirini became the second in seniority in the 31-member Texas Senate, of which she has been a member since 1987. Zaffirini has been named among the "Top 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States" by Hispanic Business magazine. Zaffirini is the first Mexican American woman elected to the Texas Senate.
context_section_description: Despite her Democratic heritage, Zaffirini is known for her ability to work across party lines, particularly her friendship with Republican former Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the state Senate, who lost the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in 2012 to Ted Cruz and subsequently failed to win re-nomination in 2014 at the hands of State Senator Dan Patrick. Zaffirini had a similar close tie to the late Democratic Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, for whom the Laredo Loop 20 interchange is named. Undefeated at the polls, Zaffirini declared "voters are always well informed, and I believe they will decide to support me based on my record and seniority."
  Zaffirini has a 100 percent voting record, having through 2013 cast more than fifty thousand consecutive votes since January 1987. She even once missed her son's graduation to maintain the record. She would also have a career perfect attendance record too except for the month of July 2003, when she joined her fellow Democrats who fled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to prevent a quorum to halt Republican plans to re-redistrict the Texas congressional map. After three special legislative sessions, the GOP plan was adopted, but it was later altered by the United States Supreme Court. That change resulted in the defeat in 2006 of Republican U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla of San Antonio.
  In 2007, Zaffirini led a successful movement to restore $154 million in community college funds vetoed by Governor Rick Perry.
  In 2011, Zaffirini voted against the state appropriations bill because it reduced funding for public education by $5.4 billion, including $1.4 billion for targeted programs, such as pre-kindergarten expansion grants, one of her favorite programs. In 2013, Zaffirini will push for the issuance of tuition revenue bonds to fund capital construction projects on state college and university campuses, including TAMIU in Laredo.
  In 2012, Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst removed Zaffirini from the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Higher Education in favor of Kel Seliger, a Republican from Amarillo. Instead Zaffirni chairs the Senate Committee on Government Organization. She will remain a member of the higher education committee under Seliger and will continue as the co-chair of the Oversight Committee on Higher Education Governance Excellence and Transparency. Zaffirini said that she will continue to influence higher education policy "but the only difference is that the gavel won't be in my hand."
  In July 2013, Zaffirini joined her Democratic colleagues in voting against Republican-sponsored legislation which passed the Senate, 19 to 11, to reduce from twenty-six to twenty weeks of gestation the maximum time limit during which a woman can procure an abortion. Zaffirini, who is anti-abortion, describes the new law as not anti-abortion, per se, but one that limits a woman's access to health care and fails to address the question of unintended pregnancies. Zaffirini said that she does "not believe that an unborn child can feel pain at twenty weeks. Nevertheless that had nothing to do with my position. ..." Zaffirini said, "Like it or not abortion is the law of the land, and because it is we must insure that women have access to safe and legal abortions. If they do not, then they will resort to coat hangers and self-aborting and illegal abortions, and that is wrong." Opponents of the law, such as Senator Royce West of Dallas, vowed a court challenge.
  On March 8, 2017, Zaffirini was the only dissenter in an eight-to-one vote of the Senate State Affairs Committee of the bathroom bill, Senate Bill 6, introduced by her Republican colleague, Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham and strongly pushed by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the Republican presiding officer of the Senate. The bill would require persons to use public restrooms corresponding to their genitalia at birth. Strongly opposed by business and athletic interests, the measure is now pending before the Texas House of Representatives. Opponents of the measure have put their hopes in Moderate Republican 
caption: The Senator Judith Zaffirini Library at Laredo Community College South Campus in Laredo, Texas.
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