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Legislative party caucuses began to be formed in the 1980s as part of the second wave of caucus formation in the Texas Legislature. As with minorities and women, changing political circumstances created both the opportunity and the motivation for organizing.
Notably, Bill Clements's gubernatorial elections in 1978 and again in 1986 provided the impetus for party caucus formation in the Legislature. The Democrats were the first to respond to the changing political landscape, formally organizing a caucus in 1981, just in time for the second biennial legislative session during Clements's first four-year term of office.
Despite the loss of the chief executive to the Republicans, the Democrats still enjoyed wide majorities in both houses of the Legislature. But they suffered continuous erosion throughout the 1980s. Things looked especially dire in 1985 when Republican ranks in the House rose from thirty-seven to fifty-five. By the time of the next legislative session in 1987, Republicans had placed sixty-one of their own in the House.
Republican membership in the Senate was fairly steady at about six members (out of thirty-one) for most of the decade, but would begin to grow rapidly beginning in 1989. This Republican posse rode in on the coattails of re-elected governor Bill Clements, who returned to the governorship in 1987 after a four-year hiatus.
With numbers in the capitol that hadn't been seen since the Reconstruction, and a fellow member in the Governor's mansion, Republicans in the House of Representatives finally had sufficient reason to organize. So, in 1989 they formed the Texas Republican Legislative Caucus. Party caucuses in the Senate followed as Republicans continued their rise in that chamber.
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