Zaffirini has not missed a single vote in the Texas Senate since January 1987 — thirty-nine years, tens of thousands of votes, a record no one in America has matched — and she has passed more bills than any legislator in Texas history.
She was born in Laredo, supporting herself from 17 and married at 18, and worked three part-time jobs at once to earn a bachelor's, a master's and a doctorate from UT — no financial aid. She taught college for 13 years and volunteered teaching students with intellectual disabilities, and that's the through-line of her career: schools, health care, the people the system forgets. In 1987 she became the first Hispanic woman ever elected to the Texas Senate; in 2023, the first woman to serve as its Dean. This is a rematch — she beat Julie Dahlberg by a landslide in 2022.
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Zaffirini’s take on Texas values
Zaffirini backs government transparency and voting access as a veteran of the Senate's institutional fights.