A native Texan, proud military veteran, successful businessman and rancher, Dewhurst has served as Lieutenant Governor and President of the Texas Senate since 2003. Through four regular sessions and seven special sessions of the Texas legislature, Dewhurst has championed legislation to create new jobs and expand economic opportunity, improve public ...
A native Texan, proud military veteran, successful businessman and rancher, Dewhurst has served as Lieutenant Governor and President of the Texas Senate since 2003. Through four regular sessions and seven special sessions of the Texas legislature, Dewhurst has championed legislation to create new jobs and expand economic opportunity, improve public and higher education, and ensure public safety.
As a successful businessman with an optimistic, solution-oriented approach to public service, Dewhurst has worked hard to make Texas a national leader in job creation and the best place in America to do business. A strong fiscal conservative, he helped pass the largest tax cut in state history, balanced five state budgets, and has continued to protect taxpayers by building and maintaining a healthy reserve of more than $6 billion in the state's Rainy Day Fund. As a result, Texas' economy has grown faster than the national economy and more Texans are employed than at any other time in our state's history.
The Dallas Morning News called Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst's leadership of the Texas Senate "a demonstration of steadiness, resolve and consensus building." The Houston Chronicle has called Dewhurst "an exceptional leader."
In 1998, Dewhurst became the first Republican since Reconstruction to be elected Texas Land Commissioner. Dewhurst reduced the workforce and budget at the Texas General Land Office and turned back money each of two biennia to Texas taxpayers.
At the height of the Cold War, Dewhurst dedicated his young adult life to serving his country, first in the U.S. Air Force, then in the CIA and later in the State Department. When he left government service, he returned to Houston to begin his career in business. In the early 1980s, he started his own company, but like so many other Texas businesses at the time, he lost nearly everything when the oil and gas and real estate markets went bust. Dewhurst gradually built back all that he had lost and more, and earned his reputation as an innovative and successful businessman.
Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst has been a longtime community leader in his hometown of Houston, where he has served on numerous civic and charitable boards. A college basketball player at the University of Arizona and champion cutting horse rider, Dewhurst was inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2009. Dewhurst lives in Houston with his wife, Tricia, and their young daughter Carolyn.
