Bill Patman

In 1960, Patman successfully sought the district 18 seat in the Texas State Senate. He took office the following year and served until 1981. He was a delegate to state Democratic Party conventions during this senatorial tenure. When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Patman was in the fifteenth vehicle of the motorcade.[1]

In 1979, Patman was a member of the Killer Bees,[2] the group of twelve quorum-busting Democratic senators that hid out in an Austin garage apartment for 4½ days.

In 1980, he was elected to the District 14 seat in the United States House of Representatives, when the short-term incumbent Joseph P. Wyatt, Jr. , a former member of Patman's state senatorial staff, did not seek reelection. Patman was re-elected in 1982, when U.S. Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr., of Houston led the entire Democratic ticket to its last ever full sweep of Texas statewide offices.

In 1984, however, Patman was unseated by Republican Mac Sweeney of Wharton, when Ronald W. Reagan swept Texas in his presidential reelection bid. Though Sweeney was defeated after two terms by a Democrat, the district returned to Republican representation in 1995, with the defection of Representative Greg Laughlin (who defeated Sweeney in 1988) and then the election in 1996 of former Representative Ron Paul, who defeated Laughlin in the Republican primary. After his defeat by Sweeney, Patman did not seek further office and retired to Ganado, located some ninety miles southwest of Houston, where he lived on his ranch called Ganadom.