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Texas doesn't make a big enough deal about Minnie Fisher Cunningham. But that may be changing.
All the New Waverly native did was get women the right to vote in Texas two years before the 19th Amendment was ratified, was instrumental in blocking an impeached governor's comeback bid and led the most daunting voter registration drives in the nation's history.
"She changed our state and our politics forever," state Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, said on Wednesday as part of a Women's History Month tribute in the Texas Senate to the suffragist on the 143rd anniversary of her birth.
While suffragists around the nation were leading marches and demonstrations for the right to vote in 1918, Cunningham knew that wouldn't be enough to get women the right to vote here, said Marlene Phillips, the director of the Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy at Texas Women University.
Despite not having the right to vote yet, she turned herself into a masterful lobbyist in Austin and played a key role in helping impeach anti-suffragist Gov. James "Pa" Ferguson in 1917. She then worked backchannels to get then-Gov. William Hobby to sign a law giving women the right to vote in the Texas primaries in 1918. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women nationwide the right to vote didn't get ratified until August 1920.
But Cunningham had just 17 days to organize a statewide voter registration drive for women ahead of the Texas primary in 1918 and get them out to vote. More than 300,000 first-time women voters signed up and were instrumental in defeating Ferguson's comeback and thus keeping Hobby (who Hobby Airport in Houston is named after) in office.
"She was just resourceful," Phillips said. "What she did have was the ability to organize people. She understood publicity and campaigning. She was an excellent lobbyist and she understood the legislative process."
Alvarado isn't the only one trying to bring more attention to Cunningham's story. State Rep. Christina Morales, D-Houston, led a similar recognition in the Texas House where many of the state's record 61 women legislators gathered around her as she talked about how important Cunningham's work was.
"Look how far we have come," Morales said.
Both Morales and Alvarado told me they first learned of Cunningham through the Texas Take Newsletter and our Texas Take Podcast. In both, I've regularly brought up her story because there are so few mentions of Cunningham around the Texas Capitol, where there are dozens of other plaques and memorials that pay tribute to hundreds of other people, causes and events in the state's history.
Before Alvarado's, the last resolution honoring Cunningham's work passed the Texas House in 1965 — five months after her death.
"We don't talk enough about Minnie Fisher Cunningham," Alvarado said.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's Up, Who's Down
A daily stock market style report on key players in Texas politics.
Up: OB/GYNs.
Bipartisan support appears to be growing for a clarification of the Texas abortion laws. The current ban only allows for abortions when there is a "life-threatening physical condition" that could cause "risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function." Doctors have said the language is prohibitively vague, and they've urged lawmakers to step in. Reporter Taylor Goldenstein has more on the growing support for altering the law.
Down: Smoke shops.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Wednesday left no doubt about how serious he is about shutting down retailers selling THC products that have proliferated all over Texas. "We're going to ban your stores," said the Houston Republican who runs the state Senate. Patrick said retailers are exploiting loopholes in the state's hemp laws passed in 2019 to sell intoxicating products that can have damaging health effects. Much more on the issue from reporter Isaac Yu.
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Photo by: Elise Amendola, STF / Associated Press
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