FEATURED: Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, seated at his desk on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives in the Texas Capitol in the spring of 2025. On Tuesday, November 3, 2026, the Edinburg attorney was reelected to an eighth two-year term, securing more than 32,000 votes (75 percent of the total) in his bid for House District 40. House District 40 features most of Edinburg, and all or portions of northern rural Hidalgo County, the cities of Pharr, San Juan, Murillo, Elsa, Doolittle (CDP), San Carlos (CDP), Lópezville (CDP), La Blanca (CDP), César Chávez (CDP), McAllen, Linn (CDP), and La Coma Heights (CDP).
Photograph Courtesy HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHY
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“It feels like a miracle what we have been able to accomplish for South Texas,” in the Texas Legislature, says Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, who predicts more successes beginning in 2027
By DAVID A. DÍAZ
[email protected]
As part of the sweeping Democratic Party statewide victories on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, the Rio Grande Valley is likely to benefit even more from the Texas Legislature, including in education, transportation, accessible healthcare and affordable medical prescriptions, public safety, and infrastructure, according to Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg.
“First and foremost, I want to thank the voters of South Texas for once again sending me back to Austin to continue being a voice for the people,” he said. “The voters have spoken. The assignment is clear. Texans want a government by the people and for the people. Not a government that serves the billionaires and leaves the working men and women out in the cold with no healthcare and a public education system that ranks as one of the lowest in the nation.”
Public healthcare and general healthcare systems in Texas consistently rank near the bottom nationwide across multiple major national health scorecards and studies.
Texas’ public education system varies wildly in national rankings – from 26th to 41st – depending on the organization and metrics used.
A metric is a quantifiable standard of measurement used to track, assess, or evaluate the performance, status, or progress of a specific process, activity, or system.
The 90th Texas Legislature will hold its five-month, 140-day regular session beginning on Tuesday, January 12, 2027 and ending on Monday, May 31, 2027.
“Thriving as a member of the minority party (Democratic Party) is no easy task, and I often tell my wife it feels like a miracle what we have been able to accomplish for South Texas,” he recalled.
Prior to the November 3, 2026 midterm elections, the last time the Democratic Party had control of the Texas House of Representatives was in 2002, serving during the 77th Texas Legislature after the 2000 elections. [1, 2]
Canales was reelected to an eighth two-year term, securing more than 32,000 votes cast (75 percent of the total) in his bid for House District 40.
“Serving our region has and continues to be the greatest honor of my life, second only to being married to my best friend (Erica E. Canales),” he said. “Through tireless work and an amazing staff, (Terry Canales has helped) deliver billions of state dollars in higher education and infrastructure to South Texas.”
During his 14 years as state representative, Canales reports that “my office has passed and been instrumental in passing hundreds of landmark bills into law, and all while being in the minority party (Democratic Party).
“The ability to navigate and reach across party lines allowed me to secure what is often called the fourth-most powerful chairmanship in the House,” he continued. “Texas voters ended the complete dominance of the Republican Party which has ruled Texas with an iron fist for decades. The numbers were staggering, and although I believed we would win some races, I don’t believe anyone could have predicted such staggering results.”
• Gov. Greg Abbott, the most powerful and well-resourced governor in modern Texas history, was unseated by Rep. Regina “Gina” Inez Hinojosa, D-Austin, who was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley.
• Attorney General Ken Paxton, who in past elections cast off impeachment, indictment and infidelities, fell to Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, in his bid for the U.S. Senate.
• Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, the iron-fisted ruler of the Texas Senate, went down to a little known state representative, Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin.
“But let me be clear, we didn’t just end one party rule in Texas to usher in another era of the same thing just a different party,” Canales emphasized. “We stand ready to reach across the aisle, roll up our sleeves and start the work the people are begging us to get done.”
The United States politics, the phrase “reach across the aisle” means making an effort to negotiate, collaborate, or build bipartisan support with members of the opposing political party.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/submission/6162/Reaching+across+the+aisle
Beginning in January 2027, the Texas House of Representatives is in a very strong position to elect a Democrat as Speaker of the House.
The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer of the Texas House of Representatives and one of the most powerful political figures in state government. Because the Speaker controls the fate of legislation, they hold enough influence to advance or block any bill from becoming law.
On Friday, November 6, 2026, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, announced that she has secured enough votes to become the next Speaker of the Texas House for the 90th legislative session, which could make her the first Black lawmaker and first woman to hold the position in state history
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/11/06/senfronia-thompson-texas-house-speaker-votes-legislature/
“In the words of my good friend newly-elected Congressman Bobby Pulido, this is not about Team Red or Team Blue, we need to be delivering for ‘Team You’. Meaningful change doesn't happen overnight, but I pledge to the people of Texas that I will work tirelessly to try and solve the problems and address the issues that really matter to Texans and leave the extremely polarized politics and culture wars in the dumpster fire where they belong,” Canales said. “Texans deserve better and last night’s elections show they are demanding it.”
Pulido won the state’s 15th Congressional District, which stretches from the Rio Grande Valley northward towards the San Antonio area and part of the Coastal Bend.
In U.S. politics, Team Red and Team Blue refer to the two major political parties and the geographic regions or voters that support them. Team Red is the Republican Party and Team Blue is the Democratic Party.
He said Hidalgo County state lawmakers already are working on developing legislative priorities they plan to introduce during the upcoming 90th Regular Session of the Texas Legislature.
“Yesterday (Wednesday, November 4, 2o26), the South Texas delegation met at my house to begin rolling our sleeves up for the enormous task at hand. While hundreds of thousands celebrated across the state, our delegation was outlining our core priorities and forming a plan well past 2 a.m. in the morning,” Canales said. “We left after making hundreds of calls, more unified than ever, and with a renewed energy to continue delivering life changing results for South Texas.”
He said his legislative priorities will feature:
- Affordability from housing to groceries, accessible healthcare and budget-friendly prescription medication;
- Worker protections, and child care opportunities.
- Fully funding public schools;
- Lowering property taxes;
- Creating the regulatory framework to govern data centers working to protect water supplies and the Texans who feel invaded by these facilities;
- Helping law enforcement and first responders to have the resources needed so have a level of emergency preparedness which is second to none;
- Studying long term solutions for water security;
- Lowering insurance rates;
- Taking control of the Texas power grid and making sure it is a robust system that can weather the worst of storms while promoting lower energy costs; and
- Good roads, good transit and shoring up the state’s emergency management systems to meet the needs of Texas, which is scheduled to double its population by 2050.
“We will undoubtedly be working on unraveling some of the terrible policies Republicans shoved down our throat like the School Voucher Plan and the closure of rural hospitals all over the state,” he added.
The Texas School Voucher Plan, officially known as the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA), is a $1 billion taxpayer-funded Education Savings Account (ESA) program created in 2025 by Senate Bill 2. It allows eligible families to use public funds via digital accounts for private school and alternative education expenses.
Rural hospitals are closing and facing severe financial distress in Texas due to a combination of low public and private reimbursement rates, high uncompensated care, and rising operating costs.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg and the struggle is real. To say the least, we have our work cut out for us, and we need to meet the moment and seize the opportunity entrusted to us by the citizens of Texas, from creating high paying jobs to making corporate welfare queens pay their fair share instead of riding on the backs of working Texans,” said Canales.
“Corporate welfare queens” is a phrase that targets large corporations, wealthy industries, and billionaires who heavily rely on government financial support.
The current state budget for the State of Texas for the 2026-2027 biennium is approximately $338 billion in total spending, passed by Senate Bill 1 and certified by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.
In addition to higher education and infrastructure, the Texas state budget provides to the Rio Grande Valley billions of dollars in state and federal money for other state services, public agencies, and local assistance programs. Roughly 70 percent of funds from the Texas Legislature go toward health and human services and public education.
The House District 40 lawmaker, whose district is anchored in Edinburg, reflected on a few of the key legislative achievements in the past, and predicted upcoming advances now that Democrats won 83 seats in the 150-member House of Representatives. In most cases, it takes a simple majority – 76 votes, or a majority of those participating, to approve, amend (change), or kill a bill in the Texas House of Representatives.
He pointed at two major state programs – higher education and transportation – as examples of major investments of state and federal funds in the Rio Grande Valley.
“Our (state legislative) delegation, through the creation of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the UTRGV School of Medicine, has made our flagship university the second-highest funded school in the UT System, when historically it was the lowest,” Canales noted. “We also ushered in the creation of our own A&M campus creating yet another landmark expansion of higher education opportunity in South Texas.”
The most recent two-year budget for UTRGV and its medical school is more than one billion dollars for Fiscal Year 2027 (ending August 31, 2027) adopted by the UT System Board of Regents.
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley was officially created by the Texas Legislature on June 14, 2023, through Senate Bill 24. It was formed by consolidating the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg and the University of Texas at Brownsville, alongside the creation of a new integrated School of Medicine.
Canales was the main cosponsor of Senate Bill 24. As cosponsor, Canales helped guide that measure, authored by Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, through the House of Representatives.
Hinojosa was the primary author of Senate Bill 24. As primary author, Hinojosa was the state lawmaker who introduced the bill into the state legislative process.
The Texas A&M Higher Education Center at McAllen (HECM) opened its doors to bring Texas A&M University academic programs, standard diplomas, and Aggie traditions directly to the Rio Grande Valley.
https://riograndeguardian.com/stories/texas-am-mcallen-center-prepares-for-major-expansion-driven-by-rapid-student-growth,84532?
From 2019 to January 2025, Canales served as Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation.
The House Committee on Transportation has legislative power over all matters related to state highways, interstates, toll roads, bridges and overpasses, non-highway freight, maritime and waterways, aviation and rail systems, public transit networks, and intelligent transportation systems in Texas.
Canales was the first Mexican-American to serve as Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation.
“That post allowed me to actually sit at the table and secure unprecedented infrastructure funding for the foreseeable future,” he said. “To put it in perspective, when I began as chairman, our regional funding was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Today it is in the multiple billions of dollars.”
A record $2.5 billion in highway and road infrastructure funding is allocated to the Rio Grande Valley through the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) 10-year Unified Transportation Program (UTP).
He currently serves as Chair of the Subcommittee on Transportation Funding, which has jurisdiction to consider all matters relating to current state transportation funding sources, including the State Highway Fund, debt financing in state transportation funding, including the Texas Mobility Fund, and alternative transportation funding options.
He also is a member of the House Committee on Calendars, Select House Committee on General Aviation, House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Veterans’ Affairs.
For all state representatives, some of their House committee memberships change at the beginning of a new regular session.
Texas House District 40 features:
All or portions of the cities of :
- Edinburg (77,579 residents);
- Pharr (19,483 residents);
- San Juan (17,532 residents);
- Elsa (5,668 residents); and
- McAllen (972 residents).
All or portions of:
• Northern rural Hidalgo County (40,082 residents);
All or portions of the Census Designated Places (CDP) of:
- Murillo (CDP) (9,158 residents);
- Doolittle (CDP) (4,061 residents);
- San Carlos (CDP) (3,087 residents);
- Lópezville (CDP) (2,214)residents);
- La Blanca (CDP) (2,078 residents);
- César Chávez (CDP) (4,061 residents);
- Linn (CDP) (648 residents); and
- La Coma Heights (CDP) (116 residents).
In the context of the Texas Legislature, CDP stands for Census Designated Place. It is an official graphic label used by the U.S. Census Bureau to identify a closely settled, unincorporated community that is recognized local by name but lacks its own formal municipal government or legally defined by city boundaries.
https://directory.texastribune.org/districts/tx-house/40
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