Johnson, Eddie Bernice, 1934-

Variant names

Dates:

Birth 1935-12-03

Gender:

Female

Nationality: Americans

Language: English

Biographical notes:

Eddie Bernice Johnson (born December 3, 1935) is an American politician from the state of Texas, currently representing Texas's 30th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. Johnson is a member of the Democratic Party.

Born and raised in Waco, Texas, Johnson grew up wanting to work in medicine. She left Texas, which had segregated schools, and attended Saint Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana, where she received a diploma in nursing in 1956. She transferred to Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, from which she received a bachelor's degree in nursing. She later attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and earned a Master of Public Administration in 1976.

Johnson was the first African American to serve as Chief Psychiatric Nurse at the Dallas Veterans Administration Hospital. She entered politics after 16 years in that position.

In 1972, as an underdog candidate running for a seat in the Texas House, Eddie Bernice Johnson won a landslide victory. She was the first black woman ever elected to public office from Dallas. She soon became the first woman in Texas history to lead a major Texas House committee, the Labor Committee. Johnson left the state House in 1977, when President Jimmy Carter appointed her as the regional director for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the first African-American woman to hold this position. Johnson entered electoral politics again in 1986, when she was elected as a Texas state Senator. She was the first woman and the first African American from the Dallas area to hold this office since Reconstruction.

Midway through her second term in the state senate, Johnson opted to run in the Democratic primary for the newly created Texas's 30th congressional district. She defeated Republican nominee Lucy Cain 72%-25% in the 1992 general election. In 1994, she defeated Lucy Cain again 73%-26%. In 1996, after her district was significantly redrawn as a result of Bush v. Vera, she won re-election to a third term with 55% of the vote, the worst election performance of her congressional career.

Johnson has never faced another contest nearly that close. She has been reelected nine more times with at least 72% of the vote. In October 2019, Johnson announced she would be retiring after her 2020 term.