Friends of Thousand Oaks (FOTO)

Elected Officials

This article may help you become a better citizen!

Voting can be very confusing. That may be why voter turnout on Election Day is typically very low. Perhaps this will help you. In most cases, voters are grouped into geographical areas called districts. For the State of Texas, the following table shows the number of valid districts.

U.S. Congress (1-30)
Texas Senate (1-31)
Texas House (1-150)
Texas State Board of Education (1-15)

Districts are geographical area and they are constantly in a state of change as populations change within districts. The process of changing districts is called “redistricting.” As you can imagine, the voting districts affect each politician or party, so there are always political battles raging over redistricting.

District maps could not be found at the time of this writing. Therefore, you are cautioned to verify the information herein before using it. You may use the following web site to explore in more detail those who represent you in government. The web site is http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/fyi/fyi.htm and you will find links to other sites that will help you verify your actual voting/representative information.

You may also look on your Voter Registration Certificate for voting district information. Use caution though because the right side of the card that contains the district information is an optional area for the Elections Administrator to use. For example, due to growth in San Antonio, redistricting seems to be an everyday issue and some of the boxes on that side of the card may be blank or in error (if the redistricting is “up in the air” at the time of issuing the cards).

United States Government in Washington D.C.:

There are two U.S. Senators from Texas. Everyone gets to vote for the two they prefer. The current elected Senators from Texas are Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm

U.S. Congress (1-30 districts)
There are several U.S. Representatives and you get to vote on the one that represents your district. For TONA, most of us are in U.S. Representative District 21. The current elected Representative is Lamar Smith.

Texas Government in Austin:

Texas Senate (1-31 districts)
There are several Texas State Senators. You get to vote on the one that represents your senate-voting district. Most of us are in State Senatorial District 25. The current elected Senator from our district is Jeff Wentworth.

Texas House (1-150 districts)
There are several Texas State Representatives. You get to vote for the one that represents your representative-voting district. Most of us are in State Representative District 122. The current elected Representative for our district is John Shields.

Your residence dictates your voting precinct. The precinct is another term for the geographical area in which you reside and that translates into the physical location where you must cast your vote. Most of us are in Precinct 3090 and voting most often takes place at the Thousand Oaks Elementary School (but not always).

Bexar County is also divided into districts. There is a County Commissioner for each of the districts. TONA is in commissioner district 3 and the County Commissioner for this district is Lyle Larson.

The City of San Antonio is also divided into districts. There is a City Councilperson elected from each district. All of the TONA area is in District 10 and the current City Councilperson is David Carpenter. Although I have not seen the district map, I have been told that a portion of the TONA area may be in District 9.

Your residence also dictates which school district you reside in. Most of us are in 5506. I believe the “55” refers to the NEISD and the “06” is a sub district.

Seats on the State Board of Education (SBOE) are also elected by districts. We are in SBOE District 5 and the current elected official is Mr. Dan Montgomery.

I hope you will find this information useful.