In 1984, Perry was elected to the
Texas House of Representatives as a
Democrat from district 64 that included his home county of
Haskell. He served on the House Appropriations and Calendars committees during his three two-year terms in office. He befriended fellow freshman state representative
Lena Guerrero of
Austin, a staunch
liberal Democrat who endorsed Perry's reelection bid in 2006 on personal, rather than philosophical, grounds. Perry was part of the "Pit Bulls", a group of Appropriations members who sat on the lower dais in the committee room (or "pit") who pushed for austere state budgets during the 1980s.
Perry supported
Al Gore in the
1988 Democratic presidential primaries as chairman of the Gore campaign in Texas.
[14][15]
In 1989, Perry announced that he was
joining the Republican Party.
[16] At one point,
The Dallas Morning News named him one of the ten most effective members of the legislature.
[17][18]