Senator Jeff Wentworth is serving his sixth term in the Texas Senate where he was president pro tem in 2004-2005 and where he was inaugurated as Governor of Texas for a Day on November 20, 2004.

            Senator Wentworth, a fourth-generation Texan, was first elected to the Texas Senate in 1992 after serving nearly five years in the Texas House of Representatives.  The Republican senator from San Antonio represents more than 700,000 Texans in six counties located in the heart of the state. 

            He is chairman of the Senate Committee on Jurisprudence and serves on the Administration; Transportation and Homeland Security; and Intergovernmental Relations Committees.  He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Natural Resources Foundation of Texas and the Board of Trustees of the United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County.

            Prior public service includes five years in the Texas House of Representatives, one year as a university system regent, six years as a county commissioner, two years as a city attorney, three years as a Congressional assistant, and three years’ active duty as a United States Army counterintelligence officer.

            A 1958 graduate of Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio, Jeff earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Texas A&M University in 1962.  He served in the United States Army from 1962-65, and he was an assistant to Republican United States Congressman Bob Price of Texas from 1966-68 and from 1971-72.  He worked as a general assignments reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for a year, and another year as an assistant to the Lubbock County Attorney while he worked on his law degree.

            Among his younger-life work experience, he worked as a newspaper boy, television station copy boy, waiter, dishwasher, library clerk, and taxicab driver.

            As a law student at Texas Tech University, Jeff served as president of the Student Bar Association, attorney general of the Texas Tech Student Association, and national president of the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association

            After graduation in 1972 with a J.D. degree, he served as president of the Texas Tech Law School Alumni Association.  In 2000, Senator Wentworth was named the Distinguished Alumnus of Texas Tech University School of Law.
           
            After his service on the Washington, D.C. staff of Congressman Price, Jeff returned to Texas 35 years ago and joined his father, Earl Wentworth, in the private practice of law.
           
             Senator Wentworth, a practicing attorney, is a Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, as well as the San Antonio Bar Foundation and a member of the San Antonio Board of REALTORS®.   He is admitted to practice law in both the District of Columbia and Texas.

              Previously, Jeff served as city attorney and municipal court prosecutor of the City of Converse for two years and as county commissioner, Precinct 3, in Bexar County for nearly six years, where he represented a quarter of a million people and was the only Republican member of Commissioners Court.

            Active in professional and civic organizations, Wentworth is an honorary director of Boysville; is a member of the President’s Advisory Council, YMCA of Greater San Antonio; is a director of the 12th Man Foundation; is a life member of the San Antonio Livestock Exposition, Inc.; is a member of the board of trustees of the World Affairs Council of San Antonio; and United Way of San Antonio and Bexar Country; and is a member of the Rotary Club of San Antonio, Fiesta San Antonio Commission, San Antonio Zoological Society, San Antonio Museum Association, Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

            By appointment of Governor Bill Clements, Wentworth has served as a Commissioner of the Texas Advisory Commission of Intergovernmental Relations and on the Governor’s County Officials Advisory Committee.  In addition, he served as a member of the Board of Regents of the Texas State University System prior to his service in the Legislature.  Former Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock nominated Senator Wentworth, and in 1998 Jeff was selected a Toll Fellow, a prestigious group of only 40 state officials nationwide seen as emerging leaders.  Senator Wentworth was also named the 1998 Conservation Legislator of the Year by the Sportsmen Conservationists of Texas.

            First elected as a state representative to the 70th Legislature in a special election in 1988, he was re-elected to the House of Representatives in the 71st and 72nd Legislatures.  He was first elected to the Texas Senate in1992 and has been re-elected four times, serving in the 73rd, 74th, 75th, 76th, 77th, 78th, 79th  and 80th  Legislatures.

            In addition to Senator Wentworth’s legislative appointments, he is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Council of State Governments and chair-elect of the 16-state Southern Legislative Conference.  He also is chairman of the board of trustees of the 21st Century Foundation of the Council of State Governments.

             He is past chairman of the international Border Legislative Conference, which is comprised of state legislators from the 10 states on either side of the U.S./Mexico border.

            Senator Wentworth and his wife, Karla, a licensed professional interior designer, have two sons, Jason, 25, and Matthew, 19, both of whom are college students at Texas State University - San Marcos.