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Irma Lerma Rangel Collection
The legislative and personal law collection of Irma Lerma Rangel, the first Mexican American legislator elected to serve in the Texas House of representatives. Representative Rangel served the Forty-ninth and Thirty-seventh legislative districts of Texas for twenty-six years as a legislator. Papers and cases from her law office in Kingsville are included. The collection was given in three accessions one each in: 1989, 1999, and 2003. The collection includes all of her papers from government proceedings, correspondence concerning the bills, and a log with constituent opinions from the 65th legislature to the 78th legislature. Representative Rangel considered her greatest achievements as a legislator, the introduction of House Bill 1755 designed to provide employment and educational programs for mothers on welfare with dependent children; House Bill 1629, the Good Faith Donor Act, designed to exempt retailers and manufacturers from liability when food was donated to the needy and to the Food Banks; House Bill 588 requiring all state colleges and universities to automatically admit all students who graduate in the top ten percent of their high school class and Merging Texas A&I with Texas A&M. She tirelessly promoted education as a way to break the cycle of poverty.