Lloyd Alton Doggett II (born October 6, 1946) is an American attorney and politician who is a U.S. representative from Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, he has represented a district based in Austin since 1995, currently numbered as Texas's 37th congressional district. Doggett was previously a member of the Texas State Senate and a justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Doggett and fellow representative Sheila Jackson Lee became co-deans of the Texas's congressional delegation after Eddie Bernice Johnson retired. Early life and education Doggett was born in Austin, the son of Alyce Paulin (Freydenfeldt) and Lloyd Alton Doggett. His maternal grandparents were Swedish. Doggett graduated Omicron Delta Kappa and received both a bachelor's degree in business administration and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where he served as student body president his senior year. While attending the University of Texas at Austin, he also joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Early career Doggett served as a member of the Texas Senate from 1973 to 1985. He was the Democratic nominee for the 1984 United States Senate election in Texas, losing to the Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, by a wide margin. Doggett authored the bill creating the Texas Commission on Human Rights, as well as a law outlawing cop killer bullets and a sunset law requiring periodic review of government agencies. He gained attention in 1979 as a member of the "Killer Bees", a group of 12 Democratic state senators who opposed a plan to move the state's presidential primary to March 11. The intent was to give former governor John Connally a leg up on the 1980 Republican nomination. The Killer Bees wanted a closed primary. When this proposal was rejected, they walked out of the chamber and left the Senate two members short of a quorum. The bill was withdrawn five days later. In 1989, Doggett became both an Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law. U.S. House of Representatives Elections Before 2012 Doggett was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994 in what was then the 10th district after 32-year incumbent Jake Pickle retired. He was one of the few Democrats to win an open seat in that year's massive Republican landslide. Running for reelection in 1996, Doggett defeated Republican nominee Teresa Doggett, to whom he is