Due to the widespread corruption of her husband's term, resulting in his impeachment, thousands of voters crossed party lines in the general election to vote for the Republican candidate.

Butte had been supported in the general election by former governor William P. Hobby, who had succeeded James Ferguson in 1917 and won a full term in 1918.

In 1926, state attorney general Dan Moody, who had investigated her husband for embezzlement and recovered $1 million for Texas citizens, ran against her in a run-off election.

[8] The Great Depression forced both the federal and state governments to cut down on personnel and funding of their organizations, and the Texas Rangers were no exception.

The number of commissioned officers in the law-enforcement agency was reduced to 45, and the only means of transportation afforded to Rangers were free railroad passes, or using their personal horses.

The situation worsened for the Rangers when they entangled themselves in politics in 1932 by publicly supporting Governor Ross Sterling in his re-election campaign over "Ma" Ferguson.

The result was that Texas became a safe hideout for the many Depression-era gangsters escaping from the law, such as Bonnie and Clyde, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd and Raymond Hamilton.

The general disorganization of law enforcement in the state convinced the members of the Legislature that a thorough revision of the public security system was in order, and with that purpose it hired the services of a consulting firm from Chicago.

The resulting report yielded many worrying conclusions, but the basic underlying facts were simple: the criminality levels in Texas were extremely high, and the state's means to fight them were underfunded, undermanned, loose, disorganized and obsolete.

The resolution that created the new state law enforcement agency was passed in 1935 under the next governor of Texas, James V. Allred, and with an initial budget of $450,000, the DPS became operational on August 10.

In October 1933, Ferguson signed into law Texas House Bill 194, which was instrumental in establishing the University of Houston as a four-year institution.

[14] In 1930, between Ferguson's terms, the Secretary of State of Texas Jane Y. McCallum published a pamphlet criticizing the former governor's numerous pardons of prisoners.

[19] Except for an unsuccessful bid to replace Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel in 1940, the Fergusons remained retired from political life after 1935.

In the 1940 campaign, Ma Ferguson trailed O'Daniel's principal rival, Ernest O. Thompson of Amarillo, who was Texas Railroad Commissioner.