Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science and the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies at Rice University. He is also a co-author of Texas Politics Today.
During the latter half of the current decade, the ideological positions of Texans in counties across the state have moved to the left. A combination of generational replacement, migration and attitudinal change has resulted in all but five of the state’s 22 most populous counties experiencing a shift to the left among registered voters.
The Texas Senate’s roll-call votes from this year’s regular session make it possible, as we did earlier with the House, to rank the state’s 31 senators from left to right on the political spectrum.
The Texas Legislature’s 2019 regular session is over, the votes on bills have been cast, and we have everything we need to rank Texas House members along the political spectrum from red to blue.
A majority of all regional, generational, ethnic/racial and partisan groups support legislation placing more stringent limitations on the ability of cities, counties, school districts and other local taxing authorities to indirectly increase their revenue from property taxes without explicit voter approval.
During the 115th U.S. Congress (2017-2018), the 25 members of our GOP delegation to the House once again demonstrated that Texas Republicans are, on average, notably more conservative than their GOP colleagues.
Many Republicans were critical of Tom Craddick for being excessively conservative and partisan (as well as too authoritarian) and critical of Joe Straus for being insufficiently conservative and partisan. Dennis Bonnen’s legislative record suggests he may turn out to be the Texas GOP’s "Just Right" Goldilocks Speaker.
Regardless of the runoff outcome, in February a progressive Democratic senator will be sworn in to represent SD-6, with the only question being the extent to which that senator will start with stronger or weaker ties to the Austin lobby.
In the four general elections held so far this decade, Texas has consistently ranked in the bottom five among the 50 states in turning out its voting eligible population. And within the state, younger Texans have voted at a much lower rate than their elders.
Control of the U.S. House hangs in the balance of the outcome of dozens of races across the country, including a half dozen in Texas.
The 19th Senate District covers all or part of 17 counties, with three-fifths of its voters concentrated in Bexar County and the remainder spread across 16 largely rural and semi-rural counties south and west of the Alamo City. The winner of this month's special election will be in a privileged position from which to seek re-election in 2020.
Even under an unlikely worst-case scenario for the Texas GOP, in January of 2019 the partisan distribution of forces in the Texas House would still be 82 Republicans to 68 Democrats. Today, a more realistic scenario would project a Republican delegation of between 87 and 93 representatives in 2019 and a Democratic delegation of between 57 and 63.
The December 11 candidate filing deadline marked the official beginning of a set of Republican Party primary battles that are part of a GOP civil war that has been raging across the Lone Star State for over a decade.
With candidates filing for the 2018 elections, and the Legislature apparently — finally — done for the year, I have updated my earlier ranking of members of the 2017 Texas House of Representatives and Senate. This includes votes from the regular session and from the summer special session, ranking lawmakers from most liberal to most conservative based on an analysis of 1,575 House and 1,831 Senate roll-call votes.
Centrist Republicans rule the roost in the Texas House. That has not changed since the 2009 coup that ousted Craddick. What has changed is the structure of legislative alliances. Between 2009 and 2014, the dominant alliance was between Democrats and centrist Republicans, with many movement conservative Republicans often finding bills they opposed passing over their objections.
Our analysis of the current Texas delegation to the U.S. House, state Senate and state House of Representatives plans suggests that under a novel test presented by the plaintiffs in a Wisconsin case, and heavily referenced by a federal lower court, Texas’s congressional redistricting plan is likely unconstitutional while the Texas Senate and Texas House redistricting plans are constitutional.
Between 2011 and 2017 an already conservative Texas Senate shifted even further to the right. The total number of Republican senators increased by only one during this period (from 19 to 20), explaining very little of this shift. However, 14 Republican senators were replaced by fellow Republicans, and each Republican successor was more conservative than his/her predecessor — most, significantly so.
The recently ended regular session of the Texas Legislature offered a fresh reading of the politics of the members of the Texas Senate — a body that has edged to the right this decade as new senators have been elected.
These differences underscore the Texas House’s de facto tripartite party system: Democrats, Centrist Conservative Republicans and Tea Party/Movement Conservative Republicans. The boundary that defines which side of the GOP civil war battle line a Republican representative falls on is loose and shifting compared to the clear-cut partisan battle line that separates Democrats from Republicans.
Straight-ticket voting allows down-ballot Republican candidates to ride the coattails of popular and well-funded candidates like Gov. Abbott. It also discourages high-quality Democratic candidates from running in down-ballot statewide contests, and major donors from bankrolling those who do run.
Texas Republicans are, on average, notably more conservative than their fellow congressional Republicans. Likewise, Texas Democrats are on average notably more conservative than their fellow congressional Democrats. They proved it in the 114th Congress.
In 2015, Democrats were less frequently able to keep legislation they opposed off of the floor or gain majority backing for legislation they supported.
An influx of new Democrats would make the House as a whole more liberal but would simultaneously make the majority Republican delegation more conservative.
In most Texas House and Senate races, voters face a steep informational hurdle in attempting to predict how competing candidates’ campaign proposals and rhetoric will translate into actual behavior in Austin. But five legislative districts offer Republican primary voters a chance for a true comparison.
It’s December of an odd-numbered year, which can mean only one thing in Texas: the reheating of the GOP Civil War as the party’s factions gear up for the start of primary season.
Take a look at the voting records of the nine freshmen Texas state senators this year, and you'll see that seven were significantly more conservative than their predecessors.
It's no surprise that the Texas Senate was more conservative this year than in 2013. But just who was the most conservative member? And who was the most liberal?
Who had the most conservative voting record in the Texas House this year? The most liberal? A new analysis looks at the evidence.
It's no surprise that Texans in Congress are conservative, but are they really that much more conservative than their colleagues from other red states?
Republicans dominate the Texas Legislature, but is there such a thing as "too far to the right"? An analysis of two conservative groups' scorecards of lawmakers shows that it depends on whom you ask.
Leticia Van de Putte’s decision to resign from the Texas Senate to run for mayor of San Antonio has set the stage for the highest-profile battle for the soul of the state's Democratic Party in recent years.
Texas Democrats’ electoral woes are well known, and their chances next week don't look good. What’s gotten less attention is the underlying problem that helps explain the party’s descent into political purgatory: party ID.
State Sen. Wendy Davis is trying to make inroads among women and Anglos this year, but a look at the data from Texas' gubernatorial elections since 1990 underscores the daunting task she and the state's Democratic Party face.
It may not be news to say that the 2014 lieutenant governor’s race provides Texas voters with a stark contrast in political ideologies, but now the numbers back it up.
Gov. Rick Perry and his legal team would be more at peace if the grand jury probing allegations of abuse of power against him had been seated pretty much anywhere else in the state besides Travis County.
