Monday, May 28, 2012

On Memorial Day


Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. -Senator Barry Goldwater

I would not normally quote Barry Goldwater (although when I was a 2nd Lieutenant in pilot training, I did run into him in the men’s room at Andrews AFB in 1964, but that’s another story for another time). Today, Memorial Day, however, I’m proud to quote him. Not so much for the first sentence—but for the second. It seems to me that the pursuit of justice (in the broadest sense) is what is missing in contemporary politics. When I think of my friends from the Air Force who died while on active duty—John Banks, Tom Fiedler, Jim Goodman, I know that they would want both the defense of liberty and the pursuit of justice. Their lives lost were in vain if we don’t work tirelessly to achieve both. May God bless all veterans today.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Contemporary Politics: Not That I Like It!

With the decision by 43 Catholic organizations to challenge the Obama Administration's rule that contraception must be covered (see here), I think that an earlier piece that I wrote originally as a letter to the editor of the Austin American-Statesman (but never sent) may be appropriate here. So here it is:

The controversy over the Obama administration’s ruling that access to contraceptives must be provided in healthcare plans offered by religiously-affiliated colleges and universities, hospitals, and charities provides an interesting insight into the conduct of contemporary politics in the United States.
The rule was established based on state law in California and New York. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in February 2012, 28 states “currently require insurers that cover prescription drugs to provide coverage of the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices.” Two of the states exclude emergency contraception and one state excludes minor dependents from coverage. In New York, the mandate was adjudicated in the state courts, and the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) ruled in 2006: “When a religious organization chooses to hire non-believers, it must, at least to some degree, be prepared to accept neutral regulations imposed to protect those employees’ legitimate interests in doing what their own beliefs permit.” When the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the court refused to hear the case just as they had refused to hear a similar California case in 2004. Currently, two cases have been filed by religiously-affiliated institutions in Colorado—Colorado Christian University—and North Carolina—Belmont Abbey College, alleging that the current mandate violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and the Freedom of Religion Restoration Act of 1993. These cases were filed in November and December, 2011. Several cases have been filed by states attorney generals. And more cases can be expected.
So, what does this controversy indicate about the contemporary political scene. First, the issue is framed differently by the contending parties in the controversy. On one side, those favoring the mandate regard the issue as a matter of gender discrimination and women’s health. The issue involves the right of women to contraceptive devices as a part of an employer-provided health insurance plan. On the other side, those opposing the mandate, regard the issue a matter of religious freedom. The issue involves the right of religious institutions to avoid policies that infringe upon their First Amendment constitutional liberty to the free exercise of religion and legislative protection against religious discrimination. The framing of the issue is important because how people view the issue can influence their opinion on the issue itself. Initially, the contest becomes one over which side can win the framing debate: Is the issue a matter of a woman’s right to healthcare or a religious institution’s right to the free exercise of religion. As the issue is viewed so differently, compromise is difficult, if not impossible. In this case, President Obama tried to compromise, but the result was not what he had hoped it would be. The compromise addressed the Catholic Church’s objection to paying for conceptive measures that violated its religious doctrine by requiring the insurance provider to cover the cost of contraceptives. Did this assuage the concerns of the opponents? Not really, because the issue is more about partisan politics than religious freedom, which brings us to our second and third points
Second, which side one takes in the controversy is more a matter of one’s partisan affiliation than one’s religious affiliation. In a Public Religion Institute tracking poll survey conducted in February 2012, 58 percent of Catholics agree that all employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception or birth control at no cost to the employee. Fifty percent of white mainline Protestants agree; 61 percent of those who are not religiously affiliated agree; 55 percent of all Americans agree. In contrast, only 38 percent of white evangelicals agree. In the same survey, 73 percent of Democrats, 51 percent of independents, and only 36 percent of Republicans agree that birth control should be covered. Since partisanship and ideology are strongly correlated in contemporary politics, one could assume that similar ideological differences exist regarding the issue although the results of the survey did not include an item to determine a respondent’s political ideology.
Third, the issue is used as a wedge issue to affect political campaigns. A wedge issue is a controversial issue, usually social, that is used to drive a wedge between a political party and a member of its party coalition. In this example, Republicans will promote this issue by framing it as an attack on religion—particularly Catholicism—in hopes of driving a wedge between Catholic voters and their support for the Democratic Party—particularly President Obama. The Catholic bishops have strongly made this case, and their efforts have affected the media, both liberal and conservative, with E.J. Dionne, Chris Matthews, Melinda Henneberger, Mark Shields, David Brooks, and USA Today repeating the bishops’ claim that the rule is an assault on religious liberty. Democrats, who frame the issue as a matter of women’s health, will portray Republicans as hostile to policies that protect women’s health, using the issue as a wedge to drive Republican women away from the Republican Party. In 2008, there was a marriage gap, produced by the fact the unmarried women favored Democrat Barack Obama whereas married women favored Republican John McCain for president. If married women are less apt to support Republican candidates, the Democrats will increase their chances of winning.
Thus is the condition of contemporary American politics: Two sides contending to achieve political advantage in a polarized political environment. Each side fights to frame the issue in terms that are political advantageous, pushes its position as a moral imperative resulting from a constitutional or legislative right, and is unlikely to seek common ground because of the political and electoral effects of such a compromise. The only compromise acceptable to each side involves the other side adopting its position, which is not a compromise.
Exacerbating the condition is the fact that the institutions and processes of our political system were developed to promote and operate effectively only if politicians are willing and able to compromise. For example, the institutional arrangement known as a separation of powers combined with a system of checks and balances makes one of the branches dominate in one area of policymaking (legislating, implementing, interpreting) but allows the remaining branches to check that dominant branch. The system is best described as separate institutions sharing powers. An example of a process requiring compromise is the filibuster rule in the Senate, which allows 41 senators to prevent a vote. By the way, those 41 senators could represent only 11.3 percent of the United States’ population. Given our political system’s institutions and processes, the likely effect of partisan polarization is gridlock and inactivity. How can compromise occur when every issue involves a moral principle and divides the parties into opposing camps, both of which are seeking electoral advantage?   

Friday, May 18, 2012

On Polarization and The Republican Primary

I know that some of you have already voted in the primary election through early voting, which started on May 14th and continues through May 25th. This coming weekend is the only weekend available to vote; so if you haven’t voted in the Republican or Democratic Party’s primary (you have to choose one), then go to the polls this weekend or next week. In this post, I want to continue with a consideration of polarization of the public, and especially the active citizens, in Texas. I’m going to present two articles (I’ve edited them) to illustrate what’s happening in the Republican Party and then comment on the articles.

First, a blog post on The Texas Tribune Web site (http://www.texastribune.org) by Jim Henson, a lecturer at UT-Austin. In the blog post, he projects the ideological composition of the likely voters in the Republican primary, based on the responses received in the February 2012 UT-Austin/Texas Tribune public opinion poll.

The Very Conservative Core in Texas
Jim Henson, UT-Austin
We can take a rough measure of the most conservative faction of conservatives in the Texas GOP by looking at those who identify with the most conservative self-rating on the 7-point “LIBCON” political ideology scale in which 1 is “extremely liberal” and 7 is “extremely conservative.”
On the ideology scale, 14 percent of the overall sample identified as “extremely conservative” (7 on the scale); 92 percent of the “extremely conservative” identified as Republicans. Conversely, in the conventional 7-point party identification measure, ranging from “strong Democrat” on the left to “strong Republican” on the right, 25 percent of Republicans identified as a 7 on the LIBCON scale. (As has been discussed elsewhere, those who identify themselves as independent leaners on the 7-point party identification scale tend to be more ideological than weak identifiers, and so are routinely counted as reliable voters for the party they lean toward. This means a distribution in the February poll of 42 percent Democrats, 8 percent “true” independents, and 49 percent Republicans.)
A rough estimate of the size of the block of the most conservative of conservative voters based on the February [2012] survey would fall between a floor of 14 percent (the extreme conservatives) and a ceiling made up of respondents to the two farthest right positions of the ideology scale, about 32 percent of registered voters and about 67 percent of the Republican Party identifiers (emphasis added).
This leads to a rough estimate of 25 percent to 30 percent of registered voters, as a plausible range of the size of the intense conservative core that is exerting a powerful gravitational pull on Texas politics. This allows for some of those in the “6” category to edge more toward the center than the right. About 25 percent of Republicans self-identify as extremely conservative, and as many as 67 percent perch on the ideologically conservative end of the party. 
Given this range, even a low-end estimate suggests that the ideological extreme exerts a strong presence in the party primaries, a consideration of increasing interest given the lateness of this year’s primary and the very strong possibility of a low-turnout election—especially in runoffs—likely dominated by just this faction of the party (emphasis added). Of the self-identified extreme conservatives, 80 percent describe themselves as “extremely interested” — the highest percentage in any of the ideological categories (64 percent of the extreme liberals say the same); 82 percent of extreme conservatives say they vote in every, or almost every, election.
The Conservative Core and the GOP Primary
. . . .The outs are getting a look from a very conservative core of Texans now exerting a powerfully contradictory influence in Texas politics today.  These voters have to be acknowledged as a regular feature of the political system, but their actual impact remains anything but predictable. They have provided bedrock support for the decade-long Republican hegemony over state government, but show a growing skepticism of the incumbents they helped become entrenched in office in the name of limited government.  The odds-on bet at this point is that their loyalties remain sufficiently divided between establishment and insurgent candidates to avoid major upsets. 
Odds notwithstanding, a very conservative fire burns inside the Republican Party. Perry rode its drafts to statewide victory in the 2010 primary, though it has already consumed the candidacies of a handful of Republican legislators and has set many if not most other GOP legislators running to stay ahead of it or at least get out of its path. The smart money may well be on the established candidates of the Republican establishment to persevere in 2012 and 2014.
The second piece is an article by Professor Mark Jones, Political Science chair at Rice University and an expert on the ideology of members of the Texas House and Senate. This article also appeared in The Texas Tribune.
The Extent of Ideological Differences in Six Texas GOP Primaries
The 2012 primary season features a host of highly contested legislative races involving competing ideological and interest groups within the Texas Republican Party. I examined six—four in the House and two in the Senate—which each involve two current or former state legislators. Based on roll call vote data, the House races display substantial ideological contrasts between the candidates, but the Senate contests involve only modest to nonexistent ideological differences. If the House races are true battles for the ideological soul of the Texas GOP, then the Senate contests are mere skirmishes between competing conservative elites featuring candidates with relatively similar ideological profiles.
Methodology and Data
In the midst of dueling endorsements by leading Texas Republicans, claims and counter-claims by candidates, and distorted or selective information publicized by third-party groups, it is useful to have a common metric with which to compare the rival candidates. DW-NOMINATE (www.voteview.com) is a sophisticated statistical program originally developed to study the U.S. Congress. It allows for the accurate comparison of the location along the liberal-conservative ideological continuum of legislators who served at different points in time. Here it provides an objective empirical measure with which to locate the candidates in these six primary races on the liberal-conservative dimension along which most voting takes place in the Texas House.
The figure provides each representative's most recent Liberal-Conservative Score (the higher the score, the more conservative the legislator) along with the 95% confidence interval (CI) surrounding the score. Only when the CIs of two representatives do not overlap can we conclude that their respective Lib-Con Scores are significantly different from each other. The first year of the legislative period from which the Lib-Con Score presented here is drawn is in parentheses following the legislator's name. Also provided is more general information (see the vertical dashed lines) on the Lib-Con Scores of the representatives located (from left to right) at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of the aggregate Republican delegation during the 2001-11 period. That is, one quarter of the GOP representatives during these six legislative periods were located to the left of the 25th percentile line and one quarter to the right of the 75th percentile line, while the 50th percentile represents the GOP delegation's midpoint.
It is absolutely critical to keep in mind that a representative’s location on the left/moderate end of the Republican distribution does not signify he is not a conservative, it simply indicates that based on his observed roll call vote behavior he is less conservative than a large majority of his Republican colleagues. All of the current and former representatives examined here are most accurately classified as conservatives, not as liberals. For instance, the Lib-Con Scores of the Republicans examined here were all to the right of even the most conservative Democrat (Tom Ramsay, Mt. Vernon) who served between 2001 and 2011. By the same token, a representative's location on the right/conservative end of the Republican distribution does not mean she is a right-wing zealot, only that she is more conservative than a large majority of her fellow Republicans.


Ideological Contrasts: The House Races
In the four Texas House primaries, the data reveals clear separation between the two current/former representatives competing for the Republican nomination. In these safe Republican seats, a primary win guarantees victory in November; only Republicans filed for this year's elections.
The largest ideological gaps exist in the HD-88 race between Rep. Jim Landtroop of Plainview and former Rep. Gary Walker of Plains, and in the HD-83 race between Rep. Charles Perry and former Rep. Delwin Jones, both of Lubbock. In both districts the incumbent's ideological location is on the far right edge of the Republican ideological spectrum, with Landtroop and Perry's respective 95% CIs ending to the right of even the 75th percentile of Republican representatives. In sharp contrast, both Walker and Jones possess Lib-Con Scores at the opposite end of the spectrum, with their respective CIs stopping to the left of the 25th percentile of Republican representatives. Alone among these six primaries, HD-88 features two viable candidates who are not current or former representatives: Ken King of Canadian and Mac Smith of Pampa.
A substantial ideological divide also separates two Longview contestants, Rep. David Simpson and former Rep. Tommy Merritt, in HD-7. Like Walker and Jones, Merritt occupies a position on the liberal-conservative dimension which is significantly less conservative than a majority of Republicans who held office during this period. While Simpson is firmly within the very conservative wing of the Republican Party, he is somewhat less conservative than Landtroop and Perry.
The primary in HD-19 features two incumbents, Mike "Tuffy"Hamilton of Lumberton and James White of Hillister. Similar to Landtroop and Perry, White's score makes him one of the most conservative GOP representatives to serve during the 2001-11 period. Unlike Walker, Jones and Merritt (whose respective CIs did not even cross the 25th percentile line), Hamilton's Lib-Con Score locates him closer to the center of the GOP delegation.
Ideological Similarities: The Senate Races
The two Senate races lack the stark ideological differences found among the House candidates. As was the case in the House races, the two Senate contests are in safe Republican districts.
In SD-9 current Reps. Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills and Todd Smith of Euless face off. Hancock and Smith are both Republican centrists in comparison with their fellow legislators, with Lib-Con Scores located between the 50th and 75th and 25th and 50th percentiles respectively, and CIs which both cross over the location of the median House Republican. While Hancock's Lib-Con Score is slightly more conservative than Smith's, the overlap of their respective CIs indicates we cannot conclude that Hancock is significantly more conservative than Smith. This conclusion is reinforced by other roll call vote-based analysis focusing exclusively on the 2011 session in which Hancock and Smith's ideological positions were even closer than presented here.
In SD-25, the Lib-Con Scores of San Antonio's Sen. Jeff Wentworth and Elizabeth Ames Jones, a former legislator and railroad commissioner, are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable. Both have scores near the 25th percentile, with CIs which cross substantially over the 50th percentile. Based on their House voting records, Jones and Wentworth possess nearly identical ideological profiles which place them in the center (with a modest leftward tilt) of the Texas House Republicans. One caveat to this analysis is that Wentworth's tenure in the House ended almost 20 years ago. Certainly, his ideological position could have changed since then, although his Senate voting record in 2011 suggests Wentworth has not become less conservative over time.
Conclusion
Each one of the four Texas House primaries provides Republican primary voters with very clear and distinct ideological options from competing ends of the conservative ideological spectrum. The results of these four litmus tests will provide important signals as to the current balance of ideological forces within the Texas Republican Party. The ideological contrast is much less sharp in both of the Senate matchups, with limited to no real ideological differences observed between the rival candidates.
Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy's Fellow in Political Science and the chairman of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.
Let’s summarize what these articles tell us: (1) most of the likely Republican Party primary voters are extremely or somewhat conservative ideologically; (2) in the House contests, the choice is between a very conservative incumbent and a less conservative former member, and in the Senate contests, the distinction is minimal to non-existent. In Senate district 25, however, there is a third candidate, Donna Campbell, who is very conservative (see her campaign Web site here).
So, who’s more likely to win? Given the ideology of Republican primary voters, I don’t think that it’s difficult to predict the winners in the House contests. Simpson, White, Perry, and Landtroop should win easily in their respective districts. However, the Senate contests could prove more difficult to predict. The Hancock/Smith contest will be decided on factors other than ideology, given the similar ideological positions of the candidates. However, the Wentworth/Ames Jones/Campbell contest may prove more interesting ideologically. If Wentworth and Ames Jones split the slightly conservative and somewhat conservative vote, Campbell has a chance to capture nearly all of the extremely conservative and many of the somewhat conservative Republicans and end up in a run-off with either Wentworth (more likely) or Ames Jones. This contest could tell us even more than the other contests about the contemporary Republican Party in Texas

UPDATE: How did my predictions do? Simpson won HD-7 with 62%, White won HD-19 with 55%, Perry won HD-83 with 71% (wow!), Landtroop got 34% but is in a run-off with King (30%) and not Walker (17%), Hancock won with 64%, and Wentworth received 36% and is in a run-off with Campbell, who received 34%. If I were Wentworth, I would be worried. Only the most ardent and committed Republicans will show up for the run-off on July 31st!
What do these results tell us about the Republican primary voters in Texas? Basically, it's what we already knew. They are an extremely conservative bunch! 

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Partisan Polarization in Texas

Continuing in the same vein as the last post, consider the following information, which I drafted as the beginning of an article on partisan polarization in Texas. In these tables, I have divided independents into pure independents and leaners. I'll have more to say about leaners in a future post.
In their recent book entitled Unconventional Wisdom: Facts and Myths About American Voters, Karen Kaufmann, John Petrocik, and Daron Shaw argue that “On balance, most partisans have centrist views; Republicans are more conservative than Democrats on most political issues, but neither party’s mass base holds extreme viewpoints. If anything, . . . partisans were still fairly moderate and . . . they agreed more than they disagreed.”  If this is true for most Americans (which I don’t believe), is it also true for partisan Texans?
The following results from an August 2008 Texas Politics Poll allow us to examine this question. Several normative questions from the survey allow us to compare the views of Democratic and Republican partisan Texans with all Texans.
First, what is the most important issue facing the state of Texas today? The results from the survey, shown below, indicate that the top three issues are the economy (25 percent), immigration (23 percent), and gas prices (16 percent). But an important follow-up question is: Do Texas Democrats and Republicans adopt different views or the same view on the most important issue facing the state of Texas? For Democrats, a large plurality (40 percent) believes that the economy is the most important issue. For Republicans, a similarly large plurality (42 percent) believes that immigration and border security is the most important problem. The similar percentage of partisans that believe that gas prices, oil dependence, and energy is the most important issue facing the state illustrates a consensus. However, the seeming consensus masks the distinct partisan differences in ranking the importance of these issues. Obviously, there is little consensus between Republicans and Democrats on the most important issue facing the state of Texas.  

Q7. What do you think is the most important issue facing the state of Texas today? [OPEN ENDED]
25% Economy
23% Immigration/Border Security
16% Gas Prices/Oil Dependence/Energy
5% Health Care
5% Education
2% Taxes (including property taxes)
1% Problems with Texas Political System (i.e. corruption, incompetence, etc.)
1% Social Issues (including abortion, gay marriage, societal moral decline, etc.)
1% Crime
1% Environment
10% Miscellaneous
8% Don’t Know/NA
Issue/Party ID
SD
WD
DLI
I
RLI
WR
SR
Most Important Issue Facing Texas:







Economy
40
34
44
35
13
17
15
Gas prices/oil/Energy
17
19
14
17
8
17
21
Immigration/Borders
8
18
1
19
57
36
42







Second, who should run state government? Should the executive and legislative branches be unified, with the same party controlling both branches? Or should control be split so that one party holds the executive authority and the other party holds the legislative power? The results are not surprising. Strong partisans, whether Democrat or Republican, agree that unified government under their party’s control is best, with Republicans slightly more adamant than Democrats. An overwhelming percentage of independents (nearly 80 percent) don’t know which is best or favor split control.

Q23. In terms of who runs state government, which of the following options do you prefer?
30% A Republican governor and a Republican-controlled legislature
28% A Democratic governor and a Democrat-controlled legislature
12% Split control, with a Republican governor and Democrat-controlled legislature.
9% Split control, with a Democratic governor and Republican-controlled legislature.
21% Don’t know/refused/NA


Issue/Party ID
SD
WD
DLI
I
RLI
WR
SR
Control of Executive and Legislature:







Unified Republican
1
2
0
5
68
54
87
Unified Democratic
79
40
47
15
0
2
0
Split Control
13
42
37
37
19
27
6
Don’t Know
7
16
16
42
13
17
6

Third, how should public education be improved in Texas? The majority of Texans favor demanding accountability from educators over spending more money. But the partisan divide is deep. Nearly eight of ten Republicanswhether strong Republicans, weak Republicans, or Republican leanersfavor accountability. A majority of strong Democrats and Democratic leaners, on the other hand, favor spending more money for more teachers and better facilities.

Q25. Some people think the best way to improve the quality of K-12 public school education in Texas is to increase public funding so that we have more teachers and better facilities. Others say we are spending enough money, and that the best way to improve the public schools is to demand accountability. Which is closer to your view?
37% Increase funding.
56% Demand accountability.
7% Don’t know/Refused/NA

Issue/Party ID
SD
WD
DLI
I
RLI
WR
SR
Improve K-12 Public Education:







Increase Funds
57
41
53
42
16
27
15
Demand Accountability

40

54

43

46

78

69

78
Don’t Know
3
5
4
12
6
4
7

Fourth, how should transportation issues be addressed in Texas? A plurality of Texans favors private solutions over government programs. Again, however, there is a partisan split with a majority of Republicans favoring private solutions, and a majority of Democrats favoring government programs.

Q27. Some people believe that transportation issues are best addressed by government. Other people think that these issues can be best handled by relying on the private sector to provide transportation solutions. Which of these positions is closest to your own position?
36% Government
40% Private sector
25% Don’t know/Refused/NA

Issue/Party ID
SD
WD
DLI
I
RLI
WR
SR
Government vs. Private Sector Solutions







Government
52
39
57
44
19
28
24
Private
27
37
24
27
63
53
55
Don’t Know
23
18
29
19
19
19
21

The question, then, is how different are partisan Texans on these issues? Is there, as some maintain, a consensus that reaches across partisan cleavages and indicates that most Texans hold moderate views on these issues? Or do the differences between Republicans and Democrats, especially strong partisans in both parties, on these issues indicate a deep and widening party divide, reflecting fundamental disagreements on the two basic political questions: how much government should there be and what role should government play? For me, the answer is a deep and widening party divide, symptomatic of political polarization. What do you think?