Saturday, January 19, 2013

On Political Representation by the Political Parties in the Texas Legislature


 In November, 2012, after the members of the 83rd Texas legislature were elected, Professor Mark Jones authored a Baker Institute Blog post entitled: “Which Party best Mirrors Texas in Austin?” As Professor Jones noted:

The 95-member GOP caucus is almost exclusively Anglo, with 88 Anglos (93 percent), three Hispanics (3 percent), 3 African Americans (3 percent), and 1 Asian American (1 percent). On the other side of the aisle will be a much more diverse 55-member Democratic caucus, comprised of 30 Hispanics (55 percent), 15 African Americans (27 percent), eight Anglos (15 percent), and two Asian Americans (4 percent).

He then uses the Loosemore and Hanby Index (LHI), an index of disproportionality, to determine which political party in the legislature is more representative of Texas. He concludes that:

The composition of the Democratic delegation in the House comes closest to reflecting the entire Texas population, while the Republican delegation comes closest to reflecting Texas registered voters and actual voters.

This analysis of which political party is more representative of the population of Texas exhibits several major problems. First, political representation is a complex concept and includes several types or meanings.  Hannah Pitkin notes that the types of representation include formalistic representation, symbolic representation, descriptive representation, and substantive representation. Formalistic representation focuses on the institutional arrangements for selecting representatives (authorization) and for allowing the people being represented to punish or reward their representative for their actions in representing them (accountability). Symbolic representation concerns the meaning that the representative has for the people he or she represents. Descriptive representation has to do with the extent to which a representative resembles the people he or she represents in important characteristics. Substantive representation focuses on the activities of the representative, assessing the degree to which he or she takes positions that reflect the positions of the people he or she represents on public policy.

According to which meaning of representation, which political party—Democratic or Republican—better represents the people of Texas? Let’s focus on descriptive representation because that’s the meaning or type that Professor Jones assessed. Professor Jones only focused on one characteristic of the population: race or ethnicity.  Are there other descriptive characteristics that are important and should be included? I would argue that gender is also important, especially considering the recent public debates over women’s reproductive and work-related rights.

The Loosemore and Hanby Index (LHI) is usually employed to measure disproportionality in electoral systems, more specifically to measure the disproportion of seats won versus election votes in different electoral systems. So, I am not going to employ it. Instead, I will use percentages to compare the two political parties, comparing the percentage of each category (gender and different ethnicities or races) in the population of Texas to the percentages of each category in each party in the Texas House and Senate. Furthermore, I will also use a parity ratio to compare the ratio of the party’s membership to the percentage in the population (the ratio is explained in a paper prepared by Carol Hardy-Fanta et al. for presentation at the 2005 American Political Science Association’s national convention entitled “Race, Gender, and Descriptive Representation: An Exploratory View of Multicultural Elected Leadership in the United States” ). The data is from the National Council of State Legislatures’ Web site, which is here. This will allow a comparison with state legislatures in the United States.

In the table below are comparisons between the Republican Party’s and Democratic Party’s members in the Texas House and Senate and the percentage of each category (gender and ethnicity) in Texas in 2013, using projected population data from the Texas State Data Center at the University of Texas-San Antonio).

Category
Tx Pop Proj 2013
House Rep
House Dem
Senate Rep
Senate Dem
Male
49.7%
84.2%
70.9%
84.2%
72.7%
Female
50.3%
18.8%
29.1%
15.8%
27.3%
Anglo
43.9%
92.6%
14.5%
100.0%
27.3%
Hispanic
38.8%
3.2%
54.5%
0.0%
54.5%
African American
11.5%
3.2%
27.3%
0.0%
18.2%
Other
5.8%
1.1%
3.6%
0.0%
0.0%


House Rep
House Dem
Sen Rep
Sen Dem

Difference
Difference
Difference
Difference
Male
-34.5%
-21.2%
-34.5%
-23.0%
Female
31.5%
21.2%
34.5%
23.0%
Anglo
-48.7%
29.4%
-56.1%
16.6%
Hispanic
35.6%
-15.7%
38.8%
-15.7%
African American
8.3%
-15.8%
11.5%
-6.7%
Other
4.7%
2.2%
5.8%
5.8%

In the table above, the negative percentages indicate overrepresentation of the group in the Texas House or Senate, and positive percentages indicate underrepresentation of the group in the Texas House or Senate.

In the table below, the parity ratios for all state legislatures and for the Texas House and Senate are displayed:


Anglo
African American
Hispanic
Male
Female
U.S. Population
64.7%
12.2%
16.0%
49.2%
50.8%
State Legislatures
86.0%
9.0%
3.0%
75.9%
24.1%
Parity Ratio
1.33
0.74
0.19
1.54
0.47



In the table below, the parity ratios for the Texas House and Senate are displayed:


House
House
Senate
Senate

Males/Rep
Males/Dem
Males/Rep
Males/Dem
Parity Ratio
1.69
1.43
1.69
1.46

Females/Rep
Females/Dem
Females/Rep
Females/Dem
Parity Ratio
0.37
0.58
0.31
0.54

Anglo/Rep
Anglo/Dem
Anglo/Rep
Anglo/Dem
Parity Ratio
2.11
0.33
2.28
0.62

Hispanic/Rep
Hispanic/Dem
Hispanic/Rep
Hispanic/Dem
Parity Ratio
0.08
1.40
0.00
1.40

Af Am/Rep
Af Am/Dem
Af Am/Rep
Af Am/Dem
Parity Ratio
0.28
2.37
0.00
1.58

Other/Rep
Other/Dem
Other/Rep
Other/Dem
Parity Ratio
0.19
0.62
0.00
0.00

What do the results indicate about the descriptive representation by each party in the Texas House and Senate? First, to interpret the parity ratios, a ratio of zero indicates that there are no members of that category in the party’s legislative chamber (e.g., African American Republicans in the Senate). A ratio smaller than one indicates that the members of party in the legislative chamber constitute a smaller percentage than the percentage of the category in the Texas population (.i.e, the category is underrepresented). A ratio of one indicates that the members of that party in the legislative chamber are represented proportionately. A ratio larger than one indicates that the members of that party in the legislative chamber constitute a larger percentage than the members of the category in the population (i.e., the category is overrepresented).

The table below indicates which categories are over- and underrepresented in each party in each chamber:


Overrepresented
Underrepresented
Republican House Members
Anglos, Males
Hispanics, Others, African Americans, Females
Democratic House Members
African Americans, Males, Hispanics
Anglos, Females, Others
Republican Senate Members
Anglos, Males
Others, African Americans, Hispanics, Females
Democratic Senate Members
African Americans, Males, Hispanics
Others, Females, Anglos

What can we conclude from the comparison of the two parties’ members in the Texas legislature? That is, which political party better represents the people of Texas descriptively? In both parties’ legislative contingents, males are overrepresented. However, the Republican Party’s members of both the chambers exceed the parity score for all state legislatures, but Democratic Party’s parity scores are lower than the parity score for all state legislatures. The situation is similar in terms of the parities’ parity scores for females. In the Republican Party’s legislative members, males are overrepresented (to a greater degree in the Senate), while males are underrepresented among the Democratic Party’s legislative members (to a greater degree in the Senate). Hispanics are overrepresented among the Democratic Party’s members in both chambers (and to the same degree) and are underrepresented among the Republican Party’s members in both chambers (to a greater degree in the Senate). Similarly, African Americans are underrepresented among the Republican Party’s members of both chambers and overrepresented among the Democratic Party’s members of both chambers. Others, primarily Asian Americans, are underrepresented in both parties’ contingents (to a greater degree in the Senate than in the House). In the House, others receive a better parity ratio from Democrats than from Republicans.

In conclusion, neither party is descriptively representative of the Texas population. However, the Texas Democratic Party’s members in the House and Senate are more like the diverse population of Texas than are the Republican Party’s members. And as ethnic minorities, especially Hispanics and Asians, become a larger percentage of the Texas population, the Republican Party needs to include more ethnic minorities among its legislative members or it will become even less representative of the Texas population.

In the next post, I’ll consider another form or type of representation: substantive representation.

Monday, January 14, 2013

An Update on Party Identification in Texas



It’s time to update the figure on party identification in Texas. In a UT-Texas Tribune poll conducted in October 2012, respondents reported the following percentages in party identification:

As you can observe, not much has changed since the May poll, but one wouldn’t expect much change, given the purported stability in party identification. Interestingly, the percentage of strong Republicans increased slightly (by 1 percent), and the percentage of strong Democrats decreased slightly (by 2 percent); weak partisans increased in both parties (Republicans by 4 percent and Democrats by 6 percent); Republican learning independents decreased by 2 percent, and Democratic leaning independents decreased by 3 percent. The percentage of pure independents decreased by 2 percent. If we only consider the percentage of partisans and independents, there was little change in party identification in Texas: 31 percent identified as Republicans; 29 percent identified as Democrats; 37 percent identified as independents.

Perhaps the increase in weak partisans in both parties can be attributed to the fact the October poll was conducted during the general election campaign, when partisan feelings, especially in our polarized political environment, are strong.

Friday, January 11, 2013

On Predicting Voter Turnout Based On Early Voting


In July, 2012, as the runoff in the Republican and Democratic primary election approached, Professor Mark Jones argued that voter turnout in the Republican primary runoff election could be predicted based on the early voting turnout in the most populous fifteen counties in Texas (his blog post is here). He provided early voting figures from the first Republican primary, which allowed twelve days for early voting, compressed the data into five days to be comparable to the five days of early voting allowed in the runoff primary election. He stated that if a comparison of early voting (early voting in the runoff/early voting in the first primary) was a low percentage, then turnout would likely be closer to the low estimate for voter turnout in the runoff primary. On the other hand, if the proportion were large, then turnout would likely be closer to the high estimate for voter turnout in the runoff primary. His figure is reproduced below:


Professor Jones admits that accurately predicting turnout and the percentage of the vote that would be cast during early voting is difficult, but he offers the following:

It is difficult to predict both what actual turnout will be in the marquee race of the GOP primary, the Senate runoff between David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz (in the first round in May it was 1.4 million), and what proportion of the voters will vote early or by mail (in the 15 most populous counties, 51 percent of voters cast a ballot in the Republican Senate primary early or by mail during the early voting period of May 14 to May 25). A reasonable estimate of overall turnout in the GOP Senate primary would fall between 750,000 and one million, while it is very likely that the proportion of these Texans casting a vote early or by mail will be somewhere between 55 percent and 60 percent.

How well did the prediction work? Here are the data:

County
Rep Primary
Rep Runoff
% RR/RP
Harris
78,441
70,481
89.85%
Dallas
31,312
33,895
108.25%
Tarrant
40,463
34,837
86.10%
Bexar
36,413
32,764
89.98%
Travis
17,535
16,056
91.57%
Collin
26,581
22,650
85.21%
El Paso
5,857
2,301
39.29%
Denton
18,774
14,338
76.37%
Fort Bend
20,884
14,451
69.20%
Hidalgo
4,293
2,022
47.10%
Montgomery
22,792
17,268
75.76%
Williamson
16,303
9,821
60.24%
Nueces
6,473
3,731
57.64%
Galveston
14,437
11,544
79.96%
Cameron
2,939
1,825
62.10%
Total
343,497
287,984
83.84%




EV + ED Vote
1,406,648
1,111,938
79.05%
Predicted Vote

1,179,333

Difference

67,395
6.06%

As you can observe from the table, the turnout in the Republican runoff primary was 1.1 million voters, and the early vote in the fifteen largest counties constituted 25.90 percent of the total votes cast, which is greater than the 24.42 percent provided by the early vote in the fifteen largest counties in the first primary. The total vote cast in the runoff primary in the fifteen largest counties was nearly 84 percent of the vote cast in the first primary. Using the early vote in the largest fifteen counties to predict the total vote in the runoff primary resulted in a predicted vote of 1.179 million votes, which are only 67,395 votes more than the actual vote and a reasonably small error.

Using the early vote to predict the final vote total in this case was reasonably accurate, but can the early vote be used generally to predict the final vote total? In the general elections between 2004 and 2012, the correlation between early vote in the 15 largest Texas counties and the final vote total is .95, which is quite high (see figure below). Why is the relationship even greater (.99) in this election? There are several reasons. First, the importance of the contest is probably most important. Whoever wins the Republican primary for U.S. senator is almost assured of winning the general election. Therefore, the incentive to participate in the primary runoff is great. Second, both candidates campaigned vigorously, both in the first primary and in the runoff and spent a considerable amount of money to make the case for their election to the voters. Third, the potential participants in the runoff primary are very restricted. The only voters who are allowed to participate are those voters who voted in the first primary and those individuals that did not vote in any party’s primary or participate in another party’s nomination process.