The Beginning of the End

By 2022, the run of Republicans' hold on statewide offices in Texas will end. The realignment that started during the 1980s, created parity between the parties in 1990, and produced a Republican Party that dominated Texas elections during the late 1990s to 2014 will end soon. Republican Party support achieved its zenith in party identification in the mid-2000s, and currently, partisan attachments among registered voters in Texas are split equally among Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

These charts illustrate my argument:

Note that Republican Party identification reached 42 percent of the registered voters in 2004 and 2005. Since then, party identification has declined for Republicans to around one-third of registered voters. Currently, party identification among Texas registered voters is approximately equally split among Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

Additional support for my contention that Democrats will win a statewide office in 2022 is the decline in the Republican Party's advantage in the straight-ticket vote since its high in 2014.

The gap was nearly identical in 2010, when Rick Perry was elected to his last term as governor, and in 2014, when Greg Abbott was elected to his first term as governor. The gap was 16.96% in 2010 and 17.87% in 2014.

The negligible gap in 2018 was the result of "Beto-mania" to some extent, but it also reflects the organizing done by Democrats at the grass-roots level. Whether my prediction is correct or not, 2022 statewide elections will prove very interesting.

Texas US House Members & Texas House Members

Yesterday, Mark Jones posted the Lib/Con scores of Texas' U.S. House members in the last Congress in the Texas Tribune. The graph is below:

The Texas House Lib/Con scores from the last session of the Texas legislature are charted below:

The interesting observation from the comparison is that the Republican Texas House members in the Texas legislature are less conservative, on average, than the Texas U.S. House members. Also, the Democratic Texas House members are more liberal than the Democratic Texas U.S. House Members. The average Democratic Texas U.S. House member is -1.2 on the Lib/Con scale, and the average Democratic Texas House member is -1.7 on the Lib/Con scale. On the Republican side, the average Texas U.S. House member is 1.0 on the Lib/Con scale, and the average Texas House member is -0.2 on the Lib/Con scale. Also, the most liberal Democratic Texas House member is -1.9, and the most liberal Democratic Texas U.S. House member is -1.4. Similarly, the most conservative Republican U.S. House member is 1.8, and the most conservative Republican Texas House member is 0.8.

 

Center for Public Policy and Political Studies Report #14

The most recent report that I authored for the ACC Center for Public Policy and Political Studies on straight-ticket voting in Texas is available here. The report shows that the percentage of straight-ticket voters in the 48 counties that provided 86 percent of the votes cast in 2018 was slightly more than two-thirds (67.49 percent). Furthermore, the votes cast for the Democratic Party nearly equaled  the percentage cast for the Republican Party. Unless the law passed in 2017 is rescinded, 2018 will be the last opportunity for voters to choose the "one-punch," straight-ticket vote in Texas. Anticipate longer lines and more time in the voting booth in 2020.

The Dreaded, Unspeakable "I" Word

Yes, according to the UT/Texas Tribune Poll, only six percent of Texans favor an income tax.

However, with rising property taxes at the local level of government--primarily to support public education, the legislature would do well to think the unthinkable--an income tax. Why?

In Article VIII of the Texas Constitution, an amendment, passed in 1993, required that if the Texas legislature created a personal income tax and voters approved it, the revenues would have to be distributed to reduce the property tax for public education (two-thirds of the revenue) and to support public education (one-third of the revenue). 

The combination of rising property taxes to fund public schools, the decline in the percentage of funding for public education that is provided by the state--approximately 36 percent, and the growing number of school districts that are required to share their property tax revenue with poor districts under Chapter 42 has created a perfect storm for a consideration of a personal income tax.

How would it work? In 2005, Representative Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) offered an income tax bill (HB 33) during the first special session of the 79th Legislature. Borrowing the tax rates from that proposal, the chart displays how various income levels would be affected by an income tax.