Texas Politics & Government: Ideas and Institutions

 Yesterday, the ICRC selected its final member. He is Joshua Blank. They also selected an interim chair--Christina Liu Puentes--and interim vice-chair--Luis Gonzalez. The average age of the commissioners is 43.57 years of age. The other demographic information is here: Name Gender Ethnicity District Education Calderon, Sara Ines Female Hispanic 2 Post-graduate Degree Dempsey, Erin Female Hispanic 10 Post-graduate Degree Finch, Whitney Female Anglo 2 Post-graduate Degree Gonzalez, Luis Male Hispanic 10 Bachelor's Degree Hardin, Errol Male African American 1 Post-graduate Degree Kambo, Shaina Female African American 9 Associat...

I borrowed the title for this post from a book by Samuel P. Huntington. The subtitle is The Challenges to America’s National Identity . It’s not my favorite book by Huntington, that’s American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony . That book, however, is followed by Who Are We? and the two books are related. First, American Politics was written to answer a question that was posed to Huntington during his oral defense of his dissertation. “Mr. Huntington,” the member of his dissertation committee stated, “what is the relationship between political thought and political institutions?” The questioner, Dr. Samuel H. Beer, was a political scientist of preeminence. Huntington states that the question was the impetus for a three decade search for the answer to that question, as it pertains to America. For many, America is an exceptional nation. In many respects that may be true, but it is not because of what America has achieved. It is because of the promise of America. It is because of ...

 Just when you thought that it couldn't get worse (you know the rest). At the April 23rd meeting of the Austin Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC), the twelve commissioners attending the meeting attempted to replace the commissioner who resigned because she was not qualified. After discussing the various possible appointees from the list of 60 Most Qualified Applicants, the group settled on two possible candidates: Isa Boonto-Zarifis and John McKiernan-Gonzalez. After discussing the merits of each candidate, the vote was conducted. The result was a tie vote; each candidate received six votes. The Austin City Charter requires a vote of nine members to replace a member of the Commission. The Commission has failed to hold a meeting since the April 23 debacle. But there's more. One of the commissioners, Hoang Le, who resided in SMD 8 when he applied and was selected to the Commission, now resides, according to his voter registration information, in SMD 3, which mea...

 Consider me surprised. The voter turnout exceeded 20 percent, but only barely. The voter turnout was 22.55 percent. Proposition B, the most contentious of the propositions, passed overwhelmingly with 57 percent of voters voting to reinstate the ban on camping. The proposition to change the form of Austin's municipal government from a council-manager form to a strong mayor-council form failed with only 14 percent supporting the proposed change. That was a good thing. The table reflects the vote on each proposition: The proposal for ranked-choice voting also passed overwhelmingly; however, the legislature would have to change the Texas Election Code to allow local governments to employ ranked-choice voting for it to become effective. The likelihood of legislative approval is slim to none given the current composition of the legislature. Overall, it was not a good day politically for Austinites, but that could be said on many days.