Texas Politics & Government: Ideas and Institutions

 In November, 2012, after the members of the 83 rd 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...

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 ide...

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 accuratel...

I’ve been following a discussion by Steve Greene on his blog about political ideologies and happiness. The discussion started with a post on Arthur Brooks’ op-ed piece that alleged that conservatives are happier than liberals. Furthermore, the extremes in ideology (extremely conservative and extremely liberal) are happier than ideological moderates. Brooks has also posted a five part series on politics and happiness here . The one in which I am most interested is part 4 . This chart from the 2004 General Social Survey is especially interesting: Now, look at this chart from the 2010 General Social Survey: What strikes me is that the percentage of extremely liberals that are very happy is approximately the same as the percentage of extremely conservatives that are extremely happy. Furthermore, the extremes in ideology are not happier than those who are liberal or conservative. This chart is from Jay Livingston’s blog about Brooks’ op-ed here .  So what’s the p...

Several recent books on United States politics and polarization have noted that the most extreme polarization has occurred in the Republican Party, where members have become more conservative in the policy views and voting behavior than Democrats have become liberal. Notable books include Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson’s Off Center: The Republican Revolution & the Erosion of American Democracy (2005) and, most recently, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein’s It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism (2012). Mann and Ornstein make the case that that the extremism attributable to the Republican Party and the “Young Guns”—Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan, but it started with former Speaker of the House and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 1995. Has the same type of asymmetry occurred in Texas? Has the Republican Party become even more conservative ideologically while the Democratic Party has remained m...

This blog is devoted to the relationship between political ideas and political institutions. Nowhere in Texas government is the relationship more evident than in the Texas House of Representatives. Created as the “people’s branch,” the Texas House is supposed to represent the people who inhabit the legislative district. With the polarization of the parties, the consequences for representation are great. This is especially true when there is a shift in partisan representation in the House (e.g., a Democrat is replaced by a Republican). Notice what happened between 2009 and 2011 in the Texas House when several Democrats were replaced by Republicans. HD Name Party Lib-Con 2009 Name Party Lib-Con 2011 Difference 21 Allan Ritter Dem 0.15 Allan Ritter Rep 0.32 0.17 11 Charles Hopson Dem 0.05 Charles Hopson Rep 0.34 0.29 69 David Farabee Dem ...