Post Date: March 2017
Public Opinion and the #TxLege Agenda for Wednesday, March 8
Chairman Dennis Bonnen is scheduled to convene the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday to discuss a handful of bills about taxes. Later in the day (after the House adjourns), the House State Affairs committee is scheduled to hear Rep. and Chairman Byron Cook’s fetal remains bill, HB 201
Public Opinion and a Big #TxLege Agenda for Tuesday, March 7
It’s hard not to see the late-breaking addition of the Public Education Committee chair Dan Huberty’s just-filed HB 21 to the committee's agenda Tuesday as a bit of a chess move against both voucher advocates and the Senate, where the State Affairs Committee will be holding a high profile hearing on SB 6, the bathroom access bill championed by the Lt. Governor.
New Travel Ban, Same Opinions
President Trump today signed a revised version his controversial executive order banning travel to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The updates exclude Iraq from the list of seven countries, removes a provision that prioritized immigration by religious minorities from those countries (aka Christians), and makes clear that it no longer affects people currently holding visas. As for the likely public reaction in Texas, February 2017 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Polling showed that among the Texas GOP, the President had little to fear, as they expressed favorable opinions towards his proposals (and some more extreme ones from the campaign trail).
Public Opinion May be Reinforcing Resistance to SB 6 in the Texas GOP
The Senate State Affairs Committee hearing tomorrow on Senator Lois Kolkhorst’s Senate Bill 6 has triggered three press conferences today and will no doubt be the focus of a large chunk of tomorrow’s news media coverage in Texas – and probably some national coverage, too. Much of the extant coverage has missed how conflicting public attitudes provide an essential context for understanding the politics among the leadership. Recent results from the February 2017 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll confirm that while Texans’ attitudes convey the expected conservative tilt, only a minority – 39 percent – think it is important for the legislature to act on this issue now.
Public Opinion and the #TxLege Agenda for Monday, March 6
With the 60-day bill filing deadline looming on Friday March 10, it will be a busy week in the Texas Capitol. We’ve pulled out a few highlights from recent polling to provide some context for some of Monday’s hearings -- Senate Finance, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Article III, the House Energy Resources Committee, and the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
Everywhere you look, Democracy! Texas Data Points from the Week in Politics
The week was barely underway when the new Public Education Chair in the Texas House illustrated just how much style and personality can make the same position feel really different when it comes from a Huberty rather than an Aycock. The House managed to make a fight out of the one issue that there seemed to be universal agreement on in the Legislature, while the Texas Supreme Court decided they want to hear arguments about gay marriage after all. Meanwhile, in the commanding heights, Governor Abbott was invited by the other two-thirds of the big three to have a fight with one of them, but it was no cigar. Instead, the Governor was plenty happy to take the resolution passed by the Senate joining the call for a Convention of the States, though conservatives are not all of the same mind on whether that’s a good idea or not. If the governor has to change their mind, maybe he ought to ask the President, who seems to have done a good job of moving Republicans toward a more open-minded position on the President of Russia -- though it turns out Attorney General Sessions may have jumped the gun on that front at least a little.