Post Date: July 2021

A Note on Texas’ Quorum Requirements and Lt. Gov. Patrick’s Request for a Special Session Call

The Deeply Polarized Public Opinion Context of Texas House Democrats’ Flight to D.C. to Obstruct GOP Voting Laws

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

we’ve gathered some recent polling results that illustrate (yet again) deep divisions along partisan lines related to almost all aspects of voting. We start with results from University of Texas/Texas Tribune polling conducted during the session on specific proposals, some of which were in the late, not very lamented SB 7, and which have been resurrected in the new voting bills passed out of committees in the House and Senate over the weekend. We’ve also included results that illustrate those same stark, partisan divisions in attitudes and beliefs about how elections worked in 2020, how they worked in Texas, specifically, and dispositions about what needs to be done in the realm of election laws. 

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Updated Trends in data from more than a year of polling continue to reveal often dramatic differences in Texas attitudes and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

| By: Joshua Blank and Jim Henson

The June 2021 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll adds a sixth assessment of Texans’ attitudes about the coronavirus pandemic to the Texas Politics Project polling data archive, adding to attitudes collected in batteries from polls conducted in April, June, and October of 2020, and February, April and June of 2021. The time series allows reporters, researchers, elected leaders, public health officials, and the public a view of how Texans’ concerns about COVID, behaviors during the pandemic, and evaluations of the official responses have changed throughout a year of pandemic conditions in Texas.

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Keywords: Coronavirus