Texas Public Opinion and the agenda for the third special session of the Texas Legislature

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation calling for the third special session of the 87th Texas Legislature Tuesday afternoon, adding four items to the agenda in addition to the expected focus on redistricting, and setting September 20 for the legislature’s return.

In addition to the Constitutionally mandated drawing of new district maps for the U.S. House of Representatives, the state legislature, and the State Board of Education, Abbott called on the legislature to consider and act on allocating federal COVID relief funds, “disallowing” students from competing in UIL athletics “designated for the sex opposite to the student’s sex at birth,” prohibiting COVID-19 vaccination mandates, and the dog abuse bill that the governor vetoed after the regular session.

We’ve compiled results of recent polling to provide the public opinion context for all but one of the issues on the governor’s call. (We have never polled on dog cruelty — not because we don’t love dogs, we just know what the results would be.)  The broadest context finds the legislature as well as statewide officials suffering rating declines in August 2021 polling compared to assessments shortly after the end of the regular session in the June UT/Texas Tribune Poll. You can find trend data for job approval ratings of the major statewide officials in a compendium at the Texas Politics Project website.

Redistricting

We have focused so far this year on just how much Texans are hearing about the redistricting process, which is central to structuring elections and a preoccupation of elected officials and other players, but is generally less salient to the public (and complicated). That said, with the actual map drawing finally upon us after a delay in the delivery of U.S. Census data, the share of Texans who say they’ve heard about redistricting increased from February to August. It’s perhaps also worth noting that in past polling, large pluralities of Texans supported an independent, non-partisan redistricting commission, though with large shares usually having no opinion.

COVID Funds

It has been widely reported that there are $16 billion in COVID relief funds slated for Texas from the federal government via the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The public health setback caused by the Delta variant striking amidst the persistent high rates of vaccination hesitancy/refusal was visible across the board in the battery of pandemic-related questions in our most recent poll. Perhaps most noticeable in this context was the comparatively low approval Texans’ gave to the state government compared to the federal government and the locals. 

Restricting Transgender Students’ Athletic Participation

Polling results on the terms of transgender student athletic participation likely reflect the newness of a subject whose political and social implications are likely still being contemplated (if thought about at all) by most Texas. The subject of transgender student sports participation has been thrust onto the public agenda by activists seemingly determined to prod Republican elected officials to keep it there, producing yet another increasingly polarized political fight in the legislature. Overall, a slim majority of Texans support requiring student athletes to participate in sports based on their birth gender, a result that we should find unsurprising when considering that this arrangement remains the status quo in youth sports participation throughout the lifetime of Texas voters up until this very moment. The status quo almost always has an advantage in a political debate when the issue is one that people likely haven’t thought much about and where the alternative might be hard to imagine. Prior polling on the policing of transgender peoples’ conduct found many Texans unsure about what they thought, and opinions that were more likely to change as the politics of the issue became more apparent to more and more voters in both parties. An optimistic view might be that the lack of legislation despite the bill’s inclusion in the calls for the first two special sessions, reflects an impulse in some corners (i.e. the House) to slow down on the issue while both lawmakers and the public think through a new set of issues.

Vaccine Mandates

Governor Abbott’s call on vaccine mandates appears far more generic than his social media account, which has been quick to remind Texans at every turn in the escalating curve that vaccines are always voluntary. This is unsurprising given sharply divided public opinion on vaccines, and what can safely be described as a general reticence about vaccine mandates. Despite Lt. Gov. Patrick’s widely debunked claim that African Americans, and in turn Democrats, are to blame for lower than ideal vaccination rates in Texas, polling in August found Republican voters to be the group most likely to express hesitancy or resistance to vaccination (40% of Republican voters compared to 20% of African Americans). So, unsurprisingly, there are large differences of opinion when it comes to vaccine requirements and their consequences. Overall, 53% of Texans support allowing private employers to require their employees to get vaccinated or submit to frequent COVID-19 testing, but underlying this result is the support of 90% of Democrats (77% strongly supportive) and the opposition of 62% of Republicans (53% strongly). Asked whether or not they support “the use of a credential (e.g. a ‘vaccine passport’) for people to provide evidence that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to gain admission to events or activities with large groups of people,” 46% of Texas voters are supportive, 44% are opposed — including 81% of Democrats in support and 71% of Republicans in opposition. So while the special session call may ask the legislature to consider “Legislation regarding whether any state or local governmental entities in Texas can mandate that an individual receive a COVID-19 vaccine and, if so, what exemptions should apply to such mandate,” it’s highly unlikely that the Republican-led legislature will pave the way for local vaccine mandates, nor that this is the governor's intention.