Post Date: June 2022
No longer just a product of the fringe, the proposed platform of the Republican party of Texas signals the anti-democratic turn in Texas politics
As in years past, the party platform committee report adopted at the Republican Party of Texas’ state convention last week is a Frankenstein assemblage of up-to-the-minute GOP hot topics, from namechecking the threat of “Drag Queen Story Hour” to “parental rights” to critical race theory to vaccinations, sewn together with well-worn fringe politics – plank 273 contains 14 positions related to threats posed by the United Nations. (There is also much more in the platform committee report, which runs to 40 single-spaced pages of small type that bolt on the preoccupations of a wide range of causes.) To anyone who has paid attention to past party platforms, or, more proximately, has watched Republican politics in Texas for even the last year, none of this will come as a surprise. The activist factions that have long dominated the organs of the state party have always been able to insert their pet obsessions into the party platform. But a look at even the headlined features in conjunction with available public opinion polling illustrates that they now have more influence than ever on the party’s actual, public agenda, as the output of the 2021 legislative session demonstrated in stark terms.
Second Reading Podcast: The #Txlege holds public hearings on the Uvalde shootings in the wake of the RPT convention in Houston
In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson and Josh Blank discuss public hearings on the Uvalde shootings in Texas, and the implications of the platform proposals that emerge from the Republican Party of Texas's state convention last week in Houston.
A Compilation of Texas Republican public opinion as the Republican Party of Texas convenes in Houston
As the Republican Party of Texas holds its election-year convention in Houston, scheduled to last through Saturday, we’ve compiled a selection of public opinion results among Republicans from our extensive polling data archive. We’ve not attempted any analysis here, though there is plenty elsewhere in our blog on the dynamics of public opinion in the Texas GOP. Rather, we’ve pulled out Republican subtotals on items that likely seem to provide relevant context for the convention proceedings and the political positioning taking place in and around the gathering.
John Cornyn’s effort to provide GOP with political cover on gun violence is a reminder that he is the last Bush Republican standing in Texas
With Ken Paxton's defeat of George P. Bush, Cornyn remains the last artifact of Bush era Texas Republicanism — if not a member of the dynasty by blood, he may well nevertheless be the last elected Bushie still standing.
Texas public opinion data points as congressional hearings on the January 6, 2021 attack of the U.S. Capitol begin
The House Select Committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 kicked off a series of televised public hearings Thursday night with a prime time event intended to reignite interest in the subject of their work and provide some teasers of what’s yet to come in future public hearings. Data in the Texas Politics Project polling archive provides some context for how the resumed discussion of January 6 and related matters are likely to land among different groups of Texas voters.
Second Reading Podcast: A conversation with the Los Angeles Times' Molly Hennessy-Fiske about her reporting from Texas
In a new Second Reading Podcast, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Houston Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times, talks with Jim Henson about her recent reporting from Texas, including her embed with a milita group on the Texas-Mexico border and coverage of the Uvalde mass shooting and its aftermath.
Second Reading Podcast: Public opinion and politics in Texas in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting
In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson and Josh Blank discuss public opinion about guns in Texas, and the implication for politics in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Uvalde.