The Political Geography of Hurricane Harvey

Efforts at recovery from the impact of Hurricane Harvey continue amidst what appears to be a commitment from the federal government to provide $7.85 billion for what is being called the first “tranche” of relief funding. Even amidst Donald Trump’s triangulation efforts between Congressional Democrats and Republicans and the approach of another, probably more destructive hurricane headed for the U.S. mainland, we are still in a moment of relative consensus on the fact that government, mainly the federal government, will need to spend a lot of money to help people and infrastructure in the affected areas. (Later in the day, reports had the Senate passing a package with additional $7.4billion for community block grants.)

Inevitably, however, politics will return to discussions of how much money to spend, where it comes from, how it’s distributed, and who gets how much (some might simply call this politics). In thinking about that eventuality, we’ve produced some maps that combine the counties designated as disaster areas by Governor Greg Abbott with district boundaries for the Texas House and Senate, as well as the party affiliation of the legislators and members in those areas. (This meant jamming a lot in these maps and we’re not cartographers – we’re happy to receive suggestions and corrections – and if you would like to use any of the maps, feel free to download and distribute.) (And also, read on, there's more after the maps.)

The current consensus on the ground in Texas, stretching all the way from Governor Greg Abbott to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, is that the federal government will step up, as it usually does, and that there is not much of a rationale for a special session. After coolly laying out four things to “keep in mind” about the need for a special session to tap the Emergency Stabilization Fund, Eva DeLuna Castro of CPPP argues:

The next time lawmakers convene for a legislative session [in January 2019], they will review how much agencies like the Health and Human Services Commission, Texas Education Agency and others have paid out unexpectedly due to Harvey. If General Revenue is not available, then lawmakers could use the ESF – as intended – to help backfill funding for those agencies to prevent sudden and drastic cuts to critical services for Texans.

This doesn’t seem to address the possibility that agency responses to Harvey could exhaust available agency resources to the extent that additional appropriations would be required. While there doesn’t appear to be widespread concern about immediate funding as of this writing, per Jonathan Silver's coverage in the Austin American Statesman, concerns that money was tight were expressed by some agency personnel and some legislators at today's House Urban Affairs Committee meeting, convened by committee chair Carol Alvarado of Houston. There was also discussion that the amount of federal support promised in the last week could be reduced given the probably impact of Hurricane Irma.

But should Castro’s scenario play out, the politics around this spending will take place more than a year after the surge of Texas pride and solidarity that surrounded the aftermath of the storm. There will already be a significant amount of deferred expenses awaiting the 86th Legislature when they convene in January, 2019, and any additional funds that need to be appropriated on the front end of the regular budget process will likely be subject to debate about the particulars. As the maps above and table below show, the counties declared disaster zones encompass a wide swath of the legislature: 64 house members (37 Republicans and 27 Democrats) and 17 senators (9 Republicans and 8 Democrats) have all or part of their districts in the disaster areas. If all or most of them hold together despite the significant party polarization present in the legislature, they would form large, if non-majority, blocs in any contestation of spending related to post-Harvey reconstruction and related efforts to make agencies whole.