Politics of Texas – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For approximately 100 years, from the end of Reconstruction until the 1990s, the Democratic Party was dominant in Texas politics. After renewed competition from the Populist Party in the late 19th century and loss of a Congressional seat in 1896 and 1898 to a Republican elected by a plurality, the Democratic Party ensured its control by disfranchising most blacks, and many poor whites and Latinos, through imposition of the poll tax and white primaries in the early 20th century, as did other former Confederate states. These exclusions lasted until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.
In a reversal of alignments, since the late 1960s the Republican Party has grown more prominent within the state. By the mid-1990s, it became the state's dominant political party. This trend mirrors a national political realignment that has seen the once solidly Democratic South, initially dependent on disfranchisement of minorities, become increasingly dominated by Republicans. But growth among the Hispanic or Latino population in Texas, which favors the Democratic Party, may shift party alignments in the long term.
The traditional culture of the state was heavily influenced by the plantation culture of the Old South, dependent on African-American slave labor, as well as the patron system once prevalent (and still somewhat present) in northern Mexico and South Texas. In these societies the government's primary role was seen as being the preservation of social order. Solving of individual problems in society was seen as a local problem with the expectation that the individual should resolve his or her own issues.[1] These influences continue to affect Texas today. In their book, Texas Politics Today 2009-2010, authors Maxwell, Crain, and Santos attribute Texas' traditionally low voter turnout to these influences.[1] In addition, beginning in the early 20th century, voter turnout was dramatically reduced by disfranchisement of most blacks, and many poor whites and Latinos.[2]
From 1848 until Richard M. Nixon's victory in 1972, Texas voted for the Democratic candidate for president in every election except 1928, when it did not support Catholic Al Smith; and 1952 and 1956, when it joined the landslide for Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Texas did not vote in 1864 and 1868 due to the Civil War and Reconstruction).[3] From 1902 through 1965, Texas had virtually disfranchised most blacks and many Latinos and poor whites through the poll tax and white primaries.
Two of the most important Republican figures of the post-Civil War era were African Americans George T. Ruby and Norris Wright Cuney. Ruby was a black community organizer, director in the federal Freedmen's Bureau, and leader of the Galveston Union League. His protg Cuney was a mulatto whose wealthy, white planter father freed him and his siblings before the Civil War and arranged his education in Pennsylvania. Cuney returned and settled in Galveston, where he became active in the Union League and the Republican party; he rose to the leadership of the party. He became influential in Galveston and Texas politics, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential black leaders in the South during the 19th century.
In the post-Reconstruction era, by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Republican Party became non-competitive in the South, due to Democratic-dominated legislatures' disfranchisement of blacks and many poor whites and Latinos. In Texas, the legislature excluded them through passage of a poll tax and white primary. As can be seen on the graph at the following link, voter turnout in Texas declined dramatically following these disfranchisement measures, and Southern voting was far below the national average.[4] This resulted in their nearly total exclusion from formal politics, when blacks made up 20 percent of the state population.[5] Republican support in Texas had been based almost exclusively in the free black communities, particularly in Galveston, and the so-called "German counties" the rural Texas Hill Country inhabited by German Americans, who had opposed slavery in the antebellum period. Republican Harry M. Wurzbach was elected from the 14th district from 1920 to 1926, contesting and finally winning the election of 1928, and being re-elected in 1930.
Some of the most important American political figures of the 20th century, such as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice-President John Nance Garner, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, and Senator Ralph Yarborough were Texas Democrats. But, the Texas Democrats were rarely united, being divided into conservative, moderate and liberal factions that vied with one another for power.
The rebirth of the Republican Party in Texas can be traced back to 1952, when Democratic Governor Allan Shivers clashed with the Truman Administration over the claim on the Tidelands. He worked to help Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was born in Texas, carry the state. Beginning in the late 1960s, Republican strength increased in Texas, particularly in the growing "country club suburbs" around Dallas and Houston. The election of Republicans such as John Tower and George H. W. Bush to Congress in 1960 and 1966, respectively, reflected this trend. Nationally, Democrats supported the civil rights movement and achieved important passage of federal legislation in the mid-1960s. Following passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, southern Democrats began to leave the party and join the Republicans.
Unlike the rest of the South, however, Texas was never especially supportive of the various third-party candidacies of Southern Democrats. It was the only state in the former Confederacy to back Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election. The 1980s saw a number of defections by conservative Democrats to the GOP, including Senator Phil Gramm, Congressman Kent Hance, and GOP Governor Rick Perry, who was a Democrat during his time as a state lawmaker.
John Tower's 1961 election to the U.S. Senate made him the first statewide GOP officeholder since Reconstruction. Governor Bill Clements and Senator Phil Gramm (also a former Democrat) followed. Republicans became increasingly dominant in national elections in Texas. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Previously, a Democrat had to win Texas to win the White House, but in the 1992 election, Bill Clinton won the Oval Office while losing Texas electoral votes. This significantly reduced the power of Texas Democrats at the national level, as party leaders believed the state had become unwinnable.
Despite increasing Republican strength in national elections, after the 1990 census, Texas Democrats still controlled both houses of the State Legislature and most statewide offices. As a result, they were able to direct the redistricting process. Although Congressional Texas Democrats received an average of 40 percent of the votes, Democrats consistently had a majority in the state delegation, as they had in every election since at least the end of Reconstruction.
In 1994, Democratic Governor Ann Richards lost her bid for re-election against Republican George W. Bush, ending an era in which Democrats controlled the governorship all but eight of the past 120 years. Republicans have held the governorship ever since. In 1998, Bush won re-election in a landslide victory, with Republicans sweeping to victory in all the statewide races.
After the 2000 census, the Republican-controlled state Senate sought to draw a congressional district map that would guarantee a Republican majority in the state's delegation. The Democratic-controlled state House desired to retain a plan similar to the existing lines. There was an impasse. With the Legislature unable to reach a compromise, the matter was settled by a panel of federal court judges, who ruled in favor of a district map that largely retained the status quo.
But, Republicans dominated the Legislative Redistricting Board, which draws the lines for the state legislative districts, by a majority of four to one. The Republicans on this board used their voting strength to adopt a map for the state Senate that was even more favorable to the Republicans and a map for the state House that also strongly favored them as Democrats had before.
In 2002, Texas Republicans gained control of the Texas House of Representatives for the first time since Reconstruction. The newly elected Republican legislature engaged in an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting plan. Democrats said that the redistricting was a blatant partisan gerrymander, while Republicans argued that it was a much-needed correction of the partisan lines drawn after the 1990 census. The result was a gain of six seats by the Republicans in the 2004 elections, giving them a majority of the state's delegation for the first time since Reconstruction.
In December 2005, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal that challenged the legality of this redistricting plan. While largely upholding the map, it ruled the El Paso-to-San Antonio 23rd District, which had been a protected majority-Latino district until the 2003 redistricting, was unconstitutionally drawn. The ruling forced nearly every district in the El Paso-San Antonio corridor to be reconfigured. Partly due to this, Democrats picked up two seats in the state in the 2006 elections. The 23rd's Republican incumbent was defeated in this electionthe first time a Democratic House challenger unseated a Texas Republican incumbent in 10 years.
Republicans control all statewide Texas offices, both houses of the state legislature and have a majority in the Texas congressional delegation. This makes Texas one of the most Republican states in the U.S.[citation needed]
Despite overall Republican dominance, Austin, the state capital, is primarily Democratic, as are El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley. However, the suburbs of these cities remain heavily Republican.[citation needed]
Texas, like California, is now a minority-majority state. This means that non-Hispanic whites no longer make up a majority of the population. This is predominantly due to the booming Hispanic population, which accounted for 38.1% of the state's population as of 2011[update] (compared to 44.8% for non-Hispanic whites).[6]
The state's changing demographics may well result in a change in its overall political alignment. As most Hispanic and Latino voters support the Democratic Party, Texas may eventually become a tossup state in presidential elections and turn blue for the first time since 1976.[7] Mark Yzaguirre questioned this assumption through highlighting Governor Rick Perry's courting of 39% of Hispanics in his victory in the 2010 Texas Gubernatorial.[8] However many contend that it is low turnout among Texas Hispanics that are keeping the state Red.[9]
Texas has a reputation for strict "law and order" sentencing. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, of the 21 counties in the United States where more than a fifth of residents are prison inmates, 10 are in Texas. Texas leads the nation in executions, with 464 executions from 1974 to 2011.[10] The second-highest ranking state is Virginia, with 108. A 2002 Houston Chronicle poll of Texans found that when asked "Do you support the death penalty?" 69.1% responded that they did, 21.9% did not support and 9.1% were not sure or gave no answer.
Texas has a long history with secession. It was originally a Spanish province, which in 1821 seceded from Spain and helped form the First Mexican Empire. In 1824 Texas became a state in the new Mexican republic. In 1835 Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna assumed dictatorial control over the state and several states openly rebelled against the changes: Coahuila y Tejas (the northern part of which would become the Republic of Texas), San Luis Potos, Quertaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacn, Yucatn, Jalisco, Nuevo Len, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas. Several of these states formed their own governments: the Republic of the Rio Grande, the Republic of Yucatan, and the Republic of Texas. Only the Texans defeated Santa Anna and retained their independence.
Some Texans believe that because it joined the United States as a country, the Texas state constitution include the right to secede.[11] However, neither the ordinance of The Texas Annexation of 1845[12] nor The Annexation of Texas Joint Resolution of Congress March 1, 1845[13] included provisions giving Texas the right to secede. Texas did originally retain the right to divide into as many as five independent States,[14] and as part of the Compromise of 1850 continues to retain that right while ceding former claims westward and northward along the full length of the Rio Grande in exchange for $10 million from the federal government.[15]
The United States Supreme Court's primary ruling on the legality of secession involved a case brought by Texas involving a Civil War era bonds transfer.[16] In deciding the 1869 Texas v. White case, the Supreme Court first addressed the issue of whether Texas had in fact seceded when it joined the Confederacy. In a 5-3 vote the Court "held that as a matter of constitutional law, no state could leave the Union, explicitly repudiating the position of the Confederate States that the United States was a voluntary compact between sovereign states."[17] In writing the majority opinion Chief Justice Salmon Chase opined that:
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.[18]
However, as the issue of secession per se was not the one before the court, it has been debated as to whether this reasoning is merely dicta or a binding ruling on the question.[19] It is also worth noting that Salmon Chase was nominated by Abraham Lincoln and was a staunch anti-secessionist. It is unlikely that he or his Republican appointed court would have approved of the Confederacy and Texas' choice to join it.
While the state's organized secessionist movement is relatively small, a notable minority of Texans hold secessionist sentiments.[20] A 2009 poll found that 31% of Texans believe that Texas has the legal right to secede and form an independent country and 18% believe it should do so.[21]
Until 2010, Texas had weathered the Great Recession fairly well, buffered by its vast oil and gas industries. It avoided the housing industry meltdown and its unemployment rate continues to be below the national level. It benefited from having a two-year budget cycle, allowing officials create budget plans with more time to focus on issues of importance. However, Texas was impacted by the economic downturn just like many other states, and by 2011 was suffering from tens of billions of dollars in budget deficits. In order to deal with this deficit, a supermajority of Republicans led to a massive cost cutting spree.[22] In order to draw new businesses to the state, Texas has developed a program of tax incentives to corporations willing to move there.[23] These efforts, along with Texas focusing on developing their natural energy resources, has led to a surplus as Texas begins its next two year budget cycle.[24][25]
For FY 2011, the top Texas revenue sources by category were approximately:[26] Federal Income: $42,159,665,863.56 Sales Tax: $21,523,984,733.17 Investments: $10,406,151,499.48 Other Revenue: $8,569,805,443.66 Licenses, Fees, Fines and Penalties: $7,741,880,095.57
As of 2008, Texas residents paid a total of $88,794 million dollars in income taxes.[27] This does not include Federal taxes paid by Texas businesses.
Besides sales tax, other taxes include franchise, insurance, natural gas, alcohol, cigarettee and tobacco taxes. Texas has no personal state income tax.
For FY 2011, the top Texas State Agency spending categories were approximately:[28] Public Assistance Payments: $26,501,123,478.54 Intergovernmental Payments: $21,014,819,852.52 Interfund Transfers/Other: $12,319,487,032.40 Salaries and Wages: $8,595,912,992.82 Employee Benefits: $5,743,905,057.61