Txgovt c05 pol_parties_edited
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The document summarizes the history of political parties in Texas from Reconstruction to present day. It describes how the Democratic party dominated Texas politics for over 130 years after the Civil War, but then began declining in the mid-20th century as the Republican party gained popularity, especially among suburban and middle class voters. By the 1990s and 2000s, the Republican party had risen to power in Texas, controlling all statewide offices and the state legislature. More recently, the Tea Party movement further pushed the Republican party to adopt more conservative positions.
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Txgovt c05 pol_parties_edited
- 1. Chapter 5 – Political Parties: Texas in Blue and Red
- 2. Chapter 5: Political Parties Learning Objectives 5.1 Describe the function of political parties in Texas. 5.2 Explain the levels or organization of political parties and their roles. 5.3 Outline the changes in party dominance since the Civil War. 5.4 Analyze the factors that affect party competition. 5.5 Evaluate the impact third parties have had on Texas party politics and the challenges they face.
- 3. Chapter 5: Political Parties From Blue to Red • In the century after Reconstruction, Democrats dominated Texas politics. • Most Texans identified as “yellow dog” Democrats, a group that got their name because they would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican. • The 1994 gubernatorial election, with candidates Ann Richards and George W. Bush however, marked a turning point in Texas party politics. • Texas shifted politically to suburban, middleclass conservatism with strong ties to the Christian Right. • Bush, in a Dallas debate, said it all: “I’m the conservative candidate and she’s the liberal.” He won by 8 percent.
- 4. Purpose and Functions of Political Parties 4
- 5. The Function of Parties Nowhere does the US Constitution mention the word “party” although they have become a normal part of government today. Political Ideology Conservative: a political philosophy that believes in limited government, free markets, and individual entrepreneurship Liberal: a political philosophy that emphasizes social equality and a large role for government to protect liberties and alleviate social problems
- 6. Why do we have political parties? 6
- 7. Political Polarization in the United States 7
- 8. Division within both Political Parties “Red Kids” and “Blue Kids 8
- 9. The Function of Parties Recruiting Candidates • Local and state party leaders evaluate potential candidates, often screening them for quality and party loyalty. • Parties have traditionally recruited for partisan races, although they have expanded to include non-partisan local races • Parties also recruit candidates to widen the appeal of the party. • Starting with the election of Governor Bush, Republicans have made concerted efforts to recruit Hispanics to run for office in order to make inroads into socially conservative segments within Texas’s growing Hispanic population.
- 10. The Function of Parties Recruiting Candidates • Early 1900s party leaders nominated candidates for state and local offices at state conventions • Power centralized in party elite and special interests which led to abuse • 1905 new legislation – Public primaries to nominate candidates – Weakened party leadership role in choosing candidates • Once candidate is identified parties offer support services
- 11. The Function of Parties Mobilizing Voters • Turnout is critical to electoral victory. • During elections, political parties fire up their turnout machines to get loyal voters to the polls to support party-endorsed candidates. • Party activists often call other members to remind them to vote and even provide transportation to the polls.
- 12. The Function of Parties Articulating Interests • Parties represent groups of citizens with shared values. • Political ideology = strong predictor of party identification • Parties also have an incentive to sharpen their differences: If voters perceive marked distinctions, parties can recruit candidates and passionate voters more effectively. • Partisans: strongly committed members of a party – Volunteer more time and money – More likely to turn out to vote – More ideologically extreme
- 13. The Function of Parties Organizing Government • Parties work to make sure that their candidates, once elected, toe the party line to deliver on electoral promises. • Organize legislators into forums to work together and formulate policy • Parties provide accountability to voters
- 14. Party Organization Party Organization • The backbone of the party is the party organization: the group of individuals who volunteer or are paid minimally for positions at local and state levels. • Parties are hierarchical, with authority flowing from the national to state to local levels. • However, due to the decentralization of party structure in the United States, state and local activists wield considerable influence over the future of the party and often go to battle over policy and politics. Decentralization: the distribution of authority between national, state, and local party organizations so that each level exercises a degree of independent authority
- 15. Party Organization Party Organization • Precinct Chairs: Counties are subdivided into smaller units called precincts. Precinct chairs are elected in the party’s primary and serve for two years. As the most local party leaders, the precinct chairs recruit volunteers, coordinate campaign workers during elections, and participate in get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives. • County Party Chairs: County party chairs recruit candidates to run for local or regional offices, act as a spokesperson for local issues, manage the funds of the local party, and serve with precinct chairs. • State Party Chairs: The state party chair’s primary responsibility is to develop and communicate the party’s brand to the voters and to raise and manage political funds for the party at the state level. • Party Executive Committees: Executive committee members are the center of party power, as they govern the operations of the party and direct the overall message.
- 17. Party Organization Party Conventions • Every two years, the party hosts a convention – Decide how party functions – Set political agenda • Precinct conventions elect delegates to county conventions. • County conventions elect delegates to the state convention but also may submit resolutions that may become part of the party platform. Party Platform: a list of values, beliefs, and policy issues that are endorsed and supported by a political party
- 18. Party Organization Party Platforms • Democrats – Issue-based – Prominent words: state, health, public, programs • Republicans – More negative posture – Prominent words: oppose, united, public • Used for political marketing • Help to understand party position • Ideological distance between party platforms increasing
- 20. Party Platforms Democratic Party Platform Republican Party Platform ENFORCE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 REPEAL THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 STRONGLY OPPOSE “REPARATIVE THERAPY” FOR LGBT TEXANS REPARATIVE THERAPY IS A ‘CURE’ FOR HOMOSEXUALITY CLIMATE CHANGE IS A REAL AND SERIOUS THREAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS A CONSIPIRACY REDUCE POVERTY AND HUNGER DRUG TEST WELFARE RECIPIENTS EDUCATION IS A BUDGET PRIORITH ABOLISH THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SUPPORT COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM SUPPORT EXPANSION OF BORDER WALL AND STRENGTHEN IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS RESPECT FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS STRENGTHEN ABORTION RESTRICTIONS INCLUDING IN CASES OF RAPE OR INCEST TAKE ACTION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION OPPOSE NON-DISCRIMINATION LAWS UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO PRE-K AND KINDERGARTEN AND PLACE MORATORIUM ON NEW CHARTER SCHOOLS SUPPORT CHARTER SCHOOLS AND RESTRICT FUNDING TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS IMPROVE HEALTH OF TEXAS CHILDREN THROUGH EXPANDED PUBLIC INSURANCE LIMIT EXPANSION OF MEDICAID AND EXPANSION OF PUBLIC INSURANCE FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
- 21. Party Platform – Guns/Gun Safety
- 22. • Republicans first added support for letting Texans carry a handgun without a permit — what’s also known as “constitutional carry” – to their platform in 2012. Democrats have long supported strengthening and reforming current gun laws, and their 2018 platform calls for the repeal of current laws allowing for “open carry” of handguns and assault rifles. • Following the shooting at Santa Fe high school that left 10 dead, both parties expanded the sections of their platforms dealing with guns. The GOP platform now includes opposition to “red flag” laws, which allow for the temporary removal of firearms from someone who poses an immediate danger. The Democrats added a plank to support allowing law enforcement to confiscate firearms from suspects charged with domestic violence, stalking, human trafficking and other crimes. Party Platform – Guns/Gun Safety
- 23. Party Platform – Border Wall
- 24. Party Platform – Border Wall • Texas Republicans this year passed a plank in support of border security funding that mentioned “a border wall, or fence everywhere along the border where it is feasible and useful.” This replaced an earlier plank that called for “building a high wall with a wide gate ... where it is deemed effective and cost-efficient.” • Democrats' denouncement of a border wall is nothing new; similar language was present in the 2016 platform.
- 25. Party Platform – LGBT Rights
- 26. Party Platform – LGBT Rights • Texas Republicans softened their language opposing homosexuality and same-sex marriage in this year’s platform. Two years earlier, the platform described homosexuality as “a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths.” The GOP maintained its support for a bill regulating which restrooms transgender Texans can use. • The Democrats' LGBTQ Rights plank is nearly identical to the 2016 one, including support for the right of transgender Texans to use facilities consistent with their gender identity regardless of what gender they were identified as having at birth.
- 27. Party Platform – Marijuana
- 28. Party Platform – Marijuana • Republicans have inched the platform away from a firm anti-marijuana stance in recent years. This year, the party passed a plank that supports decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. • Democrats have advocated for marijuana decriminalization since 2012, but this year, they tweaked platform language to call for full legalization.
- 29. Party Platform – School Subsidies
- 30. Party Platform – School Subsidies • Democrats have long opposed subsidizing private school education but added language to this year’s platform to argue that such subsidies would particularly affect access to special education services for Texas students with disabilities. • The GOP modified its platform, which has long supported school choice, to assert that “no child should be forced to attend a failing school,” and to “reject the intrusion of government in private, parochial, or homeschools.”
- 31. Party Platform – Voter ID Requirements
- 32. Party Platform – Voter ID Requirements • Neither party’s position on this issue has drastically changed in recent years. But Democrats added language to their platform this year in support of “complete adherence to the federal ‘Motor Voter’ laws” which allows states to give residents the opportunity to register to vote at the same time that they apply for or renew their driver’s licenses. • The Republican platform calls for the repeal of those laws. In May, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked a lower court ruling mandating Texas enact a voter registration system that would allow drivers to register to vote when they renew their driver’s licenses online.
- 33. Party Platform – Abortion/Right to Life • Parental Consent: We support parental consent for all medical care, counseling, etc., for all minors. • Alternatives to Abortion: Until abortion is made illegal in Texas, we urge the Republican Party of Texas and the Texas Legislature to assist in educating the public regarding alternatives to abortion, especially adoption. • Discriminatory Abortion: We support legislation such as the “Preborn Non-Discrimination Act”v (PreNDA) to close existing discriminatory loopholes that fail to protect unborn children suspected of having a “fetal anomaly” or disability and to enact anti-discriminatory language to apply additional protections to unborn children at risk of being aborted because of their sex, race, or disability, in addition to providing families with information about life-affirming social and medical services available to them in Texas, such as perinatal palliative care. • Planned Parenthood: We support completely eliminating public funding for Planned Parenthood and any other abortion providers and all their affiliates, and we oppose their digital or physical presence in our schools and other public institutions. We also support elimination of public funding for embryonic stem cell research, research on fetal tissue, or human cloning. • Texas Democrats believe in the fundamental American values of freedom, privacy and personal responsibility. We believe in the right to make sound, responsible personal healthcare choices for ourselves and our families. • Trust Texans to make personal and responsible decisions about whether and when to bear children, in consultation with their families, physicians, personal consciences, and/or their faith; • Oppose TRAP (targeted regulation of abortion providers) legislation, which create dangerous restrictions on Texans’ access to abortion care; • Support using sound, mainstream medical science and evidence-based data to guide reproductive health care policies; • Recognize the product of a joined egg and sperm has no independent status, standing, entitlements or rights that would in any way usurp or supersede the rights of the mother or woman which are paramount; • Support individuals’ rights to acquire all forms of contraception, including long-acting reversible contraception, abortion care, or other reproductive services through their health insurance provider without additional premiums; • Support family planning funding for pregnancy prevention and preventive health care by all qualified providers in regulated, licensed medical facilities, including Planned Parenthood; • Remove funding for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) whose misrepresentations and arguably fraudulent customer acquisition and service practices draw unsuspecting young women through their doors;
- 34. Political Parties in Texas – Five Stages 34
- 35. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas Democratic Reign in the Postbellum Era • Republicans represented Texas immediately following Civil War, during Reconstruction • Once the national government pulled its soldiers out of Texas, many Texans rallied against the Republican Party—associating it with the scarcity that followed the Civil War and unwanted military rule. • Democrats won all the congressional seats in 1871, took majority control of the state legislature in 1872, and captured the governorship in 1873. • For more than 130 years after the Civil War, Texas was dominated by the Democratic Party.
- 36. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas The Decline of Democrats • In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt pushed through the New Deal, which enabled Democrats to tie voters closer to party through patronage—participation in party politics meant contracts, jobs, and status. • During President Roosevelt’s first term, the Supreme Court declared much of the New Deal legislation unconstitutional. • The vice president, John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, was a Texas Democrat but came from the conservative rural wing of the party. He and other conservative Democrats, known as the “Texas Regulars,” quietly and privately began to drum up opposition to Roosevelt’s court-packing plan.
- 37. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas The Decline of Democrats • In the 1952 presidential election, the state Democratic convention divided along ideological lines, with some supporting national Democratic welfare programs and some supporting a more conservative economic approach. • In the 1980s the rise of conservative, pro-Ronald Reagan Democrats, “blue dog Democrats” – Cut taxes, – Increase military spending – Reduce social services
- 38. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas The Decline of Democrats • Economic development and population growth weakens Democratic Party • Upper-class whites moved to the Republican Party. • As cities boomed, rural areas, which had traditionally been havens of Democratic power, lost influence. • Migrants from other states supported Republican Party • Last Democratic hurrah 1982: last election Democrats captured all statewide offices
- 39. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas
- 40. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas The Rise of Republicans • Future First Lady Barbara Bush recalled when she and the future president volunteered to work the Republican primary polls in Midland in 1958: “Exactly three people voted Republican that day. The two of us and a man who you could say was a little inebriated and wasn’t sure what he was doing.” • John Tower’s win to replace Lyndon Johnson in the US Senate was first Republican statewide win since Reconstruction • Republican takeover at the national level improved Texas Republicans • Republican strongholds grew from 1978 to 1994
- 41. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas The Rise of Republicans • By 1978, a deeply divided Democratic Party and a well-financed Republican Party cut a trail to the election of Bill Clements as governor and the reelection of John Tower to the US Senate. • By 1980 Republicans had elected more than 150 county officials and made substantial gains in the state legislature • 1998 Republicans swept all statewide offices and a majority on both supreme courts • By 2002, the Republican Party of Texas boasted strong representatives in the US Congress and controlled every single statewide office and both chambers of the state legislature.
- 42. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas
- 43. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas The Tea Party • The 2006 primary elections brought out a new breed of Republican voter • Leaders worked to purge the RINOs: Republican in Name Only • The rise of the Tea Party in the mid-2000s deepened the fissure between economic conservatives and social conservatives. • The Tea Party held a series of rallies in 2009 in response to the Obama administration’s economic recovery plans and the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare). • Grassroots conservatives
- 44. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas The Tea Party • Deep Texas roots: sprouted from Texan Dick Armey’s organization • Tea Party support higher in Texas than nationally • Among Texas Republicans, on average between 30 and 40 percent of the public identify with the Tea Party. • Tea Party-backed candidates – Ted Cruz – Dan Patrick
- 45. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas Fissures in the Republican Party • Consequences of rise of Tea Party profound for Texas • Friction develops – Socially Conservative vs Libertarian • Socially conservative: Ideas of morality imposed on state policies • Libertarian: Government out of just about everything – Fiscal Conservatives vs Business Conservatives • Fiscal conservative: low-tax state, minimal spending on government services • Business conservatives: increase spending on infrastructure, transportation and education
- 46. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas Lessons from Texas Party Politics • Develop New Party Blood • Offer a Bigger, Better Vision • Give Goodies
- 47. Party Competition Party Competition: electoral conflict that signals how successful one party is over another best indicator of shift in party power is in legislature Reapportionment: redistribution of representation based on decennial recounting of residents, done by redistricting Redistricting: redrawing of the legislative districts by the legislature to meet federal and state requirements, when legislature cannot agree Legislative Redistricting Board draws district lines
- 48. Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Texas
- 50. Party Competition Legislative Redistricting Board: made up of lieutenant governor, speaker of the house, attorney general, state comptroller and land commissioner • Map can be deemed unconstitutional by Supreme Court • Electoral districts encompass approximately the same number of people – Reduces number of rural districts – Increase urban districts – Shifts power to urban districts – Gerrymander: process of manipulating district boundaries to benefit a single group, unconstitutional
- 51. Party Competition 2001 Redistricting Battle • Following 2000 census Texas was slated to receive two additional Congressional seats – Republican governor, Democrat state house, split Senate – Could not agree on new district lines – LRB favored Republicans • Shifted “safe” Democratic districts to Republican districts • Republicans took a majority of legislature in 2002 elections • Republican majority legislature draws new districts
- 52. Party Competition 2003 Redistricting Battle and the Killer Ds • Fifty-two Democrats from the House and Senate fled Austin to Ardmore, Oklahoma for eleven days to stall a vote • Senate vote on redistricting could not be held, lack of sufficient senators • Special session called to pass redistricting bill, bill passed
- 53. Party Competition Redistricting 2011 • 2010 census added four US House seats • Redistricting occurred in 2011 – Challenged in court for not taking minority population into account Redistricting 2013 • Special session • 80 new Republican districts, 65 more liberal districts
- 54. Party Competition Party Switching • Politicians of one party switch to another, join the “winning team” • 1980s: several incumbent southern legislators switch from Democratic to Republican • WD-40s – White Democrats – Over 40 years of age • Democrats in redrawn districts • Many party switchers survive
- 55. Third Parties and Independents Third Parties and Independents • Traditionally, the United States has had two major political parties. • Why only two parties? Winner-take-all elections: whichever candidate wins the most votes wins the seat Duverger’s Law: a winner-take-all electoral system generally leads to a two-party system
- 56. Third Parties and Independents Third Parties and Independents • Several factors further obstruct the rise of independent and third- party candidates in Texas. • Most voters are attached to the “name brand,” or political platform, of one of the two major parties. • The two major parties also have a significant head start on fundraising and can tap a deep bench of donors. • Furthermore, state laws set requirements that serve as obstacles for third parties and independent candidates. For instance, a new third party must create a state executive committee and establish procedures for governing the party meetings and selection of candidates.
- 57. Third Parties and Independents Third Parties and Independents LA RAZA UNIDA PARTY: In the 1970s, La Raza Unida tried to break the Democrats’ monopoly on local politics. As a separate political entity, La Raza Unida posed serious problems for Democrats as Mexican Americans began defecting from the party and voting for the new party. LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF TEXAS: The Libertarian Party of Texas emphasizes liberty as their main philosophy, encouraging freedom of choice and the importance of individual judgment. GREEN PARTY OF TEXAS: The Green Party of Texas emphasizes local control of communities, nonviolent resolution of disputes, and social justice. INDEPENDENT: candidates can run independent if so declared