I LIKE CANDIDATES THAT TELL ME SOMETHING THAT IS GOING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO ME ~ANN RICHARDS
Kelly Macias wrote a sobering piece, Politics in Texas provide insight into how the rest of the nation can go and it's downright scary, that prompted a question in my mind. What do Republicans run on versus what they are doing when in office? Further, I asked, what are Democrats running to do if they were to win?
With those questions in mind, I did some digging, checking out every representative's campaign web page and identifying the 3 top issues each candidate raises. I looked at all 150 seats and discovered some interesting and sobering things. Before I share my findings, let’s take a quick look at the makeup of the Texas House of Representatives.
A quick disclaimer; I am not a Texan, which, for purposes of this exercise, I think will prove useful since I have no preconceived notion of any of the players involved. This allowed me to remain somewhat neutral as I reviewed their campaign information.
THE TEXAS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OVERVIEW
- Number of Representatives = 150
- Republican-held seats = 95 (63%)
- Democratic-held seats = 55 (37%)
- Seats not contested by Democrats in the last cycle = 60 (40%)
- Seats Republicans needed to win to secure majority = 16 (11%)
- Constituents per House District = 167,637
- Constituents represented by Democrats = 9,220,035
- Constituents Democrats DID NOT SEEK to represent = 10,058,220
OK, SO WHAT DID I FIND OUT LOOKING AT REPRESENTATIVE WEBSITES
We will get to that in a moment, just a brief description of what I did and why I did it. From Kelly’s piece linked above, this section she had block quoted caught my eye:
The long-term goal of cultural conservatives is to cut off access to abortion in Texas, to end state subsidies for birth control, and to gut state funding for Planned Parenthood—which, in 2011, served sixty per cent of the health needs of low-income women in the state. The legislators slashed the family-planning budget from $111.5 million to $37.9 million. Eighty-two family-planning clinics subsequently shut down.
Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the nation, and, according to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, about seventeen per cent of Texan women and girls live in poverty. After the family-planning budget was cut, there was a disproportionate rise in births covered by Medicaid, because so many women no longer had access to birth control. By defunding Planned Parenthood, the legislature also blocked many women from getting scans for breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
So, I asked myself, do these cultural conservatives actually campaign on this stuff? What is their message to voters in Texas? Well, I decided to check it out. All I did was go to their campaign websites and note what they indicated were their top 3 issues, or even more basically, the first 3 issues I could find on the page. I then aggregated them down to basic categories so see what theme Republicans tended to run on.
Before I dig into their issue list I will say, they have coined the term “Conservative Values”. Almost all of them use some variation of that or “True Conservative” or “Conservative Voice”. They all use it, with pride. Now onto the issues. Here is the list of the top 10 issues they campaign on:
Republican Top 10 Issues Cited as Top 3 in Importance by Individual Campaigns
Issue |
Number of times identified In top 3 issues |
Percent of Republicans |
Fiscal Responsibility |
52 |
55% |
Education |
28 |
29% |
Border Security |
28 |
29% |
Jobs and Economy |
20 |
21% |
Pro Life |
15 |
16% |
2nd Amendment |
12 |
13% |
Limited Government |
9 |
9% |
Immigration |
7 |
7% |
Health Care |
7 |
7% |
Family |
5 |
5% |
In terms of aggregating terms into categories, I took tax relief and budget constraint and lumped them into Fiscal Responsibility since they talked about each in almost exactly the same terms.
Any mention of education was included in that category. The range included charter schools, technical schools, and even included improved pay for public school teachers and evidently, there was a big boost in retired pay for teachers (or at least that is their spin on it in promoting their campaign).
Limited Government captured the deregulation stuff that did not specifically address taxes or spending.
Health Care included fighting Obamacare predominantly, but some talk of lowering premiums was part of the deal too.
In summary, 95 Republicans had roughly 39 distinct issues listed as a top 3 item in their individual campaigns. Interestingly a small cohort mentioned human trafficking as an issue they were concerned with, although I am sure it was more of a back door approach to border security, I actually left them as separate.
18% of Republicans did not have a website or did not list any issues on it if they had one.
SO REPUBLICANS DID RUN ON THE AGENDA they have been legislating to, BUT...
Well it’s really hard to satisfy the right wing. I can tell you that. ~Ann Richards
So they do run on pro-life, they did run on constricting health care access, but their top issues were not those things by far. In fact, they did not crack the top 5 issues across Republican officials. That said, Republicans are clearly taking care of all the legs of their stool. It is also fair to point out that they probably mentioned those other issues as 4th or 5th as well.
The top two issues are about the business of government, how money is spent and allocated, how we educate our children and the third issue is a fear based issue. None of it related to what they would consider their principle legislative successes (from their point of view) as outlined by kelly’s piece.
Since I looked at Republicans I took a look at Texas Democrats too
And, in doing so, I think I have learned something we need to get a handle on. We do not have a clear and cohesive agenda. At least in Texas.
Before I look at the issues themselves, I want to compare some general stats. As noted above the 95 Republicans listed 39 distinct issues they were focused on. That might seem like a lot, but 55 Democrats listed 37 distinct issues as a top 3 priority. That is a far broader range of issues per Representative. It points to us being less focused.
Another observation is that there is no one term or idea like “Conservative” around which Democrats refer to themselves as. That is probably a political liability.
Finally, as a comparison to Republicans, I noted above that 18% of the 95 Republicans had no issues listed, 52% of the 55 Democrats listed no issues on their sites if they even had one.
I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you. ~Ann Richards
OK, NOW A LOOK AT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TOP 10 ISSUES IN TEXAS
Here is a list of the issues various Democratic House members listed in their top 3 issues. I include all of them since there is a 29-way tie for 8th. In contrast, Republicans only had 12 issues that got mentioned only once.
Democratic TOP 10 ISSUES CITED AS TOP 3 IN IMPORTANCE BY INDIVIDUAL CAMPAIGNS
Issue |
Number of times identified In top 3 issues |
Percent of Democrats |
Education |
22 |
40% |
Health Care |
11 |
20% |
Jobs and Economy |
10 |
18% |
Criminal Justice |
3 |
5% |
Infrastructure |
2 |
4% |
Underserved Rights |
2 |
4% |
Veterans |
2 |
4% |
Reproductive Rights |
1 |
2% |
Energy |
1 |
2% |
Small Business |
1 |
2% |
Environment |
1 |
2% |
Protecting Children |
1 |
2% |
Equal Pay |
1 |
2% |
Senior Health Care |
1 |
2% |
Fairness for All |
1 |
2% |
STEM |
1 |
2% |
Fiscal Responsibility |
1 |
2% |
Community Neighborhoods |
1 |
2% |
Good Governance |
1 |
2% |
Represent my District |
1 |
2% |
Gun Restrictions |
1 |
2% |
Safe Neighborhoods |
1 |
2% |
Children |
1 |
2% |
Seniors |
1 |
2% |
Culture Recreation Tourism |
1 |
2% |
Social Justice |
1 |
2% |
Agriculture & Rural |
1 |
2% |
Transportation |
1 |
2% |
Voting Rights |
1 |
2% |
Constituent Voice |
1 |
2% |
Agriculture |
1 |
2% |
Windstorm Insurance |
1 |
2% |
LGBT Issues |
1 |
2% |
Mental Health Access |
1 |
2% |
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
Democrats do not have in place a governing idea or theme from which its candidates can work from. Texas Republicans easily frame almost any of their issues into the “Conservative (fill in the blank)” template. They can sort of plug and play. Put on a cowboy hat, have one photo with a church in the background and you hit the cultural touchstones that is comfortable to their base. Where as Democrats have a more scattershot approach. There are few touchstones that they all relate back to.
Even on their core issue of Education, there was scattered focus, some on early childhood, some on k-12, some even promoting charters and college access. There just is no organizing principle to grab a hold of scanning their websites.
And a good deal of the talk about issues, particularly on education, is about restoring cuts made by Republicans, not really a vision for the education we want to provide.
We are getting out organized and out marketed
Now, I am a firm believer that we are not going to simply find the magic sequence of words and all our problems will go away. I still believe that. That said, we need to compete in more races, (not seeking to represent more than 1/3rd the population of the state is a massive political problem we must address), and we need to firm up the messaging around some organizing principle we stand for that relates to advancing the interests of the people we seek to represent.
We are failing miserably on that front. There could be a bunch of potential candidates that would play well in those districts that do not like what the Republicans are doing, but are not connecting with what our aim is either, largely because our aims are a bit of a muddled mess right now.
My hunch is, we will continue to struggle until we coalesce some form of organizing principle we can feel comfortable campaigning on in Texas.
Your thoughts?