Texas Politics and Society: A Comprehensive Overview

Everything Is Changing in Texas

On March 13, 2020, Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster for all Texas counties due to COVID-19.
Six days later, the Texas Department of State Health Services declared a public health disaster.
Local governments issued "shelter-in-place" orders and restrictions.
The pandemic caused damage to life and health, devastated the economy, exacerbated political divisions, and unleashed social unrest.
State governments have a direct effect on the quality of life.
Texas is the second-largest state in the U.S., with a population over 29 million in 2020.

Managing Change: Government, Policy, and Politics in Texas

Government's job is making, implementing, and enforcing public policies.
Texas government is a representative democracy modeled on the U.S. government.
It incorporates U.S. political principles such as popular sovereignty, political equality, separation of powers, due process of law, civil rights, and personal liberties.
Power is divided among legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
Public policies take different forms, including laws, constitutional amendments, rules, and ordinances.
Government meets public needs by allocating resources, such as raising taxes to pay for services.
Government can encourage behaviors with incentives (e.g., scholarships) or discourage them with punishments (e.g., fines).
Public policy is the product, government is the factory, and politics is the process.
Politics involves conflict and cooperation among various groups.
Politics is the moving force by which government produces public policy.

The People of Texas

Texas is diverse in racial, ethnic, and cultural terms.
"Race" and "ethnicity" are social constructs.
Terminology can be difficult and confusing.
The U.S. Census Bureau classifies anyone "with origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa" as "White".
The terms "Black" and "African American" are now used by the Census Bureau interchangeably.
A person categorized as ethnically Hispanic may be of any race.
"Hispanic" indicates someone of Spanish-speaking ancestry, distinct from "Latino," which indicates ancestral roots in Latin America.
The authors use the terms White, Black, Native American, and Asian for race and Latino/a for ethnicity.
More than one-half of all Texans are either Black or Latino.
More than one-third of all Texans speak a language other than English at home.
Houston is the most ethnically diverse city in the country.
The politics of democracy is about forging a path for diverse groups with opposing interests to live together peaceably.
Texans have a reputation for resilience and toughness.

Texans Throughout History: From Conflict Toward Cooperation

Few specifics are known about the people who inhabited Texas more than 10,000 years before Spanish explorers.
When Spaniards arrived, the land was inhabited by more than 50 Native American tribes and nations.
In East Texas, the Caddo lived in organized villages; the state's name comes from the word tejas, meaning "friendly."
The Comanche were excellent horsemen and warriors who resisted expansion.
Native American tribes were not unified.
Native American population declined rapidly after European contact due to diseases like smallpox.
Early contact included taking of slaves, torture, and even cannibalism.
Spain and France claimed Texas but did not actively rule all of the territory.
In 1824, Texas became part of a federal republic for the first time.
White American settlers began coming to Texas in greater numbers; violence between them and Native Americans was constant.
Mexican officials were concerned about White immigrants who resisted Mexican laws.
General Antonio López de Santa Anna repudiated the principles of the federal democratic republic, resulting in the Texas Revolution in 1836.

The Republic of Texas

Sam Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar struggled to establish Texas as an independent nation.
Warfare between Whites and Native Americans continued.
By 1856, the state’s Native American population was estimated at only 12,000.
Some Texas leaders sought to equate Indians and Mexicans and urge the expulsion or extermination of both.
From Texas independence until 1890, immigration from Mexico all but ceased.
Conflicts continued among White Texians, Native Americans, and Tejanos (Latino Texans).
Texas became a state in 1845.

The Lone Star State

Latinos comprised a majority of the population in South Texas despite increased White arrivals.
Before the Civil War, many White residents migrated from other southern states and were slaveholders.
The Republic of Texas legalized slavery.
By 1847, Blacks accounted for one-fourth of the state’s population, and most were slaves.
Some German immigrants opposed slavery.
Texas joined the Confederate States of America in 1861.
Texas leaders cited northern attacks on slavery as a cause for secession.

Slavery Not Universally Accepted in Texas

Some estimates suggest as many as 24,000 German immigrants and descendants settled in the Hill Country of Central Texas by 1860.
Most opposed slavery on principle, whereas others simply had no need for slaves.
As a result, 14 counties in the region voted 40 percent or greater against secession in 1861.

The Civil War and Reconstruction

Texas experienced less fighting than other southern states during the Civil War.
Reconstruction was a period in which the U.S. government sought to protect freed slaves and remake the political and economic structures of southern states.
Governor Edmund J. Davis worked to enfranchise freed slaves, leading to a small wave of migration into Texas.
Disenfranchised White citizens sought to re-establish White control once Reconstruction ended.
Texas was fully readmitted to the United States in 1870, but civil strife continued.
Although White migration into the state declined during the Civil War and Reconstruction, it resumed by the 1870s.
Westward settlement further displaced Native Americans and converted the prairies into cattle and sheep ranches.
A combination of White in-migration and Black out-migration reduced the percentage of Black Texans in the population from 31 percent in 1870 to 13 percent by 1950.

The Great State of Texas

Black Texans faced difficulty after Reconstruction in the form of sharecropping and de jure segregation (Jim Crow laws).
Texas saw more than 700 lynchings of Blacks and Latinos between 1882 and 1968.
Mexican immigrants escaping the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath fed the American need for seasonal laborers.
The Great Depression increased anti-immigrant sentiment and policy in Texas.
After World War II, many Mexican immigrants sought manufacturing jobs in cities.
Texans joined Latino/a and Black civil rights groups in the fight for equality.
In the 1960s, the federal government began to enforce desegregation decisions, and President Lyndon Johnson signed civil rights laws.
Integration has reduced, but not eliminated, intergroup tension in Texas.

Incidents of Racial Animosity in Recent Years

Protests of deadly encounters between police and Blacks and statistics demonstrating continued discrimination have heightened tensions.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd's death sparked large protests against police violence toward Black people.
Police response to protesters varied.
Governor Greg Abbott activated the Texas National Guard and declared a statewide state of disaster.
Demands for police reform resulted in some policy changes.
Local governments removed Confederate monuments and renamed schools.

Systemic Racism

Conflicts over police use of force and over monuments celebrating the Confederacy are part of a larger debate about systemic racism.
Systemic racism refers to racially and ethnically discriminatory laws and policies that have resulted in segregated housing, disparate treatment in the criminal justice system, and fewer life opportunities.
Although Texas continues to struggle with individual and systemic racism, historical minority groups have made major strides in education, employment, and political representation.
In 2020, Texas ranked second on a list of best states for Black entrepreneurship.
Texans work, live, socialize, date, and marry across racial, ethnic, and religious lines.
Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in American history.
In 2019, racial/ethnic categories in Texas were:
- White, non-Latino/a: 41.2%
- Hispanic/Latino: 39.7%
- Black/African American: 12.9%
- Asian: 5.2%
- American Indian or Alaskan Native: 1.0%
- Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0.1%
- Two or more races: 2.1%

Texans Today

Texas ranks among the most racially and ethnically diverse states.
Five major racial and ethnic groups: Native American, Asian, Black, Latino, and White.
Native Americans: Numbered about 320,000 in 2019; most live and work in towns and cities.
Three tribes: Alabama-Coushatta, Kickapoo, and Tigua, all operating (or attempting to operate) casino-like facilities. The struggle for gaming rights continues.

Asians

Texas is home to one of the largest Asian populations (more than 1.5 million) in the nation.
Asian immigration increased in recent years.
Asian population is diverse, with ancestry from Vietnam, the Indian subcontinent, and East Asia.
Most Asian Texans live in the state’s largest urban centers.
More than one-half of Texas’s first-generation Asian Americans entered this country with college degrees or completed their degrees after arrival.
Asians have the highest median household income of any racial group in Texas, at $111,900$ .
Four Asian representatives served in the 87th Legislature.
Jacey Jetton, a Korean American, was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2020.

Blacks

Texas was home to approximately 3.7 million Black residents by 2019, approximately 12.9 percent of the state’s population.
Texas has the second highest number of Black residents in the nation (after New York).
A significant number of people seeking employment and a higher standard of living have immigrated from the African continent to the United States and settled in Texas.
Beaumont had the highest percentage of Black residents among larger Texas cities in 2014–2018, at more than 48 percent.
Over the last 50 years, the political influence of Black Texans has increased in local, state, and national government.
Barbara Jordan became the first Black politician since Reconstruction to represent Texas in Congress in 1972.
In 1992, Morris Overstreet became the first Black person to win a statewide office.

Latinos

More than 88 percent trace their ancestry to Mexico.
Texas ranked second in the nation behind California in the number of Latino/a residents with more than 11.4 million.
More than one-half of all newborns in the state are Latinos.
Some demographers suggest that by 2022 Latinos will be the largest population group in the Lone Star State.
Though poverty rates are significantly higher for Latinos than Whites, Texas’s Spanish-surnamed residents are gaining economic strength, and the number of Latino/a-owned businesses is growing rapidly.
As Latinos continue to be the fastest-growing ethnic group in Texas (in terms of numbers), their political influence is increasing.
In 1984, Raul Gonzalez became the first Latino in a statewide office.
By 2019, Texas had almost 2,740 Latino/a elected officials.

Whites

By 2019, the White population of Texas was almost 12 million, or about 41.2 percent of the state’s population.
Projections indicate that the percentage of Whites in the state will continue to decrease and the percentage of other racial/ethnic groups will continue to increase.
White Texans of English ancestry predominate in eastern, central, and northern Texas.
The Whitest large city in Texas is Spring (near Houston), with over 88 percent of its more than 205,000 residents identifying as non-Hispanic White.
Poverty rates among Texas Whites remain dramatically lower and incomes remain significantly higher than all groups except Asians.
In 2018, Black and Latino/a households had median annual incomes below $49,000$ whereas White households averaged $102,000$ .
Despite making up less than half the state’s population, more than two-thirds of all businesses in Texas are owned by White people.
White Texans are more likely to vote, to contribute to campaigns and interest groups, and to run for office than any other racial group.

Implications of Racial and Ethnic Diversity

The changing demographics of Texas lead many to speculate that the partisan makeup of Texas will soon change.
Texas Republicans have historically done better among Latino/a voters than Republicans at the national level and are making efforts to continue that trend.

Texas Political Culture

Political culture: Widely shared values, attitudes, traditions, habits, and general behavioral patterns that shape the politics and public policy of a particular region.
Daniel Elazar identified three distinct subcultures in the United States: moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic.
Proponents of the individualistic and traditionalistic subcultures have historically dominated Texas.

Texas Moralism

In the moralistic subculture, citizens view government as a public service and expect it to improve conditions for the people.
The moralistic subculture in Texas has historically been the domain of those who lack power.
Radical Republican Governor E. J. Davis’s aggressive use of state government power in an effort to protect Black political participation made him many enemies among conservative White Democrats who regained control of the government when Reconstruction ended.
Reaction to Davis’s administration resulted in the decentralized, weak government established by the 1876 Texas Constitution, which is still in operation today.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, progressive groups like the Farmers’ Alliance, the Populist Party, and the Socialist Party surged in popularity in Texas as they challenged government to control the damaging effects of rising corporate capitalism.
From the mid-1800s into the early 1900s, a powerful Temperance movement in Texas sought to use government to end the sale and consumption of alcohol.
From the earliest days of the civil rights struggle, Blacks and Latinos in Texas engaged in organized political activism to change the traditionalistic political structure of the state.
Radical Republicans of the post–Civil War era sought to use government to end a White supremacist political system and achieve racial equality.

Texas Individualism

The individualistic subculture grew out of the focus on individual opportunity, especially in business, in the mid-Atlantic colonies.
Business leaders advanced this subculture, often viewing government as an adversary.
The individualistic subculture is dominant in a majority of the midwestern and western states.
Elazar asserted that the political culture of Texas is strongly individualistic, in that those in positions of power have tended to believe that government should maintain a stable society but intervene as little as possible in the lives of people.
An important source of Texas’s individualistic subculture is the mostly English-speaking, White settlers who came to Texas in the early 19th century from the United States either individually or because they were recruited by empresarios, such as Stephen F. Austin.
Elements of the individualistic subculture in the Lone Star State are its limited government and excessively restricted powers.
Per capita government spending for social services and public education is consistently among the lowest in the nation.
Power at the local level is dispersed among more than 5,000 governments—counties, cities, school districts, and other special districts.
Texans consistently report levels of trust in state government that are almost twice as high as their trust in the government in Washington, D.C.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lone Star State’s individualistic political subculture has been displayed by strong resistance to business closures and shelter-in-place orders.
Evidence of individualistic subculture can also be seen in Texas’s economic conservatism and deference to the power of wealthy businessmen and corporations.
Texas remains one of the few states without a personal or corporate income tax, and it has adopted right-to-work laws that hinder the formation and operation of labor unions.

Texas Traditionalism

The traditionalistic subculture grew out of the Old South.
It is rooted in feudal-like notions of society and government that developed in the context of the slave states, where property and income were unequally dispersed.
Governmental policymaking fell to a few powerful families or influential social groups that designed policies to preserve their dominant role in the social order.
Poor Whites and minorities were often disenfranchised.
The traditionalistic subculture in Texas can be traced to the early 19th century and the immigration of Southern cotton plantation owners.
Slave owners represented only a quarter of the state’s population and one-third of its farmers, these slave owners held 60 to 70 percent of the wealth and controlled state politics.
After the Civil War (1861–1865) and Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws limited Black Texans’ access to public services, such as education, and to both public and private facilities, like restrooms.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, poll taxes and all-White primaries further restricted voting rights.
The traditionalistic influence of Mexico, as evidenced by the patrón (political boss) system that dominated some areas of South Texas, has also affected political attitudes of some Texans of Mexican ancestry.
For most of its history, Texas has been a one-party-dominant state (first Democrat and later Republican), which is one of the key identifiers of a traditionalistic political subculture.
Participation in politics and voter turnout are consistently low.
Elazar noted that many Texans inherited Southern racist attitudes, which for a century after the Civil War were reflected in state laws that discriminated against Blacks and other minority groups.

A Changing Culture?

Since the mid-1970s Texas has experienced massive population influx from other countries and from states with more heavily moralistic political cultures.
Change is inevitable, but the direction, scope, and impact of the change remain to be seen.

Texas population, as of 2020

In every decade since 1850, Texas’s population has grown more rapidly than the overall population of the United States.
According to the 2020 federal census, Texas’s resident population totaled 29,145,505—a stunning increase of 40 percent from 2000.
(The resident population of the United States in 2020 was 331,449,281—an increase of approximately 18 percent from 2000.)
By 2020, Texas also had six of the top 13 fastest-growing large cities in the country.

Urbanization

Although many people living outside of Texas may still associate the Lone Star State with lonesome cowboys on vast ranges, the great majority of the state’s population growth has occurred in urban and metropolitan areas that are composed of one or more large cities and their surrounding suburban communities.
Texas’s four most populous counties (Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Tarrant) have a combined population of almost 11.5 million people, larger than the population of 43 of the 50 states.
Texas was 80 percent rural at the beginning of the 20th century, but today more than 88 percent of the state’s population lives in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) (those with populations greater than 50,000) in fewer than 20 percent of the state’s 254 counties.
It is politically significant that these 48 counties potentially account for about four of every five votes cast in statewide elections.
Urban voters are consistently more supportive of the Democratic Party.

Suburbanization and Gentrification

Between 1980 and the present, Texas suburbs (relatively small municipalities, usually outside the boundary limits of a central city) experienced explosive growth and spread into rural areas.
The early history of suburbanization was marked by racial segregation.
Today, de facto racial segregation (segregation by fact rather than by law) remains, especially in suburban areas, though to a lesser extent than in the past.
Although the shift from rural to urban areas and the growth of exurbs (extra-urban areas beyond suburbs) have continued into the 21st century, a repopulation of inner cities has revitalized numerous downtown neighborhoods and attracted new residents.
In a process called gentrification, middle-class and affluent people move into struggling inner city areas, investing in property improvement and new businesses.

Rural Texas

Small-town Texas is still a reality for the more than 14 percent of Texans who live in rural areas, which cover 84 percent of the state’s total land area.
Roads, water systems, and other public infrastructure age and crumble as the cost of upgrades, repairs, and maintenance falls most heavily on local taxpayers.
*The same funding shortages have led to school closures and cutbacks in important educational services, including those for the increasing number of homeless rural students.

Regions

Because of the state’s vast size and geographic diversity, many Texans have developed a concept of five areas—North, South, East, West, and Central Texas—as five potentially separate states.

The West Texas Plains

Agriculture is the economic bedrock of the West Texas Plains, from sheep, goat, and cattle production in its southern portions to cotton, grain sorghum, and feedlot cattle in the north.
This area depends heavily on water from the continually depleting and environmentally sensitive Ogallala Aquifer.
From the Panhandle to Odessa, West Texas is known for social, economic, and political conservatism.
Dominated by White evangelical Christians, agriculture, and oil, West Texas is fertile soil for the Republican Party.

The Border South and Southwest Texas

Border Mexico.
Like the West Texas Plains, the western border region also benefited economically from the Permian Basin oil boom but saw that boom end due to COVID-19.
In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) lowered trade barriers among Mexico, the United States, and Canada, which increased economic activity in the region.
All three countries adopted the agreement that went into effect on July 1, 2020.
By that time, however, border counties were among the hardest hit by the coronavirus and resulting limits on cross-border travel and trade.
Democratic party have substantial electoral success in the region.

Central Texas

Waco, Austin, and San Antonio are all in Central Texas.
The region benefits from its universities and colleges, the high-tech sector, state government, tourism, and major military bases.
It is also home to the German Hill Country, an agricultural region that holds onto its Central European (mostly German) cultural identity and its social and political conservatism..*
With a boom in the high-tech industry, a major university, and a thriving art and music scene, Austin has experienced rapid growth and in-migration from all over the country and the world.

North Texas

The metropolitan area that contains Dallas, Fort Worth, and the more than 200 incorporated cities and towns that surround them is known popularly as the DFW Metroplex.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins became nationally famous for his leadership in response to the coronavirus outbreak, taking a more active and aggressive approach than state leadership.

East Texas

The westernmost extension of the Deep South, East Texas can seem a world apart, as references to life “behind the Pine Curtain” suggest.
East Texas is now firmly a part of the Republican “Solid South.”

The Gulf Coast

The coast of the Gulf of Mexico stretches from the Louisiana border to the Rio Grande, though the region we focus on here surrounds Houston, the most populous city in Texas and the South, and the fourth most populous in the United States.
In 2018, Houston began a recovery that was halted by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and the cold weather with power outages of February 2021 that had a devastating impact on the oil and gas industry and on international trade.
The Beaumont–Port Arthur area has the highest concentration of union members in Texas.

The Economy

Texas success has a relied heavily on four land-based industries.

Texas Economy Through History

Much of Texas’s early history was dominated by cattle, cotton, timber, and minerals (oil and gas).

Cattle

encouraged cattle empires in Texas, established by politically powerful entrepreneurs such as Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy.
*Texas’s $12.3$ billion beef industry saw a 30 percent decrease in production as a result of meat-processing plant shutdowns due to coronavirus infections among workers in mid-2020.

Cotton

cotton formed the backbone of the state’s economy in that era.
*Today, the Lone Star State produces almost a quarter of the nation’s cotton and leads the country in exported cotton.
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic further reduced demand for cotton, cutting the market price per pound nearly in half.

Timber

By the mid-1800s, more than 200 sawmills were in operation from East to Central Texas.
*President Trump’s trade war with China, coupled with the coronavirus pandemic, dramatically reduced exports and sent prices for the state’s timber tumbling.

Oil and Gas

In 1901, when the Spindletop Field was developed near Beaumont, petroleum ushered in the industry that dominated the state’s economy for nearly a century.
*Discovery of major natural gas deposits in South, Central, and North Texas in the early 21st century, along with the newly profitable drilling method of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), launched an oil boom, but oil prices dropped from more than $100$ a barrel in June of 2014 to $35$ a barrel in early 2016.

Monthly oil and gas tax revenues plummeted in July 2019 – 2020

In July 2019, producers paid $440$ million in oil and gas production taxes.
*In July 2020, they paid only $118$ million.

New Economic Directions

*Texas led the nation in energy production capacity from wind farms and continues to develop its solar energy potential.
*Texas is the country’s leading producer not only of oil and gas but also lignite coal.

Renewables

In Texas, growth of renewable energy sources outpaced the growth of coal, natural gas, and other energy sources until the peak of the fracking boom

High Technology

The term high technology applies to research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of a seemingly endless line of electronic products, such as computers, smartphones, and drones.
Even with a decline in job openings during the pandemic, Texas ranked second only to California in the number of high tech jobs available.

Services

Most service jobs come with few or no benefits and pay lower wages and salaries than manufacturing firms that produce goods.

Agriculture

Texas ranks second in the nation in agricultural production (behind California) and sixth in agricultural exports
.* In 2019, the Texas Legislature passed and Governor Abbott signed HB 1325, legalizing the cultivation of industrial hemp in the state for the first time in more than 80 years.

Trade

Because more than 60 percent of U.S. exports to Mexico are produced in or transported through Texas from other states, expanding foreign trade has produced jobs for Texans, profits for the state’s businesses, and revenue for state and local governments.
They believed the new agreement would increase natural gas and agricultural goods exports and ease access to foreign markets for smaller businesses

Meeting New Challenges

*Clearly, Texas has experienced rapid and dramatic change in recent decades, and the state has faced dramatic upheaval brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

Poverty and Social Problems

In 2019, approximately one of every five children in Texas was living in poverty

Education

With a public-school student population that compares in size to the total population of Colorado, the future of Texas and its quality of life depend heavily on the quality of education.

Increasing Diversity

*A multilingual and multicultural state is also better positioned to compete and cooperate in a global economy.

Sustainability

Ensuring a high quality of life for Texans into the future means managing the state’s natural resources sustainably.
*Texas cannot rely on increased precipitation from El Niño. Its weather is predicted to be hotter and drier in the coming years than it has been in a millennium, due primarily to global climate change. Thus, the state must continue to prepare for future droughts and water shortages.

What did we learn?

Texas has a population of over 29 million.
*Each of the six major regions in Texas is different in its economic and political climate.
There have been challenges to which Texas must respond including social problems, developing more effective educational programs and sustainably managing the state’s natural resources.

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