September 28th, 2021 – Second Reading Podcast

Jim: [00:00:00] Welcome to the second reading podcast from the university of Texas at Austin,

the Republicans were in the democratic party because there was only one party, Toronto people on a regular basis. There is still a land of opportunity in America.

It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the constitution.

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point. Must’ve female Senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room.

And welcome back to the second reading podcast for the week of September 28th, 2021. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin, and happy to be joined again today by Josh blank research director for the very same Texas politics project. Early fall late summer afternoon, Josh.

Let’s

Josh: just call it fall. Come on. I want, I want it to be fall summer. [00:01:00] That’s what I

Jim: like. That’s what I like about you, your optimism. Um,

well speaking of which I thought our theme today. Be kind of based on the big picture of the policy output of the 87 Texas legislature. So far still an action and still putting out a lot of stuff, including new maps that I suspect we’ll jump to next week when we’ve got all three maps and have a little more time to look at what’s out there and seeing how much they’re going to change.

The Senate map has already changed. Right? When they rolled out that I think we might’ve talked briefly about, but, um, but today we do want to talk about, I think the policy output of the 87th legislature and one of the big questions that is hovering out there right now, uh, about the handful of high profile.

Uh, boundary testing, conservative legislation, uh, that the legislature has passed. And that’s, you know, how far is too far? [00:02:00] Um, you know, at what point is attempting to cater to conservative support within the primary universe of the Texas Republican party, um, go too far and beyond the point that it, that it’s.

Politically a good idea, shall we say? And that’s, you know, bracketing the policy consequences, but this has been a big part of the discussion in since the legislature really, you know, following June in the legislature is first some pretty substantial cut at these policies, but also, you know, since the legislature has been strong out, you know, in to this third session and running.

Um, this has really gotten a lot of airing out. I mean, so I thought we’d look at this in the realm of some particular issues and the most obvious issue is abortion. Um, but also things obviously like gun policy elections, border security. Um, and maybe end by talking a little bit about how we [00:03:00] answer this question.

Um, and, and the strengths and limitations of that. I mean, our default is to look at public opinion, right. Uh, and particularly right now with an eye on the unfolding election calendar. Um, and we’ll try to come back to some of this. Now we should, we should flag that our friend and, and frequent collaborator, Ross Ramsey focused on the public opinion piece of this in a column, in the truth in the Texas Tribune earlier this week.

And Ross looked at selective examples of where public opinion was and pointed out that many of these measures, even though they’re being criticized as anti majority in a larger sense, sprout. They still enjoy substantial if somewhat bearing degrees of Republican support. Now that’s a very tangled kind of construction and, uh, there’s a lot going on there.

But I think where this really comes out is let’s, let’s start by focusing. Let’s focus on something simple. We’ll focus on probably the most complex, but also. [00:04:00] Kind of the most currently high visibility, uh, subject abortion, and Josh, you just assembled a ton of data where a piece that’s on our blog. So you should go to Texas politics dot U, texas.edu and click the blog in and Josh’s piece will be at the type at the top of this.

So, so what did you find through this lens when you looked at this huge amount of abortion data that we’ve collected over the last decade?

Josh: You know, I think the, I think the first thing, I guess that’s sort of the overview piece to. You know, set the table for abortion attitudes in Texas is probably just to point out that there probably will.

You know, they’re definitely not nearly as extreme as the output of the legislature would say, would suggest. And this is what I think a lot of people, you know, when they’re asking this question about how far is too far, you know, part of the idea here is that, you know, that the legislature in general is putting out legislation across a range of policy issues.

That doesn’t really look, you know, people would often say democratic, I get a lot of questions about how, how [00:05:00] democracy is functioning, Texas, in terms of the translation of attitudes to policy. And you know, it, it’s, it’s hard not to look and say, well, At best you’d say, Hey, you know? Okay. Sort of some places.

Yes.

Jim: Democracy is a complex little critter.

Josh: It is. It is. So just a couple of quick things on abortion attitudes and taxes. Now, again, I think the backdrop for this, obviously. I’m going to say, I don’t know if this is the foreground or the background. It kind of depends on how you look at it. I mean, the backdrop for this obviously is that the state has passed, you know, some of the most restrictive abortion legislation in the country, you know, for all intents and purposes, you know, access to abortion is limited to about two weeks, you know, functionally in the state, uh, you know, setting aside some of the other provisions of that legislation.

And so, you know, After chipping away at sort of abortion access for the last decade really made some big, big steps forward. And to the question is how is this likely to be received amongst the public? And so. You

Jim: say forward for that agenda? I think we should probably say right.

Josh: And so, you know, a couple of things, just to point [00:06:00] out here about Texas public opinion, number one, you know, we ask in our usual UT polls, whether or not, uh, voters identify as pro-life or pro-choice ultimately for the most part voters in Texas are about split on this, you know, about equal shares, identify, uh, as pro-life and pro-choice, and that’s important.

I think. So when you look at the legislation, if you want to look at legislation, say, boy, Texas must be the most. Pro-life state in the country. It’s a, well, maybe based on the legislation, but not necessarily the based on the way that voters identify themselves. You know, you go and take a look at another item where we ask about, you know, when people should be able to access abortion.

And, and one of the findings in Texas, which is also true generally, is that a really, really tiny minority of people would actually ban abortion in all circumstances as the state would do. Supreme court overturns Roe V. Wade. Now, of course, this is a little bit of semantics and some people would basically say the state has basically already banned abortion for the most part, especially if there’s no access, but in Texas, as recently as February of this year, only 13% of taxes.

And it said that abortion should never be permitted. That’s [00:07:00] 13% that included only 21% of Republicans among who the plurality would permit, you know, abortion in these sort of common circumstances that we think about. Incest danger to the life of the mother. And this is super consistent. This is consistent finding across the length of the poll.

We’ve asked this question 10 times and it’s, this is usually what it looks like. We’ve also looked at this data nationally. This is what it looks like. I think the most interesting thing probably is the next thing that I looked at, which was, you know, we’ve asked about a lot of different abortion policy in Texas over time and without getting into the details of all of this, cause there’s a lot.

And I think you should go look at the blog. It’s a little,

Jim: it’s pretty amazing. That Le you know, there’s a table in the injustice blog posts. How many questions we’ve asked going back, you know, a very long time, you know, even before I think you were part of the poll or right around the time, you maybe, but.

You know, a lot of questions. There’s a lot of, you know, it really underlines the degree to which is, you said [00:08:00] the strategy for the last decade, decade and a half, really, you know, longer than that, actually the strategy from a political point of view of anti-abortion advocates has been to chip away and to make incremental gains that, you know, seeing.

To not to be in some, you know, you tell me if this is right. I mean, the way I’ve always described this, as, you know, as I’m looking at the numbers, I think it’s right exist in a kind of gray area between enjoying something like majority of support, but also not being, not activating enough opposition to really become a problem.

Josh: That’s actually. You know, perfectly described a lot of the questions that we never asked. Cause cause what I say in the blog post he’s like, look, here’s a bunch of questions we asked about, you know, trans vaginal ultrasounds and you know, the burial or cremation of fetal remains. [00:09:00] 20 week bans, judicial bypasses firms.

We’ve asked about a lot of stuff. The thing is there’s a bunch of stuff that we even couldn’t ask about. That’s actually almost more central, but it’s always because it, yeah, I mean, it’s actually, do I know exactly why it was because in a lot of way, those laws were designed to not really be easily interpretable.

So for example, what we never asked about. Uh, requirement that, uh, you know, abortion providers meet the standards of ambulatory surgical care facilities, right. Which is basically to be able to have all of the infrastructure built into already existing facilities to basically make them hospitals. Now, the purpose of that law was, it was, it was eventually knocked down, but it was effective, which was, it was to reduce the number of abortion clinics in the state.

50 at the time to about 19 after the law got passed, even though it then got struck down by the courts. Another similar one was requiring doctors to have admitting process or abortion doctors to have admitting privileges the hospital. These are what I would say is these are. Policies that are in their face are very much, you know, quote unquote common sense to a lot of people because abortion facilities should have doctors with admitting privileges, whether that’s necessary or not.

I’m just [00:10:00] talking to your normal average voter. You know, why shouldn’t an abortion facility meet these, these set of standards, whether or not I have a lot of strong opinions about what the standards of abortion facilities, medical facilities should be. But the effect of them was ultimately to, you know, to basically reduce the number of abortion facilities in the state.

And so we couldn’t really ask about those questions in any sort of way that didn’t really, you know, mixed together the messaging and the politics, and in a way that actually, you know, reflects the fact that a lot of these policies, this is true. All policy touches, abortion policy are designed to either, you know, garner, you know, majority support in the way that they’re described or at the very least of blunt opposition.

Right. The interesting thing is when you look at these policies over time that we have measured, is it net support really kind of across the board has declined pretty significantly. And my kind of pet simple theater I’ve mentioned this before is just policies have become more extreme. They’ve walked more and more to the line of reducing or restricting access.

And also after a decade of this, I think people are just getting wiser to the fact that these laws are, you know, all [00:11:00] going towards the same goal, which is to eliminate abortion in the state.

Jim: So, so let’s just then ask the question. It sounds to me like you’re, you know, in the same way that the laws are walking right up to the edge, you’re walking right up to the edge of saying this could be too far.

Josh: Well, I mean, this is, yeah, sure. I would say so. I mean, you know, and I started the piece, I say this because, you know, I mean, based on my age, which I won’t say here exactly, exactly, but where I am in politics and how I’ve watched this evolve over time, I’ve always heard this discussion. The, well, you know, Republicans don’t really want.

Ban abortion because they do so there’s going to be a revolt on their hands. So, you know, women who’ve been used to having a certain amount of reproductive freedom for the last 50 years are going to say Nope, but, you know, I mean, I think if 2020 and really most of the Trump years have taught us anything it’s to ask ourselves whether anything matters.

And I know that that’s a little nihilistic and you know, a little too simple, a way to put this. We kind of talk about the why’s of this, but I would say that this is, you know, these policies are really walking up to the edge of what voters have at least expressed that they [00:12:00] are willing to accept, which is they’re willing to accept, you know, a 48 hour waiting period.

They’re willing to accept hurdles that women have to jump over in order to receive an abortion. What’s less clear is whether they would expect. Uh, relocation of access to abortion in all circumstances. And that’s something that the data certainly does not support. And, you know, Republicans in this legislative session have really walked right up to in a way that does beg the question.

Is there going to be backlash? Does it, you know, doesn’t matter

Jim: now break that down a little. I mean, cause I mean, obviously, you know, the, the key question here is, you know, where, where do subgroups line up? I mean, if we step back for a second, we’re looking at this. You know, what is essentially a defacto abortion ban, you know, in all, but very, very, very few cases.

Um, you know, how do you know where are partisans on this? I mean, in other words, you know, cause you know, it seems to me that we do see that [00:13:00] Republicans lose support for this. But not at a critical level in terms of a Republican primary.

Josh: Well, I think that’s, you know, you brought this up earlier and I think, you know, that is kind of the thing that, that sits in there.

You said, you know, this is kind of complicated, but now we’re here. So we’re going to get into it a little bit. Right. Which is you can look at the law at the top line level. So we see just overall in the electorate, what does this look like? And you see a bunch of policies, especially in this most recent legislative session.

You know, it’s, it’s pretty close to evenly split. I mean, I went to not all of it, but you know, for the most part you’re looking, you know, you see a majority we’re talking about pretty small majorities and then there’s big partisan differences. I mean, one of the things that define those partisan differences I would say is that, you know, the extremity of democratic opposition, the humanity of it all the near unanimity of it.

It’s something that’s just sort of becoming increasingly apparent as we measure public opinion. I think, you know, we used to describe Texas. I used to describe Texas, at least as you know, it’s a conservative state of the Democrats are relatively conservative, at least compared to their national counterparts.

You know, and I’ve worked in, in the background on a piece on ideology and sort of, you know, liberal identification, [00:14:00] but ultimately the Trump years did something to Democrats here in a way that, you know, at this point, their reaction to most state policies and also to state politicians looks as if you’re talking.

National politics and national politicians. The idea that, you know, there’s a conservative, you know, a conservative element to the democratic party here. It seems less and less to be the case. So on the one side you have near unanimous and intense opposition among Democrats on the Republican side, I think, you know what you see and you can see this, you know, the data is.

Essentially, you know, again, the same kind of patterns we’re talking about, you know, you still have majority or plurality support for almost every one of the policies we’ve discussed. But the issue is, is that, you know, the intensity of that support is, is less apparent. And also, you know, there now are, I would say significant minority shares of Republican voters who were opposed to some of these kinds of banner policies.

And I said, I’m talking about, you know, somewhere between, let’s say. You know, somewhere between 15 and 30%, depending on the policy. And it could be a little bit higher, you know, um, say, you know, who basically opposed the policies that [00:15:00] Republicans are essentially running on right now, going into the primary session that raises that question of, well, does that matter again now?

I mean, not to jump ahead, but I mean, my answer is kind of, no,

Jim: yeah. Well, I mean, I w I do want to jump ahead on that, but I also want to compare this a little bit. I mean, in terms of the overall frame here, I mean, how do you compare this issue to guns?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the way that this, this, I think this is, uh, you know, I’d say it actually maps really well.

There they’re

Jim: broadly similar, interestingly

Josh: enough. Right? They are. Which is that, you know, if you were to describe either one of these policy areas, similarly, you could say, you know, what’s the most extreme version of the policy in this domain. As far as, you know, Republican goals are concerned. We, you know, basically walked up to that extreme and a lot of cases a few years ago, for example, in 2019, we were talking about a six week abortion ban and go anywhere we were talking about permitless carry.

We didn’t go anywhere because the votes weren’t there. And the perception was that the public wouldn’t accept it. Ultimately the public hasn’t gotten any more accepting of these policies, but [00:16:00] we’ve gone. And so now you have something again, I think, you know, the example of permitless carry where you do have a, you know, a, a policy that is definitely going to be popular in Republican primary elections.

I don’t think any Republicans are worried about having to defend their vote on permitless carry in a Republican primary, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t have, you know, intense, intense majority of Democrats opposed a majority of independence, opposed in most cases, which is something that, you know, Republicans are going to have to increasingly contend with in a competitive state.

And now you’ve got. You know, somewhere around a third of your party on the gun, it’s a little bit more apparent. We’re like, you know, maybe this still was a little too far. I mean, two years, it didn’t change where, you know, again where we were on this.

Jim: So I think that, you know, I mean, just as a very quick aside or not even Nick, it’s just an, it’s almost like put a pin in it.

You know, this really does remind me, as I’ve looked at this, I’ve been going through the last, the data from the last poll and we’ve talked about it and we’re in, so. Contentious environment between Republicans and Democrats. And there’s this whole piece of the focus on the primary. I think it’s going to be time to revisit, you know, the old [00:17:00] piece on the growing role of independence again, because independence are very interesting in the way that they move around in these issues, but also in the way that they, in some ways they don’t move.

Right. And so I think that’s interesting. So, you know, I think what’s useful here a little bit. That is the contrast, the kind of divisions and the tensions that you’re seeing. With these banner issues of abortion and guns with immigration where you don’t see that tension among Republicans nearly as much, there are other kinds of tensions that have to do with, with ethnic groups, you know, in particular Hispanics.

Um, but also I think at a, in a understated way, a little bit also African-Americans those obviously, especially Hispanics in Texas, um, But the differences in immigration, I think really, you know, are, are really stark and that you don’t see these kinds of divisions, even as you get pretty extreme on immigration.

And I think, you know, in the latest poll that’s been evident in, or the most, couple of last couple of polls, that’s [00:18:00] been most evident on support for. Texas pain for a wall and for spending on border security where, you know, there’s not a lot of dissent among Republicans.

Josh: There’s almost no dissent among Republicans.

I mean, we say this kind of jokingly from time to time, but you know, this idea that, you know, immigration and border security is the issue that unites all factions of the Republican party. And, you know, we’ve kind of, you know, for awhile, I think at least I was sort of. I don’t know, struck by the extent to which immigration and border security are seen as a state issue here in the state, the longer I’ve lived here.

And I would also say to the extent that, you know, we’ve seen increasing numbers of frequent sort of migrant surges of the borders, it actually is beginning to make a lot more sense that it is, it is a state issue in a lot of ways. I mean, it really is in a way, I think it isn’t in other states, but, but nonetheless, I mean, you can look at the, you can look at immigration attitudes of, you know, Republicans and.

Iowa and Minnesota, they’re not going to look significantly different than the attitudes of Republicans here in Texas, which is why it’s such a valuable issue. Why [00:19:00] everything keeps often gets turned back to it. You know, it’s like, you know, it’s like what we’re talking about. COVID or we know we’re talking about immigrants with COVID, right.

We’re talking about, you know, giving people, you know, giving people, you know, unlicensed access to firearms. Well it’s to protect yourself and you know how dangerous it is down at the border, by the way. I mean, you can always kind of turn these issues back to. Immigration here in the state and whether it’s, you know, artful or not, whether it’s sensitive or not, you know, you’re definitely playing to an audience that’s receptive to this because they’re thinking about it.

You know, it’s not, it’s not a, it’s not a jump for most

Jim: well, it’s so incredibly sounding it to Republicans, but it is also is you’re I think kind of implying here. I mean, it’s also very immediate in terms of something experiential. You know, even if you’re not living on the border, I mean, it’s still something that is covered in state news, state media coverage, state political discussion.

And of course the science among Republicans gives, you know, the, the party that is the party of government, you know, in Texas, there’s no two ways about it. You know, a powerful talking point and a [00:20:00] powerful subject to go back to, um, You know, when there are crises and when there are problems, but also when there aren’t.

Yeah.

Josh: I mean, th the question that gets, you know, sort of raised about this in the context of the discussion we’re having here about how far is too far. And I think, again, a lot of observers wonder this is, you know, how often can you talk about, you know, how often can you be in Texas? Talking about immigrants and immigration in which, you know, what you’re generally referring to is Hispanic immigrants and immigration, especially from, from Mexico and others, you know, central and south American countries.

How often can you turn policy towards that and take, you know, such a prohibitionist or restrictive or putative tone and not turn off the growing share of voters in the state who are Hispanic. And this is one of those things where, you know, if you dive into the data, it’s like, well, There really, hasn’t been a lot of evidence that that’s a connection that, you know, I would say at least Hispanic voters who identify with Republic, the Republican party and Republican priorities are making, uh, it doesn’t mean to say that there aren’t more potential Hispanic voters out there in the [00:21:00] electorate.

The Democrats could try to mobilize on these issues, but it’s not as though in Greg Abbott talks about, you know, for example, giving the department of public safety, the authority to pull over vehicles suspected of carrying. Undocumented immigrants with COVID, which is, you know, more or less than a license to racially profile drivers that, you know, Hispanics in the state writ large are looking at that and say, that’s an example of discrimination.

There’s really, at least as of right now, limited evidence that that’s

Jim: the case. Well, I mean, I, I think I’d have to go back and look at this again, but I think this really does go back to, you know, something that probably raised in the podcast before, but it is. You know, that there are moments when, and I think this became something that was very common in the 22 thousands and early 2010s.

I really, during, you know, I thought Rick Perry was just kind of the innovator here in some ways of finding subtle ways, at least in, in the right moment to separate out border security and [00:22:00] immigration. Because as I remember, you know, the, the kind of show me your papers law. Didn’t you know, did pull somewhat lopsidedly.

I mean, not as lopsidedly as one might expect, but someone lopsidedly with Hispanics in a way that the border security stuff does not.

Josh: Yeah. But it’s all within, it’s all within the same range. I mean, it’s a fairly narrow and I think we should just say what it is, which is just, just to be clear here. So we’re not saying that, you know, Hispanic voters in Texas as a whole art, you know, let’s say quote, unquote.

Liberal on immigration policies as a group is just a description. The issue here is that there’s somewhere between 30 and 40% of Hispanics, pretty much, regardless of the, you could maybe go into the high twenties, but somewhere in there who, you know, for all intents and purposes, take the prohibitionist view on almost every immigration question we could ask.

And also generally, you know, those are the same, you know, those are the same distribution of, you know, job approval for the. And, you know, a [00:23:00] bunch of other things. And so, you know, that, that, that distribution is a lot more fixed. And I would say, you know, goes across a lot more issues than I think. Really, you know, I think, well, I mean, you know what I mean, not to jump ahead.

I’m not even jumping ahead at this point. I don’t think if it’s okay to kind of talk about the broader piece here. And I think this is sort of the difficulty as just anyone trying to sort of figure out, you know, how far is too far, because on the one hand, you know, you can kind of look at these things individually and say, well, this abortion law is too far for these groups maybe, or, you know, this gun law is going to turn off.

You know, people will start coming up with grit, suburban women, right. W you know, what have you, and. You know, there’s a couple, you know, there’s a couple of difficulties with this and one is, you know, do we think about this in terms of, you know, the individual or the individual reactions to individual pieces or, you know, suites of legislation as being somehow determinative of a people’s vote choice.

And here we’re not even talking just about, you know, reaffirming what people are going to do. We’re actually talking about a small subset of people who might switch their preference from what they would normally do. Cause [00:24:00] that’s what we’re really interested in at a very, you know, that’s where it would matter in a competitive state or is it just sort of like.

You know that basically this sort of choice, this, this choice to switch, you know, regular preferences, let’s say from Republicans to Democrats, if one assumes that Republicans have gone too far. And that’s really the argument here is somehow a function of the, some of the policy output that the legislature has done in some kind of summative determination of all these things.

This is too extreme. And the problem is, is, you know, they’re just too many constraints on voters for a lot of this stuff. To really sort of in and of itself matter. I’m not saying that it does it all matter. It’s not going to create change. But what I think when I, what bothers me is when I hear people say like the legislature did X.

So why is definitely going to happen now?

Jim: Right. You know, I mean, the kind of underlying his assumption is that, you know, a big share of voters are gonna, are gonna make a summit of you as you put it as summative judgment in the legislature and switch their preferences. Right. When it seems to me, you know, there’s a lot of, you know, there’s [00:25:00] just so many things that we have to think about in terms of how public opinion.

Gets translated into something that’s political, meaningful, and actionable in the process and, and impactful really, I guess, at the word.

Josh: Yeah. Well, and it’s also, it’s also conditioned by the fact that there are a bunch of constraints just to name a few people already have party identification. So ultimately if I’m a Democrat, I’m probably going to vote Democrat.

I’m a Republican, I’m probably going to vote Republican, even if I’m a Republican. If I’m part of that, let’s say 20 to 30% of Republicans said, boy, you know, ah, geez. You know, permitless carry. You know, abort, dove abortion for rape or incest. You know, you kind of go a little nuts. That’s not really what I’ve signed up for, but you know what the thing is is that negative partisanship means I probably dislike Democrats more than I like Republicans.

If I’m the type of Republican who’s turned off by those policies.

Jim: Right. That’s the other piece we needed, like just crank out is

Josh: that I’ve got sitting here, Q it out. I’ve

Jim: used it in a couple of presentations and it goes, well.

Josh: I mean, just to give the quick summary piece of this, I’ll do it quick, which is that, you know, essentially if you look at [00:26:00] democratic party, yes.

Are basically attitudes towards democratic party and attitudes of the Republican party. Among Democrats, more Democrats have a more favorable opinion towards the democratic party. An unfavorable petty towards the Republican party in terms of the intensity of that opinion. So we think as a servant, affirmative judgment, strong Democrats are much more likely to sort of have a very favorable opinion of the party among Republicans.

It’s much more defined by negative attitudes towards the democratic party. And that goes across straight the partisanship. So, you know, even when we talk about this, that even if there are Republican voters who are. Turned off by the extremity that, that the legislature has taken either on an individual issue, some number of issues or all of these issues.

It’s going to take a lot, right. For that person to go and say, well, now I’m going to vote for a Democrat. And I remember this during, you know, I’ve wrote this the most during the 2016 campaign when people are like, yeah, but like Republicans can’t vote for Donald Trump and I’d say, so they’re going to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Right. Right. And then I just add one other constraint here, which is just. [00:27:00] You know, we can’t expect voters to focus on all these policies. And so there’s, you know, the idea of a summit of policy is, is, you know, kind of judgment is, is attractive, but it’s difficult and it’s difficult to make people, you know, to sort of get people there if they don’t already have that view.

And then, you know, generally speaking the question of, you know, attention to what issue, it’s not clear to me that like, you know, these negative attitudes. Uh, towards extreme policy are systematically distributed throughout the electorate. So we could say, you know, if I look at policy, ABC and D that we’re like the banner, you know, pieces of policy of legislature, man, you know, Republican or let’s say suburban women let’s which this group of Passover, I mean, come up again.

I’m sure suburban women hate this stuff as a whole, right. Or, or, I mean, what we’ve been talking about or you go and look and say, man, you know, Hispanics really don’t like the policy agenda. And ultimately it’s not really distributed like that because a lot of these policies hit people kind of in sort of different ways.

And so it’s not. Like it’s, you know, it’s not systematically distributed as says, amongst groups who, [00:28:00] if they were to switch their preferences from Republicans to Democrats would flip the election. And that’s also part of the difficulty is just the sheer volume of it makes it difficult to make a clear message.

What people should focus

Jim: on. And you’re just talking about so many different factors, you know, I mean, if you’re a, if you’re a person, you know, asking the question, say a reporter, for example, um, you know, for example, you know, is this, is this too far, you know, there’s just so many, there are so many factors about how that gets translated.

You know, I think you get all that you’re great at, you know, that’s a great description of the, kind of just the baseline. You know, individual, how you, how you take the individual decision-making and, and political cognition and the difficulty of aggregating that, you know, at some level. And then how you think about that, and then just, you know, the process and some of which are, you know, all of which are operative and, and some of what you’re even are more operative than usual in, in Texas.

If we’re talking about some [00:29:00] kind of, I mean, the trajectory that’s suggested by. You know, the conclusion that okay, people have gone, you know, the Texas Republicans have gone too far and they’re going to pay for it at the general election. That’s ultimately the argument. Right. You know, or at least of the argument, if your answer to that question is yes.

Well, you know, there are so many different process questions about that. I mean, you know, from, you know, your assumptions about who’s participating in elections and what the. You know what the capability is in terms of mobilization and counter mobilization between the two parties. You know, even if you could conclude that, yes, there will be a bunch of Republicans out there that are ripe for the picking, if you’re a democratic statewide candidate, which I think is highly, which I think is highly questionable.

But even if you accept that, well, you know, what’s the baseline we’re talking about here in a state with, you know, [00:30:00] still has among the low. Rates of political participation. One of the stories of the last two election cycles is that, you know, even without this question of whether you’re going to get people to change their partisan preferences, You know, Democrats, haven’t done a terrible job of mobilizing voters, but Republicans have done a much better job.

Yeah. You know, there is a, you know, there, you know what I mean? The narrative is traditionally been, there’s just all these democratic voters out there. If the Democrats could just, you know, get out there and mobilize them and get them to vote. Well, you know what, at a state with a, with a turnout rate in midterm elections, you know, below 50%.

There’s also a lot of Republican, non voters out there too.

Josh: Yeah. And I mean, I think that’s the thing that I think is sort of, I mean, what’s sort of interesting to this and sort of that, you know, does this matter, how does this affect things and you’re right. I mean, we kind of just I’ll re raise this point, which is, you know, it does bring up this issue of the, you know, the reaction among less [00:31:00] attached voters to everything.

Um, you know, I mean, and the thing is. You know, in particular here. I mean, what it does bring up is the fact that, you know, Texas is still a competitive state. I mean, this is the thing, I mean, this is kind of what makes us interesting people kind of looking around and saying, boy, you know, texted me caper very competitive.

Why are, you know, why would Republicans go so far on some of these policies? And part of my answer is like, because Texas has competitive states because they need to mobilize many voters. To be competitive with Democrats. And honestly, you know, you could say it, the idea that like, will Republicans should, you know, maybe, maybe dial it back a little bit, seeing how competitive is, I’d say yeah, once Democrats win something maybe, but until that happens, there’s no argument for them to do that.

And you know, I, and so I think it does make it sort of raise this issue again of, you know, we do need to start doing. Independent voters. We did. We started, started looking again at the more sort of marginal voters in the electorate, looking at, you know, looking at young voters again, it was kind of an interesting piece in all of this,

Jim: right?

Well, it is, you know, although it [00:32:00] is interesting that, you know, I mean, I’m sitting here kind of nodding my head, as you’re saying that. And I’m thinking. You know, I mean, it’s, it’s consistent with that, but I mean, the, I guess the approach is softer among Republicans. And one might think if we think about the thing that we beat, like a dead horse on this podcast, but the 20 18, 20 19 sequence.

Right, right. In which, you know, Republicans, at least the Republican leadership do seem to take a more. You know, they didn’t call it moderate at the time they called it practical or bread and butter or whatever in the kitchen. Yeah. Any number, you know, where, you know, all of a sudden, we’re not talking about bathroom bills and trans vaginal ultrasounds.

We’re talking about a little more money for tea. You know, giving teachers raises, fixing the funding system and property taxes and, you know, a different set of issues. So it’s, it’s always issue to me that there is a short term subjective re. Among the political actors that [00:33:00] affects these strategies in their, their attempts at agenda management and speaking of agenda management.

I mean, I think, you know, that is also a piece that’s really underlying this question of too far, not far enough, et cetera, is, you know, that I think does speak to your con you know, your notion of constraints. And the limited bandwidth that voters have is that, you know, by the time we get to, you know, a year from now, September in October.

Um, I would expect that there will have been, you know, very pronounced efforts by Republican candidates to shape an agenda that, you know, sort of ships the relative weights of how much we’re hearing about the things we’re hearing about right now. If they can.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s right. And that, again, speaks to the sort of the, you know, again, the disadvantage the Democrats find themselves in holding, you know, basically zero offices and no leverage to shape the public discussion for [00:34:00] the most part.

Right.

Jim: And you know, that, you know, I mean our democratic friends sort of hate, you know, the way that it plays sometimes, and we’re not centered, you know, utterly without any influence, but you know, they’re already a significant disadvantage. Yeah, in terms of shaping the public agenda, given that what they are likely to want to talk about in a year from now is going to be very different from what Republican candidates are going to be like, are likely to want to talk about,

Josh: just to add to this conversation.

It’s just a different angle on something that you just brought up, which was, you know, talking about the 20 18, 20 19 cycle to show sort of the, the short term reactions of the public. You know, elected officials basically to, to electoral outcomes. And it’s funny because you know what, I always tell people, I would always shocks me.

I want to talk about the electorate and I’m realizing that’s true of electeds too. Right. And so I always talk about the electorate. I always think to myself, whenever an election season begins, it’s always shocking to me how short people’s memories are. Just in the extent that, you know, the campaign begins for president for whatever.

And it’s as if the last campaign never happened the last four [00:35:00] years now, we’re starting over. And it kind of like, and it sort of just shocking the idea that, you know, Whatever happened two years ago, four years ago does not constrain anybody because voters don’t really hold. You know, I think, you know, again, elected officials to any sort of sense of consistency over time for the most part within, you know, pretty broad bounds.

But I think that’s also true of the elected officials. I mean, ultimately, I mean, it’s funny, it’s like a, I mean, it’s a goldfish in a bowl here. I mean, 2018 habits at Oak. Oh crap. Well, we’d be better to do some serious stuff. And then, you know, and then 2020 comes along and, you know, Democrats, like we’re coming, we’re coming and then nothing happens.

Or if I was like, oh, okay. I guess permitless carry. Yeah, I don’t

Jim: want to name any names, but I mean, I was, you know, on a stage with a relatively pretty, a pretty conservative Republican, right after the 2018 election talking very much about, you know, how the constituent, you know, he was hearing what his constituents were saying.

They wanted, you know, practical issues. That same person has been completely vocal in his support of. Some [00:36:00] of the agenda of the 20, 20 of the 2020 recession, put it that way. So, you know, I mean, and I, you know, I want to end on, on, you know, uh, on one other point about this, I think really, you know, your point about the short memory of everybody, you know, we can fancy it up by calling it, whatever, you know, recency or, you know, but the other piece is, um, You know, there’s a lot of, you know, the play of structure and contingency also affects these things in very unpredictable way.

And this has been. You know, to understate the case. Uh, this has been a pretty big factor in Texas, this cycle, you know, with COVID, which is a fact that affected everything, of course, but also, you know, and I still think this is very much lurking out there. The February power failures, um, These are big examples of the fact that there’s kind of a, there’s also, you know, we can parse this and we’ve got this big pile of data and you know, we’re looking at it and all this detail, you know, there’s a, there’s a [00:37:00] major, shit happens factor that goes on here in which all of a sudden, you know, the context really shifts and actors have to adjust now, you know, The fact that we hear very little about COVID from the state’s leadership leadership under, you know, under underlines, the case that, you know, people are not power.

You know, the elected officials are not powerful or not without power to ignore problems or act as if they don’t exist. You know, particularly when you have a monopoly on the, you know, incumbency as, as we’re seeing in Texas, and we’re seeing with the

Josh: pandemic, you can even create the perception of problems where none exist without, for

Jim: example.

Right. And so, you know, I don’t want to say we’re just slaves to events, but, um, but events can scramble things in a way that, you know, I think, you know, remains to be seen how this is going to play out. Amidst this attempt to push a certain push the agenda in a certain direction. So I think on that, [00:38:00] we are, you know, a little over 30 minutes, a bit over 30 minutes.

I want to thank Josh for being here. Thank are our staff in the liberal arts development studio in the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin urge people to visit Josh’s blog and all this data we’re talking about. And. At our website, Texas politics dot U, texas.edu. And we’ll be back next week with another second reading podcast.

The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin.