Politics & Elections

How’s the state of the union? Depends upon whom you ask

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President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday was given in a context that underscored that the Republicans have no monopoly on resurrection. As the fortunes of Republican candidates have routinely skated to the precipice and back, so too has the president courted his political demise.

Written off only a few months ago by pundits and not a few voters, Obama’s prospects have been enhanced by several recent developments, including the killing of Sept. 11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden — an event Republican Mitch Daniels respectfully acknowledged in the Republican rebuttal to the state of the union. President Obama skillfully used this accomplishment at the beginning and end of his speech, not just to applaud our military but also as a nationally unifying moment that could teach us something about fighting our economic challenges. Continue Reading →

As Governor Perry comes back to Texas

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This Saturday it is likely that two things will occur in South Carolina. Rick Perry will finish fifth in the Republican presidential primary (last among those candidates still in the race) and end (technically “suspend”) his presidential campaign. While the unsuccessful Perry campaign has had a negative impact on the perception the rest of the country has of Texas, it also has adversely affected Perry’s political standing in the state. The image of the Rick Perry who returns to Texas from South Carolina on Sunday will contrast markedly with that of the Rick Perry who announced his presidential candidacy in South Carolina on Aug. 13. Continue Reading →

Are Houston voters having buyer’s remorse about the drainage fee?

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This November, Houston’s elections for mayor, controller and City Council produced some surprises. Incumbent Mayor Annise Parker was re-elected but only avoided a run-off by less than 1 percent of the votes cast, the smallest margin in a general election since Mayor Lee Brown was forced into a run-off in 2001. Moreover, several incumbent council members found their own electoral margins smaller than expected, including at-large Council Members Stephen Costello, Melissa Noriega and Jolanda Jones and District A Council Member Brenda Stardig. Jones and Stardig will be in run-off elections on Dec. 10.

Why did so many incumbent officeholders have difficulty in their re-election bids? Surely a weak local and national economy comes to mind as a reason for voter dissatisfaction, especially when incumbent officeholders were responsible to cutting services and raising fees in a weak economy. But if this was the cause of declining vote margins for incumbent officeholders, why didn’t all incumbents suffer a diminution in their electoral margins? Continue Reading →

One drawback of Texas’ amateur legislative model

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This week, Gov. Rick Perry proposed reforms to the U.S. Congress that among other things would result in that institution looking significantly more like the Texas Legislature. Many observers have suggested that is not a good thing for a host of reasons. Here I highlight one additional negative externality of the Texas model: roll call voting errors by representatives.

During the 2011 regular and special sessions, members of the Texas House cast roll call votes on 999 votes that were at least minimally contested (i.e., 2.5 percent of representatives voting were on the losing side). In a total of 1,402 instances, a representative voted either yes or no, and then later requested that a statement be inserted in the House Journal to indicate either that, while they voted yes, they had intended to vote no; or vice versa. While these statements allow the representative to go on the record with a different position on the vote (e.g., saying they opposed a bill in spite of the fact that their recorded vote indicates they favored the bill), they do not retroactively affect the legislative process (where the actual vote cast is what counts). Continue Reading →

Do voter ID and early voting laws really matter?

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Two hot topics for those of us who have an interest in elections — namely restrictive voter identification requirements and the curtailment of early voting — have generated a lot of debate and reporting that might suggest there is little hard evidence about their actual effect on voting behavior. In fact, there has been substantial research and testing that should allow us to analyze these trends without the hype.
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Redistricting, Rick Perry and the GOP presidential primary

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Since entering the presidential race in August, Gov. Rick Perry has been sharply criticized by many of his Republican opponents for being soft on immigration. These attacks have focused on Perry’s support for in-state tuition rates at Texas colleges and universities for undocumented immigrants, opposition to efforts to pass legislation similar to Arizona’s draconian immigration reform (SB-1070) in Texas (the law “may be right for Arizona, but it ain’t exactly right for Texas”), and disagreement with proposals to construct a fence/barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

In the midst of these continued attacks, on Monday Perry may have received some partial assistance from an unlikely source: President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ). Continue Reading →