Mark P. Jones

A good reason to vote in today’s Texas primary

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Baker Institute political science expert Mark P. Jones had an op-ed in this weekend’s Chronicle about the significance of today’s Texas primary.

If you haven’t voted yet, Jones makes a strong case for why you should cast a ballot.

Only one out of every 10 Texans of voting age is expected to participate in the first round of the Democratic and Republican primaries that conclude on Tuesday. This is unfortunate, because due to the prevalence of safe Democratic and Republican legislative seats throughout the state, an overwhelming majority of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C., and Austin are effectively chosen in their party’s respective primary.

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Why you won’t need photo ID to vote in Texas in 2012

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Today, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) refused to grant pre-clearance to the Texas Voter ID law approved by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry last spring. The law requires voters provide a valid government issued form of photo identification (driver’s license, state issued voter identification card, U.S. passport, concealed weapon permit, military identification) in order to cast a ballot at the polls. 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 →

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 →

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 →