The controversy surrounding the 78th Texas Legislature between the Democratic and Republican Party state representations and senators was that there was an attempt to redistrict the recently redrawn congressional districts. This issue of, “redistricting” was indorsed by the Republican Party. The endorsement of “redistricting,” wasn’t surprising considering that the Republican Party had just won the Texas state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. The Republican Party’s position on the issue was clear through the statements of Tom DeLay, “Texans deserve representation that reflects their values and believes.” Knowing that the redistricting would result in catastrophic losses for the party, the Democrats apposed the idea of, “redistricting.” The Democrats were so opposed to the idea of, “redistricting,” that they fled to Ardmore, Oklahoma. The justification for the party fleeing was said best in the words of state Representative Jim Dunnam, “We're here in Ardmore, Oklahoma, because the real problems of Texas are budget problems, are school finance problems, are health ...
In his article, “Homestyle,” Richard Fenno seeks to answer one question: How does an elected representative's view of his/her district affect his or her political behavior? To answer this question, Fenno identifies what a Member of Congress’s
Web. 09 Feb. 2011. O'Connor, Karen J. "Chapter 20: The Context for Texas Politics and Government. " American Government Continuity And Change, 2006 Election Update Texas Edition.
Newell, Charldean. "Inflexibility, Traditionalism, and Partisanship: The Texas Response to New Federalism." Review. Annual Review of American Federalism 12 (1981 (1983): 185-95. Publius. Oxford University Press. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
University of Texas at Austin. Texas Politics, The legislative Branch. Austin, 2nd Edition-Revision 94 2009, Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services.
Texas politics is an interesting ecosystem of power, rules and regulations. Of course, in typical Texas fashion, most of the politics we engage in we do our own way. From governors who stay in office for a decade to our extremely diverse demographics, Texas is extremely unique. This uniqueness of course comes with its critics, benefits, and downsides. This is particularly true with the Texas Court system compared to both the federal courts and many other states.
The topic I have chosen is gerrymandering. Before getting too deep into this paper, I’d like to take this time to explain what gerrymandering is. To gerrymander is to redraw and resize electoral voting districts across a state. This is done to ensure that the political party that has control of the state can keep control by distributing voters in a manner that alters the people’s representation.
While Voting Rights legislation had a great impact on changing the composition of Congress, other factors exist as barriers to minority representation in Congress. One of these is the use of single-member districts. Of great debate as to whether it is helping or hindering minority candidates is the establishment of minority districting and the use of racial gerrymandering. The question of constitutionality and these dist...
Texas inhabitants have decisions of some sort almost every year, and at more than one cases all through the 12 months. all through biennial in vogue races, the gigantic scope of workplaces and submissions brings about phenomenally long tickets. electorate, confronted with tickets loaded down with applicant names and issues unforeseen to them, astonish why they ought to vote.
The funding of public education has long been an issue for the state government of Texas. Starting before Texas was even a state, public education funding was at the forefront of politicians’ minds. In 1836, one of the reasons Anglo-Texans wanted to become independent from Mexico was Mexico’s lack of a public school system (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). This drove the desire of President Mirabeau B. Lamar of the Republic of Texas to create legislation that would grant public schools land (A Brief History of Public Education, n.d.). This act set aside four leagues of land per county for the use of free education centers and thus began the funding of public education by the state government (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). In the last 177 years, the Texas Legislature and the Texas Education Agency have created numerous acts and laws regarding the funding of education, but it has been in the last 50 years that this topic has become highly contested, resulting in several lawsuits and endless efforts (by the school districts) to equalize the distribution of funds to Texas school districts (Texas School Finance History, n.d.). In sum, the complex issues and policies that surround the funding of public education are derived from a combination of the legislature, bureaucratic agencies, and local governments in the form of school districts.
The writers of Texas’ constitution had good intentions but the current iteration of the Texas Constitution has not weathered the test of time as well as the U.S. Constitution. In the present day, Texas legislature is heavily influenced by interest groups due to a dominating political party, thus slowing the progress of the part-time legislature by pushing the agenda agreed upon by both the party and interest group. Part of Governor Rick Perry’s platform in 2012 was “adapting the Texas model to the U.S. Congress.” Opponents argued that The Texas legislature is working as intended and should not be
Constitutional reform ultimately failed because neither Legislators nor citizens took an interest (Newell et al 59-60). Additionally, there was much bickering dividing members on key issues such as: strengthening the Executive Branch, requiring Justices of the Peace of have a completed law degree and keeping Texas as a right to work state. These issues, combined with citizens’ concerns on education, health care, highways, air quality (Newell et al 60) and the fact that most Texas are politically conservative, preferring the current constitution which they understand and over a new constitution which may prove worse than the current one (Newell et al 60) proved difficult to meet the two-thirds Legislative vote and public
It has become common for people to blame the polarization of politics on gerrymandering. According to a study “Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization,” redistricting increasingly produces districts that are homogenous with respect to ideology; this is because ideologically homogenous districts make it more difficult for moderates to win, since moderates are divided so they no longer hold the majority in any given district even if they are the majority of the population. Due to redistricting (gerrymandering) polarization is possibly greater than it would be if the districting process were more politically neutral, but the fact that the U.S. Senate has experienced an increase in polarization at the same time the House has, suggests that gerrymandering plays a modest role at best in polarization (“McCarty, 3”). This leads us to our next theory that economic inequality is a possible cause for the increase in
Gerrymandering by definition refers to “district line-drawing that purposefully maximizes seats for one party or voting bloc” (Davidson et al., 47). Two commons forms of gerrymandering are cracking and packing districts. Cracking refers to splitting a group of people up (often into two separate districts) to weaken party strength or group strength. Likewise, packing refers to placing a group of people into one district to strengthen the weight of a given groups (party/demographics) votes (Davidson et al., 47). Gerrymandering is an important concept to understand because it is often used by one party or another to dramatically affect the results of elections. Currently according to the authors of our text, the most common form is partisan gerrymandering. Here, congressional members of a state where one party controls uses that power to gerrymander and ensure safe seats for members of that same party. It’s extremely manipulative and squashes any chance of the minority party rising to power and becoming elected in that state. Even with laws put in place to punish those who engage in this practice, the act of gerrymandering continues. Gerrymandering is not overstated and needs addressed by all states regardless of party control. Such an act is prevalent in Ohio given that the GOP
The Congressional Election of 1794 was a very important and influential one in the evolution of the American political party system. Although Federalists dominated the early political world of the newly constructed union, the Democratic-Republican candidate, Swanwick, was victorious. There were many factors that contributed to Swanwick’s victory that can’t be ignored when analyzing how the Democratic-Republicans procured the victory in the election of 1794. All the evidence available needs to be investigated in order to understand the influences of the candidate, their position on the various controversial issues of the time period, and the voters themselves on the outcome of the election of 1794.
The setting in the novel ‘One Flew Over the cuckoo’s Nest’ written by Ken Kesey in 1962 and the novella ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ penned by charlotte Perkins Gilman in the 1890 show similarities as both texts take place in sick rooms though they are set one hundred years apart. The setting of the texts lead readers to define sanity and insanity by looking at the characters influence on setting showing who is and who isn’t in power.