What’s the matter with Texas (legislators)? - The Washington Post

Stacy-Marie Ishmael is a writer and editor, based in Texas. She is the former editorial director of the Texas Tribune.

The penultimate day of the 87th session of the Texas legislature ended with mostly brown and Black Democrats in the House staging a walkout. The dramatic, late-night escalation — coordinated via text message — quashed a bill that would restrict Texans’ voting rights in the name of electoral integrity, and another that would have changed the state’s bail laws to make it harder for people to get out of jail.

Both of those bills from the GOP-dominated legislature had been earmarked by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott as priorities for this year’s session, alongside a few other measures, including expanding broadband Internet access.

Abbott, incensed by the bills’ failure to pass, said he would add both to the agenda for an as-yet-unscheduled special legislative session. And he threatened to punish “those who abandon their responsibilities” with a veto for a previously approved provision of the state’s budget that pays legislators’ staffs.

With the exception of expanding broadband access, for which there’s wide support across rural and urban Texas, these priorities mainly reflected an increasing disconnect between state legislators and their constituents. Consider that in February, ahead of the legislature’s move to restrict access to the ballot, a University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Tribune (UT/TT) poll found that only 27 percent of Texans support stricter rules for voting.

Now let’s look at bills the Republicans did pass during this session, on guns and abortion.

A permitless carry bill, which would allow Texans to carry handguns in public without a license to do so, sailed through to Abbott’s desk last month despite initial skepticism from leading Republicans, who may have been aware that Texas voters don’t support the idea.

UT/TT polls have consistently shown that most Texans don’t think permitless carry should be allowed. As of April, 59 percent of registered voters in the state opposed allowing legal gunowners over age 21 to carry handguns in public. And 74 percent of Texas voters support background checks on all gun purchases, including private transactions, which are exempted under current law.

James Henson, who leads the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas and is co-director of the UT/TT poll, tells me that he has been struck by significant discrepancies between broad public opinion in Texas and the attitudes of lawmakers and “highly mobilized subgroups.”

Henson points to abortion as another example. During the recent session, the legislature passed a so-called trigger law that would immediately ban abortions in the state if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, or if either a constitutional amendment or court ruling gives states the authority to forbid the procedure. Just days earlier, the governor had signed into law a separate measure that would ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

An upcoming Supreme Court review of a Mississippi abortion law could pave the way for many other state laws that restrict or ban the procedure. (Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)

Taken together, these laws are among the most restrictive policies on abortion in the country. Texas already prohibited most abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy.

“Texas is a pro-life state and this legislation reflects our continued commitment to protecting the most vulnerable,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said in a statement after the passage of the abortion bills.

And yet, UT/TT polls show that only 13 percent of Texans across political parties would support a total ban on abortion such as the one that would be imposed by the trigger law.

“Republican incumbents are monomaniacally focused on the primaries” in 2022, hoping to fend off challenges from the right, Henson says. “And there’s no effectual organized political response from the Democrats.”

In Texas, Republicans dominate at every level of the legislature. Where Democrats have made significant inroads, in big cities such as Austin, Houston and San Antonio, they’ve attracted the ire of the Republican administration as well as bills attempting to limit local power.

Texas Democrats, like many in states facing GOP moves against ballot access, are hoping their counterparts in Washington will support attempts to maintain voting access in the state by ending the filibuster and passing the For the People Act. Trey Martinez Fischer, who represents San Antonio in the Texas House and was one of the legislators who walked off the floor, has repeatedly called for “a national response to protect our democracy.”

Bethany Albertson, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, notes that the “immediate cause of what’s happening in Texas is Republicans who are afraid of primary challenges.” But Albertson says that “if you back up,” the real problem is the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder, which “gutted” the Voting Rights Act. It is “open season for states to do whatever they want,” she says.

In the meantime, large swaths of the Texas electorate will continue to be governed by people whose legislative concerns feel increasingly out of step with those of millions of Texans.

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