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Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Analysis: The 2025 Texas House, from right to left
The Texas House's roll-call votes during this year's regular legislative session allow us to once again rank the chambers's members from the conservative to liberal ends of the House's ideological spectrum — in relation to each other. The 88 members of the Republican House delegation hold a wide range of ideological positions. The conservative end of the Texas House GOP caucus is anchored by Mike Olcott of Fort Worth, Briscoe Cain of Deer Park, Steve Toth of Conroe, David Lowe of North Richland Hills, Brian Harrison of Midlothian, and Nate Schatzline of Fort Worth. The other end of the GOP caucus ideological spectrum is anchored by Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, Charlie Geren of Fort Worth, Ken King of Canadian, John Lujan of San Antonio, Stan Lambert of Abilene, and Dade Phelan of Beaumont. The speaker of the House, Republican Dustin Burrows of Lubbock, by custom does not ordinarily vote and is not included in the analysis here. Within the Republican delegation, three distinct blocs of representatives appear in the data. At the most conservative end of the House GOP ideological spectrum is a group of 17 representatives ranging from Olcott and Cain to Mitch Little of Lewisville and Matt Morgan of Richmond. As a group, these 17 representatives are significantly more conservative than more than two-thirds of their fellow Republican legislators. Olcott is significantly more conservative than all 86 of his fellow Republicans and Cain than 84 of 86, while Little and Morgan are both significantly more conservative than 60 of 86. At the least conservative end of the House GOP ideological spectrum is a group of 17 representatives ranging from Guillen and Geren to Brad Buckley of Salado and Pat Curry of Waco. As a group, these 17 representatives are significantly less conservative than more than two-thirds of their fellow Republican legislators. Guillen is significantly less conservative than 76 of 86 of his fellow Republicans and Geren is significantly less conservative than 73 of 86, while Buckley is significantly less conservative than 64 of 86 and Curry is significantly less conservative than 61 of 86. Although Guillen is the least conservative Republican, he still has a voting record that is significantly more conservative than that of the most conservative Democrat. The majority of House Republicans — 53 out of 87 members — occupy a middle ground between these two ideological poles, ranging from Brooks Landgraf of Odessa to Valoree Swanson of Spring. Cole Hefner of Mount Pleasant is the median member of the Republican Caucus, with half of the GOP representatives more conservative, and half less conservative, than Hefner. The 62-member Democratic House caucus also reflects a wide range of ideological positions on the left. The Democratic delegation is anchored at its liberal end by Christina Morales of Houston, Ron Reynolds of Missouri City, Ana-Maria Ramos of Richardson, Terry Meza of Irving, Jessica González of Dallas, and Vikki Goodwin of Austin. The Democratic delegation is anchored at its least liberal end by Terry Canales of Edinburg, Richard Peña Raymond of Laredo, Sergio Muñoz Jr. of Palmview, Armando 'Mando' Martinez of Weslaco, Eddie Morales Jr. of Eagle Pass, and Philip Cortez of San Antonio. As with their Republican colleagues, three distinct blocs of Democratic legislators also appear in the data. At the most liberal end of the Democratic ideological spectrum, six representatives stand out. They range from Morales and Reynolds, each of whom is significantly more liberal than 56 of their 61 fellow Democrats, to González who is significantly more liberal than 48 of 61 and Goodwin who is significantly more liberal than 45 of 61. At the other end of the Democratic ideological spectrum are 11 Democrats who are significantly less liberal than more than two-thirds of their fellow Democrats. They range from Canales who is significantly less liberal than 60 of his 61 fellow Democrats and Peña Raymond who is significantly less liberal than 59 of 61 to Harold Dutton Jr. of Houston and Bobby Guerra of Mission, each of whom is significantly less liberal than 42 of 61. Although Canales is the most conservative Democrat, he still has a voting record that is significantly more liberal than that of the least conservative Republican. The majority of House Democrats —45 out of of 62 members — occupy a middle ground between these two ideological poles, ranging from Maria Luisa Flores of Austin to Suleman Lalani of Sugar Land. The median House Democrats in 2025, who represent the absolute center of the Democratic House caucus, are Diego Bernal of San Antonio and Sheryl Cole of Austin. Political scientists have for decades used roll-call votes cast by members of the U.S. Congress to map their location on the Liberal-Conservative scale along which most legislative politics now takes place. This ranking of the Texas House members, which has been conducted biennially since 2011, does the same thing, by drawing on the 2,666 non-lopsided roll-call votes taken during the 2025 regular session of the Texas Legislature. Non-lopsided votes are those where at least 2.5% of the representatives who cast a vote are on the losing side. Unlike in analyses prior to December of 2023, information from votes on bills located on the House Local & Consent Calendar are not included in this analysis for the reasons cited in the 2023 post special session ranking. As with previous rankings conducted in 2023 (post special session), 2023, 2021 (post special session), 2021, 2019, 2017 (post special session), 2017, 2015, 2013 and 2011, this one uses a Bayesian estimation procedure belonging to the family of methodological approaches that represent the political science discipline's gold standard for roll-call vote analysis. State representatives are ranked from most liberal to most conservative (relative to each other) based on their Liberal-Conservative Scores, with the 95% credible interval (CI) for this point estimate also provided. If two legislators' CIs overlap, their positions on the ideological spectrum might be statistically equivalent, even if their Lib-Con Scores are different. In no case in 2025 did the CI of a House Republican overlap with that of a House Democrat, indicating that every Republican is significantly more conservative than every Democrat, and every Democrat is significantly more liberal than every Republican. Mark P. Jones is the Political Science Fellow at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Disclosure: James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and Rice University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer. Get tickets. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase. : A previous version of this story listed the wrong hometown for Rep. Nate Schatzline. He is from Fort Worth.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Texas House panel unanimously rejects bill to put Austin under Legislature's thumb
A bill that would have turned Texas' capital city into the "District of Austin" was dead on arrival in the House State Affairs Committee on Wednesday. In other words, the "DOA" bill was DOA. House Bill 274 by Republican Rep. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park sought to make many of the actions of the Austin City Council subject to review by the speaker of the House and the lieutenant governor. Cain had cited crime and sundry mismanagement allegations as the basis for his bill. The 11 members of the State Affairs Committee apparently thought the measure was kind of silly. Sometimes when lawmakers want to kill a bill, they try talking it to death. This time, they giggled the life out of it. More: Here's what Austin's city manager is proposing for police, property taxes in budget draft State Affairs Chairman Ken King, a Republican from the Panhandle city of Canadian, chuckled as he said Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, had made a motion to pass the bill on to the full House for consideration. Then when Geren actually voted no, there was a snicker or two. By the time King cast the final vote and announced the 11-0 tally, many on the House panel and in the committee room laughed out loud. It was unclear whether Cain found the exercise, which took less than three minutes to play out, amusing. He doesn't serve on the State Affairs Committee and he did not return a Statesman call seeking comment. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin to remain a city, and not a 'district' overseen by Legislature
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘District of Austin' bill voted down by Texas House committee
Editor's Note: The above video is KXAN's previous coverage of HB 274. AUSTIN (KXAN) — House Bill 274, otherwise known as the 'District of Austin' bill, was voted down 11-0 by the House Committee on State Affairs PAST COVERAGE | 'Throwing stones': Lawmaker behind District of Austin bill challenged in hearing The bill, which was introduced March 19, would have stripped the city of Austin of its governing authority and turned it into the District of Austin. A similar bill was filed in 2022, but it was also voted down. Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Houston, who authored the bill, previously said HB 274 would help ensure Austin remained accountable to Texas by establishing a District of Austin as the official city of the state's government. Cain cited the city's 'surging crime' as a reason for the bill; however, he did not cite a specific report for his claim about Austin's crime rates. Previously, the city of Austin released a memo, opposing the bill and calling it 'vague' and lacking clarity on how the District of Austin would be governed. In a previous hearing, state lawmakers expressed similar concerns. 'Austin's Violent Crime Rate for 2024 is 59.6% lower than Houston, 43.8% lower than Lubbock, and 21.4% lower than San Antonio according to the Texas Department of Public Safety Uniform Crime Reporting System Crime in Texas Report Top 25 Violent Crime Comparison report,' the memo said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
