CHAPTER 4
POLITICAL PARTIES
Ideology
• Definition
– Ideology is a system of beliefs and values
about the nature of the good life, society, the
economy, moral values, and the role of
government.
– "Liberalism" and "conservatism" are the two
dominant systems of beliefs and values in
American and Texas life today.
Ideology
• Conservatism
– The basic conservative principle in economic policy is
laissez-faire, but in practice conservatives often
pursue "pseudo laissez-faire," that is, the theoretical
assertion that an unregulated economy produces the
best results coupled with practical support for
government policies that help business to overcome
problems in the marketplace.
– Commonly described as being on the “right wing” of
the political spectrum, conservatives argue that
economic problems are caused by over-regulation by
government.
Ideology
• Liberalism
– Liberals are more apt to blame "market failure" for
economic problems and to place more faith in the
ability of government to direct economic activity.
– Commonly described as being on the “left wing” of the
political spectrum, liberals usually oppose
government activity in the personal sphere while
conservatives generally favor government regulation
in areas such as religion, sexual activity, and drug
use.
– On foreign policy issues liberals and conservatives
tend to follow partisan rather then ideological cues.
– Because of these contradictions, ideological debates
are often confusing, but in Texas as elsewhere
ideological arguments form the basis for a great deal
of rhetoric and intense disputes over public policy.
Ideology
• Ideology in Texas
– Texas has historically been dominated by a combination
of the traditionalist and individualist political cultures
which are translated, in the Texas case, into an ideology
of political conservatism.
– A 2002 survey reported that only 18 percent of Texans
think of themselves as liberal while 52 percent call
themselves conservative.
– Self-report numbers may contain ambiguities but are
sufficiently dramatic to emphasize the weakness of the
liberal ideological tradition in Texas.
– Although the national Democratic party is controlled by
liberals and the national Republican party is controlled by
conservatives, both parties in Texas are unusually
conservative.
– The Texas Democratic party is comparatively more liberal
that its Republican counterpart because it contains a
large and active liberal minority.
Political Socialization
• Definition
– The process of political socialization explains how the
attitudes and values of the conservative political
culture that dominates Texas is transmitted from one
generation to another.
– Political socialization is the process by which we
teach and learn our political knowledge, beliefs,
attitudes, values and habits of behavior.
– The basic agents of political socialization are family,
schools, churches, and the media.
Political Socialization
• Family
– The most important agent of socialization, the
family, furnishes the child's attitude toward
authority and community, which, in Texas,
means that most parents pass along an antigovernment attitude and conservative
philosophy to their children.
– Basic political orientations are difficult to alter,
thus the ideas of Texas citizens change only
slowly.
Political Socialization
• Schools and Churches
– Churches and, more significantly, public schools also have a
conservative influence on political attitudes.
– While Roman Catholicism, which is prevalent among Mexican
Americans, has historically been more encouraging of
government activity on behalf of the poor, Protestantism, the
state’s dominant religion among the historically dominant social
group, has tended to reinforce political conservatism.
– There is little evidence that schools in Texas educate children
about politics or encourage them to democratic participation
beyond voting.
– A study of political socialization in one small South Texas town
conducted by anthropologist Douglas Foley in the 1970s and
1980s found that the town’s schools simply reflected the
conservatism of the community, which neither demanded nor
encouraged an open, imaginative, or critical curriculum.
– Foley’s conclusions are consistent with the observation that
Texas schools tend generally to educate children to passivity
rather than to democratic participation.
Political Socialization
• Media
– The Texas news media, which generally rely
for advertising revenues from other
businesses, tend to echo the business point
of view on most issues.
– In the last decade or so, talk radio, which is
dominated by conservatives such as Rush
Limbaugh, has become a new political force.
Political Socialization
• Evaluation
– Although most agents of political socialization in
Texas support the conservative political culture,
factors such as the influence of individual personality,
the presence of some liberal agents of political
socialization, the national news media, and the
migration of people into the state mean that the
dominant political culture is being challenged and
modified by competing cultural values.
– Interests are as important as ideology as a basis for
party support.
Interests
• Definition
– An interest is something of value or some
personal characteristic that people share and
that is affected by government activity.
– When the two major parties differ on public
policy issues, people often side with the party
favoring their interests regardless of whether
their political ideology is in line with the
party's.
Interests
• The Effects of Interests
– Parties often sacrifice ideological consistency by taking positions
designed to attract support from a coalition of interests.
• In recent years, Republican candidates in Texas have tended to favor tort
reform while Democratic candidates have tended to side with plaintiffs in
lawsuits.
• As a result of these positions, those interests who tend to be the target of
lawsuits (doctors and business owners, for example) have leaned toward
Republican candidates while those who benefit from such suits (plaintiff's
attorneys) have leaned toward Democratic candidates.
– Interests and ideology may combine in different ways, sometimes
opposing and sometimes reinforcing one another.
• A Mexican American doctor might find that her professional and ethnic
interests conflict, creating difficulties in deciding how to vote.
• An Anglo oil company executive or an African American labor union
president would likely experience no such conflict.
– It is important to understand that not every person who has an interest
agrees with every other person with the same interest and thus a
description of interests provides evidence only of partisan tendencies.
– Rather than remain static, ideologies and interests evolve as history
changes the way people live.
Texas Political Parties—
A Brief History
• The Nineteenth Century
– Although no parties existed in Texas prior to
statehood, Sam Houston's dominance of Texas
politics led to the formation of pro- and anti-Houston
factions which debated policy issues.
– Because Texas entered the Union with Democratic
party support as a slave state, most Texans identified
with the Democrats.
– Most Texans' identification of the Republicans with the
abolition of slavery and Reconstruction policies made
Texas, like other former Confederate states, a solid
one-party Democratic state after the Civil War.
Texas Political Parties—
A Brief History
• One-Party vs. Two-Party Systems
– Two-party systems, such as that of the U.S. at the
national level, promote debate on policy issues and
provide a forum for emerging minorities and emerging
issues.
– Political participation (including voter turnout) is
generally greater in a two-party system than in a oneparty system.
– One-party systems promote only limited debate on
policy issues and make party labels worthless.
– Because those sharing the Democratic label in Texas
were neither ideologically homogeneous nor
committed to the party, one-party politics was really
no-party politics.
Texas Political Parties—
A Brief History
• The Transition to Two-Party Politics
– The transition to two-party politics in Texas, as in most of
the South, has been gradual.
– Beginning in 1928, Texas voted Republican in national
elections on occasion and, in 1961, Republican Senator
John Tower first broke the Democrats' monopoly in
statewide elections.
– In 1978, Bill Clements became the state's first
Republican governor in 104 years, but not until the 1984
Republican landslide was the Democrats' hold over
Texas broken at the local level.
– The election of 1994 was a watershed as Republicans
defeated an incumbent Democratic Governor, retained a
second U.S. Senate seat, pulled almost even in the state
senate, and won hundreds of local offices.
Texas Political Parties—
A Brief History
• A Political Realignment
– By 2004 Texas could just barely be considered a twoparty state with Republicans holding every state-wide
elective office, both US Senate positions, and a
majority of the state senate.
– Survey research in 2002 indicated that 47 percent of
Texas voters described themselves as more-or-less
regular supporters of Republicans, while only 39
percent were regular supporters of Democrats.
– Thus, during the last two decades of the twentieth
century Texas went through a political realignment.
Texas Political Parties—
A Brief History
• Differences between the Parties
– While the growth of two-party competition in Texas has
been good for democracy by promoting a robust debate
between the parties on many issues of importance to
citizens, it remains an open question whether democratic
discussion will be maintained if Republicans continue
their statewide dominance.
– Differences between the parties are of two types.
• The two parties oppose each other on some issues, such as
abortion and minimum wage.
• The two parties are concerned about different issues, as is
evidenced by the Republicans' concern with the right to gun
ownership and the Democrats' support of affordable child care.
Functions of Political Parties
• The basic purpose of parties is to win elections and thus gain
the opportunity to exercise control over public policy.
• Parties may perform a number of functions including:
– Involving ordinary people in the political process.
– Recruiting political leaders.
– Communicating to the leaders the interests of individuals
and groups.
– Providing factual information and persuasive argument in
public policy debates.
– Structuring political conflict and debate, sometimes by
screening out the demands of minority groups lacking
political clout.
– Moderating differences between groups.
– Partially overcoming the fragmented nature of the political
system.
Party Organization
• Introduction
– Parties have many different structural patterns.
– Compared to parties in other democracies, American
parties are structurally weak, and parties in Texas are
especially weak in an organizational sense.
– In Texas and in most other states, parties are divided
into a permanent organization, a skeleton force that
conducts the routine but essential business of the
party, and a temporary organization, which comes
alive in election years in an effort to capture power.
Party Organization
• The Temporary Party Organization
– Membership
• The temporary organization is focused on the spring primary, where
the emphasis is on choosing attractive candidates, and fall general
election, where an effort is made to mobilize voters to support them.
• Texas has no permanent political party rolls and thus party
membership is determined by the act of voting in one party's
primary.
– Precinct and County Conventions
• A small fraction of voters in each precinct takes part in the precinct
convention where resolutions regarding party policy are made.
• The main function of the precinct convention is to select delegates
to the county convention, which in turn has as its main function
selecting delegates to the state convention.
Party Organization
• The Temporary Party Organization, cont.
– The State Convention
• Each party holds its state convention on a weekend in
June in even-numbered years and the convention
performs several important functions.
– It certifies the party nominees for the general election.
– It writes the party platform.
– It selects the members of the State Executive Committee
(SEC).
– It selects the Texas committeeman and committeewoman to the
national party committee.
– It makes the final selection of delegates to the national party
convention.
– It selects a slate of presidential electors to serve in the electoral
college in the event that the party’s candidates for president and
vice-president win in Texas.
Party Organization
– The State Convention, cont.
• Party conventions have tended, over the past several decades, to
travel in opposite directions, the Democrats from argument to
harmony, the Republicans from agreement to disharmony.
– Until the 1980s liberals and conservatives within the Democratic party
fought vigorously over party platforms and leaders, but with liberals
coming to dominate the organizational level of the party during the
1990s, conventions have tended to adopt liberal platforms and save
their criticism for the Republicans.
– In contrast, when Republicans were a small minority they rarely argued
over policy in their conventions, but as the party grew their conventions
have reflected the internal disagreements between social and
economic conservatives.
– The Republican state convention of 1994 set a new pattern with the
ability of the Christian Right to elect a majority of the delegates to the
convention and thereby dominate its proceedings.
– This grass-roots insurrection at the Republican state convention
demonstrates the impact that dedicated citizens can have on party
machinery.
– The domination of Republican state conventions by the Christian Right
continued through the 2004 convention.
Party Organization
– The State Convention, cont.
• The importance of party conventions should not be
exaggerated.
– Because candidates are nominated in primaries and raise their
own campaign funds, the state convention and party platforms
are of little importance to what nominees say and do.
– In 1994, George W. Bush and Kay Bailey Hutchison pointed
ignored the state Republican platform and in 2002 Governor
Rick Perry publicly opposed 23 of the 46 planks in the
Republican platform.
– A party’s platform positions are good indications of the values
and beliefs of the major party activists as groups, but are not
reliable guides to the issue positions of candidates as
individuals.
Party Organization
• The Permanent Party Organization
– Precinct Chairpeople
• The precinct chairperson, the lowest-ranking permanent party
official, is elected by voters in that precinct's party primary to serve
a two-year term.
• Duties include recruiting candidates, arranging for the precinct
convention, getting out the vote, and generally promoting the party.
– County Executive Committees
• Precinct chairs collectively make up the County Executive
Committee, which conducts the party primary and the county
convention.
• The county chairperson, the most important official at the local
level, is elected for a two-year term.
• Following the primary election, the County Executive Committee
canvasses the vote and certifies the results to the State Executive
Committee.
Party Organization
• The Permanent Party Organization, cont.
– The District Executive Committee
• These committees, whose membership varies according to the
number of counties that comprise the senatorial district, are
supposed to perform party primary duties related to the district.
• In practice, few District Executive Committees are functional.
– The State Executive Committee
• This is the highest permanent body in the state party organization.
• The chair generally works closely with the party's top leaders and
elected officials.
• The executive committees of both parties are responsible for
staging the state conventions and certifying the parties'
candidates, and for coordinating a general party campaign.
Party Organization
•
The (Un)Importance of Party Organization
– American political parties are not "responsible parties"--that is, they cannot
completely control nominations, campaign financing, or party members'
adherence to the party platform.
– With candidates forced to rely on their own fund-raising and organizing abilities
to win office, they are more likely to feel beholden to a wealthy interest group
rather than to their party.
– While parties may be able to fashion a "party attitude" on public policy, they
cannot put together a disciplined governing team.
– Parties in Texas fail to perform many of the functions that make parties useful
elsewhere and thus it is more realistic to view them as loose confederations of
citizens, interest groups, and officeholders temporarily cooperating because of
occasional ideological agreement and parallel interests.
– Lack of party cohesiveness in the legislature results in political conflict that
lacks stability and order and citizens have difficulty holding politicians
accountable for their actions.
– The practice of presiding officers in the legislature appointing members of both
parties to chair important committees reflects Texas’s weak parties.
– The lack of partisan organization is likely to change in the aftermath of the
redistricting fight of 2003 to a much stronger legislative party organizations and
more cohesive party voting with the possible consequence that state
government will be more coherent and responsible.
– The primary election of 2004 between African American Democrats Ron Wilson
and Alma Allen indicate a new world of Texas politics where party loyalty
matters.
Two Parties, Three Factions (or Perhaps Four)
•
Republicans
– Political Culture and Background
• Although recent disagreements have divided social from economic
conservatives within the Texas Republican party, these disagreements
have not created two cadres of elected officials as virtually all elected
Republicans are economic conservatives first.
• The Republican party in Texas is strongly conservative and, while
sometimes sliding into pseudo laissez-faire under the pressure of actual
politics, can generally be counted on to favor a cheaper, less active
government than the Democratic party, except in the area of national
defense.
• Texas's two U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, are
good representatives of this ideological position.
– Geographic Distribution
• Because Republicans are clearly the dominant party in Texas, it is easier
to describe the areas where they are weakest.
• They are weakest in the areas of the state where Mexican Americans are
in a majority and in central Texas, the extreme southeastern part of the
state, in a few counties near the Louisiana border, and in central cities.
– Socioeconomic and Ethnic Distribution
• Republican activists in Texas are Anglo, middle and upper class, and
businesspeople or professionals and tend to be evangelical Protestants.
• The Republican party has not attracted significant numbers of minorities
since the 1960s.
Two Parties, Three Factions (or Perhaps Four)
•
Conservative Democrats
– Political Culture
• Conservative Democrats are representatives of the Old South political
culture which is very conservative on social issues but may hold a populist
attitude on economic issues.
• Conservative Democrats who are activists and officeholders are slightly
less devoted to laissez-faire than Republicans are, but much more so than
the liberal faction of the Democratic party.
• Three of the major Democratic candidates during the 2002 campaign,
Tony Sanchez, Ron Kirk, and John Sharp, were so conservative that they
were almost indistinguishable from their Republican opponents.
– Geographic Distribution
• Conservative Democrats’ traditional base is in East Texas where the
traditionalist political culture is strongest but Republicans have
substantially cut into this base of White conservatives
• Small cities and rural areas often remain conservative Democratic in their
affiliation, but they are evolving toward the Republican party.
– Socioeconomic and Ethnic Distribution
• Conservative Democrats until recently drew support from all classes in
Texas, but as Republicans increase their support among the wealthy, they
have lost support among the Anglo middle and upper classes, business
and professional people, and white-collar workers.
• Conservative Democrats continue to draw support from workers,
especially those in rural areas and small cities, although this pattern may
be changing as well.
Two Parties, Three Factions (or Perhaps Four)
• Liberal Democrats
– Political Culture
• Liberal Democrats generally support government activity in behalf
of those who have less wealth and power while generally opposing
government intervention in personal life.
• Former Governor Ann Richards and former San Antonio mayor
Henry Cisneros are among Texas's liberal Democrats.
– Geographic Distribution
• Liberals are most successful in the areas of Texas where
Hispanics are most numerous, in southern and far western areas
of the state and near the border with Mexico.
• Support for liberal Democrats also comes from areas where labor
unions are a factor (far East Texas, East Central Texas, and much
of the Gulf Coast).
• Liberals generally do well in Austin, Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange,
Corpus Christi, and El Paso.
Two Parties, Three Factions (or Perhaps Four)
•
Liberal Democrats, cont.
– Socioeconomic and Ethnic Distribution
• Liberal Democratic strength in Texas is based on an uneasy coalition of
various socioeconomic classes and ethnic groups, each with a slightly
different political agenda.
• Liberal support comes primarily from labor unions, African Americans,
Mexican Americans, and certain educated Anglos.
• Most liberal leaders are from the legal, teaching, and other professions.
• Union officials, formerly among the leaders of the liberal faction, have
generally become more conservative in recent years.
– The Future of the Three-Faction System
• Conservative Democrats are being drained of votes by Republicans on their
political right and losing power to liberals on their political left within the
Democratic party.
• Republicans steadily draw away conservative voters, while liberals continue
to dominate the party organization.
• As Texas evolves toward a population in which minorities constitute a
majority, Democrats will continue to nominate many Mexican American and
African American candidates.
– If voter turnout rates continue to favor conservative Anglos, Republicans
will dominate Texas for a long time to come.
– If liberal-leaning minorities begin to vote at higher rates, they will alter
the party balance decisively.
Third Parties in Texas
• The History of Third Parties in Texas
– There have been many third parties in Texas, the
most noteworthy of which was the Populist party
around the turn of the century.
– The Populists, like many other third parties in Texas
(and at the national level), did not survive, although
some of their positions were adopted by the major
parties.
– Among the other parties that have run candidates in
Texas are the Prohibitionists, Socialists, Communists,
States Righters, American Independence Party, and
the Reform Party.
– In the late 1990s and early 2000s the two most
vigorous third parties were the Greens, who were on
the ultraliberal end of the political spectrum, and the
Libertarians, the consistent anti-government party.
Third Parties in Texas
• Mexican American Political Organization in
Texas
– Mexican Americans in Texas have organized a
number of political groups intended to improve the lot
of Spanish-speaking Texans.
– In the 1970s, Mexican Americans established La
Raza Unida, a true political party.
– La Raza Unida won some local elections in Texas
before ceasing to exist in the early 1980s following
personal and factional feuding within the party and
FBI infiltration for alleged radicalism.
– Mexican Americans are now represented not by a
political party but by several interest groups, including
LULAC and the Mexican American Legal Defense
and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and two
organizations within the Democratic Party, MexicanAmerican Democrats (MAD) and Tejano Democrats.