Guest Column: How Conservative is David Dewhurst?
Editor's note: In a previous column, Mark P. Jones, chairman of Rice University's political science department, ranked Texas state senators based on their votes during the 2011 regular and special sessions. Now he's done a similar analysis on Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, finding the state Senate's presiding officer less conservative than some senators, but in line with about two-thirds of the Republicans in that body. Jones' paper follows.
A set of competing U.S. Senate Republican primary campaign ads aired this year, including one (by the Club for Growth) that attacked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for ...
Comments (8)
Gregory S Windham via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Just what Texans DON'T want.... A millionaire dressed up like a cowboy...Go Ted Cruz
Garrick Stephens via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The I'm more conservative than you game is ruining our democracy... It's ruining Texas... We need a 99% rebellion here!
Debbie Spencer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I don't care for anymore republican politics. If they are republican, far right, far left, or middle, I'm not voting for them. I've had enough. I'll be voting democrat for the next several election cycles so that their draconian laws can be overturned and we get our state back to being normal again.
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If we want to maintain the status quo, that's just fine. WE DON'T! Ted Cruz for Senate!
Carol Jean O'Neil Goodwin via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Dewhurst and Perry are cut from the same cloth. I am certainly not turning to the Dim-oh-krat side because they are all about bigger government, whether it is federal or state. The two party system is merely a battle in its own right. I am seeking the most conservative candidates. Dewhurst is NO conservative. Like too many long time 'politicians as usual', it is a power and money personal agenda! We need someone who realizes what the true responsibility of a representative is: they work FOR the people, not the other way around. We need new blood who will work toward term limits; and to abolish voting themselves any kind of benefits! This should never have happened. No more lifetime 'careers' and no more obscene retirement packages. They should NOT be exempt from any of the laws and rules they make for the country. What applies to the citizens, applies to the Congress and the Senate.
Walter Fisher
Creative analysis, but that's about all. As a long time observer and officer of the Texas Senate it has been my strong belief that a statistical analysis of any legislative body, but especially the Senate, doesn’t paint an accurate picture of how things truly happen or how the process really works. Because of its small size and what is called the 2/3rds rule (there really isn’t one, it is simply a suspension of the rules) the senate is to me a unique, deliberative body and rejects any numerical/statistical analysis at its core. It is a 31 member microcosm of the state that sometimes can’t be easily explained. But it always works...
Stefan Haag
I have a problem with the methodology in this paper. There are many reasons, other than ideology, that a lieutenant governor might assist a senator in getting his or her legislation to the floor for consideration and in getting it passed. As you note, the lieutenant governor exercises considerable (some would say inordinate) power in the Texas Senate. What you did not mention is the source of that power: the Senate rules. Thus, a lieutenant governor may assist senators in getting their legislation to the floor in order to preserve the support of a sizeable majority of members and his position of influence within the chamber. In 1991, Bob Bullock tried to run the Texas Senate in a partisan fashion by stripping Republicans of their committee chairs. In 1993, he appointed Republicans to committee chairmanships, recognizing that they had achieved more than one-third of the seats. The two-thirds rule gives the minority or opposition to the lieutenant governor a powerful tool to thwart his partisan or ideological efforts. As Professor Gary Keith writes, “In the small Texas Senate, especially with weak political parties, leadership and opposition are typically organized on an ad hoc basis and heavily influenced by the personal relationships the senators and lieutenant governor establish with each other.” He further states, “Lieutenant governors know that their legislative powers depend on senators voting them those powers, and they cannot afford to have a large bloc of senators opposed to them.” (Texas Politics and Government: Roots and Reform, 3rd edition, 2010)
You state: “As a result, one can reasonably infer that those senators with the highest win rates during the 2011 legislative session are ideologically most proximate to the lieutenant governor.”
If there are other reasons than ideology that explain a lieutenant governor’s actions, how can one maintain that ideology is preeminent and thus infer that the lieutenant governor’s ideology is closest to those senators with the highest win rates? And as long as the analysis is based on inference, it is just as plausible to introduce other explanations for the lieutenant governor’s behavior. For instance, if he is seeking a higher office and decides to appeal to a particular voting bloc—is that electoral pragmatism, or ideology?
You further state: “Based on this data, we can infer that Dewhurst's ideological location (whether based on sincere preference or pragmatic calculations) on the liberal-conservative spectrum most likely lies somewhere near that of the Senate's more moderate Republican members such as Deuell, Duncan, Seliger, Eltife and Carona. However, given the uncertainty inherent in any indirect method of estimation, one could also reasonably infer from this data that the lieutenant governor's ideological position might approximate those of the more centrist Republicans (ranging from left to right): Craig Estes, Steve Ogden, Tommy Williams, Mike Jackson, Joan Huffman, Glenn Hegar and Jeff Wentworth.”
I believe that a better inference would be that lieutenant governor Dewhurst accommodates the center in the Senate, for whatever reason. He is least favorable to the conservative extremes, whose “win rates” are considerably lower than the most liberal members of the Senate—Ellis and Davis. My point is somewhat similar to Walter Fisher’s comment in that the inference of ideology is difficult when there are so many other factors that could influence a lieutenant governor’s decisions, and Dewhurst’s placement as closest to the ideology of the senators with the highest “win rates” may have nothing to do with his ideology.
raffaele cafagna
UNIMAGINABLE VOTER FRAUD
It has recently come to light that the SOE Corporation based in Tampa, FL was purchased by the Spanish online voting company SKYTL. SOE was the largest vote processing corporation in the United States; recording, counting and reporting the votes in 26 American States. This encompasses 900 total jurisdictions across the nation. SKYTL is based in Spain, which means the votes in the 2012 Presidential election will now be counted in a foreign country.
Simply stated, our votes will now be routed to a centralized, privately held server in Barcelona, Spain where the opportunity exists to alter the outcome of the election in Barack Obama's favor. The CEO of SKYTL, Pere Valles, is a known Socialist who resided in Illinois during Barack Obama's tenure as a United States Senator and donated heavily to his 2008 election campaign.
Our military overseas will again be disenfranchised as they will be voting online and SKYTL will control the method of voting.
The stage has been set for unimaginable voter fraud as there will be no paper ballots and, thus, no way for the voting public to authenticate who actually cast the votes or the count.
We, the citizens of TEXAS, demand that you as our United States elected official representing the State of Florida stand up and not only loudly denounce this fraud being perpetrated on the American people, but effectively stop it. Our future and the future of our Country hangs in the balance.
Remember Obama's statement to Medvedev, "After my election". Apparently he is supremely confidant everything is firmly in place to make that a reality.