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Despite public perception Texas Democrats wield power in legislature, Rice political scientist finds
Rice Univ News ^ | Thursday, September 2, 2010 | Franz Brotzen

Posted on 09/04/2010 11:11:13 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

When the Republican Party took control of the Texas House of Representatives in 2003, most pundits placed its Democratic members well out in the political wilderness. But new research by Rice political scientist Mark Jones indicates that over time, the Democrats progressively increased their ability to affect the laws coming out of the legislature...

Jones, the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies, chair of the Department of Political Science and a Baker Institute Rice scholar, looked at the ability of the legislature's leadership to control the partisan agenda...

Jones measured each representative's FPV win rate -- the percentage of FPVs on which they were on the winning side -- and compared those figures with each one's ideological position on a left-right scale.

The research revealed a "dramatic shift in win rates for Democratic and Republican representatives" between 2001 -- the last time Democrats controlled the Texas House -- and 2003 and 2005...

This surprising trend, in which Democratic leaders were able to keep legislation off the agenda that was rejected by a majority of the Democratic representatives while simultaneously rolling Republican-backed legislation, led Jones to conclude that "in many respects, Democrats were near-equal partners in House legislative governance during the 2009 session, either explicitly or implicitly backing virtually all legislation that was passed during that year."

(Excerpt) Read more at media.rice.edu ...


TOPICS: US: Texas
KEYWORDS: politicalscience; politicalscientist; riceuniversity; texas
The difference could easily be due to the actual content of the legislation, which can only be looked for rather than looking at the party affiliation of who got what passed and/or voted for or against.
1 posted on 09/04/2010 11:11:20 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: SunkenCiv

These Dums in Texas poli are only front men for the movers and shakers(Enron was a prime example) behind the scene.White is on the top of the heap. He is hiding his ACORN/SEIU contacts, Dums know those two are a vote killer. Dums lie and hide their TRUE allegence. Just like OBAMA, it’s the Corps/Unions/Lawyers behind the curtain that matter.


2 posted on 09/04/2010 11:16:44 AM PDT by Marty62 (marty60)
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To: SunkenCiv

This cozy arrangement is possible only because many Texas “Republicans” are recycled Democrats, who still have many allegiances to their circle of friends in business and the UT and A&M systems. And the every-day Texan is willing to be ignored as long as the state government leaves him alone, so it works fairly well.


3 posted on 09/04/2010 11:23:29 AM PDT by kittymyrib
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To: Marty62; kittymyrib; texasredhead8712; TexKat; TheOldLady; ValerieTexas; AdmSmith; ...

Thanks Marty62 and kittymyrib.


4 posted on 09/04/2010 11:28:01 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Democratic Underground... matters are worse, as their latest fund drive has come up short...)
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To: kittymyrib

Oh yes but UT is the largest power player, A&M is pretty much Houston based power brokers.


5 posted on 09/04/2010 11:32:43 AM PDT by Marty62 (marty60)
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