Republicans Hard Right Agenda
Gets Bad Reviews from Voters

Capitol Inside
September 21, 2021

Texas GOP leaders and lawmakers are confident that a new special session on redistricting will be the panacea they need to survive a stampede to the far right with votes this year on controversial bills that are historically unpopular outside a radical new conservative base.

The Texas Legislature has the task of redrawing state House and Senate and congressional districts to reflect population changes during the past decade. But the ruling Republicans appear determined to boost white power at the polls in 2022 at the expense of minorities who account for almost all the new residents here in the past decade.

After passing the nation's most restrictive voting and abortion laws and other measures that are designed for primary voters on the hard right exclusively, the Republicans will have to be better than ever at redistricting to protect their Texas House majority and U.S. House seats here after being on the wrong side of most major issues based on the latest polling.

A poll that the Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler conducted last week gives the impression that Governor Greg Abbott and the Republicans in Austin are out of touch with the lion's share of Texans beyond GOP primary voters who they already had in the fold.

* Fifty-percent of the voters in the DMN/UT Tyler survey oppose the state's new gun deregulation compared to a mere 34 percent who support it. Only 48 percent of the GOP voters in the poll that was made public on Sunday back the new law that legalized the carry of handguns without a state license or training.

* The poll found that 49 percent of Texas voters don't believe the Republicans' unsubstantiated claims on widespread voter fraud while only 29 percent believe there to be.

* Fifty-six percent of the Texans in the survey support the teaching in public schools of the impact that racial discrimination as had on the evolution of the state and the nation. Only 27 percent backed the Republican bans on critical race theory in the classroom.

* Sixty-four percent oppose the spending of any more public money on Abbott's border wall - with 23 percent saying that the state has already spent enough and 41 against the use of any state funds on fencing along the Rio Grande.

* Fifty-one percent favored permanent citizenship status for immigrants compared to only 28 percent who did not.

* A mere 20 percent supported Abbott's ban on school mask mandates compared to 50 percent who say that masks should be required and 26 percent who say that local districts should make the call.

* Fifty-four percent registered opposition to gerrymandering in redistricting while 22 percent back the strategy that the Republicans in Austin are preparing to follow in the special session that convened on Monday. The poll found that 36 percent of the voters here believe that an independent commission should be drawing new maps, 13 percent would prefer that judges design them and 20 percent favor districts crafted by state lawmakers.

more to come ...