Panel discussion takes a look at American politics, Texas style

Panel discussion takes a look at American politics, Texas style

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

“There is certainly a national perception and a very deep paranoia about Texas politics and its influence on government,” said Houston Chronicle White House correspondent Julie Mason. “I think people ascribe a lot of clichéd Texas values to what is actually the Bush administration’s self-confidence and sort of forcefulness.”

Photo by Jeff Fitlow

Brown College senior Shawn Leventhal, left, moderates a discussion by, from left, Paul Burka of Texas Monthly, Julie Mason of the Houston Chronicle and Earl Black of Rice University. Panelists examined Texas’ influence on American politics at this event held last month at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Mason spoke at Rice Jan. 25 as one of three participants in a panel discussion of Texas’ influence in American politics. Organized by the Baker Institute Student Forum (BISF) at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, the panel also featured Earl Black, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Political Science at Rice, and Paul Burka ’63, senior executive editor of Texas Monthly.

Mason said President George W. Bush’s penchant for top-down management has resulted in cabinet appointees he can trust to be “in lockstep with the idea of policy emanating outwards from the Bush White House.”

Loyalty is important to Bush, Mason said, so it’s not surprising that some of his appointees for his second term are Texans like Alberto Gonzales and Margaret Spellings, whom he has worked with and learned to trust since his days as governor of Texas.
Black, author of “The Rise of the Southern Republicans,” placed the importance of Texas’s role in modern American politics in a historical context.

Noting that the elections for president, the Senate and House of Representatives are all very competitive now, Black said, “It is unprecedented in my lifetime for this to be a reality.”

He attributed this change to the rise of the Southern Republicans to positions of competition and acknowledged that Texas – “not only the least southern of the Southern states but also the biggest” – made a significant difference, especially since Texas has become the second most populous state and now has 34 electoral votes.

As a result of the 2004 elections, Republicans have control of the Senate, the House and the White House for the next four years — a feat they have not mastered since the 1920s. Black said the “audacious, outrageous Republican redistricting plan” that Tom DeLay pushed through the Texas legislature in 1994 paved the way for the “Republican revolution” over the past decade.

“Until last fall, the Republicans had never managed to win a majority of the Texas House delegation,” Black said.

Burka described some of the “great Texas myths” that have found their way into national politics.

“On the frontier you were a liability if you couldn’t hold your own,” he said, and that notion applied to Texas politics as well. The underdog was shown very little sympathy. “People who can’t make it — tough luck, buddy.”

Love of the land and its importance was another myth. But in Texas, that didn’t mean protect the land — it meant exploit it by growing cattle and drilling for oil. “People didn’t have money here. They had land,” Burka said, adding that taxation was very unpopular. The “anti-tax sentiment” continues to survive in Texas. “Generally Texans are very reluctant to part with their tax dollars,” Burka said.

Texan oil is another myth, and it’s characterized by a big gamble, an all-or-nothing risk that results in a big gusher or a dry hole. “I think that tendency to have big gambles is certainly something that looms large in the mind of a certain Texan president,” Burka said.

The Alamo myth — “the line in the dirt” — is still exemplified by Texas politicians. “They draw lines in the dirt,” Burka said, and insist on doing things their way.

Many of the values espoused in Texas are also rural values found in other Republican states, Burka noted. “You can’t make the case that Texas is responsible for red [Republican] America, but we are the emblem to blue America of everything they don’t like about red America.”

The panel discussion was moderated by Shawn Leventhal, who organized the event with Dustin Stephens. Both are founding members of BISF.