The Austin American Statesman contemplates the consequences of having so many green legislators, nearly half of the legislature has little or no experience in the institution. Many won their positons due to the continued influence of the Tea Party in the state.
Rice prof Mark Jones tries to put the newbies in context:
. . . the addition of a few more Democrats to the House minority, and the replacement of some veteran Republicans with more conservative folks like Stickland, will leave the House collectively in about the same spot it was ideologically in the last session. But the Republican caucus, where most of the action is, will be further to the right.
It is hard to know what vocabulary to apply to the two broad GOP camps. Jones uses the terms “movement conservative” and “establishment conservative.” While “establishment” might carry a musty air, the alternatives – “moderate,” “pragmatic,” “centrist,” – are now clearly, in the modern Republican lexicon, pejorative.
GOP members, Jones said, exist along a continuum. There are those who love the tea party, those who just like it, those who loathe it but fear its wrath, and those, like Villalba, who feel comfortable in politely maintaining their distance.
Stickland and his band consider themselves Davids who can defeat the Goliaths of better-funded opponents. But Jones said they will find that the moneyed Republican interests will tolerate their politics only to the extent that it doesn’t interfere with business, and then, those tea party members must contemplate the cost, in terms of their political future, of their ideas.
