From the Texas Tribune: Where is Texas’ growing population coming from?

For 2306: a look at the changing demographics in the state.

- Click here for the article.

The state gained 187,545 people from migration between July 2017 and July 2018 — even after accounting for people leaving the state, according to U.S. Census data.

In 2018, the majority of migrants to Texas — 104,976 people — came from other countries, with the rest arriving from other U.S. states.

That marked the second straight year that international migration into the state exceeded domestic migration, said Luke Rogers, chief of the population estimate branch for the U.S. Census Bureau.

Before 2017, domestic migration dominated the story of Texas growth: From 2005 to 2013, 4.8 million of the 5.9 million of people who moved to Texas came from other states, and since 2010 people from other states accounted for 29% of the state's population growth, compared to the 23% that came from international migration. That flipped in 2017, and between 2017 and 2018, international migration increased by 28%, while domestic migration grew by a more modest 22%.

“I think it varies from year to year,” Rogers said. “There are a lot of years going back to 2000 where net domestic migration is larger than the international migration, but there are also years the other way around where international migration is larger than than domestic migration.”

The recent uptick ended a decade-long decline in international migration — particularly from Latin America — that began with the 2008 recession, Potter said.

Meanwhile, Texas has seen an increase in migration from Asian countries, particularly China and India. Potter said around 45% of international migrants came from Asia in 2016.

“Over the 2000s, we saw a pretty significant opening of China and kind of increasing number of Indian students coming over to study,” Potter said. “And I think what happens frequently is once they finish studying, they are able to get sponsored by a company for a work visa … Once they get a green card, then they can start sponsoring their family to come over as well.”

Mentioned in the article:

- Texas Demographic Center.

From Slate: Texas Supreme Court Justice: States Can Deny Same-Sex Spousal Benefits to “Encourage Procreation”

More conflict between the dominant political cultures in Texas and the United States. This fits material we've been discussing in 2306. It also illustrates the tension inevitable in federal systems. Texas continues to chafe against the requirement that they recognize same sex marriages.

- Click here for the article.

On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court refused to review a lower court ruling holding that cities may not deprive married same-sex couples the benefits it provides to opposite-sex couples. The court’s decision leaves in place a pro-equality ruling that forbids the government from discriminating against gay people for no good reason. But one judge, Justice John Devine, argued that his court should have taken the case and reversed the lower court’s judgment. His opinion is an ominous sign that conservative judges are striving to work around Obergefell v. Hodges and affirm the constitutionality of state-sponsored anti-gay discrimination.

Devine is clearly no fan of Obergefell, and his dissent attempts to minimize that decision to an almost dishonest degree. “Marriage is a fundamental right,” Devine wrote. “Spousal benefits are not.” Devine insisted that Obergefell’s affirmation of same-sex couples’ constitutional right to wed does not preclude Texas from discriminating against married, same-sex couples in other ways. Obergefell, the justice argued, was strictly limited to gay people’s fundamental right to marry. So long as a state does not revoke that right, it can deprive same-sex couples of other benefits guaranteed to opposite-sex couples. Specifically, Devine wrote, the government can refuse to give spousal benefits to its gay employees because they are gay.

Why should Texas be permitted to deprive same-sex couples of the benefits provided to opposite-sex couples? Because the state has an “interest in encouraging procreation.” Devine speculates that “offering certain benefits to opposite-sex couples would encourage procreation within marriage.”

Federalism and Gun Policy

I'll post separately on the open carry laws that became effective yesterday - no need to prep for anything on that for the final. Below are a few items related to the increasing difference between the states on gun laws. This is a consequence of federalism which contains within it the understanding that states have discretion to pass certain types of laws as they see fit.

For the test, be familiar with the reserved powers, as well as police powers.

Gun laws seem to fit within this category, which explains the variance. I have a hunch though that gun proponents will start using the Second Amendment to challenge state restrictions on gun rights as being violations of a nationally defined right - but that remains to be seen.

Here's more on the subject:

From the Atlantic: The Split Between the States Over Guns.

Will restrictions on guns expand or contract in 2016? It depends entirely on which state you’re in. Guns are about to become a lot more visible in the nation’s second most populous state. With a law that takes effect in the new year, Texans licensed to carry firearms won’t have to conceal them anymore—they can wear them out in the open, so long as they are in a belt or shoulder holster. Later in 2016, Texans will be allowed to take guns into campus dorms and classrooms, although those will have to remain hidden from view.

Gun laws are also set to change this week in California, but the country’s biggest state is going in the opposite direction. Concealed weapons will now be banned on college campuses, and police and families will have new powers to seek court orders to strip firearms from relatives believed to be a threat to themselves or others. The partisan debate over gun policy may have paralyzed Congress, but the rise in high-profile mass shootings has catalyzed action in the states, and 2015 saw the gap in gun laws between red and blue states grow ever larger.

The Center for Public Integrity: State lawmakers take aim at federal gun control.

Across the country, a thriving dissatisfaction with the U.S. government is prompting a growing spate of bills in state legislatures aimed at defying federal control over firearms — more than 200 during the last decade, a News21 investigation found.

Particularly in Western and Southern states, where individual liberty intersects with increasing skepticism among gun owners, firearms are a political vehicle in efforts to ensure states’ rights and void U.S. gun laws within their borders. State legislators are attempting to declare that only they have the right to interpret the Second Amendment, a movement that recalls the anti-federal spirit of the Civil War and civil-rights eras.

“I think the president and the majority of Congress, both in the House and Senate, are just completely out of touch with how people feel about Second Amendment rights,” said Missouri state Sen. Brian Nieves, who has fought for bills to weaken the federal government’s authority over firearms in his state.

This article is a bit dated, but it discusses the possible consequences of increased disparity in various types of laws across the states. Could this be yet another factor leading to polarization in the nation?

Governing: Could Gay Marriage, Guns and Marijuana Lead to a Fragmented United States of America?

. . . states pass legislation with an almost industrial efficiency, America, as is often noted these days, is becoming a more and more splintered nation. Red states are redder; blue states are bluer.

Take a look at a U.S. map colored by state party control. In the upper right-hand corner down to the Mid-Atlantic, it’s all blue. In the South and across the Great Plains, you see a blanket of red. That crimson sea begins to break at the Rocky Mountains until you reach a stretch of blue along the West Coast. In a way, we are returning to our roots as a loose confederation of culturally and geographically distinct governments.

States led by Democrats are moving toward broader Medicaid coverage, stricter gun laws and a liberalized drug policy. They’ve legalized gay marriage, abolished the death penalty and extended new rights to undocumented immigrants. Republican strongholds are working quickly to remove government from the business sphere -- reducing taxes, pushing anti-union right-to-work laws and rebelling against the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They’re also pressing forward on some of their most valued social issues, promoting pro-life abortion policies and protecting the rights of gun owners.

The divisions generate fundamental questions about the nature of federalism. The sweeping national interventions of the New Deal and the comprehensive federal social legislation of the 1960s have been replaced by a more decentralized approach to governance. States are openly defying federal law and resurrecting the concept of nullification. These are not merely legal or rhetorical exercises. They are fostering real change and real consequences for average Americans.

In the news: Cuts to funding for child therapy

In recent days, this has become more and more controversial. The legislature cut a sizable amount of money from the budget that had gone to reimburse doctors who provided - through Medicaid - physical therapy to poor and disabled children.

- For background click here:
- Medicaid Budget Kicks Can Down Road, Experts Say.
- Texas to Move Forward With Cuts to Children's Therapy.

Now there's a backlash. Republicans in Texas are joining Democrats in questioning the wisdom of the cuts. (This makes me wonder if members of the legislature knew exactly what they were doing when they voted on the General Appropriations Bill last spring.) The cuts were in response to increased spending on health care on the state - increases are happening nationally as well - in addition to a now disputed study which argued that Texas pay more on therapy than other states.
- Click here for the study.

Some of the initial push back against the cuts is coming from health care providers - and reveals a battle between in-patient and out-patient providers.
- For detail: Behind Medicaid Cuts, a Fight Over Child Therapy.

Here's a look at how this conflict is playing out:
- Families of Disabled Children Sue Texas Over Medicaid Cuts.
- GOP opposition emerges to huge cuts in Medicaid services for disabled Texas children.

Past posts on political culture

The links below takes you to previous posts that touched on political culture in Texas

- Click here for it.

It may help illuminate some of the material in the section on political culture across the state, especially those that focus on political conflict. There's a reason Texas like to fight the feds so much. I'm not sure how much more Texas is than other states though - that might be a good research project.

How Texas became a western state

Apparently there was little question that Texas was a southern state up until about 100 years ago when business leaders wanted to distance the state from groups like the KKK.

Re branding the state as being full of freedom loving cowboys was more attractive than being seen as being full of racists who missed slavery and the plantation system.

Two related stories:

- Is Texas Southern, Western, or Truly a Lone Star?

“I don’t think anyone much questioned Texas’s essential Southernness until the twentieth century,” says Dr. Gregg Cantrell, Texas history chair at TCU, past president of the Texas State Historical Association, and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. “And they started doing so as a way of distancing themselves from the late unpleasantness of the 1860’s and 1870’s. Defeat, military occupation, Jim Crow and lynching, and all of those unpleasant things that are very much a part of Texas history as a Southern state, were things that a lot of Texans would probably just as soon not talk about a lot.”

Nationally, Dixie was stigmatized as a backward, ignorant, and violent hotbed of the Ku Klux Klan and religious hypocrisy. Why remain linked to all that baggage? Why not, forward-looking Texans began to think, align with the West instead? Back then, and to a certain degree today, the West was seen as optimistic, the place of second chances, the land of the golden tomorrow, a stark contrast when compared to Dixie’s melancholy and tragic yesterdays. So Texas’s politicians, educators, and ad-men went to work, Cantrell says, and have since all but totally recast the very ideal of what it means to be a Texan.

“And so what do you do? You play up the frontier, you play up the Texas Revolution and the Alamo, you play up the (in reality not-very-glorious) ten years of the Texas Republic, and then you talk about the Indian Wars and the cattle drives, all culminating in Spindletop and the discovery of oil,” he says. “All of these things made Texas seem like anything but a Southern state.”

- How Fort Worth and Texas seceded from the South, or did we?

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bud-kennedy/article12946790.html#storylink=cpy

. . . take the slogan that remains on our front page: “Where the West Begins.”
That slogan was first added to founder Amon G. Carter’sStar-Telegram on Aug. 15, 1923.

That summer, the 1920s rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan had staged two robed and hooded parades in Fort Worth, one described as 25 blocks long.

Business leaders across Texas wanted desperately to promote the state to investors and customers from the North. But tens of thousands of white Texans wanted to revert to a racist, nativist “Invisible Empire” that used vigilante attacks to intimidate black Texans, immigrants and everyone except white Protestant prohibitionists.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bud-kennedy/article12946790.html#storylink=cpy

Texan or American?

Interesting result from a poll commissioned by the Texas Tribune.

- Click here for the story.

In the February 2014 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, we asked respondents whether they considered themselves Texans first and Americans second, or Americans first and Texans second. Overall, just over a quarter of registered voters — 27 percent — considered themselves to be Texans first.

Democrats and liberals overwhelmingly identify as Americans before they identify as Texans (84 percent and 92 percent respectively), and while majorities of Republicans and conservatives identify as Americans first, significant proportions (35 percent and 36 percent respectively) identify first as Texans. This difference is a probable reflection of the current Republican statewide dominance and, in turn, each voter’s willingness to identify with the state.

The Texas-first crowd also includes more men than women. While 32 percent of men describe themselves as Texans first, only 23 percent of women make the same choice.

Looking to the future, it’s possible that those identifying as Texans will
grow. The members of the racial/ethnic group most likely to describe themselves as Texans first are not, in fact, Anglos, among whom 27 percent describe themselves as Texans, but are instead the growing population of Hispanics, among whom 33 percent identify as Texan first.

Maybe even more surprising, younger voters are more inclined to call themselves Texans first. A slight majority of 18- to 44-year-olds (53 percent) consider themselves to be Texans first and Americans second. By comparison, only 40 percent of 18- to 44-year-olds consider themselves to be Americans first and Texans second, a 13-point gap. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 40 percent identify as Texans before they identify as Americans, far outpacing any other age group. It’s not grandpa that places the Lone Star over the Stars and Stripes, but his grandchildren.

From the Washington Post: Another way to explain who we are: The 15 types of communities that make up America

A companion piece to the one about the 11 "nations" within the US. This looks at the 15 unique cultures of the various counties across the country.

"The Eleven States of Violence"

That's the title Andrew Sullivan gave to this study in Tufts Magazine which tries to uncover the roots of the different responses to violence across the states. The approach should sound familiar to 2306 students - its similar to the approach to political culture we looked at in the beginning of the class. Different areas respond in different ways, and these differences can be traced back to the circumstances of the settlement in each area:

. . . the incidence of violence, like so many salient issues in American life, varies by region. Beyond a vague awareness that supporters of violent retaliation and easy access to guns are concentrated in the states of the former Confederacy and, to a lesser extent, the western interior, most people cannot tell you much about regional differences on such matters. Our conventional way of defining regions—dividing the country along state boundaries into a Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest—masks the cultural lines along which attitudes toward violence fall. These lines don’t respect state boundaries. To understand violence or practically any other divisive issue, you need to understand historical settlement patterns and the lasting cultural fissures they established.

The original North American colonies were settled by people from distinct regions of the British Isles—and from France, the Netherlands, and Spain—each with its own religious, political, and ethnographic traits. For generations, these Euro-American cultures developed in isolation from one another, consolidating their cherished religious and political principles and fundamental values, and expanding across the eastern half of the continent in nearly exclusive settlement bands. Throughout the colonial period and the Early Republic, they saw themselves as competitors—for land, capital, and other settlers—and even as enemies, taking opposing sides in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.

There’s never been an America, but rather several Americas—each a distinct nation. There are eleven nations today. Each looks at violence, as well as everything else, in its own way.

Texas is in four distinct regions. We are in the Deep South. Here's what that means:

Established by English slave lords from Barbados, Deep South was meant as a West Indies–style slave society. This nation offered a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. Its caste systems smashed by outside intervention, it continues to fight against expanded federal powers, taxes on capital and the wealthy, and environmental, labor, and consumer regulations.

Sullivan argues that this map proves that the US must be a federal system if it is to survive. There are too many differences within the nation for it to survive as a unitary system.

Opportunity in Texas: #1 for business, #38 for people

Two studies which purport top measure opportunity across each state have different things to say about Texas.

CNBC has had Texas #1 in recent surveys for business opportunity, but the measures used as part of the Opportunity Index - which focus on the factors that impact people, not businesses - place Texas far lower among the states.

This illustrates a few things we cover in 2306, namely the types of public policy priorities in the state and the impact of the state's individualistic political culture on state priorities.

From the Washington Monthly:

The Opportunity Index ranks states based on sixteen indicators that Measure of America codirector Kristen Lewis says are essential to the “infrastructure of opportunity” for individuals. These indicators include not just the basics—the availability of jobs, affordable housing, and quality education—but also what a growing body of research shows is critical to upward mobility: social capital and civic life. These factors make up, at the individual level, the equivalent of the “business-friendly” environment that company-focused rankings measure.

The outcomes under the Opportunity Index approach, needless to say, are radically different from those of CNBC. Under the 2013 Opportunity Index, Texas—top ranked in opportunities for business by CNBC—ranks thirty-eighth in opportunities for people. Meanwhile, Vermont, which invests nearly double what Texas does per pupil in K-12 education ($15,096 versus $8,562), ranks first on the Opportunity Index and thirty-second by CNBC.

. . . While some structural differences—such as the level of church membership—are less susceptible to public policy, federal, state, and local policy choices can have profound impacts on whether people have access to the building blocks of upward mobility: decent schools, safe streets, and even access to grocery stores with affordable healthy food. In some neighborhoods of Houston, says a report by Children at Risk, “areas as large as 10 miles have been identified as containing a single food source—gas stations that sell tobacco, alcohol and fatty snacks.” As a tragic—but unsurprising—consequence, as many as 47 percent of Harris County children are obese or overweight.

In the same way that the rankings of the U.S. News & World Report have influenced—for better or for worse—the investments and choices that colleges have made to improve their standings, it’s likely that the multiplicity of business-focused rankings have skewed the policy choices of states eager to attract companies within their borders. Texas, for example, spends $19 billion a year on tax incentives to woo companies to the state, according to the New York Times—at the same time, it cut education spending by $5.4 billion last year. In the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed yet more tax cuts, exempting small businesses from franchise taxes, lowering franchise tax rates, and creating a special tax break for data centers doing business in the state. Texas was also among the first states to develop a so-called war chest—the Texas Enterprise Fund—aimed at offering companies incentives to move to the state, along with a smorgasbord of other goodies, including grants and low-cost loans to businesses.

Written Assignment #3 - 8 week classes

I want you to write at least 150 words on the the following subject - based on whichever class you are in - and submit it through BlackBoard.

2305 - This week you will begin to look at the legislative branch - Congress - and if you have been following the news and keep up with commentary you know that there are questions about whether the institution is broken. I've complied a handful of posts related to this subject.

- I've put these under the label Is Congress Broken?

I want you to familiarize yourself with the subject and weigh in on the question. First off - Is Congress really broken, or is it functioning as intended? If it is, why is that the case and what can done about it?

2306 - We are witnessing yet another conflict between the national and state governments. This time over the abortion legislation passed in the 83rd legislative session which met this past spring. There are several other areas where the decisions of the state government have been challenged at the national level. These conflicts help illustrate the cultural conflict between Texas and the US. In one of the early set of slides we went over political culture around the nation - the individualistic, traditionalistic and moralistic cultures - and highlighted areas of conflict. We argued that cultural differences help explain the disputes that happen between the Texas and National government.

Using the dispute over access to abortion, as well as any others you may come across, I want you to test these whether it is indeed the case that current conflicts between Texas and the US boil down to cultural differences. Give examples and explain thoroughly.

Good luck and I look forward to what you write.

From the Atlantic: The Myers Briggs States of America

A nice counterpoint to the three part description of political culture across the states we cover in 2306. This is based on personality traits and asks whether that provides the best way to understand differences between the states?



Here's Texas:

The Temperamental and Uninhibited Region is the deep orange area that covers the Northeast, New England and Middle Atlantic states. There are also lighter concentrations in the contiguous areas of Ohio and Indiana, as well as Texas. This region's psychological profile is defined by very high levels neuroticism (hence the temperamental moniker), moderately high levels of openness, low levels of extroversion (or high levels of introversion) and very low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. This constellation of personality traits depict a type of person that is "reserved, aloof, impulsive, irritable, and inquisitive," while also being "passionate, competitive, and liberal." This region is highly educated and affluent, with high levels of ethnic and cultural diversity and a liberal political orientation.

And commentary:

While most analysts focus on the concretely measurable attributes of a place (its ethnic and cultural divisions, religious orientation or economic characteristics), these findings suggest that psychological factors play a role. The profile and traits of the Midwest (Friendly and Conventional) implies a regional cluster of personalities that are family-oriented, religious, and thus drawn to more conservative political orientations.

There is a psychological dimension to highly innovative, entrepreneurial and creative places

Their research also offers potentially new insights for economic development, specifically for understanding the geographic clustering of talent and innovation. The study suggests "part of the reason why certain regions of the United States are economically vibrant may have to do with the psychological characteristics of residents."

It calls attention to the selective migration of certain regional personality types. People in the Friendly and Conventional Region are more likely to stay close to family and friends. People in the other regional types are much more likely to be drawn to and engage in inventive, entrepreneurial and creative activity as well. This helps explain the cluster of innovative and creative activity in places like Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York and Boston. The orange shading in Texas also helps explain the high level of innovation and creativity in Austin and around Houston.

From Foreign Policy: How Geography Explains the United States

This isn't exactly a new observation, but its worth both repeating and clarifying. The author points out that the United States' unique geography - especially the fact that it borders two major oceans and has had more or less peaceful relations with its bordering nations - explains the world view of its citizens, as well as its history.

The United States is the only great power in the history of the world that has had the luxury of having nonpredatory neighbors to its north and south, and fish to its east and west. The two oceans to either side of the country are what historian Thomas Bailey brilliantly described as its liquid assets.

Canadians, Mexicans, and fish. That trio of neighbors has given the United States an unprecedented degree of security, a huge margin for error in international affairs, and the luxury of largely unfettered development.

Those last two points are huge: we have had a margin for error in foreign affairs (we could make mistakes and get away with it) and develop ourselves without worrying about attacks. But it has lead to a worldview the author claims is unrealistic. We are pragmatic, idealistic, arrogant and ambivalent, and we can be all that because we can make decisions without worrying about immediate repercussions - because of our unique geography. But it means that we can not always understand - or appreciate - what motivates other countries - which can lead to mistakes.

U.S. nationalism was defined politically, not ethnically. Anyone can be an American, regardless of color, creed, or religion. America's public square has become an inclusive one -- and is becoming more so, not less. That's all good news, but too often, it leads Americans to see the world on their terms and not the way it really is.

Just look at America's recent foreign-policy misadventures. Americans' mistaken belief that post-invasion Iraq would be a place where Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds would somehow look to the future to build a new nation reflected this tendency. It's the same story with the Arab Spring: From the beginning, America seemed determined to impose its own upbeat Hollywood ending on a movie that was only just getting started and would become much darker than imagined. The notion that what was happening in Egypt was a transformative event that would turn the country over to the secular liberals powered by Facebook and Twitter was truly an American conceit.

Since we are prepping for the finals, I took note of this bit that suggests that our isolated geography allowed us to carefully draft and discuss our constitutional order. Other countries have not had that luxury.

Sure, it was America's unique political system that forced compromise and practicality. But we shouldn't kid ourselves: The United States' success was made possible by a remarkable margin of security provided by two vast oceans, which allowed Americans the time and space to work on their union largely freed from constant external threats and crises.

Other countries have not been so lucky. It's fascinating to observe, for example, that Israel has no written constitution. Instead, it has a series of "basic laws" that have evolved over time. Why? The Israelis could not devote the time or risk the divisions that might have resulted from debating core issues when they were struggling to preserve their independence. These core questions -- such as those about the religious character of the state and the role of Arab citizens -- remain largely unresolved to this day.

Although the U.S. political system failed to resolve the problem of slavery without a civil war, the United States did manage to make it through that war as a united country. Location had much to do with this: You can only imagine America's fate had it been surrounded by hostile neighbors eager to take advantage of years of bloody war.

Maybe this helps explain Texas' 50 year struggle to find the right constitutional system - one that we continue to tinker with to this day.

Where each state stands on ACA's Medicaid expansion

I'm working on material for 2306's upcoming look at health and human services policy in the state and ran across this site which outlines which states are participating in the expansion of Medicaid and which are not. Here's a graphic describing the current state of affairs:



Note that the map roughly fits the breakdown of the nation into individualistic, traditionalistic, and moralistic cultures.

Northernomics vs Southernomics

More from Michael Lind - who wrote the story about the distinctiveness of the South below. This is also a bit harsh on the South, but it fits themes we will discuss soon enough when we talk about the development of political parties and economic policymaking. His principal contribution for us is his description of the difference between northern and southern attitudes about how to develop economies, and the degree to which prosperity ought to be spread evenly throughout the population:

Northernomics is the high-road strategy of building a flourishing national economy by means of government-business cooperation and government investment in R&D, infrastructure and education. Although this program of Hamiltonianism (named after Washington’s first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton) has been championed by maverick Southerners as prominent as George Washington, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln (born in Kentucky to a Southern family), the building of a modern, high-tech, high-wage economy has been supported chiefly by political parties based in New England and the Midwest, from the Federalists and the Whigs through the Lincoln Republicans and today’s Northern Democrats.

Southernomics is radically different. The purpose of the age-old economic development strategy of the Southern states has never been to allow them to compete with other states or countries on the basis of superior innovation or living standards. Instead, for generations Southern economic policymakers have sought to secure a lucrative second-tier role for the South in the national and world economies, as a supplier of commodities like cotton and oil and gas and a source of cheap labor for footloose corporations. This strategy of specializing in commodities and cheap labor is intended to enrich the Southern oligarchy. It doesn’t enrich the majority of Southerners, white, black or brown, but it is not intended to.

This also fits the story about political culture told in 2306 about the traditional culture in the South as opposed to the moral culture in the North.

From Salon: The white South’s last defeat

This article might be a bit harsh to some, but I call attention to it because it tries to get to the heart of the differences between the South and the rest of the nation. This matters because the South has always been a distinct presence in American government and politics - and remains so to this day, though the author thinks things might be changing. The author if a native Texan and has written profusely on the relationship between the state and the nation.

It applies to both 2305 and 2306, the former because the southern representatives have become increasingly influential in the Republican Party and have made the party far more consistently conservative than it has been in the past. While this initially helped the national Republican Party win elections in the 1980s and 1990s - it may be making it less competitive now. In the effort to purify the party, conservatives have been driving out moderates - which lessens the size of the coalition. This has the obvious effect.

For 2306, it simply adds an additional point of view to what makes Texas - or at least that part of Texas that is southern (east of Houston and Dallas I'd say) - tick politically and culturally.

Some points from the article:

- The South is the only area of the country that has suffered severe defeats - the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement - and both were driven by the natioal government and included the use of federal troops to implement.

- While the US prided itself on being a "melting pot" the South never was - and only recently has become more diversified. Aside from the African - American population, the South was far more British and Scots-Irish in its background. This is less true now, so the South is now going through some of the internal conflicts that other states suffered back in the 1920s when waves of non-Anglo immigrants came to the US. The influx of diverse population is why the author argues the South is in the process of political change, but this will take time. Homogeneity still rules.

- As the white South declines in numbers, political techniques that allow the minority to place limits on the majority will become more and more common. The obstructionism we see in the US Congress, and between southern states and the US government are not only examples, but might be more common as diversity works its way slowly through southern society.

Moonbeam v Goodhair

The Texas Tribune uses the fight between Governor's Brown and Perry (Moonbeam and Goodhair) over jobs to look more deeply at the different cultural attitudes each has towards government. Here's content from the story:

It is a lovely thing when two political avatars slug it out in public. The little radio advertisement has so far become a weeklong conversation about the relative virtues of the nation’s two biggest states.

In other words, Perry got just what he wanted. The first part of persuading someone to move is getting them to consider that idea.

Behind the ads and the commentary is a serious competition between the states for economic pre-eminence. In that corner, Athens. In this one, Sparta. Each serves as the other’s foil, the Ali to its Frazier, the Moriarty to its Holmes, the red to its blue. Each sees itself as the economic, cultural and political engine of the future.

Over the past decade, Texas has been knocking the feathers out of the competition, adding jobs faster than any other state. That’s one of Perry’s brags and would have been a centerpiece of his 2012 presidential campaign, had he kept that effort alive long enough to need a centerpiece.

Not from Texas? Here’s one argument heard lately in California: Perry and Texas didn’t create all those jobs. They stole them. When Countrywide Financial (may it rest in peace) moved from California to Texas in 2004, Texas threw $20 million at the company, which in turn promised 7,500 jobs. Even the rosiest spin on that deal failed to add to the number of jobs in the universe. It just relocated them.

I like the Texas as Sparta and California as Athens reference. Sparta was famously austere - though it was very much a socialist system, so I'm not sure how far to take the analogy. And austerity seems to be reserved for the poor. The powerful in Sparta lived simple lives - I don't think you can say that about those in Texas. But Athens did throw a great deal of resources at public works, and California prides itself on doing the same.

More seriously, each state has a different orientation towards economic development, and this should be explored more fully. Over the past few decades, Texas has actively courted major corporations and encouraged them to move here by offering them a business friendly environment, which means that labor is kept cheap and regulations are kept low. Workers find it difficult to assemble into unions in order to drive up wages and enhance workplace safety. The ability of workers and consumers to use the courts to address problems has also been made more difficult in a number of ways: limits on awards and losers pays rules among others. Texas also keeps public sector costs low, most recently by cutting education and health expenditures. It's a top-down model for development, at least that seems the case to me.

California seems to have taken the opposite approach to economic development. It developed a first class education system - including some of the nation's top universities - and used them as centers of research. The products of this research was then spun into the technology that lead to a variety of business enterprises that we are all familiar with: Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Google among many others. This seems to me to be a bottom-up approach to economic development. Make sure people have the technological skills to develop ideas, and train a workforce necessary to sustain and grow that idea.

This is a start, but I think a more thorough look at the differences between the two states - in this and many other areas - is worth pursuing.

And a concluding question: The key criticism the story has about Texas' approach to economic development is that we don;t create jobs as much as we poach them from elsewhere. I wonder about the data backing this assertion up. Of the top corporations in Texas, how many started in Texas and how many relocated here?

It's on!

The Texas / California smack down continues. This from the Sacramento Bee:

Yes, come check out Texas. Check out a state that ranks dead last in the percent of its population with high school diplomas. Come check out a state that is last in mental health expenditures and workers' compensation coverage. Come check out a state that ranks first in the number of executions, first in the number of uninsured, first in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted and first in the amount of toxic chemicals released into water.

Texas certainly has some attractions for business, and California certainly needs to work harder to create a friendly place to start companies and grow jobs. But California is creating businesses all the time, partly because of our natural assets – great weather and stunning mountains, beaches and deserts – and an excellent although underfunded system of higher education.

If we invest in that system and protect our environment, our state will continue to create companies such as Apple, Google, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Craigslist, Yelp, Twitter, Sun Microsystems, Genentech, Cisco, Intel and Qualcomm, and the list goes on and on.

The ball is back in our court - let's see who steps up.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/06/5168690/pity-rick-perry-his-big-state.html#storylink=cpy

From Larry McMurthy: Horsemen, Goodbye

In Texas Monthly's current issue on Texas cities - which I'll be pulling material from for a while - has thoughts from Texas author Larry McMurthy on changes he's noted in the major cities on Texas. It seems that Texans have grown more urban since the 1960s. The frontier mentality common then has waned.

My point, much reiterated, was that Texans in the main were not yet able to handle the pressures of urban life. I saw this demonstrated on a hot summer day on the Houston beltway, where traffic neither moved nor offered the slightest prospects of movement, when the two cars in front of me bumped fenders; their drivers, both wearing ties and pinstripes, got out and flung themselves at one another. Soon they were rolling around on the burning pavement, in the traffic. Several drivers, including myself, tried to reason with them, and eventually it took, up to a point. Neither car was hurt at all, but the two men got up, exchanged insurance info, shook hands, and got back in their cars. Twenty minutes or so later the traffic moved normally again. Terrible traffic is the price Houstonians pay for living in a real city.

When I published my essays with the Wittliffs, they had no interest in curbing my wordage; they wanted as much book as they could get. Not so the Monthly: it serves a readership whose attention span is far from limitless. More than forty years have passed since I took that first look at the cities of Texas. Now many of its citizens have shaken off the frontier ethic and become mature urbanites. In response to this change, most of the cities have gone to the trouble to provide their better-informed residents some of the trappings of high culture. There are several excellent museums and an opera house or two. In addition, these cities have produced a number of locally grown artists who are good in various spheres. This is no small thing

He does not speculate on what has lead this change, but a massive influx of residents from around the nation and world undoubtedly helps, in addition to the simple fact that many of us - though not all - are one or two additional generations separated from the farm. Are we growing more comfortable being in close proximity with others and in allowing courts to mediate our disputes? There comes a point where we may no longer be fit to be called Texans.

I wonder whether Texans' increased fixation with guns is related to a decline in the frontier. The decreased reality of the frontier leads to it becoming more prominent in our imagination. Just a thought.

Here's coincidental trivia: McMurthy is a three time winner of the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Ny 2306s are readign up on Jones this semester.

Welcome to Big City Texas

This issue makes it worth it for me to renew my subscription.

Texas Monthly's February issue not only has a series of articles on Texas' major cities, the website links you back to all past article about them.

This week's 2306 classes looked at political culture in the state - and to a lesser degree the cities, but we did touch on the differences between the state as a whole and its major urban areas - and the fact that they keep growing. At some point - maybe very soon - this will start to have an impact on state politics.

I'd browse through it if I were you.