Texas Cannot Survive on Culture Wars Alone: What Should Haunt All Texans of Good Conscience, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Texas Cannot Survive on Culture Wars Alone: What Should Haunt All Texans of Good Conscience

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 8, 2026

Jorge Meave’s powerful Substack essay in The Credential, “Hitza Hitz: A Humanist Sermon,” does something urgently needed in Texas politics: it connects the dots.

He begins with the New World screwworm, confirmed in Texas on June 3, 2026—the first U.S. animal case in the current outbreak, according to the CDC. The USDA has described the screwworm as a serious pest of livestock and wildlife, and Texas officials have imposed movement restrictions across affected counties. This is not metaphor. It is living tissue, animal suffering, ranching vulnerability, and state capacity all converging in real time (see Center for Disease Control).

But Meave’s deeper point is that the screwworm is not alone. It is part of a larger story of abandonment—and Mother Earth herself is reflecting it back to us. Across Texas, the signs are everywhere: water disappearing, farmers leaving, schools closing, aquifers threatened, and the ground itself shaking under the pressures of extractive industries. Research from UT Austin and SMU has linked significant seismic activity in the Permian Basin to wastewater injection associated with oil and gas production (UT Austin News). 

Meave is right: the ground is telling us what is happening.

And now, to this already stressed landscape, we must add the rapid expansion of data centers.

Texans across the state are beginning to ask urgent questions about who benefits and who pays when massive data centers arrive requiring enormous amounts of electricity, water, land, and infrastructure. The Texas Tribune reports that Texas is experiencing an AI-driven data center boom, with at least 248 projects planned statewide. Experts warn that these facilities could intensify pressure on Texas’ already fragile water supplies, especially in arid regions and communities already facing drought, population growth, and climate stress.

A 2026 UT Austin report similarly warns that data center growth could significantly increase water demand in Texas by 2040 and calls for greater transparency, shared standards, and integrated planning. HARC Research estimates that Texas data centers already consume roughly 25 billion gallons of water per year and that this figure could rise dramatically by 2030. Meanwhile, ERCOT and energy analysts are grappling with the electricity demand created by data centers, AI technologies, fossil fuel production, and other energy-intensive industries.

This is where Meave’s essay becomes even more important. The issues facing ranchers, farmers, schoolchildren, rural communities, Black and Brown communities, immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Texans, women, teachers, and working people are not separate. They are connected by the same politics of extraction, deregulation, privatization, and neglect.

For too long, Texans have been told to see the culture wars as separate from material survival. But they are not separate. The same political forces that scapegoat immigrants, attack LGBTQ+ communities, restrict women’s autonomy, dismantle DEI, and censor honest teaching about race and history are also too often the forces that look away when aquifers are drained, schools are underfunded, rural hospitals disappear, ranchers lack veterinary access, and communities are asked to absorb the costs of corporate expansion.

This means that “regular Texans” and Black and Brown communities are increasingly in the same boat. The culture wars may target Black, Brown, immigrant, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and women’s communities first and most visibly. But the broader policy regime harms far more people than it claims to represent. It leaves rural Texans without infrastructure. It leaves working families with higher costs. It leaves communities fighting over water. It leaves schools struggling. It leaves the land exhausted.

That is the heart of Meave’s piece.

Immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Texans, women, students, teachers, ranchers, farmers, rural communities, and working families are not competing constituencies. They are all living inside the same state policy regime—one that protects wealth, extraction, and ideological theater while ordinary people are left to absorb the damage.

This is what is at stake in the coming election. Not simply party control. Not simply personalities. Not even simply corruption, though that matters, too. The deeper question is whether Texas will continue to be governed through distraction, scapegoating, deregulation, privatization, and neglect—or whether candidates for public office will be expected to see the whole state and tell the truth about what is happening.

Meave’s invocation of the Basque phrase Hitza Hitz—when you give your word, it is what you are—lands with particular force. In politics, words are cheap unless they become policy, budgets, protections, regulation, and repair.

If leaders give their word on rural Texas, they must show up for ranchers facing animal disease and veterinary deserts.

If they give their word on water, they must protect aquifers and communities before private interests drain them.

If they give their word on data centers, they must demand transparency about water use, electricity demand, tax abatements, environmental impacts, and who ultimately pays.

If they give their word on schools, they must fund them and oppose privatization efforts—urban, suburban, and rural alike.

If they give their word on Black and Brown communities, they must defend truthful curriculum, Ethnic Studies, voting rights, language rights, and the public institutions that make democracy possible.

If they give their word on the land itself, they must listen when the ground shakes.

Meave’s essay is a sermon and a warning. Texas cannot survive on culture war politics while its water disappears, its schools are weakened, its communities are divided, and its land is treated as disposable.

The ground is telling us what is happening.

So are the ranchers. So are the teachers. So are the students. So are the farmers. So are the communities watching data centers, pipelines, private water deals, and extractive industries arrive without adequate public accountability.

The question now is whether Texas politics will listen.

Cases of the New World screwworm fly infecting animals are on the rise, with the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture documenting 32 cases since June 3. More than 93% of those are 

based in Texas. U.S. Department of Agriculture

Hitza Hitz: A Humanist Sermon

Saturday, July 4, 2026

Friends,

On June 3, 2026, the New World screwworm was confirmed in a calf in Zavala County, Texas. The first case in sixty years. By now, twenty-five confirmed cases. Twenty-one Texas counties under quarantine. The animal lies infested with larvae burrowing through living flesh. A rancher has to move that animal 50 miles to find a veterinarian. Maybe. If there is one.

This is not drought. This is not abstract. This is a living animal, dying.

And I need to tell you something else about this moment. Because the screwworm is not alone.

It happens across Texas.

South Texas: a calf is infested. A rancher cannot move the animal without breaking quarantine. A veterinarian is 50 miles away, or does not exist.

West Texas: The Pecos Valley melon farmers are gone. A state agriculture official said it plainly: "There's no water. They had to leave." That is a brand. That is a name people know. It is gone.

North Texas: In the Permian Basin, nineteen earthquakes recorded in 2009. Sixteen hundred by 2017. Southern Methodist University and UT Austin confirmed this year what was happening: wastewater injection from oil production reactivates pre-existing faults. The ground fractures. Magnitudes as high as 5.4. When the state reduced injection rates in late 2021, the earthquakes declined. The science is clear. The ground is telling you what is happening.

Central Texas: Schools are closing. Local control is being stripped. Families are watching groceries climb. Traffic clogs the cities and the country roads both. This is survival.

East Texas: A hedge fund manager wants 15 billion gallons of water from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer. The property rights doctrine that says "what you pump is yours" — that rule — is being used to drain the wells of people who have lived on that land for generations. Look it up. The details will astound you.

So we have a living animal infested with larvae. We have farmers gone. We have the ground shaking. We have schools closing. We have property rights being stripped. We have water vanishing.

That is Texas. All of it. Right now.

And I want to ask you something.

There is a woman named Gina Hinojosa who was born in McAllen, Texas. She is running to be governor. The crowds chant in Spanish: No te dejes. Don't let them. Hold your ground. Fight back.

I know that the people fighting the culture wars — the ones defending immigrant families being scapegoated, defending LGBTQ+ people being attacked, defending women being stripped of bodily autonomy — I know those are survival fights. They are real. Those are real people trying to live with dignity and safety. That fight matters.

But here is what haunts me.

While that fight has been happening, other survival issues have been put on hold. And the people affected by those issues — rural Texans, working people in suburbs and small towns — have watched that happen and moved away. Thirty-two years ago, Democrats won rural and suburban Texas. Then they stopped. Not because they got lazy. But because they focused on one fight and put another one on hold.

Democrats have not won a statewide office in Texas since Ann Richards in 1994. Thirty-two years. No Democrat has cleared 45 percent in a governor's race since Richards lost to George W. Bush. They have not cracked 46 percent once in thirty-two years.

The research is clear on why. Rural Texas and suburban Texas realigned to the Republican Party starting in 1994. They did not move left. They moved right. And once they moved, they stayed.

But here is what the research also shows.

Democrats could hold both fights at once. They could defend the people being attacked in the culture wars AND address the screwworm, the water, the schools, the property rights, the ground itself.

If Hinojosa ran on this. If she said: I see you. The people you're defending in the culture wars — I see them. But I also see the rancher in South Texas who cannot move livestock because the state was not prepared. I see the farmer in Pecos who is gone because water policy failed him. I see the family in North Texas living above fracturing ground because wastewater injection was not regulated. I see Central Texas closing schools instead of funding them. I see East Texas property rights being stripped in the name of profit.

If Democrats made that their case. If they said: we will fight the culture wars and we will fight for survival. We will not pick one and abandon the other.

The research says that would work. That would move votes. That would change things.

But it would require one thing.

It would require Democrats to stop choosing between the fights. And start leading on all of them.



Quisiera escribir con amor y la pluma se me torna látigo.

I would like to write with love, but the pen turns into a whip.

An ancestor wrote that in exile, more than a century ago. Because he saw the machine crushing people and could not stay silent.

I am not in exile. But I see the same machine. The same extraction. The same silence from the people who might fight it.

I want to speak two words this morning. From the Basque Country.

Hitza Hitz.

When you give your word, it is what you are.

Not what you say. Not what you promise. What you do. What you actually do. What you fight for when the cameras are gone and the money is cut and the polls move against you.

If you give your word on screwworm ranchers, you act. You deploy. You show up.

If you give your word on water, you regulate. You mandate transparency. You protect property rights before they are stolen.

If you give your word on schools, you fund them. All of them. Even in rural Texas. Even in the Panhandle. Even in the counties that vote for the other party.

If you give your word on the ground itself, you tell the truth about what is happening to it. You do not look away.

A hitza hitz is not noise. It is substance.

Go see the ground. All of it. From Zavala County to the Pecos Valley. From the Permian Basin to Central Texas to East Texas.

See what is there. See what is not there.

Tell what you see.

And if you are a politician — if you are running to serve these people — give them your word on this: that you will see them. That you will see their screwworm ranchers, their water, their schools, their ground. That you will not look away.

Because the ground is telling you what is happening.

The only question is whether you are listening.

Quisiera escribir con amor y la pluma se me torna látigo.



“Ann Richards, Texas Governor 1991-1995. The last Democrat to win statewide.”

The Rise of the Latino Far Right is Less about a Political Shift and More About an Emotional Realignment: An Analysis of the Emotional Architecture of Latino Conservatism

The Rise of the Latino Far Right is Less about a Political Shift and More About an Emotional Realignment: An Analysis of the Emotional Architecture of Latino Conservatism

I invite you to view and listen to this on my Youtube Vlog: 

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

November 19, 2025

Paola Ramos’ (2024a) insightful analysis in her award-winning book, Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America, could not be more urgent for Texas and the nation. She argues that contemporary politics—especially around race, immigration, and education—is driven less by policy debates than by emotion. This emotional terrain helps explain a phenomenon many political observers once considered unthinkable: the rapid rightward shift among segments of the Latino electorate.

Democrats have long assumed that Latino voters would remain a reliable bloc, but recent elections have shattered that assumption. Donald Trump, despite his virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric and punitive border policies, won a higher percentage of the Latino vote in 2020 than he did in 2016 (Ramos, 2024). 

Ramos travels across the country to understand how and why this is happening, revealing a complex emotional and psychological landscape that has been largely ignored by both parties. What she finds is deeply relevant to Texas and other states, where political actors continue to weaponize fear, disgust, resentment, and grievance to inform immigration policy along the U.S.-Mexico border, reshape public education, and redefine belonging.

Across states and regions—including the Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico, Arizona, Georgia, and Florida—Ramos meets Latino underdog GOP candidates, January 6th insurrectionists, Evangelical pastors, border vigilantes, and culture-war crusaders. Figures like Monica de la Cruz, who ran on a platform to “finish what Donald Trump started,” or David Ortiz, who identifies as a Spaniard and fought to preserve a statue of a conquistador in New Mexico, exemplify how narratives of cultural anxiety and racial hierarchy are being reactivated within communities of color.

Ramos interviews Pastor Luis Cabrera, whose calls to “Make America Godly Again” fuse Evangelical traditionalism with nationalist grievance, and Anthony Aguero, a Mexican American independent journalist turned border vigilante, who uses fear and conspiracy to radicalize his audience (Ramos, 2024b). Through these stories, Ramos shows how tribalism, traditionalism, and trauma within the Latino community have become powerful emotional levers. 

Many Latinos, like their white counterparts, fear losing their place in American society, and political actors have seized upon those fears to draw them toward movements that seem at odds with their own interests. The emotional void left by institutions—schools, local governments, political parties—has been filled by rhetoric that promises comfort, order, and belonging, even when those promises undermine the very communities they target.

This emotional landscape becomes even more dangerous when understood through Bryn Nelson’s (2024) framework of stochastic terrorism, a term law enforcement officials use to describe strategies in which public figures weaponize disgust and dehumanization to provoke unpredictable acts of hostility or violence (also see Hancock, 2000; Deigh, 2006). Importantly, the

emotional lexicon Ramos draws upon—fear, loss, resentment, nostalgia, belonging, abandonment, betrayal, pride, identity crisis, trauma, and tribalism—aligns closely with what scholars identify as the politics of emotion. 

These are not incidental feelings; they form the emotional architecture of political behavior. Ramos demonstrates that people defect not because they have been persuaded by new policy ideas, but because they are searching for emotional clarity, emotional safety, and emotional purpose.

Nelson explains that disgust is one of the most potent triggers humans possess, a biological response evolved to protect us from contamination. When politicians and pundits attach disgust to entire communities—immigrants, bilingual children, LGBTQ+ youth, educators, university researchers—they construct emotional conditions in which harassment, censorship, and even violence feel justified. The resulting harm is often diffuse, uncoordinated, unpredictable, and deniable by those who helped incite it.

These dynamics reveal why Texas’ education crisis cannot be understood apart from this emotional infrastructure. The attacks on Ethnic Studies, queer and trans students, DEI programs, university researchers, teacher autonomy, and historical truth are not policy disagreements. 

They are emotional strategies rooted in fear and disgust, strategies that now resonate with portions of the Latino electorate that have been recruited into grievance-based movements (Ramos, 2024). Figures like de la Cruz do not emerge in a vacuum; they reflect a broader realignment fueled by narratives of loss, nostalgia, and racial anxiety.

This is why after-school programs, community-based educational initiatives, and investment in public education matter so profoundly. Programs like our Saturday school, Academia Cuauhtli in Austin, Texas, are not just pedagogical interventions; they are emotional counterforces. 

They create spaces where children and families experience dignity, recognition, cultural pride, belonging, and joy—what some grotesquely deride as “identity politics,” but which are, in truth, the emotional foundations of human development and democratic belonging. 

These are the very emotions that protect against the vacuum where the manipulations described by Ramos and Nelson find fertile ground. These programs remind young people that their languages are assets, that their ancestors were scientists, mathematicians, engineers, activists, and philosophers, and that they have a rightful place in this society—truths that the current political climate works aggressively to suppress.

Ramos’s work makes clear that Latino political shifts are not driven solely by ideology but by unmet emotional needs—needs for safety, coherence, identity, and belonging. Nelson warns that when disgust is mobilized against communities, violence becomes ambient and unpredictable. 

Together, they illuminate what is happening in Texas schools: an emotional crisis disguised as a policy debate. And they underscore why our third spaces rooted in ceremony, storytelling, danza, bilingualism, and ancestral knowledge are not merely educational alternatives—they are frontline defenses against the weaponization of fear and disgust.

People do not defect from harmful ideologies unless they have somewhere better to belong. Our responsibility, especially in Texas' current political storm, is to continue building those places—spaces of corazón where community, culture, and emotional truth serve as the antidote to disinformation, division, and dehumanization.

References

Deigh, J. (2006). The politics of disgust and shame. Journal of Ethics, 10(4), 383–418.

Hancock, A. M. (2000). The public identity of the “welfare queen” and the politics of disgust. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Nelson, B. (2024). How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence: Pundits are weaponizing disgust to fuel violence, and it’s affecting our humanity. Scientific American.

Ramos, P. (2024a). Defectors: The rise of the Latino far right and what it means for America. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Ramos, P. (2024b, September 23). The immigrants who oppose immigration: A desire to prove their Americanness has driven more and more Latinos to turn against newcomers, The Atlantic.

In Texas, University Presidents May Soon Control Faculty Senates: University Faculty are not the problem. We are the conscience of the university.

Friends,

Please read the informative Inside Higher Education article authored by Ryan Quinn. It is about Senate Bill 37 that is now awaiting Governor Abbott’s signature. 

The bill represents a sweeping and deeply troubling assault on shared governance in Texas higher education. If signed into law, it will grant public university presidents, appointed by politically aligned boards of regents, unprecedented control over faculty senates and councils. This bill could very well be a template for legislation that could travel to other states.

SB 37 not only allows presidents to determine whether a faculty governance body exists at all, but also gives them authority over how meetings are run, who leads them, and who serves. However arbitrary, it imposes a rigid 60-member cap—unless a board grants an exemption—and enables a whopping half of those members to be presidential appointees.

This threatens to silence faculty representation, especially at large institutions like UT-Austin and Texas A&M, where thousands of faculty could be represented by just a handful of voices. 

Elected faculty would be limited to two-year terms, while presidential appointees could serve up to six. Faculty members could also be removed at the discretion of the administration, dismantling even the illusion of independence.

To be sure, this bill is part of a broader agenda to centralize power, weaken academic freedom, and target faculty viewed as too progressive or too willing to speak out. 

Interesting. After all, this is the party that always complains about "viewpoint discrimination."

SB 37 reinforces the notion that faculty governance is merely “advisory,” stripping it of any meaningful influence over curriculum, policy, or institutional direction. It arrives alongside other legislative efforts to gut DEI, review general education requirements with an eye toward reducing them, and eliminate low-enrollment programs—moves that place the humanities, Ethnic Studies, and other critical fields in the cross hairs of public policy.

I've said this before. I'll say it again. This is not about reform. It’s about control. And it is no accident that this comes at a time when faculty across the state have stood in defense of marginalized students, inclusive pedagogy, and truth-telling in our classrooms. 

It is so deeply offensive to cast us as threats—vilified not for wrongdoing, but for caring, questioning, and teaching with integrity. We are not at all political adversaries. We are scholars, mentors, and public servants committed to the well-being of our students and the future of our institutions. And we're damned good ones.

This inversion is not accidental—it is strategic. By portraying us as dangerous, those in power deflect attention from the real threats to education: censorship, authoritarian overreach, underfunding, silencing protest, and the systematic dismantling of academic freedom. 

We are not the problem. We are the conscience of the university. And in the face of fearmongering and repression, we must stand even more firmly in our roles as educators, truth-tellers, and guardians of our fragile democracy.

We must continue to organize, educate, blog, and advocate—not merely to defend shared governance and academic freedom, but to protect the very soul of higher education in Texas. 

If we fail, our universities risk becoming little more than glorified high schools—stripped of critical thought, autonomy, and the transformative power that defines a true education.

-Angela Valenzuela

In Texas, University Presidents May Soon Control Faculty Senates


A bill awaiting Gov. Abbott’s signature would require college administrators to set procedures for faculty governing bodies and appoint their leaders, part of an effort to address “liberal faculty control over universities.”

The Texas State Legislature passed Senate Bill 37 on May 31. It awaits the governor’s signature.
Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/Contributor/Getty Images

by Ryan Quinn | Inside Higher Ed | June 9, 2025

Texas public college and university presidents will be able to take control of their faculty governing bodies if Gov. Greg Abbott signs a bill now before him.

“Shared governance structures may not be used to obstruct, delay, or undermine necessary institutional reforms or serve as a mechanism for advancing ideological or political agendas,” says Senate Bill 37, which the Republican-dominated State Legislature passed May 31. Multiple states have considered GOP bills targeting shared governance, but SB 37 is a sweeping example.

It says that “only the governing board of an institution of higher education may establish a faculty council or senate.”“The board of regents has to decide whether or not there will even be one, that’s problem No. 1,” said Brian Evans, president of the Texas American Association of University Professors–American Federation of Teachers Conference.

If a college or university board decides to keep a faculty governing body, the institution’s president gets to prescribe how it conducts meetings. The president also gets to pick the “presiding officer, associate presiding officer, and secretary.”

In addition, unless the college or university’s board decides otherwise, faculty senates and councils must shrink to no more than 60 members.

Those remaining 60 would have to include at least two representatives from each of the colleges and schools that comprise the institution—including what the bill describes vaguely as “one member appointed by the president or chief executive officer of the institution” and the rest elected by the faculty of the particular school or college. This could mean that half of a faculty senate or council would be chosen by the president if an institution’s board doesn’t grant exemptions from these requirements.

Andrew Klein, speaker of the Texas A&M University Faculty Senate, said the biggest concern among his 122 senators is the 60-senator limit, which will take effect unless the Texas A&M System Board of Regents grants an exemption. Klein questioned how a senate that small could represent 4,300 faculty across the university, and how a requirement for at least two representatives per college or school would provide fair representation when the College of Arts and Sciences has over 800 faculty, compared to a number in the low double-digits at the School of Engineering Medicine.

“With 60 people, that’s not enough different viewpoints that can be brought to bear on questions, given our complexity,” Klein said.

In another blow to faculty control of their own governance bodies, SB 37 establishes term limits for faculty senate and council members—and allows presidential appointees to serve longer than the elected members. The presidential appointees would get to serve six consecutive years before having to take two off, while the elected members could only serve two years before the mandatory two-year break.

A faculty senate or council member could also have their seat stripped at any time; the bill says the provost can recommend to the president that members be “immediately removed” for failing to attend meetings or conduct their “responsibilities within the council’s or senate’s parameters” or for “similar misconduct.”

“It’s no longer an elected faculty voice,” Evans said. “It’s controlled by the administration.”

The bill still says that faculty senates or councils can hold votes of no confidence in administrators. But its language elsewhere stresses that faculty governance has no final say over anything.

“A faculty council or senate is advisory only and may not be delegated the final decision-making authority on any matter,” the bill says. (The faculty senate leaders at Texas A&M University at College Station and the University of Houston said their bodies are already advisory.)

Ultimately, the bill defines shared governance in a way that stresses the supremacy of college and university boards, which are composed of gubernatorial appointees who are confirmed by the state Senate.

“The governing board of the institution exercises ultimate authority and responsibility for institutional oversight, financial stewardship, and policy implementation, while allowing for appropriate consultation with faculty, administrators, and other stakeholders on matters related to academic policy and institutional operations,” the bill says. “The principle of shared governance may not be construed to diminish the authority of the governing board to make final decisions in the best interest of the institution, students, and taxpayers.”

In addition to overhauling faculty senates, SB 37 would require the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to establish an advisory committee that would review general education requirements statewide and be responsible for considering methods for “condensing the number of general education curriculum courses required.” Furthermore, colleges and universities would be required to review minors and certificate programs every five years “to identify programs with low enrollment that may require consolidation or elimination,” according to the bill.

Dan Price, president-elect of the University of Houston Faculty Senate, said this goes “hand in hand” with the Legislature’s efforts to diminish faculty senate power.

“The ways in which the humanities could be really transformed, I think that’s not well considered,” he said.

‘Woke College Professors’

Will Abbott, a Republican, sign this into law? His press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, didn’t directly answer in an email to Inside Higher Ed.

Abbott has indicated he wants faculty power reduced.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

“More than 1,000 pieces of legislation have been sent to Governor Abbott’s desk and he is closely reviewing them all,” he wrote.

But Mahaleris’s email indicated that the governor is strongly in favor of reducing faculty power.

“Governor Abbott was clear in his State of the State address: Woke college professors have too much influence over who is hired to educate our kids,” Mahaleris wrote. 

“Texas needs legislation that prohibits professors from having any say over employment decisions.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who leads the Texas Senate, also touted the bill. Upon the Legislature’s adjournment, he issued a statement calling it the “Senate’s most conservative and successful legislative session.” He attributed that in part to SB 37, which he said was about “reforming liberal faculty control over universities.”

The author of the introduced version of the bill, Republican senator Brandon Creighton, didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for an interview or to written questions last week.

For faculty, Abbott’s decision on the bill is merely the first step. If he signs it, they’ll still be looking to their institutions’ boards to decide whether, and how, their faculty senates and councils can continue to operate.

“I really don’t have a good idea of what we’re going to look like next year,” said Klein, the speaker of the Texas A&M University Faculty Senate.

Price, the University of Houston Faculty Senate president-elect, said he thinks the bill is partly “based on a misunderstanding of what faculty senates had been doing. It assumed that faculty senates were run much more like unions.” He said there was “a lot of animosity toward faculty senates.”

“We’ve got work to do to make sure that the public sees the value of faculty,” Price said, along with the values of open inquiry and “faculty having real and influential voices and choice of curriculum.”

Cook Political Report shifts Texas Senate race toward Democrats by Julia Manchester - 10/01/24

Good signs here in Texas that things are a-changing, but too early to suggest an outright shift when what's suggested in this Cook political report is a poll where voters are "leaning" Republican. I'll take it regardless and take this as a sign of hope that people want better leadership. It was shameful to see Cruz bank to Cancún while so many millions of others were left freezing in their homes in the memorable freeze in February 2021. Let alone his consistently ultra-conservative politics that don't represent how most Texans feel or what they think. In fact, he's part of the problem in turning Texas more extremist that it is.

His father, Rafael Cruz, further has an undue influence on Ted Cruz and by extension, Texas politics. No exaggeration. You can read all about it in this Aug. 27, 2022 post to my blog titled, "NBC NEWS: HOW A FAR-RIGHT, CHRISTIAN CELLPHONE COMPANY ‘TOOK OVER’ FOUR TEXAS SCHOOL BOARDS. Rafael Cruz is a leading proponent of a religious view called the "Seven Mountains" mandate that you can learn about here. You can't make this stuff up. 

We must get people who really want to serve the public into office rather than those who want to use elective office for their own pernicious and narrow ends. Me thinks that if we can vote Cruz out of office, that the entire edifice of extremist politics in our state will begin to crumble. Not immediately, but decisively nevertheless. In other words, being extremist will make it harder to win elections. 

However, we're a very big state—almost a "country" unto ourselves—so we must take nothing for granted and work hard like Kamala Harris is urging us to do. Most importantly, we must all vote.

This is exciting!

-Angela Valenzuela

Cook Political Report shifts Texas Senate race toward Democrats

by Julia Manchester - 10/01/24 5:24 PM ET

The Cook Political Report on Tuesday shifted Texas’s Senate race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” signaling momentum for Rep. Colin Allred’s (D) challenge against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in the red state. 

Jessica Taylor, the forecaster’s Senate and gubernatorial editor, said Allred’s fundraising and ad spending, coupled with Cruz being on defense on abortion and a trip the senator took to Cancun during a severe winter storm in 2021, have helped Democrats in the state.

But Taylor also said the state will still be tough for Democrats to flip in November. 

Democrats have increasingly set their sights on Texas, as well as Florida, this cycle. Last week the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) announced a multimillion dollar investment in television advertising in the two red-leaning states.

“Senate Democrats are expanding the map and going on offense,” DSCC Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said. “All cycle long the DSCC has been preparing to take advantage of Sens. Cruz and Scott’s damaged standings in their states — and now our efforts in Texas and Florida are accelerating. Democrats have strong candidates running effective campaigns in both states, and as we escalate our communications against Sens. Cruz and Scott we will crystallize the case against them.”

Overall, the Senate map is tilted in Republicans’ favor, with the GOP likely only needing to take down incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in deep-red Montana to capture the chamber. The Hill/Decision Desk HQ forecaster predicts Republicans have a 70 percent chance of winning the Senate. 

While Tuesday’s ratings change is certainly welcome news for the Allred campaign, he will still face an uphill challenge against Cruz. The latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average shows Cruz leading Allred by just less than 3 points. Cruz won his last reelection bid against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) by 2.6 points. 

"What to expect from the 2023 Texas Legislative session," by Rhonda Fanning and Glorie Martinez in the Texas Standard

This Texas Standard article touches on what to expect from the 88th (2023) Texas legislative session. My sources tell me that it's going to be a tough one particularly considering  election results that, as we know, is an artifact of Texas' gerrymandered electoral map in a state where people of color account for 95 percent of the state's population growth between 2010 and 2020 (Li & Boland, 2021). A good read on this is from researchers Li and Boland (2021) out of the NYU Brennan Center for Justice titled, "Anatomy of the Texas Gerrymander: Here's How Texas Republicans crafted one of the most politically and racially skewed maps of this redistrictricting cycle. 

The problem is less of one that people don't vote, but rather that their votes do not count as a result of this electoral engineering. Sadly, resolving this through the courts will take years.

Accordingly, Barragán's forecast with respect to the recent election outcomes sound right.

"If, in 2020, Republicans felt like they had a mandate to go and push all the social conservative legislation that they felt the voters wanted, I don’t see how this will be any different. They’ve grown their majorities in both the House and in the Senate. So, I think we’ll probably expect to see another pretty conservative session."

A major issue for our community in K-12 education is school funding, that is, increasing the "basic allotment" so that school districts can have the resources they need to increase teacher salaries and provide greater resources to schools. 

Raise Your Hand Texas,  Texans Advocating For Meaningful Student Assessments, and other organizations will also be calling for changes to high-stakes testing and assessment policies, as well as tackling vouchers and charter school bills that compromise traditional public education. There are still the lingering infrastructural issues related, in particular, to fixing Texas' power grid, as well as lowering property taxes and border issues. None of this is exhaustive, of course, but is nevertheless a respectable starting layout.

The regular session always lasts a mere 140 days so let's buckle our seat belts and get on with it!

-Angela Valenzuela

By Rhonda Fanning and Glorie MartinezJanuary 2, 2023 4:17 pmGovernment & Politics, Texas Standard Original

What to expect from the 2023 Texas Legislative session

With only a few days before the start of the next legislative session, politics reporters Niki Griswold and James Barragán preview what’s on the agenda for state lawmakers.

 There’s just over a week left before the start of the 2023 Texas Legislative session. Property taxes, gun control and the power grid are among the top issues on the agenda for state lawmakers.

» TELL US: What do you want to see from the Texas Legislature in 2023?

To take a closer look at what to expect, the Standard was joined by political journalists Niki Griswold, state politics reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, and James Barragán, politics reporter for the Texas Tribune. Listen to the story above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:

Texas Standard: This could be a very exciting session. I’m curious how much you see this session being a contrast with the previous legislative session, which went into several overtimes. James?

James Barragán: If, in 2020, Republicans felt like they had a mandate to go and push all the social conservative legislation that they felt the voters wanted, I don’t see how this will be any different. They’ve grown their majorities in both the House and in the Senate. So, I think we’ll probably expect to see another pretty conservative session.

That was the thing about the previous legislative session. There seemed to be a lot of socially conservative hot button issues. How much do you think that this legislative session is going to differ from the previous session, Niki? 

Niki Griswold: From what I’ve seen so far. I think the so-called culture war issue that will really take center stage this legislative session is surrounding LGBTQ rights and also education —how curriculum on the topics of race and sexuality can be discussed in the classroom. 

We’ve already seen a number of bills filed to target the rights of transgender children, as well as battles in the classroom and in libraries over what books should be made available to children, with a lot of focus being on removing subject matter that validates LGBTQ identities. So, I think we’ll have to see how much of a focus that issue is this session versus the more bread and butter issues of lowering property taxes and tackling public school funding. 

The bread and butter issues may well collide with these other culture war issues. I’m thinking back to a couple of sessions in which the so-called bathroom bill emerged, and then there was a push back from corporations and businesses out of concern that it might hurt Texas economically if lawmakers were to move forward. Do you think we’re going to see anything like that emerge, Niki? 

Niki Griswold: It’s funny. Texas does pride itself on being a very business friendly state and hands off government when it comes to the economy. But we did see that fight play out a little bit during the pandemic over vaccine and mask mandates, with the governor pulling back on efforts to require mask mandates. 

We did see some businesses push back against the state’s pretty extreme abortion ban. But so far, the economy is still booming. We still have plenty of industries focusing on expanding their presence in Texas or moving here to do so. So, I don’t know how much of an empty threat it is when businesses say they will be taking their business elsewhere if Texas lawmakers pursue these really conservative policies. 

Judging by the $27 billion budget surplus, business has been pretty good in Texas. There are a lot of interests across the Lone Star State wanting a little piece of that action. How do you see that playing out, James? 

James Barragán: Yeah, it’s a $27 billion surplus. Actually, Comptroller Glenn Hegar said that it might be more. The big thing is property taxes. He wants it spent on that. The governor has said he wants half of it spent on that. But the House Speaker says, “hold on, wait a minute, maybe we should spend it on infrastructure, a one time expenditure, rather than having to use it over and over and over our property taxes.”

I expect that to be a big fight and that may lead to some horse trading on some of these socially conservative issues and the bread and butter issues that we’re talking about. 

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick outlined his legislative priorities back in December. Property tax relief is high on his agenda, as are electric grid fixes and border security. Do you think his agenda is going to line up with the governor’s and that of the House Speaker? Do we know who the House Speaker is going to be yet, James? 

James Barragán: We know who’s the current speaker, but we know that Representative Tony Tinderholt has mounted a challenge. Frankly, some people do see this as a check to see how supportive the House is of Speaker Dade Phelan. It looks like he’s got the support. The Republican caucus voted almost unanimously to support Speaker Phelan. But there are some of the more conservative legislators who say, “hey, we’ve got to go further, we’ve got to do more.”  We’ll find out on that first day of the legislative session, if Phelan gets a second session with the gavel.

Niki, do you see any link between the governor, the lieutenant governor and the incumbent Speaker Dade Phelan? Do you detect any tension or any wiggle room among those three? 

Niki Griswold: I think the biggest difference between the lieutenant governor’s priorities for this session and the governor’s priorities is just how to make that property tax relief happen. Gov. Abbott has made it very clear he wants the legislature to spend half of that budget surplus on lowering property taxes for Texas homeowners. But the lieutenant governor has pushed back on that. He’s not supportive of busting the constitutional spending cap to achieve that and is more interested in other funding and budget workarounds to make property tax relief happen. 

The House Speaker has indicated he is a little bit more interested in using that budget surplus for one time investments such as improving infrastructure in the state. That budget surplus is not a sustainable source of funding. So, if the governor were to get his way, it would be a one time only property tax relief for Texas homeowners. I think the big battle will be over those dollars and how to effectively spend that money while still achieving the big priorities, including property tax relief and border security. 

James, is there any chance we’re going to go into overtime in this legislative session like we did the last one?

James Barragán: There’s always that possibility. It’s too early to tell right now. You mentioned the electric grid and the lieutenant governor did say he wants more fixes on that. He did say during a press conference a couple of weeks ago that he doesn’t see himself going home at the end of the spring unless there have been more changes. So, there is that possibility. 

Niki, what do you think? 

Niki Griswold: The lieutenant governor has a lot of power in the state legislature. If he doesn’t feel like one of his priorities might make it across the finish line, he does have the power to hold things up and make sure that the governor can’t get his priorities passed as well. I think we’ll have to see how the dynamic between the big three looks as lawmakers start going to committee hearings. 

If you’re a Democrat in Texas, what are your expectations for the coming year? Where do you see politics headed? 

James Barragán: Well, I think it’s the same conundrum they’ve been in for two plus decades at this point. They go into this legislative session thinking, “defense, defense, defense.” How can I kill off bills that are bad for me and for my constituents? How can I do some deals, make some trades here for legislation? The reality is that Republicans hold the majority in both houses of the legislature, and that’s the way things go. 

Do you think we’re going to see this continued battle between the state leadership and leaders of some of the big cities, Niki? 

Niki Griswold: I absolutely think that is going to be top of mind. Local control versus state government control has been played out for many sessions and I anticipate the same for this session. At the end of the day, I think the Texas legislature also prides itself on allowing for more bipartisan cooperation than you might see in D.C. So, I think there is some overlap in terms of interests for both parties. I’ve heard from plenty of Democrats that they see room for cooperation when it comes to public education funding. I think Democrats are going to be focusing on the issues where they can maybe wrangle some bipartisan support and like James said, play defense on the other issues. 

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.

"A Biden win in Texas would be a political earthquake in American politics."

We so need this considering our Trumpian leadership.

-Angela Valenzuela

#2020Election #Vote2020

Polls, late campaign activity suggest Republican dominance in Texas could be at risk

With a week to go until Election Day, the race for Texas' Electoral College votes appears closer than it has been in decades.

BY ALEX SAMUELS AND PATRICK SVITEK OCT. 27, 2020UPDATED: 10:53 AM

Voters cast their ballots during early voting at Taylor City Hall. Credit:Amna Ijaz/The Texas Tribune

Joe Biden’s campaign will be running television ads in El Paso, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth heading into Election Day. The Democratic nominee for vice president, Kamala Harris, is planning a visit to Texas during the homestretch of the campaign. And polls show the Biden-Harris ticket within striking distance — and, in some surveys, ahead — in the traditionally Republican state.

Texas may still not be among the top priorities of either party’s presidential nominee in 2020 — and President Donald Trump might still be the favorite here. But the activity in the final days of this year’s presidential election suggests that, for the first time in decades, Texas is not a foregone conclusion. Democrats are at least in the running here in races for the presidency, U.S. Senate and numerous seats down-ballot.

“It’s really exciting. We see the amazing turnout numbers here in Harris County, but it’s not just here,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. “It’s Fort Bend, it’s Denton and Hays, too. I don’t think it’s just demographic changes, but people rejecting the leadership that’s currently in the White House. We saw this already in 2018, and we’re just building on that.”

Trump won Texas by 9 percentage points in 2016 — and that was the smallest margin of victory for a Republican since 1996. But few, if any, polls are showing that kind of margin right now.

The latest survey from the University of Texas/Texas Tribune, released Oct. 9, gave Trump a 5-point lead over Biden in the state. A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed a tie; a Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll released Sunday showed Biden up 2 points, and a New York Times/Siena College poll on Monday gave Trump a 4-point lead. Another nonpartisan Texas poll released Monday, from the Hobby School for Public Affairs at the University of Houston, gave Trump a 5-point lead.

Overall, RealClearPolitics’ polling average hovers at a 3.2-point advantage for Trump.

A Biden win in Texas would be a political earthquake in American politics. The last Democrat to win the state’s Electoral College votes was Jimmy Carter in 1976. It’s unlikely Texas would be the tipping point that handed Biden the White House — most agree a Texas win would be accompanied by a Biden landslide across the country. But it would end the decadeslong Republican dominance in the nation’s most populous red state.

In another sign of the competitiveness here, billionaire Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday indicated he would use his super PAC, Independence USA, to fund $15 million worth of statewide ads in both Texas and Ohio. A spokesman for Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, said the decision came after his team polled multiple states and came away convinced that Texas and Ohio were prime pickup opportunities.

Trump’s campaign and his allies insist that Republicans’ grip on the state hasn’t loosened. Over the weekend, campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh and former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, also the former governor of Texas, told supporters on a press call that Trump would not visit Texas before Election Day.

“The president is going to win Texas,” Murtaugh told a reporter in response to a question about Trump’s plans for the state. “The president will be focusing his time and travel and energy on the states that will decide the election.”

In a separate statement to The Texas Tribune, Trump Victory spokesperson Samantha Cotten said the campaign’s “top notch ground game can’t be matched by Biden’s 11th hour effort.”

“While our volunteers are making millions of voter contacts and sharing President Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda, Biden is campaigning on decimating the energy industry. It’s safe to say President Trump is poised to win Texas,” Cotten said.

Biden himself hasn’t made a formal visit to the state. But the number of people going to the polls has been a major source of optimism for Democrats.

With four days of early voting still ahead, the percentage of Texas registered voters who had already cast ballots on Monday was poised to surpass the entire share of people who voted early in 2016. Given that Texans have six extra days of early voting this year and because some voters’ habits might have shifted due to the pandemic, it’s hard to conclude what that will mean for overall turnout. But Democrats were optimistic, especially since the raw number of votes cast was shattering records in the state’s fast-growing suburban areas, which have traditionally voted Republican but which trended more blue in the 2018 midterm elections.

“Turnout is completely unprecedented, and you better bet that the folks who are turning out are not turning out to keep the status quo,” Hidalgo said.

The shifting politics of the suburbs — and Trump’s declining popularity there — has also threatened Republicans’ hold on their state House majority and several congressional seats long held by GOP members.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, finds himself at the center of a reelection race that has heated up considerably in recent weeks. His Democratic opponent, MJ Hegar, has handily outpaced him in fundraising since the summer, and national outside groups are making a late, eight-figure financial play to defeat him.

While polls continue to give Cornyn an advantage over Hegar, the senator is prepared for a much closer contest than his last reelection bid, which he won by 27 points.

“I think it’ll be single digits” this time, Cornyn said in a Dallas TV interview Sunday.

Even beyond the presidential and U.S. Senate races, some statewide races are drawing increasing attention. Chrysta Castañeda, the Democratic nominee for railroad commissioner, announced Monday that she had received $2.6 million in donations from Bloomberg, a remarkable amount for an office that rarely attracts political interest from outside Texas. The all-GOP Railroad Commission regulates Texas’ oil and gas industry.

And even if Trump wins Texas, a margin smaller than his 2016 one could cause a significant ripple down-ballot.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting 10 GOP-held seats across the state, while its Republican counterpart is working to win back the two seats it lost in 2018, those currently held by Democratic Reps. Colin Allred of Dallas and Lizzie Pannill Fletcher of Houston. With a week left, though, the most hotly contested races are four where the GOP is on defense: the races for the 21st District, where Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, is running for reelection; the 22nd District, where Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, is retiring; the 23rd District, where Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, is also vacating the seat; and the 24th District, where another retirement is happening with Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell.

But even beyond that core battlefield, some seats once considered stretches for Democrats appear increasingly competitive. Case in point: the 3rd Congressional District, currently held by Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano. Trump won the suburban Dallas district by 14 points in 2016, but U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, carried it by only 3 in 2018 and the latest Democratic polling has Biden winning it by double digits, with Taylor in a tight race against Democratic challenger Lulu Seikaly.

In a sign of how much of a liability Democrats believe Trump is in the district these days, Seikaly is airing TV ads that explicitly tie the incumbent to the president, particularly on his coronavirus response. Seikaly’s latest TV ad shows a man inside his garage reacting with disbelief at Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that people may inject themselves with disinfectants to fight the virus.

“For us, at least, Van Taylor has been such a proponent of Donald Trump … so for these voters who are abandoning the president, that is what we’ve been doing with our ads, our mail, our digital,” Seikaly said in an interview. “We need them to know Van Taylor is just a Donald Trumper.”

Taylor, for his part, is airing commercials that avoid any mention of Trump, opening with an attack on “Liberal Lulu Seikaly” before touting a Dallas Morning News story that labeled him “Mr. Bipartisan.”

The biggest down-ballot prize for Democrats, though, is the Texas House. Democrats are nine seats away from the majority after picking up 12 seats two years ago — and Republicans acknowledge that even if Trump carries the state, even if Cornyn wins reelection, the House is still very much in play.

Austin Chambers, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, said in an interview Monday that the Texas House battle will be a “dogfight that’s gonna be close all the way until the end.” He expressed confidence that Republicans will ultimately prevail but said the RSLC has spent about $9 million to defend the majority in Texas “and we don’t plan to slow down any time soon.”

Asked for the biggest challenge the RSLC faces in the homestretch, Chambers pointed to “all of the out-of-state Democratic money flooding in.”

“We’ve got better candidates, we’ve got better campaigns, we’ve certainly got a better message,” Chambers said. “We’ve got to make sure they don’t outshout us and outgun us.”

Democrats are certainly trying their best. On Monday, the Texas House Democratic Committee announced its latest fundraising haul: $4.5 million over roughly the past month, or more than eight times what it raised during the same period last election cycle.

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin, The New York Times and the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.