Fighting discomfort, guilt, and/or anguish?
Hi All,
With the legislature adjourned and scattered back either to their districts or the campaign trail (except, of course, for Austin fundraisers), the action in Texas politics was pretty dispersed this week. But there were some things worth flagging and giving some public opinion context.
What books are in your library? State Rep. Matt Krause leveraged his position as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating this week as he ramps up his challenge to embattled incumbent Ken Paxton for the GOP nomination for attorney general. Chairman Krause emailed a letter, with an appended 16-page list of more than 800 book titles, to an undisclosed number of school district superintendents. The letter instructs schools to identify how many copies of each listed book their district possesses and “at what campus locations including school library and classroom collections,” and to report the amount of funds spent to acquire the books (h/t to The Texas Tribune for posting the original documents). The list appears to be made up predominantly of books about sexual identity, sexual health, and race; the listed authors range from Ta-Nehisi Coates to William Styron, seemingly with a lot of authors who are people of color, as noted in coverage by both national and state outlets. The letter also issued a third directive, a paraphrase of which would dilute the effect Krause seems to be going for, so apology for the long extract (no smart brevity here):
“3. Please identify any other books or content in your District, specifying the campus location and funds spent on acquisition, that address or contain the following topics: human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law, or contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously."
The language of that paragraph, with its invocation of sex education, sexual identity, racism and sexism, activates the full array of conservative cultural anxieties that irrupted into the agenda of the 87th Legislature with enough force to propel legislation like the so-called “critical race theory” measure and the regulation of transgender students’ participation in sports activities. Our polling illustrates the breadth and intensity of support for policing the discussion of race and regulating the activity of transgender students in public schools among Texas conservatives, as the graphics below (from the June 2021 UT/Texas Tribune Poll) illustrate. While fights over the content of instructional material are not new to Texas, elected officials' increasingly frequent embrace of political strategies that make public schools the sites of combative political tactics signals a significant escalation of conservatives’ counter-offensive against the trajectory of cultural change in the country.
 
Setting aside cultural politics to consider practicalities for a beat, Krause’s letter has school officials, especially librarians, scrambling to comply with Krause's letter, as very ably reported in a Dallas Morning News story by Emily Donaldson, Corbett Smith, and Talia Richman. It also has to be said that there are some very sinister historical echoes in politically-motivated monitoring of library collections, especially those focused on discussion of national history and identity, the plausible deniability provided by the public rationale of protecting (some) students' emotional and psychological health notwithstanding.
Speaking of boundary management... Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation into law Monday implementing the four new political maps drawn by Republican majorities in the legislature. Ross Ramsey had an interesting analysis piece in The Texas Tribune this week declaring Lt. Governor Dan Patrick a big winner in the redistricting process, wryly observing, “He’s choosing his own senators.” While I”m skeptical of efforts to declare anyone the most powerful figure in state politics, given how situational political power is in Texas’ obtuse system of government, Ramsey certainly makes a good case for giving Patrick his due for how he’s used the power of his office this session. While the column focuses on Patrick’s internal maneuvering, looking more broadly to public attitudes, Republicans in the state (at least those who know who he is) have consistently approved of Patrick's job performance. While his job approval numbers have sagged recently (like every other statewide elected official), he still registered 61% job approval among Republicans with only 11% disapproving in our August Texas Politics Project Poll.
Another fight coming to an elementary school near you. I’ll end with late-breaking news that is likely to tie into an observation above before too long: As anticipated following a preliminary vote by a Food and Drug Administration panel earlier this week, on Friday the FDA authorized Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in children 5 to 11. Per Karen Brooks and Brian Lopez in a Texas Tribune piece this week, there are about 2.9 million kids in Texas who will be newly eligible. In our June 2021 UT/Texas Tribune Poll, among parents with children at home, 21% reported having already gotten their kids vaccinated, and 28% said they planned on doing so when the vaccine was available; 31% said they would not get their child or children vaccinated, and 14% were unsure. As the graphic below illustrates, the by-now familiar partisan patterns in attitudes toward COVID-19 measures generally and vaccination against the virus more specifically were plenty in evidence: Half of Republicans said they would not get their children vaccinated, and another 12% were unsure. About two-thirds of Democrats had either already gotten their children vaccinated or were planning to do so. It will be interesting to see if and how these numbers have moved in our next round of polling (which is coming soon).
I want to close with another reminder that as registration for next semester gets underway at higher ed institutions around the state, there are lots of students looking for internships for early next year, with many willing to start now. If your organization takes on interns, you can connect with the vast pool of talented students by listing your internship at the free and publicly accessible internship bulletin board at the Texas Politics Project website.
Have a good weekend, and keep in touch.
Best,
JH
James Henson
Executive Director, The Texas Politics Project
College of Liberal Arts / Department of Government
The University of Texas at Austin
|
|
|
|
