POLS 207 2nd Edition Lecture 9 Outline of Last Lecture I The Three Dimensions of Political Parties a Party in Government in the Electorate as an Organization II The Responsible Party Model III Factors that have weakened party control over electoral politics IV Flaws in the Responsible Party Model V Party Competition in the States a unimodal verse bimodal distributions VI Functions of State Party Elections a Structuring Elections b Candidate Recruitment contested versus uncontested competitive versus noncompetitive c Voter Registration d Voter Mobilization e Campaign Resources Outline of Current Lecture I Texas as a One Party Democratic State II Indications of Democratic Party Dominance III Third Party Challenges Greenback Party Populist Party IV Reinforcing Democratic Party Loyalty Great Depression Cross Over Voters Jokes against Republicans V Indications of Party Realignment in Texas and The Causes of Party Realignment VI Comparison of Democratic verse Republican Issue Orientations VII Primaries What Why And The Criticisms Current Lecture TEXAS PARTY SYSTEM Texas as a One Party Democratic State From the end of Reconstruction in 1874 until the 1960s Texas was a one party Democratic state o essentially a one party state over this period of time This loyalty to the Democratic Party was due to several factors o 1 Founding of Republic Party as an anti slavery party following the Civil War o 2 Leadership of Abraham Lincoln a Republican who headed the Union o 3 Republic Congress President punished South transformed South during Reconstruction o these reasons are all basically due to the dislike of the Republic party and the fact that there was only two party choices Republican vs Democrats so Texas chose Democratic Indications of Democratic Party Dominance lots of races will go uncontested in Texas o uncontested races indication of how weak the Republican party was so only the Democratic party was on the ballot 1928 1952 During this period not a single Republican was elected to the state legislature 14 yrs o 150 House Seats 2 Senate seats 1874 1961 No Republican won a state wide office in the state of Texas o governor lieutenant governor railroad commissioner Third Party Challenges the Republicans were not a challenge to the Democratic party only challenges were third parties 1 Greenback Party of the 1870s o largely represented farmers challenged Democrats some emerged and fell away 2 Populist Party of the 1890s o presented a very serious challenge to the Democrats o 1896 Populist candidate for governor won over 44 of the vote o tried to have a broad coalition of support o turned to poor farmers the working class minorities o promoted policies that would benefit the masses o Democratic reactions to challenge of the Populist Party 1 POLL TAX introduced in 1902 to combat the broad coalition of poor farmers workers and minorities 2 DIVIDE THE COALITION to make the poor white farmers verse the poor African American minorities divide break up the key coalition that supports the populist play on racial prejudice o therefore the elites manage to hold onto power as the Democratic party Reinforcing Democratic Party Loyalty Great Depression 1930s o Republican Hoover is the president at the beginning of the Great Depression so Republicans will largely be blamed for the Great Depression o during the Great Depression Democratic President FDR is reelected for 4 terms o Democrats helping to pull the country through the Great Depression will give the Democratic Party the STRONGEST support during this time period Republican Cross Over Voters o Democrats maintain themselves as a relatively conservative party o if you vote in the Republican primary then you are helping choose a losing candidate since Democrats are going to win o instead go vote in the Democratic primary but choose the most conservative candidate Jokes About Republicans o as late as 1950s Democratic campaigns make references to Republican Party as the party of Yankees portray as part of the North point back at the Civil War portray as outside party Implications of One Party Dominance Because of the one party system in Texas politics revolved almost exclusively around personality and economic issues o Liberal faction o Conservative faction no matter if you eliminate parties there is still political conflict within parties including the Democratic party in Texas Democratic party votes will be conservative Indications of Party Realignment in Texas 1952 1956 Presidential Vote o first sign that Texas will shift to Republican state o main reason is the presidential vote in 1952 1956 Texas votes for Dwight Eisenhower the Republican candidate for president o last time Republicans had won was in 1928 when Democratic candidate was Catholic o Why Democratic officials were endorsing Eisenhower Allan Shivers Democratic governor would endorse Eisenhower promoted Republicans at the national level people who cross over voted were called Shiver crats Republican John Tower elected to US Senate in 1961 o the current senator was LBJ who had to step down to be VP o so a Republican John Tower wins the new US Senator from Texas o 1st state wide office held by a Republican since Reconstruction o John Tower would go on to win reelection through the 1970s Republican Bill Clements elected Governor o Clements was elected 1st Republican governor in state of Texas in over 100 years o important for the indication of party realignment for two reasons 1 Republican become governor a state wide office in over 100 years 2 Certain appointment powers of the governor allows Clements to appoint some Republicans to office example Board of Regents of University System up until 1978 if you wanted to be involved in government in TX you had to be a Democrat but now if you are Republican there is a path to be involved o Clements gets defeated by a Democratic candidate but later reelected o changes back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in office Phil Gram o Democrat in US House of Reps o in 1983 resigned declares he is no longer a Democrat changes to Republican and runs for US House of Rep again as a Republican wins it again o indicates that by giving the voters an opportunity to view him as a Republican they are still willing to vote for him as a Republican 1994 1998 and 2002 Elections o more and more Republicans get elected o then in 2002 Republicans have captured both state House and Senate and almost all state wide offices held by Republicans Causes of Party
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