Are we approaching a turning point for Texas politics?


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I love Texas, I really do. I was born in Arlington and have lived in Dallas all my life. I’ve traveled across the state with my dad on business trips. I’ve attended all of my primary and secondary education in the Dallas area. I love the members of my community: teachers, coworkers, classmates, neighbors. I really do just love Texas. So much so that I wanted to move back and become a teacher for the high school I attended and enter the field of politics later on in the area. That said, with everything that’s been happening in the state recently, I’ve had to change my plans. Things are changing a lot in Texas; there are many people starting to accept more left-leaning ideologies, and we have many people moving there who are left-leaning themselves, both of which are showing the conservatives in power that the once ruby-red state of Texas is very quickly turning blue, and that conservatives will have trouble winning in the state after 2030. Pressure has been mounting for years. The state went for presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 by over 15 points, and former President Donald Trump won in 2020 by only 5.6 points. Senator Ted Cruz also barely won the state back in 2018, winning by a little bit under three points in a year where the governor was reelected by double digits. As a result, conservatives are starting to completely disregard the concept of small government and completely screw over Texans for their last few years with the talking stick. So, let’s talk about what they’ve been up to.  

At this point, we all know about how Texas has implemented constitutional carry laws, imposed one of the strictest abortion bans in the country and about all of the school shootings we’ve had. Texan politicians are just being plain vocal about how much they hate transgender people, prioritizing the lives of the unborn and treating schoolchildren like dirt, but then “fighting for your children” when it’s politically convenient. But what’s more infuriating is it just gets worse; the Texas Senate has recently passed a few bills, one that would require the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom and allow time for prayer in school. The former violates the First Amendment wholly, of course, because there cannot be a “law respecting an establishment of religion,” and the latter violates the Supreme Court decision Engel v. Vitale (1962). Engel v. Vitale was about a voluntary, “non-denominational” prayer imposed in the 1950s. A group of parents got together and fought to have the prayer removed because it went against their families’ own religious beliefs. The Supreme Court agreed, and even if the prayer was written to be non-denominational, the court believed the imposition of prayer—even if it was voluntary—still went against the First and Fourteenth Amendments.  

I’m also incredibly worried about the Texas Legislature’s takeover of both the independent school district and the elections in Harris County—the most populous county in Texas and the third most populous in the United States, as it is home to Houston—by removing the head of elections and the elected school board of the county. These both disenfranchise a majority-Black and brown county, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims it violates both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, as well as the Voting Rights Act. The state says the school board takeover is because of poor grades, but no matter what research I do, I can’t find a good reason for the position of Elections Administrator of Harris County to just get axed. 

If there is precedent against what lawmakers are doing in Texas right now—even if prayer is non-denominational—then why am I worried right now? It’s all because I know there won’t be action taken against it. Attorney General Merrick Garland likely won’t sue, since there have been an incredible number of opportunities for him to sue other state legislatures on things that go against federal law, like the states that have been imposing abortion bans, but he just hasn’t done anything besides lip service. If any of these cases were brought to the Supreme Court, there is reason to believe that Engel v. Vitale and other landmark cases would be overturned.  

I want to say it again, I love Texas. But I, like many other Texans, am worried about the future if Texas conservatives keep imposing a religion that’s unconstitutionally mandated, if they keep suppressing the votes of Black and Brown people, if they keep forcing women to carry children to term and then not give a damn if they’re shot to death in school. Texas, the state I love to death, will die. 

But things will change. They definitely will, and again, Texas will keep shifting quickly leftward up by 2030 and beyond. There are many candidates who can help—rising stars in the party: James Talarico, Lina Hidalgo, the Castros. We have a deep bench of solid candidates who could do great things for our state. Young people just need to get out. The reason we’re not represented in polling is because none of us want to fill out those stupid surveys. Let’s get these Republican schmucks out of power: Abbott, Patrick, Paxton, Cruz, Cornyn, Ronny Jackson, Arrington. Texas is changing. But there’s a lot happening right now that should concern you, so please keep informed. The worst thing we can do is stay quiet.