The Latina Advantage: Gender, Race, and Political Success

4. Diverse State Legislators in Texas

CHAPTER 4 Diverse State Legislators in Texas The minority population in Texas has dramatically increased in the last thirty years. Between the 2000 and the 2010 Census, the Latino population grew from 6.7 million to 9.5 million (42 percent), and this increase accounted for nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of the state’s total population growth (NALEO 2010e). Since the 1960s, the minority population has been able to translate their increasing numbers with impressive growth in political representation. Texas has more Latino elected officials than any other state, hosting a total of 2,435 elected officials in 2010 (NALEO 2010e). This chapter looks at the characteristics of successful state legislative candidates in Texas, by examining the electoral fortunes of women and racial/ethnic-minority candidates there with an analysis of the 2004 Texas House election. This includes a test of the theory that Latina candidates experience diminished disadvantages in their attempts at winning elective office. Contrary to expectations, Latinas are bridging the political gaps that may arise from gender and racial/ethnic stereotypes. As an alternative, they are benefiting from their superior candidate-quality characteristics and the resulting increased voter support. The race/ethnicity of the candidates proved to be an important deciding factor in their electoral success, in terms of both winning the election and receiving a high vote share. A closer examination of the background to specific political races is provided, revealing that Latina candidates had more previous political experience, more community experience, and higher campaign contributions than their opponents. 74 Political and Electoral Advantages for Latinas Early Texas History The growing racial/ethnic-minority population has shaped both early Texas political history and the currently evolving political climate. Texas was an independent republic from 1836 until 1845, when it became part of the United States, as the twenty-eighth state. In the early decades of statehood, the legislature was diverse and included many Mexican Americans (Schmal, n.d.). However, in the early nineteenth century, “large numbers of Anglo Americans legally and illegally emigrated to Texas from the United States” (Polinard et al. 1994:47). As a result, the population changed dramatically. By 1834, thirty thousand Anglo Americans had arrived in Texas and quickly came to outnumber the five thousand Mexicans in the state (1994:47). The two groups then entered into a long-lasting period of hostility and conflict that resulted in many Mexicans fleeing the state (49). By the end of the nineteenth century, the Mexican American population had gone from being the majority in the state to living as the minority, and their political presence nearly vanished from the Texas legislature (Schmal, n.d.). Polinard et al. claimed that this “Americanization” of Texas forced Mexicans “into a subservient position: as in most other Southwestern states, Anglos dominated the political and economic institutions throughout the first half of the twentieth century” (1994:49). The “Anglo takeover of south Texas resulted in a reorganization of the local governments—mainly an expansion of counties—and the virtual disenfranchisement of African Americans” (1994:51). The first half of the twentieth century also engendered several obstacles to minority political representation, including the poll tax (requiring voters to pay a fee at the voting booth), which lasted from 1902 until 1966, an informal and formal white primary law from 1923–1944, racial gerrymandering, and vote dilution (Brown et al. 2004:137). Turning Point in Minority Politics The critical turning point in Texas politics, especially the makeup of the legislature, came with the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (and the Voting Rights Act extension in 1975) (Schmal, n.d.). The political gains of minority representatives elected to the state legislature, as well as to many Southern legislatures, were a result of “the reapportionment and redistricting changes of the 1960s and 1970s” (Hamm et al. 1983:177). “Voting reforms since the 1960s [have] Diverse State Legislators in Texas 75 included tougher federal protection of voting rights, the elimination of multi-member legislative districts in Texas, and U.S. Justice Department oversight of legislative redistricting . . . result[ing] in greater participation and representation of ethnic minorities” (Texas Politics Project 2005). Texas was brought under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1975 because of the law’s linguistic-minority provision and Texas’s use of English-only ballots. The Voting Rights Act extension of 1975 also affected the minority population’s political...