Earlier this month, the Texas Legislature wrapped up its 89th session. And according to new polling data, only around a quarter of Texans approve of how lawmakers did their job.
That finding comes from the Texas Politics Project, a nonpartisan organization that’s long been tracking the opinions of folks in the Lone Star State.
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project and a professor of government at the University of Texas, joined the Standard to share their poll’s latest findings.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:
Texas Standard: You asked whether people felt like the Legislature made the lives of Texans better or worse. Tell us what the folks said.
Jim Henson: Well, the reviews, as you alluded to, were not glowing. Only 3% said very clearly that they made their lives a lot better. Another 19% or so said that they made it somewhat better.
But the plurality, 37%, said that the Legislature made their lives somewhat worse or a lot worse. Now there’s some partisan structure in there as you might expect, but overall, not rave reviews.
Interesting, as your data points out, a slim majority of Texans opposed the THC ban that Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed this past weekend. With the GOP in control of state government, how does this issue seem to break down among Texas Republicans?
Well, that’s where the interesting part is in terms of this conflict that we’ve seen over the issue between Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor [Dan] Patrick: 46% of Republicans support the ban, 39% oppose it, 15% don’t know.
So I think the balance here is very much up for grabs. And that’s why I think we saw Governor Abbot think pretty long and hard about how to handle the bill once it made it to his desk.
» MORE: Could Abbott’s veto on the THC bill impact his working relationship with Patrick in the long term?
Governor Abbott’s called a special session in which he’s going to ask lawmakers to take a closer look at regulation. So this is not off the table altogether, and it’s sure to be a continuing conversation.
Your polling also looked at some of the bipartisan issues from this legislative session – I think a lot of people would say “bipartisan?”
On what issues did there seem to be some relative political consensus?
Yeah, I mean, I think we were maybe a little bit surprised by this, but it’s interesting: There’s a set of about a half dozen issues in which two-thirds or more of Texans support things that the Legislature did – very meat and potatoes things.
You know, 84% supported improving the reliability of the state’s water supply, 78%, the creation of a dementia prevention and research institute in the state.
Seventy-four percent supported increasing the public education system – similar levels of support for things like lowering property taxes, restricting access to social media by children and clarifying when doctors in Texas can perform a legal abortion of a woman’s life at risk. On that last point, very controversial, got a lot of attention: 68% supported those clarifications, which the Legislature did pass and the governor did sign.
You asked how Texans feel about President Donald Trump’s performance. What did Texans tell you?
Well, 44% approved, 51% disapproved. So he’s been seven points underwater. And that was a decent amount of movement from our last poll in April when he was about even, slightly positive at 47-46. What we saw was a little bit of erosion in every group.
Probably most notably, he’s still over 80% job approval among Republicans. So it’s not like he’s in trouble. But the honeymoon period after a tumultuous first few months, I think, is definitely over.
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If you can step back, are you seeing anything?
I think the thing – particularly about things we’ve talked about before – is that as people remain concerned about the economy, it’s not pushing immigration and border security off the table, but to the degree that the border is quiet and the economy is still a source of a lot of doubt and anxiety, the economy has really changed the terrain for a lot of Texans, in particular Texas Republicans.
