Browsing by Subject "Texas politics"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Alexia Leclerqc Interview
(2022-04-06) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Alexia Leclerqc, an environmental justice activist working with PODER in Austin, TX. Alexia discusses moving around a lot in childhood and struggling with others’ lack of respect for her family’s Taiwanese and Buddhist traditions. They talk about coming into environmental justice work via their education and witnessing injustice and contradiction in the world. She shares about the work she does, such as water testing and meeting with politicians and scientists. Alexia also describes Start:Empowerment, the nonprofit organization they co-founded to get environmental justice curriculum into high schools.
Elizabeth Melton Interview
(2023-04-13) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Elizabeth Melton, the public engagement director at IDCL, from Crumpler, NC. Elizabeth describes her childhood in Longview, TX, where she was surrounded by her extended family with deep ties to public education and the Presbyterian Church (USA). She shares how her childhood involvement in theater eventually led to her PhD in performance studies. Elizabeth talks about her experience of the Texas Freeze of 2021. She also discusses her complicated relationship to Texas as both a beloved home and site of political strife.
The first two years of Texas statehood, 1846-1847
(1948) Peevy, Lucien Elliot, 1903-; Not available
For a long time to come : the transformation of Texas politics, 1960-1984
(2015-01-16) Briscoe, Dolph, IV; Brands, H. W.; Stoff, Michael B; Zamora, Emilio; Carleton, Don E; Parrish, Michael; Oshinsky, David M
After signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson predicted that as his Democratic Party fully embraced racial equality, whites would flock to Republicans across the South, including in his beloved native Texas. LBJ’s expectation proved accurate. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the power of the Texas Democratic Party declined as the national party took stances on issues such as civil rights, the role of government, culture, and foreign policy that alienated many Texans and contributed to the growth of the Texas Republican Party. The national Democratic Party’s leftward shift became too much to bear for most conservative Texans, who found the Republican Party, especially when led by the charming Ronald Reagan, more appealing. Constant division within the state Democratic Party further weakened its electoral success and led many conservatives to convert to the GOP. Texas itself changed dramatically during these years, as job opportunities and warm weather attracted Americans from all parts of the country to Texas. By the 1980s, the formerly rural, Democratic-dominated Texas had become an urbanized, two-party super-state, on its way to becoming a bastion of Republican political power.
Ora Houston Interview
(2022-04-06) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Ora Houston, a long-time civil servant and former city council member in Austin, TX. Ora describes the influences of her early life, like her mother’s social work, her education, experiencing Jim Crow segregation, and her exposure to and choice of religion. She talks about her involvement in the Episcopal church as a lay leader and how her religious convictions influence her work to uplift the voices of underrepresented people. She discusses her years of civil service and her four-year term in the Austin city council representing District One.
The political education of Lyndon Baines Johnson : the making of a Texas and national Democrat
(1997-12) Young, Mark Eldon; Gould, Lewis L.
Lyndon Johnson, the thirty-sixth President, had a profound affect on the Democratic Party in America. Johnson was contradictory, supportive, and harmful to the Democratic Party during the middle decades of the twentieth century. In a new interpretation of Johnson the politician, this dissertation explores Johnson's early partisan development and ascent as Democratic Leader in the United States Senate. Furthermore this dissertation evaluates the reasons for Johnson's ambiguous relationship with the Democratic Party. Johnson's first teacher in the art of Democratic politics was his father, Sam Ealy Johnson. This revisionist study of Johnson emphasizes for the first time how Sam Ealy Johnson taught his son about the art of pragmatic political behavior. However, his father's lessons and Johnson's early application of political knowledge was in the context of the Democratic one-party world of Texas politics. Johnson took his understanding of politics in a hegemonic Democratic system and soon applied it to a series of positions first as a Congressional Secretary, then as a New Deal administrator, and later as Congressman and Senator. By the end of his first senate term, Johnson's vision of what it meant to be a Democrat had changed little. Yet his focus on achieving consensus put him in opposition to the political objective of other Democrats. The partisan problems Johnson encountered after six years only increased later in his Senate career and as President.
Saatvik Ahluwalia Interview
(2022-10-18) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Saatvik Ahluwalia, an Indian-American political organizer living in Boston, MA. Saatvik talks about his mother’s influence on his values and activism work. He shares his journey toward self-love and pride in his culture by way of Bhangra dance. Saatvik also describes his vision for community, which includes humility in organizing and protecting minoritized children from hate.
Strategy of reform : courts, politics, and policy reform in Texas
(2012-12) McEwan, Jennifer Reynolds; Perry, H. W.; Brinks, Daniel; Levinson, Sanford; Sparrow, Bartholomew; Ellis, David
When, how, and why do policy makers and reformers use courts and legal procedures to achieve their policy ends? This project explores the relationship of courts to the process of policy reform in Texas. I predict that reformers within this context utilize judicial and quasi-judicial strategies in different ways than the current literature suggests, that is that courts and legislatures are used interdependently to advance a policy goal. This line of inquiry enhances our understanding of the relationship of courts to policy reform as it contemplates reformers utilizing court based reform strategies in ways other than a court ruling in their favor and producing the desired policy end. This study also contemplates courts in the policy making arena as more than just one static institution; rather, court based strategies can and do encompass other quasi-judicial institutions available to reformers to advance their policy objectives. Through an in-depth case study analysis of reform in the areas of the scope of practice battle between engineers and architects, transportation infrastructure funding, and voter ID, I find that reformers, constrained by the overall opportunity structures available, choose a set of strategies that utilize multiple venues in ways that strengthen each other, so that their strategies are not just alternative or sequential but interdependent.
Tina Byram Interview
(2022-03-18) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Tina Byram, an advocate active in local politics in the extra-territorial jurisdiction of Hornsby Bend. Tina talks about her work advocating for underserved members of her community who do not have the time or resources to get involved in local politics. She describes the differences between political activity at the local level versus the national level, including overlooked issues such as shifting districts and water privatization. She also tells about her journey through local activism, which has involved non-profit work, collaboration with representatives, and voter registration.