Californians: Do They Help or Hurt Texas?

hello everyone i'm sewell chan the editor-in-chief of the texas tribune thank you for tuning in to our conversation of on the about the influx of californians in texas and their impact on the state's economy population and politics i'm joined today by five distinguished uh commentators and experts who will engage with me in this discussion they're kenneth miller alexandra souche bass ben rowan jennifer mercia and sergio garcia rios miller is the rose professor of state and local government and director of the rose institute at claremont mckenna college he is the author of the wonderful book texas versus california a history of their struggle for the future of america released in 2020 such bass is the economist's senior correspondent for politics technology and society covering a range of political and public policy topics she is the author of a special report that ran in 2019 arguing that america's future can be understood by studying california and texas rowan is an associate news and politics editor at texas monthly he recently published a story that encouraged texans to embrace california transplants called the case for more californians before joining texas monthly rowan worked as an editor and fact checker at pacific standard and the atlantic mercia is a professor of communication at texas a m university where she writes about american political discourse especially as it relates to citizenship democracy in the presidency she is the author of demagogue for president the rhetorical genius of donald trump published in 2020. last but not least garcia rios is an assistant professor of government and latino studies at cornell university his research focuses on voter turnout political participation and public opinion especially among latino immigrants let's get started um hello everyone um uh the purpose of this discussion is is to talk about the implant the influx of of of californians in texas but it's also to get some some some bigger issues involving you know two america's two largest states which together represent one in five americans and uh about a quarter of america's gdp and and in many ways of course present parallel and some would argue competing visions for governance in america um why don't we start out just just with the phenomenon itself ben would you talk us a little bit through the reasons californians are moving to texas and and you know how you interpret the phenomenon particularly as someone who like me has lived in california as well yes so it obviously is a little self-serving for me to make the case for californians being from california myself but i think that the phenomena is best explained by sort of three pull factors you've got what's drawing businesses and you've got what's drawing individuals and as far as businesses um texas has a relatively lax or regulatory environment and business leaders are more involved in um political discussions maybe you think in 2020 elon musk who is feuding with the california government over covet restrictions he comes here and is welcomed by governor greg abbott and told that he'll fit right in um and then i think the third poll factor is a um just much much lower cost of living relative to california in texas obviously that's changing as more people move here um but i think as it's framed as a political issue uh it's it's perceived as a influx of sort of left communists that might not actually be who's coming here great great that's very helpful um alexandra utah it's it alexander for the first after this 2020 census for the very first time in its history california lost one congressional seat texas of course gained two and you know texas population continues to grow at a rapid clip by many measures california kind of has stopped growing in population and it's kind of stable of where it is at about 40 million people texas is just about to hit 30 million and continues to grow um alexandra what are some of the forces that that you think have led to this kind of con continued dynamism in texas even as california has kind of reached this mature state so your question is why does texas continue to grow and attract people to the extent that it has you know i think there's ben mentioned the pro-business environment and that's been going on for years and i think is really distinct from california's approach when i was writing my special report i interviewed governor gavin newsom and one of the things that he told me was he feels like california rested on its laurels a bit you know people kicked up their feet and would talk about the good old days and i think there was a sense among california's government that businesses would want to stay there because california had so much to offer i think that kovid has changed that a lot um and people are much and companies are much more much more willing to rethink where they want to be texas government in contrast to california's has operated a little bit like a business itself with kind of going with uh governor perry famously went on hunting trips to california to recruit businesses so i think that mentality of being pro-business um and strategic about growth has been in place for more than a decade in texas um and is still very much there i think you can argue about whether or not the politics will ultimately alienate some californians and discourage some people from thinking about making the the move but i think that really texas's approach and its framework of being low tax pro business um and kind of always towing to that line and not necessarily introducing um other things is is is what's allowed it to continue to grow and you see that i mean i think it's epitomized in the dallas fort worth area where you're just seeing a tremendous growth although that area is not alone you see it throughout texas and especially in the texas triangle it's very very helpful can your book takes a really deep dive into the history of both states and you find some real paradoxes you know both texas and and california were part of originally the spanish empire and then part of mexico they both entered the union uh in similar years 1845 for texas 1850 for california for much of the 20th century california was a republican state electing such republican leaders as earl warren and ronald reagan while texas was an almost uniformly democratic state and elected of course you know one of america's most liberal presidents lyndon b johnson how in your view uh did the kind of current uh makeup of the two states you know and their divergence you know from each other you know you begin you describe california and texas as siblings and uh but but kind of mirror images of each other could you elaborate on that idea sure one of the fun things about comparing california and texas is everybody thinks of them as these polar opposites and rivals but in many ways they have deep similarities going back to their origins as being part of spain and mexico and coming into the united states almost simultaneously in the mid 19th century being high growth states developing powerful economies being diverse both states are among only six u.s states that are majority minority population and they both have almost identical percentage hispanic population uh 39 or so so you see um amazing similarities and it goes beyond that actually and this goes to in part why it's i i think there's so much movement from california to texas is because uh they feel in many ways similar the built environment of dallas feels much more like l.a than new york city does for example it's uh it's very easy in many ways to transition from southern california to the dfw um area or other parts of texas just because it feels similar as a car culture and all of that so um the similarities run deep and yet they are absolutely polar opposites politically and on a partisan basis and so what i did in the book was try to unpack the reasons for that and what i found is going all the way back to origins california oriented as a northern state texas with the south and that had deep um long-standing uh consequences for the two states that uh texas is just has always been a more uh politically co and culturally conservative state than california california more progressive and what happened ultimately is the united states divided and sorted out ideologically in its party system with progressives gravitating toward the democratic party and conservatives uh to the republican party and so these two states have naturally gravitated in those directions and that's why you see the political rivalry between the two states tell us a little bit about the about um voting behavior among latinos and also peop immigrants and people of color more generally perhaps in california and texas a lot of people tend to i think some people tend to think of the migration of californians to texans and vice versa as being one predominantly involving anglo people but that's obviously not the case it's definitely not the case and i think ben puts it very nicely there are several factors and one of those definitely is cost of living we we conducted a survey recently with univision and we found that the topics or issues that latinos focus on comparing texas and california were largely the same with the exception of cost of living which was a priority for latinos in california other than that they look very similarly there's a tendency to think of latinos and minority groups in general as a monolith and also as ones that are usually both democratic that's not always the case and now we've been paying a lot of attention to what happened in southern texas and areas around the border and i think those tendencies have been there for a while that they really haven't uh we don't see anything really new we pay more attention now and we were expecting certain behavior given uh trump's presidency but those have been there for a while and the same thing happens in california not all latinos in california are democrats and certainly not all latinos in texas are democrats there's a tendency to think of them as a monolith that's that's not the case and however we can think of these similarities that ken mentions there's many of them and i agree that when you see the numbers you'll find that democrats latinos in texas are very similar to latinos in california for the most part um tell me about what about voting behavior and also turnout um you know california has achieved some milestones with you know having the first u.s senator uh of the first latino u.s senator from

california uh alex padilla uh uh you know obviously uh the hhs secretary now uh comes from comes from uh california um you know on the texas side you've got you know latino candidates like george p bush you know cyan of the bush dynasty who's now running for attorney general um you know is it true that latino voters in texas have traditionally turned out like all voters in texas in kind of lower numbers and what do you attribute that to it's true and it's uh for the most part mobilization uh there's a big question about uh being asked to vote and and the mobilization has been lacking and we've seen efforts to change that and they have worked and we saw in uh in beto or mobilizing a lot of latinos especially young latino voters so that also uh to center your question should we expect some of these gains for uh latino leadership to continue it's not clear it depends really uh who mobilizes latinos mobilization is a key component and let's remember the preferred candidate for latinos during the presidential election was actually bernie sanders and again uh once we saw beth versus te cruz it was beto who was the preferred candidate for latinos so it really comes down to mobilization but i'll say more importantly issues i think latinos just like any other voter really pay attention to the issues that they care about and who spend who which candidate is paying attention to those issues why do you think trump was able to move some of those south texas counties so much further in the republican camp and we go back to the same it's some latinos and we sort of have to move away from thinking of latinos as one monolith that immigration would be the one issue mobilizing them and many so in trump a an answer to economic worries a job and then with the pandemic in the middle we heard many latinos saying that they thought trump will get them back to work and they knew the risk but they needed to put food on the table and if that meant voting for trump that was definitely the answer yeah very very helpful jennifer you not off you often see in texas the bumper sticker don't california my texas and i think that says so much in that in that sentiment could you help us understand uh the role that the two states play in kind of political discourse and in particular how that discourse in texas is changing with all these california influences uh moving in yeah i mean i think the main difference between um the political discourse about california and about texas right is that texas has texas exceptionalism right which is this idea that texas is the greatest place in the world uh right it's the chosen place it's uh definitely the language that texas politicians use whether they're democratic or republican i mean if you think about beto's um campaign for senate against ted cruz i mean he was all about you know being authentically texas in a certain way um and and that is an argument that i think plays well here in a way that doesn't sort of work anywhere else in the united states i mean you don't have people in michigan or you know minnesota saying we're the best you know minnesota is the greatest state in the whole you know united states whereas in texas you can't run for office unless you do that um and so i think that that is fascinating california doesn't do that in the same way um california is way more you know sort of laid back and chill about its awesomeness um compared to texas and um you know it's it's almost like a defining characteristic um and so i think you see that play out in political messages of all kinds whether it's pride of place whether it's pride of you know the economic and political system um you know or about values in all of those things um there's a kind of texas swagger that you don't see in other places you know can i go ahead i was just going to add that you know when you saw these ads about don't california my texas in some ways it used to be a red herring like californians weren't necessarily coming in huge numbers it was about 80 000 people in 2019 so for a state of 29 million people it it wasn't enormous what's interesting is that what started as fearmongering actually now is happening much more in earnest i think more than ever before is the risk of california coming as a partly as a result of covet and california's tax policy so i just think it's worth noting that while this conversation has been happening for seven plus years um it about the the worry of californians coming it's it's finally actually happening and do we have the numbers and in for 2020 and 2021 i mean uh you know there's it's so recent that it can get be hard to get an accurate count i mean you u-haul certainly says that the number one one-way rentals um are from california to texas uh throughout the country the most reliable data is irs data and we don't have um data through the pandemic unfortunately that's what allows us to understand on who's coming from where and at what income bracket so that's going to be the most interesting thing to watch ben yeah i just want to add that there's a pretty clear distinction however between the rhetoric of dome california by texas or even george bush who issued a similar message in his 1990s campaigns for governor um and the actual policies that these politicians are you know leaving in place i think um greg abbott had a campaign slogan california by texas meanwhile is you know encouraging california businesses to move here through the enterprise fund and on top of that uh when californian businessmen boof here telling them that they fit right in um like a direct quote from his tweet about um elon musk coming coming in so can we but can we walk through that paradox for a moment because as these businesses come you know a lot as we saw with the transgender bathroom bill a few years back and as we may be seeing now with the issues surrounding abortion and reproductive rights is there some potential for clashes between these new economy companies tech etc which often have a more social libertarian ethos you know they want the tax breaks or the subs or the incentives to come here and they definitely want you know access to texas talent and the talented workforce here but but might they be forces that start to push back on uh um some of the more um right-wing policies in the state yeah i'll jump in on that it seems to me that that's the point where there might be real tension moving forward is between uh the major corporate players who come from a different sector than the more uh traditional more conservative corporate sector in texas oil and gas insurance those types of things when you start introducing apple and google and amazon and these kinds of companies into a more conservative social environment then you're going to see a clash because tim cook you know personally cares a lot about some of these social issues and other corporate ceos and employees and they try to leverage it uh their their presence in texas and the economic benefits they bring to the state to try to affect uh texas social policy and so i think that's going to be a a conflict moving forward i guess my question would be if we look at recent political history in texas um say just had some of the most right-wing legislative sessions in its history this past year um a number of businesses rallied against the sb1 the elections bill which ended up passing um you know there was the heartbeat bill which passed and i'm wondering where that tension is playing out currently um and on top of that uh wondering i mean i know a lot of right-wing candidates for statewide office have talked about this issue and wanting to end the enterprise fund attracting businesses but i'm wondering where do you see that those tension points right now one thing i would like to add is that it's worth paying attention to where the issues have been moving to i think there's been the polarization is high uh legislation doesn't always match uh public opinion and we've been seeing that now for uh several years now even the abortion law was not hugely uh supported by public opinion still even passed and so it will be interesting to see whether these demographic changes are the ones that are causing some of these clashes or whether you know the disconnect between public opinion and legislation is already pushing some of those clashes anyways well it does seem to be a factional division within the dominant political party in the republican party the the social conservatives against the business interests and you see that playing out in the legislature so uh you know i i do think that the business community including these out of out-of-state corporations coming in into texas will ultimately probably have a moderating influence on social policy in in texas but uh the more sort of activist conservative right has a big you know power base within the the republican party and so it's um to me that's when you think about texas politics it's really not so much in the in the short run about republican versus democrat but it's internally within the republican party which faction is going to become ascendant jennifer i want to bring you in here um i'm curious about the each state as the locus as a or as as a state of resistance in a hyper-polarized time when obama was president you know greg abbott who was then attorney general famously said something along the lines of i wake up i go to the office and sue president obama then i go home now of course during trump's presidency it was california and and its attorney general that was you know leading kind of the blue states in challenging many of trump's proposed uh regulatory actions including around environment and certainly immigration uh now of course the shoe is on the other foot again and it's again texas is filing all this litigation during the biden era you know what what do you kind of make of this phenomenon and how do you think that this is playing out kind of in the national imagination yeah um you know the the national imagination i think you're right of california and texas is that they are you know the linchpins of either you know the blue resistance or the red resistance depending on where we are um and and they take on those roles as you've noted i mean they really do embrace it as the sort of like this is we are you know this blue where we are this red and it's our duty to respond and really sort of taking advantage of that you know idea of the each state having a republican form of government right so that it can be used to resist the federal government when they see the federal government is doing wrong um you know i mean the way that we're so polarized at this moment you almost would expect it right that it's it's almost necessary that there would be a kind of state level leadership um and with texas and california being the two biggest states most electoral college votes um and then themselves being at least at the level of elected officials the most polarized um you know obviously there are republicans in california and there are democrats in texas um you know and so the the imagination is that it's deep deep blue and deep deep red and so they sort of act accordingly yeah but you you also do well to point out the tremendous variety within the states you know when i was at the los angeles times after the election we i decided to devote a full page of letters to the editor from californians who had voted for donald trump after the election was decided and i got a lot of heat from liberals you know outraged that that that side was given a voice but of course you know i mean trump was crushed in california but he still won 38 39 and of course many of the divisions now within america and certainly within both of these states or rural versus urban religious versus secular unmarried versus me i mean it's so many different dimensions so so sometimes thinking about it just as states is of course you know of limited helpfulness i went to high school and college in california that's where my family is still and where my family lives in the central valley um is conservative so everyone i know in california votes for donald trump and i live in texas now and i have for a long time and everyone i know here voted for joe biden so you know it isn't what it's made out to be in the national imagination just a quick fact on that more more people voted for trump in california than in any other state and that's more than in texas actually now was now was texas biden's second uh highest vote count in terms of just raw totals i think that's right that's that'd be an interesting thing to factor in as well yeah because biden actually came close so so there are some differences right i mean texas has you know the the complete control of government in texas under republicans has been in k in in since 2003 when there was like kind of a trifecta right ken and in california that only goes back to 2011 when uh governor arnold schwarzenegger left office where do you think the two states are um can in terms of potentially seeing the the smaller party you know in terms of becoming truly competitive do you think that's more likely to happen in texas first than in california or vice versa oh absolutely i mean the democratic party has a large foothold in texas at the um at the city level i mean the democrats control all the major cities in texas and they have a substantial you know stake in legislature as well it's true that there's a complete unified republican control of state government but the races are closer in texas uh than they are in california in california the republican party is is extremely weak uh and the the percentages uh for the losing candidate in statewide elections are low so i would say that there's a much greater chance of real two-party competition in texas than in california and you feel that way even notwithstanding the recent redistricting changes in voting rules uh and eligibility etc uh absolutely the underlying the fundamentals of political ideology and orientation and structure and everything in california is just different than texas the obstacles for the minority party in california are greater than in texas there's a real opportunity for for texas democrats if they can occupy sort of a a middle position in in ideologically to do very well statewide and and if they can produce strong candidates the problem that texas democrats have is that they're tied to the national democratic party and so it's easy for republicans to sort of put up an ad with whoever's running for office as a democrat in texas next to nancy pelosi or bernie sanders or whomever and the national democratic party is too far left for texas um that's in the same way that the national republican party is too far right for california so can i add one one thing to that i think there's also an interesting question about whether the boost that we've seen to republican states in the wake of covet 19 is temporary or permanent a lot of people are responding to the restrictive policies in blue states moving to red states like texas and florida um the assumption is that they might actually buck the democratic party because that's where they came from and they want you know the republican vision of the future that might be true while covet is the main issue but i think when you pan out longer term in both texas and florida there's a case to be made that the demographic shifts are such that actually we're going to see much more of a movement toward democrats so i think the time in which we're having this conversation is a really interesting one to look forward at politics because if we look at only current policies while covid is so much on people's minds and the associated restrictions i think it looks like a different picture than if we pan out and look longer term let's stay with the coronavirus for a moment i i think i saw a recent pew research center report that found that republicans tend to overestimate the risks of the vaccines which of course are negligible according to public health experts whereas democrats tend to overrate their risk of getting the virus which doesn't mean the virus isn't super serious but it does mean that for example if you've been triple vaccine boosted as many californians are you know the risk of getting seriously ill does become quite low and so i wonder you know have we seen in this in this tremendous tragedy over the last two years you know you know do any of you feel kind of surprised that that it had such a polarizing effect and such different outcomes in different states or was this kind of always going to be the consequence of a hyper-polarized america it is surprising um especially if you look at research about um how innate differences between conservatives and liberals um in terms of their threat responses and fear responses um you know you could have predicted before the virus um emerged that conservatives would be the ones that would be much more worried about you know the the illness the sickness the the threat itself um and the way that the trump administration politicized it um and turned it into you know sort of a an issue of american exceptionalism you know as opposed to texas exceptionalism and you know sort of toughness and um and that kind of thing um really i think uh flipped what you might have expected would have been the natural innate responses of conservatives and liberals um kind of another question along these lines um my sense um i should and i should make sure that's backed up by by data but kamala harris kamala harris may be less popular in california than donald trump is in texas can any of you explain that [Laughter] i think my understanding generally is that the most motivating issue for voters in texas right now and certainly for republican voters in texas is the border and i think that there is a perception that kamala harris has you know was appointed by its borders are has been um you know not handling that appropriately i'm not quite sure what the other side of that question why we'd expect donald trump to be super unpopular in texas i mean i think kamala harris's poll numbers are in part tied to the administration generally and biden's poll numbers are low so she's going to be dragged down by that in part as well it's kind of easier to be the out party in a way that's one reason why democrats are very concerned about this midterm election is that uh it's easy for people with discontent uh to vote against the uh the party in power and so uh that's partly how i would explain it that uh trump as an outsider now um is easy for uh people to sort of rally support around him uh whereas uh harris is part of a at this point relatively uh unpopular administration well so another topic i wanted to address was um kind of the relative fortunes of each state um let's go around which state are you kind of more optimistic about um for for kind of its long-term trajectory and why can we do a quick round rob and i'm going to start with ben putting me in the unenviable spot um i think that they're gonna answer with uh first non-answer i promise a a quick answer at the end but i think that a lot of the challenges that california faces deal with that booming population which is slowing a little bit and are challenges that are coming to texas now so you think about exploding rents um exploding costs of living not enough housing homelessness um i think texas is about to face a lot of the struggles and already is facing a lot of those struggles that california did not address um and did not address well at least um as far as which states prospects uh i'm more positive on i think that uh texas is going to have a bigger population in 50 years than california i think it's sort of at least for now winning that battle which is more appealing for people to live in um i think that there are sort of infrastructure challenges here that might not exist in california however and then the unknown factor of climate change of course right yeah um syria i'm um excited about texas i don't know if uh optimistic but definitely excited about texas um i i think this is texas is gonna be the most important state uh uh in terms of electoral politics and definitely uh presidential elections uh it's going to be a key state and i think it's definitely getting closer and closer to being a battleground if not is now at this point there's of course the concern about the you know all the electoral laws and redistricting or mandarin i'll say to this and we're talking about how important those might be but research has found so far that while minorities are disproportionately affected when it comes to turnout uh we haven't seen a lot of changes in fact we have seen increases in the states and this may be because of mobilization so i know that what we are about to see is massive mobilization for latinos and other minorities in texas it would be nice if that happened nationwide and it happened also in california but you know the minority vote sometimes is taken for granted i don't think that's going to be the case in texas and that's always good syria do you think the mobilization of voters will take lines similar to those of arizona and georgia i mean however i'm sorry you know what yeah walk us through why he has to if the one one of the biggest challenges for latinos is it starts healing with registration many potential voters haven't even registered and it starts from there i think mobilization usually focuses on those who are really excited to vote anyways and that was not the case in arizona they focus on those who usually don't vote usually those who usually uh tend to stand the margins uh and and focusing on young voters i think uh the it's very clear that either democrats or republican either one the latino vote they have to focus uh on young voters and i see that happening thank you jennifer well you know one thing that we haven't actually talked about is tourism um in thinking about the relationship you know between texas and california and the united states and then also in the world um you know when people think of the united states they think of california and that's where they want to go um you know if we're drawing you know tourists from anywhere um it's it's going to be more california than it is texas um and so i guess i think about that when i think about you know of course there's the business and the infrastructure challenges of folks moving to texas but there's also the way that you know texas isn't just a draw for people naturally to want to come here um you know there has to be the incentive of cheaper homes or you know good jobs or whatever um whereas california does have that right you know um it doesn't matter where you are in the state you're you're an hour or two away from somewhere pretty awesome and that isn't necessarily the case in texas uh so i would just say that i mean i think that the the future of both states is obviously going to be very strong but that um texas does um lack some of the tourist appeal that maybe california has yeah jennifer that's super interesting and you know california probably has more of a global reputation if you're asking people about visiting the us for the first time although texas i think within the within america has a stronger kind of narrative of itself right yeah definitely definitely yeah i can yeah so i would say california should be dominant in this competition given its natural advantages and the investments over the past century and more has so many natural advantages over texas but it seems to have in many ways reached a plateau and just not in terms of just population but i think in terms of dynamism and and such that the big exception to that of course is the tech sector in silicon valley and it'll be very interesting to see how long that run plays uh that's that's really kept the state um flourishing in many ways but in many other respects california has plateaued and it's looking in many ways much like new york state so new york peaked sort of in the mid 20th century and it's been um you know a very important state uh it's wealthy high per capita gdp all those things but its population has been flat for a half century and uh california is sort of moving into that trajectory of being a state that has been dominant and is now sort of flattening out texas has this opportunity to it has a much higher ceiling there's room to grow and it's very interesting and i think important for the nation actually to see uh uh texas develop in a positive uh positive way alexandra it's doing so your question is dangerous territory i feel like whenever i make predictions on california that even slightly negative i get hate mail but um i would say that unquestionably this will be texas's decade i think that there are things that are in california's leaders control and texan leaders control that will um affect the the coming years in the states i mean california is so reliant on its top income earners tourism matters but um you know the tech sector and a well-paid executive staying in california matters hugely to the future of the state at least fiscally one percent of top earners pay 50 almost 50 of personal income tax so to the extent that california makes itself an unappealing place uh for entrepreneurs and other people to continue wanting to live that will affect the whole california model which hinges on high taxes high regulation but better services and i think covid has exposed a lot of the weaknesses of the california model because people realize they're not necessarily getting great services if schools can't open for much of the year for in-person learning for example and that's why we've seen people opt to uh leave for texas just so to the extent that california's leaders don't grapple with some of the reasons why people are choosing to leave i think it will hugely disadvantage california i would say the same with texas i mean to the extent that politicians don't focus on the issues that really matter to people and will change the texas model which is you know low tax low services but you know it it's potentially easier to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in texas to the extent that they don't grapple with public transportation infrastructure affordability i think that texas will become a less appealing magnet it will absolutely be ignited in the next 10 years but that's a longer-term answer so i think the fate of both states will do will depend on the strategy of the leaders but things i think are a little bit easier for texas in the next decade than california that makes a lot of sense i mean alexandria your you know your special report really goes into such depth across all these different areas and you know it is it is worth i think reminding you know us and our audience that you know texas does have a lot of structural challenges you know the poverty rate is higher the the safety net is thinner um the some of the school outcomes unfortunately in both states are not are not are not great um but you know the infrastructure in texas is also becoming i think an increasing concern right after last year's winter storms so there are a lot of questions i guess about texas's long-term sustainability even if you know this is going to be you know another texas decade would you agree yeah absolutely and i think one of the the interesting animating questions is to what extent will politics affect choices you when one thinks of texas one thinks about pragmatic fiscally oriented leaders theoretically but a great example of where that's not true is on medicaid expansion where you've seen other republican states choose to expand um and offer obamacare um medicaid um in their states and it actually in texas instance would save the state money but they're refusing to do to do so i think for political reasons and so um absolutely there are huge issues with the safety net um i mean both california and texas are very difficult places to be poor for different reasons um it is true that texas has a lower cost of living and so there's potent it's potentially easier to rise but um yeah i think the storm is another great example of where the leaders you know it had a real opportunity in the last legislative session to make structural reforms that would make the state safer to future extreme weather events and very little if anything change so um the need to really focus on things that affect the daily lives of texans rather than messaging and um and um rather than messaging to their bases i think will will be key for the for the state's vitality and just to add it seems like there's a lot of anxiety here in texas about the future of the oil and gas industry right as we move towards a new economy that isn't based on oil and gas i wonder and i certainly know that my students wonder about you know where the future lies with that yeah for sure um one last topic is we as we prepare to close you know what about um you know kind of center the role of the role of race in in in the the futures and and changes in both states you know i i am really struck and i think a lot of people are to know that you know california became a so-called majority minority state i know there's a lot of problems with that term but but using it for now as a rubric in 2000 in 2000 and texas followed in 2005 and you know texas is the only state in the former s in the in the in the south to have a majority minority population only uh 40 now of texans or non-hispanic whites and yet of course um the power structures in texas you know still kind of in some ways you know really reflect uh uh that of a of a of a kind of previous time and i and i'm just curious about you know where where you all see that future um you know serious topic that you could that you could elaborate on yeah uh i think it's going to play an important factor not only electorally i think we might see in certain communities most more animals and sort of anti-latino anti-immigrant sentiments those those are we can see those everywhere and this is a big state and while there are many latinos that have been in texas historically even uh before uh the united states was the united states and and in fact the border crossed them there are areas where we see less concentration of latinos and those are probably areas where we're going to see more and more and we'll see shifts then in attitudes now does that mean those are immediately transferred to gains or losses for anyone's race and i don't think that's necessarily the case and i go back to the example of the cruise versus veto orc where veto was clearly favored by latinos so it really goes back to the things that latinos care about i think we're going to see many adjustments in terms of sentiment toward latinos and immigrants but how those are translating to electoral politics is yet to see yep okay one final question and this is going to be around robin and this has been such a great discussion um sorry i jumped over a bunch of topics but it there's been so much ground to cover um any final thoughts on the question californians do they help or hurt texas ken yeah i would say uh in general they're a net positive for for texas they bring uh they bring added wealth to the state creativity dynamism fresh perspectives i also think it's it's important to note that newcomers can change a place in some respects so california's will change texas in important ways but a place changes newcomers uh as well that as people uh migrate from california and other places into texas they're going to absorb and adopt a lot of the cultural um and philosophical attitudes of of texas that's just a natural thing in cultural psychology and so i if i were a resident of texas i would not be overly concerned about this i would welcome californians and people from other places as well alexandra yeah i think absolutely i think um you know both states both california and texas have been fueled throughout their histories by immigration at large and i think this is one strand of immigration that will be very positive for texas i think can hints at a very interesting question which is there's so much concern about uh among um republ republican texans about tech these californians turning texas blue um i it's not obvious to me that that's where they're going to take the state i think as ken alluded to they they may change when they come to texas or it's entirely possible that they're leaving california because they are rejecting the democratic party and democratic policies and so the the californians who are leaving and coming to texas are actually going to look a lot more like the average texan voter um and so i think it's going to be a fascinating thing to watch about how californians influence over texas um evolves uh but i think it's absolutely a thing to be celebrated sergio i definitely think this is positive my whole family now lives in texas and i'll say texas has changed my family i called texas el paso my second home and i think texas has changed me more than i can probably have changed anyone else around me in texas uh it is i agree completely that people don't necessarily move because of political reasons but they move because of the life they're uh trying to find and if they're arriving at a new place they're probably likely to absorb those new ways of living and so it's not clear uh where politics might go one way or another but i think overall newcomers are always good and that's you know coming from an immigrant and syria you grew up in el paso correct i um i grew up in mexico and then i came as a young adult but i've lived there uh most of my life well now in new york but that's where family is yes yeah yeah fantastic thank you jennifer i think it can only be positive um i think that again you're just thinking about you know polarization and political sorting and people moving from place to place gives them familiarity with what is strange and and othered otherwise um and having that firsthand experience um builds bridges right and so you know it might be we've sort of framed this conversation as if you know it's either the red advantage or the blue advantage or either the texas advantage or the california advantage and you know sort of thinking about bridging and and what we can accomplish together if um you know it's sort of red and blue and purple all over finally ben i think it's a good thing with a caveat and uh the migration of californians has been treated as a political issue which i don't think it is um as alexandra and ken we're noting uh i don't think it's gonna radically change the politics of the state um an exit poll in 2018 which with the caveat it's an exit poll but found that o'rourke was the preferred candidate of native texans and crews won non-native texans by large enough um a large enough amount to win the race um obviously non-native texans includes far more than californians um but the caveat uh that i was mentioning earlier is that there are policy challenges brought by californians um there's educational disparities the wealth that californians are generating doesn't necessarily rise all boats i think that uh it would behoove state leaders to treat this less as sort of a culture war issue and more as a policy one uh this has been a tremendously enjoyable conversation for me the chance to interview three political scientists who are who live in california texas and new york but is from texas and then two journalists who work in texas now but have lived in california as i have has just been incredibly fun thanks so much all of you ben sergio jennifer ken and alexandra for your insights and for your time really really appreciate this thank you for joining us for this texas tribune panel discussion thank you you

2022-02-14 08:35

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