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Introduction

Political scientists have long used roll call votes cast by members of the U.S. Congress to plot the legislators on the liberal-conservative dimension along which most legislative politics in our nation's capital (as well as in Austin) now takes place. Here, drawing on the data provided by roll call votes held during the combined 2011 regular and first special legislative sessions (January-June), I provide similar information for the members of the Texas House of Representatives. 

These data provide a window from which to view only one facet of a representative's activities in Austin, and should thus be considered as one of many tools utilized by citizens to evaluate their elected officials. Nevertheless, the analysis presented here contributes to a greater level of legislative transparency in Texas, improving the ability of all interested parties (e.g., voters, interest groups, the media, and party activists) to hold elected officials accountable for the voting decisions they make on the House floor. 

This report is divided into five sections. The first details the data and methodology that undergird the study's analysis. The second examines the location of the members of the Texas House on the liberal-conservative dimension. The third engages in a similar exercise, but concentrates on the 37 Texas House representatives from the Houston metropolitan region. A fourth section focuses on the ideological location of the Republican Party committee chairs appointed by Speaker Joe Straus in 2011, with an eye toward better understanding the ideological profile of the Straus leadership team. A fifth section explores the intersection of race/ethnicity, geography, and ideology within the 2011 Democratic Party delegation. A sixth section endeavors to assess the presence or absence of salient ideological differences among the small subset of representatives who have been paired in House districts under the current redistricting plan. A final section concludes. 

This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.