Analysis: In Texas, sports can be a religion. Thankfully, politics are not involved. Oops… – By Ross Ramsey (Texas Tribune) / July 26 2021
Nothing offers a better distraction from nasty political fights over serious subjects than nasty political infighting over Texas college sports.
Nothing like sports to break political tension, or to move it from fights over civics to fights over territorial and school loyalties.
Set aside your donkeys and your elephants for a moment. This is about Longhorns and Sooners, Aggies and Horned Frogs, Red Raiders and Bears. And it’s a raging debate all of a sudden, following news that the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma want to leave the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, and that Texas A&M University, a member of the SEC, wants to keep them out.
It’s a perfect example of a fundamental rule of politics: The fighting is fiercest when the stakes are easy to understand.
And the fights that were going on when this one surfaced were more complicated.
The Texas Legislature is in special session, working on a set of Gov. Greg Abbott’s priorities that are now stuck — a back-ordered wish list waiting on a Legislature that doesn’t have enough members to meet. The issue at the center of this impasse is a complex set of restrictions on current voting laws, portrayed by Republicans as necessities for election integrity and deplored by Democrats as a fresh set of voting obstacles for people of color, people with disabilities and others.
CONTINUE > https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/26/texas-ut-ou-sec/
