Analysis: Republican Texas legislators, like the governor, take a right turn – By Ross Ramsey (The Texas Tribune) / May 10 2021
This cannot possibly be as simple as it looks, but here’s what Texas Republicans appear to be telling you about themselves over the last week: Their party is fractured.
They are running to their base to shore up their support among those most conservative and active voters who are so influential in the Republican primaries where GOP incumbents are most in danger in 2022. The governor’s doing it, as The Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek reported recently. So are lawmakers: The Texas House has backed Senate legislation that would ban abortions after six weeks. On the same day they did that, on the other end of the building, the Texas Senate was approving its version of a House bill that would allow almost any adult in the state to carry a handgun without a license or a permit.
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It’s not just legislators. Attorney General Ken Paxton, asked whether he would support Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022’s GOP primary for governor, told The New York Times Magazine: “The way this typically works in a primary, is it’s kind of everybody running their own race. I don’t think he supports me; I don’t support him.”
There’s your Unity ’22 ticket.
