19 t s e mt p - higher education | pearson

THE SOCIALAND ECONOMICMILIEU OFTEXAS POLITICS

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‘‘Political life, in the narrowest sense of theword, is a life of conflict and presupposes who can bring themselves into active relations to their surroundings.’’Harold D. Lasswell1

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ThinkAbout Politics

1. Are politics in Texas differentfrom other states?

YES NO

2. Is the political culture of Texaschanging as a consequence ofdemographic changes?

YES NO

3. Do race and ethnicity play a majorrole in Texas politics?

YES NO

4. Do some groups or interests inTexas have more influence orpower than others in public policydecisions?

YES NO

5. Has Texas been successful inadapting to the global economy?

YES NO

6. Should a fence be constructed onthe Texas border to reduce illegalimmigration into Texas?

YES NO

Social and economic factors are directlyrelated to the distribution of political powerand help determine who gets what in Texaspolitics.

Chapter Outline★ Decades of Change and Challenges★ Texas Myths★ The Political Culture of Texas★ The People of Texas★ Politics, Race, and Ethnicity★ The Political Implications of Demographics★ The Economy of Texas★ Economic Regions of Texas★ Transnational Regionalism

Decades of Change and ChallengeWith a colorful history of cowboys and oilmen, Texas has a rugged, big-ger-than-life mystique that annoys or amuses many non-Texans. In manyobvious and not-so-obvious ways, Texans continue to manifest thislegacy of the frontier in their speech, their can-do attitude, their celebra-tion of their “Texan-ness,” and their actions (see Politics Up Close: “Perpet-uating an Image: The Cowboy President”). In what other state do youfind the pervasive display of the state’s flag or the pilgrimage of so manyto the state’s holy shrine—the Alamo? Behaviors and language withwhich others take umbrage and often misunderstand are viewed by mostTexans to be simply part of the rich culture and legacy of the state.

The twenty-first century wasn’t very old, however, before it becameobvious that Texas also had oversized problems. Houston-basedEnron Corp., a symbol of how to transform brash confidence intoseemingly unlimited corporate wealth, came tumbling down, takingthousands of jobs and pensions with it and damaging public confi-dence in corporate America.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagonon September 11, 2001, challenged Texans’ and other Americans’ long-held assumptions about the basic security of our country and our state.And throughout the decade, Texas was thrust into the center ofrenewed debate over illegal immigration, including concerns over howto improve the security of the border with Mexico and deal with thou-sands of undocumented workers seeking better lives for themselves andtheir families.

Back-to-back hurricanes in 2005 challenged Texas’s ability to provideeducation, health care, and other social services for thousands of Katrinarefugees from Louisiana (many of whom stayed in Texas rather thanreturning to their homes), and to help thousands of residents of south-east Texas rebuild their lives following Hurricane Rita.

Increasingly, the politics and economy of Texas are being challengedby global trends. The state’s population continues to be transformed byimmigration and other changing demographic patterns. The frontier, orrural society, characterized by the cowboy, is long gone. The “OilPatch,” where wildcatters and roughnecks once prevailed, has beenreplaced by what one author dubbed the “Silicon Prairie . . . where ven-ture capitalists and software engineers roam.”2 Texas is now urban, with

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660 CHAPTER 19 • THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC MILIEU OF TEXAS POLITICS

Politics Up Close

Throughout his admin-istration, PresidentGeorge W. Bush hasbeen described by someas the “cowboy presi-dent.” At least two of hispredecessors, TheodoreRoosevelt and RonaldReagan, also were por-trayed as cowboys,either in cartoons orprose. The cowboymythology resonateswith most Americans,and it can be used bypresidents to symbolizetheir style of leadership.

At the beginning ofthe invasion of Iraq,Bush branded formerIraqi leader SaddamHussein an “outlaw”and declared that hewanted terrorist Osamabin Laden “dead or

alive.” At a conference in Aqaba on the Red Sea, Bushsaid that he was going to appoint a coordinator to“ride herd” on Middle East leaders along the peacetrail. Many in his audience had no idea what he wastalking about.

Bush owns a 1,600-acre ranch in Texas, which hepurchased during his governorship, but he didn’t growup or work on a ranch. He also has been reported to beafraid of horses. While visiting the former president ofMexico, Vicente Fox, on his ranch, he was offered theopportunity to ride a horse but reportedly backed awayfrom the animal. It was later reported that Fox referredto him as a “windshield cowboy.”

Bush wears a stylish Stetson and a large beltbuckle. He conveys an “aw shucks” demeanor,scrambles his words in a folksy manner, stagesphoto-ops on his ranch, and seems to enjoy drivinghis guests around in his Jeep. This cowboy imagerymakes for good press, and some observers think thata great deal of this is orchestrated by his staff andconsultants.

The president’s characterization as a cowboy inarticles, newscasts, and cartoons, meanwhile, contin-ues to feed the perceptions others have of the frontierculture of Texas and its style of politics.

Source: BBC News, June 6, 2003.

Perpetuating an Image: The Cowboy President

more than 83 percent of the population living in cities or suburban areas. Thestate includes three of the ten largest cities in the United States—Houston, SanAntonio, and Dallas.

Texas is not immune from a host of nagging, down-to-earth problems con-fronting many other states, including the demands of population growth, eco-nomic uncertainties, and corporate mergers outsourcing thousands of jobs to theother side of the world. But a legacy of individualism and limited governmentmakes it difficult to adjust to the new realities of a changing economy, a chang-ing society, and a changing political landscape.

Like many other citizens across the country, Texans are woefully ignorant oftheir state and local governments. Many view government as something in Austinor at the county courthouse, where people do things to us, not for us. Govern-ment is often described in terms of red tape, inefficiency, and anonymous or rudebureaucrats. Political campaigns are perceived as a form of organized mudwrestling in which candidates characterize each other as despicable, immoral,incompetent, or whatever, and this perception results in large numbers of Texanstuning out politics. Many people distrust government—a traditionally strong sen-timent in Texas—and hope it interferes with their lives as little as possible. MostTexans don’t vote in elections, leaving the selection of public leaders to others.

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Texans expect a wide variety of public services, but they are ill disposed to payingfor them with increased taxes, an attitude perpetuated by many politicians whopromise more services but are unwilling to address their costs.

Our past, marked by good times as well as bad, is a prelude to our future, andour decisions about politics, government, and public policies will determine howwe adapt to inevitable changes.

Challenges of the Twenty-First Century Sustained population growth; thecontinued transformation of the state’s economy; environmental, transportation,and water problems; security; and increased demands for governmental servicespose tremendous challenges to the resources, capabilities, and the very structureof Texas’s governments. Federal mandates and reductions in federal funds haveforced state and local governments to scramble to develop more effective andefficient means of assisting low-income people. Public officials are also chal-lenged by a regressive and outdated tax system, high rates of unemployment andunderemployment in various areas of the state, the influx of immigrants fromMexico and other countries, an aging population that requires long-term nursingcare, large numbers of people who have no health insurance, and changes in wel-fare law. Inequities in public education persist and continue to pose a challengefor developing a workforce that can compete in the global economy. And thestate’s growth has aggravated environmental problems, including water use, thataffect the health and well-being of everyone.

These problems and issues are the ingredients of contemporary Texas politics.They reflect the fundamental conflicts between competing interests and the wayTexans decide who gets “what, when, and how.”3 Unfortunately, only a small partof the population is involved in developing solutions. The only time many peo-ple get excited or concerned about government is when it fails to meet theirdemands or expectations. Such indifference and ignorance are harmful to thepublic interest as Texas faces critical changes.

As we begin our analysis of Texas government and politics, we ask why Texansand their public officials make the political choices they do. Why, for example,do expenditures for public education rank so low in comparison to other states?How do we account for Texas’s highly regressive tax system, which requires low-income citizens to pay a higher proportion of their income in state and localtaxes than do the wealthy? Why are Texans so willing to fund the construction ofhighways and roads and yet their state ranks near the bottom nationally inexpenditures for public welfare?4

These policy issues are directly linked to a variety of other questions aboutgovernmental institutions and the political system. Why are Texans content tolive under a state constitution that most scholars regard as obsolete? Why, untilrecently, was Texas a one-party Democratic state? Why are state politics nowdominated by Republicans? Does a small group of powerful individuals make theprimary policy decisions for the state, or are there various competitive centers ofpower? Do Texans feel they are paying more but getting less for their tax dollars?

Most of these issues affect Texans personally. They pay the costs, even thoughthey may not receive the benefits of every policy decision. The actions of gov-ernmental leaders can have an immediate and direct effect on people’s lives, and,from time to time, those holding positions of power have made decisions thathave cost Texans dearly. For example, the Enron debacle and the manipulation ofenergy markets were the result, in large part, of the failure of state and federalgovernments to regulate the energy industry adequately. And cuts in governmen-tal services—or increases in tuition at state-supported universities—often resultfrom the refusal of the Texas legislature to increase taxes. The fundamental

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changes in the social, economic, and political structure of the state have requirednew solutions. Funding public education in the days of the one-room school-house was one thing. Funding today’s educational system in a way that providesequity among the state’s 1,000-plus school districts is much more complex.

The demographics, or population characteristics, of the state have changeddramatically since the 1940s, when Texas was still predominantly rural. With thestate’s population fast approaching 24 million residents, Texas now is secondonly to California in population. Its ethnic and racial composition has changed,and it is now home to a large number of individuals who were born and reared inother parts of the United States or outside the country—people who have a lim-ited sense of Texas history and politics. Although oil and natural gas are stillimportant to the state’s economy, economic diversification is the dominanttheme promoted by business leaders, government officials, and economists.Change places heavy demands on the state’s basic governmental institutions, andTexans will need to give increased attention to modernizing and adapting gov-ernment to new realities.

This chapter will introduce you to the people of Texas, the views they have ofthemselves, the state’s political subcultures and economy, and the increasedinterdependence of Texas and Mexico. We refer to these factors generally as thepolitical environment, a concept developed by political scientist David Easton todescribe the milieu or context in which political institutions function.5 Whilemuch of our discussion focuses on broad patterns or characteristics of the politi-cal environment, individual and collective behavior will determine how our gov-ernments respond to changing conditions.

Texas MythsAlthough most Texans have only a cursory knowledge of the state’s governmen-tal institutions, political history, and contemporary public policy, they do haveviews—often ill-defined—of the state, its people, and its culture. Key elementsof these views, shared by millions of Texans, are described by some scholars aspolitical myths.

In recent years, serious scholarship has focused on myths as ways to assessthe views people have of their common historical and cultural experiences. Amyth can be regarded as a “mode of truth . . . that codifies and preserves moraland spiritual values” for a particular culture or society.6 Myths are stories or nar-ratives that are used to describe past events, explain their significance to succes-sive generations, and provide an interpretive overview and understanding of asociety. Myths provide a world picture or, in our case, a picture of the state ofTexas. The relevance of a myth depends, in part, on the degree to which itapproximates the event it is describing and its pervasiveness in the literature andpopular culture of the state.

Texas has produced its own myth of origin, which continues to be a power-ful statement about the political system and the social order on which it isbased.7 For many Texans, the battle of the Alamo clearly serves to identify thecommon experiences of independence and the creation of a separate, uniquepolitical order. No other state was a republic prior to joining the Union, andseveral scholars argue that independence and “going at it alone” from 1836 to1845 resulted in a cultural experience that distinguishes the Texas political sys-tem from that of other states. The state’s nickname—the Lone Star State—is aconstant reminder of this unique history. A set of heroes came out of the form-ative period of Texas history, including many who fought and died at theAlamo or secured Texas independence on the San Jacinto battlefield. Texas


Pulp FictionThe dime novel helped createthe myth of Texasindividualism by popularizingand exaggerating the imageof the cowboy.

★ republic

Form of government in whichrepresentatives of the people,rather than the peoplethemselves, govern.

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school children are introduced to these heroes at an early age with field trips—“pilgrimages”—to the Alamo in San Antonio and visits to the San Jacinto mon-ument in Houston.

The Texas mythology also includes the Texas Ranger and the cowboy.There is considerable lore of the invincible, enduring ranger defeating over-whelming odds. Newspapers and dime novels in the nineteenth century intro-duced readers throughout the United States to the cowboy, who often wasportrayed as an honest, hardworking individual wrestling with the harsh Texasenvironment. The cowboy’s rugged individualism, with strong connotations ofself-help, symbolizes a political culture in Texas that does not like to look togovernment to solve its problems.8 It is the kind of individualism that continuesto be exploited by political candidates in campaign ads and public rhetoric andby the state legislature in limited appropriations for health care and other pub-lic assistance programs.

The frontier to which the Texas Ranger and the cowboy belong is part of acultural myth of limited government and unlimited personal opportunity. Thefrontier in the Texas experience also perpetuates the myths of “land as wildernessand land as garden.”9 Space, distance, and size are pervasive in a great deal of lit-erature on the state, reinforcing perceptions of the “wide open spaces” that shapeTexans’ views of their autonomy and independence (see What Do You Think?: “DoSize and Geography Shape Texas Politics?”).

The Texas myths, however, have been primarily the myths of the white(Anglo) population and have limited relevance to the cultural and historicalexperiences of many African American, Hispanic, and Asian Texans. From

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Do Size and Geography Shape Texas Politics?Texas is a big state. Covering 267,339 square miles, it issecond only to Alaska in land mass. Texans appear tohave adjusted to long distances but many visitors fromout of state are overwhelmed by Texas’s size and diver-sity. The distance from Texarkana in Northeast Texas toEl Paso in far West Texas is about 800 miles, and a per-son living in Texarkana is closer to Chicago than to ElPaso. Brownsville in far South Texas is closer to Mex-ico City than it is to Texline in the Texas Panhandle.

Some argue that the state’s size has helped shapepolitical attitudes and perceptions of public needsand policy. Roads and highways, for example, histori-cally received a significant—and, some argued, a dis-proportionate—share of the state’s budget. Economicdevelopment in such a large, diverse state required acommitment to highway construction, and roadswere regarded as essential to the development of anintegrated economy.

One scholar argued that the great distances inTexas were politically important because they made it

difficult for a politician to develop a personal follow-ing, such as could be cultivated in many southernstates. Size and distance deterred the development ofa statewide political machine similar to those thatdeveloped in Virginia and Louisiana in the 1920s and1930s. Although there have been regional or localpolitical machines, such as the now-defunct Parrmachine in South Texas, none extended statewide.

Size also contributes to the high cost of politicalcampaigns. Candidates in the 2002 gubernatorial racespent more than $100 million to communicate withand mobilize Texas voters. There are twenty separatemedia markets in the state, and the cost of communi-cating with the voters is likely to increase.

Geography shaped historical migration and landuse in Texas, and, although we are capable of par-tially compensating for climate and geographythrough modern technology, geography continuesto shape the economies and population patterns ofthe state.

What do you Think?

Source: Terry G. Jordan with John L. Bean, Jr., and William M. Holmes, Texas: A Geography. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984, p. 7.

Hero or Villain?The Texas Rangers played animportant (but sometimescontroversial) role in tamingthe Texas frontier.

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the 1840s to the mid-1960s, these latter groups were excluded from full par-ticipation in Texas politics and the state’s economic and social life. To manyHispanics, for example, the Texas Ranger is not a hero but a symbol of ruth-less suppression.

Over the past 30 years, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americanshave made significant political and economic gains. Their share of the popula-tion has been increasing as well, and these three groups combined constitute amajority of the state’s population.

As this shift occurs, Hispanic and African American historical experiences arelikely to be incorporated into the mythology of the state, and some componentsof the contemporary mythology will be challenged and redefined. These revi-sions may already be under way, as demonstrated by intermittent debates overwhat actually took place during the battle of the Alamo. According to recentlypublished accounts, some of the Alamo’s heroes surrendered to Mexican soldiersand were executed, rather than fighting to the death. African Americans inTexas have been successful, after several years of trying, in getting the legisla-ture to make Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a state holiday. And, for Hispan-ics, the Cinco de Mayo holiday speaks to common cultural and historicalexperiences with Mexico.

The Political Culture of TexasTexas shares the common institutional and legal arrangements that have devel-oped in all fifty states, including a commitment to personal liberties, equality,justice, the rule of law, and popular sovereignty with its limitations on govern-ment. But there are differences among the states and even among regions withinindividual states. Texas is a highly diverse state, with racial and ethnic differencesfrom one region to another and divergences in political attitudes and behaviorthat are reflected in the state’s politics and public policies.

The concept of political culture (see Chapter 2) helps us compare some ofthese differences. Political Culture has been defined as “the set of attitudes,


★ individualism

Attitude, rooted in classicalliberal theory and reinforcedby the frontier tradition, thatcitizens are capable of takingcare of themselves withminimal governmentalassistance.

New Elements of thePolitical Culture?Throughout Texas, Cinco deMayo is celebrated byHispanics in commemorationof Mexico’s defeat of Frenchtroops at Puebla, Mexico, in1862.

★ political culture

Widely shared set of views,attitudes, beliefs, and customsof a people as to how theirgovernment should beorganized and run.

To Come

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beliefs, and sentiments which give order and meaning to a political process andwhich provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in thepolitical system.”10 The political culture of the state includes fundamental beliefsabout the proper role of government, the relationship of the government to itscitizens, and who should govern.11 These complex attitudes and behaviors arerooted in the historical experience of the nation, shaped by the groups thatimmigrated to the United States, and carried across the continent to Texas.

One authority on American political culture, Daniel Elazar, concluded thatthree political subcultures have emerged over time in the United States: the indi-vidualistic, the moralistic, and the traditionalistic. All three draw from the com-mon historical legacy of the nation, but they have produced regional politicaldifferences. Sometimes they complement each other; at other times they pro-duce conflict.12

The Individualistic Subculture The political view of the individualistic sub-culture holds that politics and government function as a marketplace. Govern-ment does not have to be concerned with creating a good or moral society butexists for strictly “utilitarian reasons, to handle those functions demanded by thepeople it is created to serve.”13 Government should be limited, and its interven-tion in the private activities of its citizens kept to a minimum. The primary func-tion of government is to ensure the stability of a society so that individuals canpursue their own interests.

In this view, politics is not a high calling or noble pursuit but is like any otherbusiness venture in which skill and talent prevail and the individual can antici-pate economic and social benefits. Politics is often perceived by the general pub-lic to be a dirty business that should be left to those willing to soil their hands.This tradition may well contribute to political corruption, and members of theelectorate who share this view may not be concerned when governmental cor-ruption is revealed. New policies are more likely to be initiated by interestgroups or private individuals than by public officials.

The Moralistic Subculture The moralistic subculture regards politics as oneof the “great activities of man in his search for the good society.”14 Politics, it main-tains, is the pursuit of the common good. Unlike the attitude expressed in theindividualistic subculture that governments are to be limited, the moralistic sub-culture considers government a positive instrument with a responsibility to pro-mote the general welfare. Politics, therefore, is not to be left to the few but is aresponsibility of every individual. Politics is a duty and possibly a high calling.This cultural tradition has a strong sense of service. It requires a high standard forthose holding public office, which is not to be used for personal gain. Politics maybe organized around political parties, but this tradition has produced nonpartisan-ship, in which party labels and organizations are eliminated or play a reduced role.This tradition produces a large number of “amateur” or “nonprofessional” politicalactivists and officeholders and has little toleration for political corruption. Fromthe moralistic perspective, governments should actively intervene to enhance thesocial and economic lives of their citizens. Public policy initiatives can come fromofficeholders as well as from those outside the formal governmental structure.

The Traditionalistic Subculture The traditionalistic subculture holds thepolitical view that there is a hierarchical arrangement to the political order. Thishierarchy serves to limit the power and influence of the general public, whileallocating authority to a few individuals who constitute a self-perpetuating elite.The elite may enact policies that benefit the general public, but that is secondary

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★ individualistic subculture

View that government shouldinterfere as little as possiblein the private activities of itscitizens while assuring thatadequate public facilities anda favorable business climateare available to permitindividuals to pursue theirself-interests.

★ moralistic subculture

View that government’sprimary responsibility is topromote the public welfareand that it should actively useits authority and power toimprove the social andeconomic well-being of itscitizens.

★ traditionalistic subculture

View that political powershould be concentrated in thehands of a few elite citizenswho belong to establishedfamilies or influential socialgroups. Public policybasically serves the interestsof this small group.

★ elite

Small group of people whoexercise disproportionatepower and influence in thepolicy-making processes.

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to its interests and objectives. Public policy reflects the interests of those whoexercise influence and control, and the benefits of public policy go dispropor-tionately to the elite.

Family, social, and economic relationships form the basis for maintaining thiselite structure, rather than mass political participation. In fact, in many regions ofthe country where traditionalistic patterns existed, there were systematic effortsto reduce or eliminate the participation of the general public. Although politicalparties may exist in such a subculture, they have only minimal importance. Thetraditionalistic subculture characterized southern states in which two-party poli-tics was replaced by factionalism within the Democratic Party.15

Historical Origins of Political Subcultures The historical origins of thesethree subcultures can be explained, in part, by the early settlement patterns of theUnited States and by the cultural differences among the groups of people whoinitially settled the eastern seaboard. In very general terms, the New Englandcolonists, influenced by Puritan and congregational religious groups, spawnedthe moralistic subculture. Settlers with entrepreneurial concerns and individualis-tic attitudes tended to locate in the Middle-Atlantic states, whereas the initial set-tlement of the south was dominated by elites who aspired, in part, to re-create asemi-feudal society.

As expansion toward the frontiers progressed, there were identifiable migrationpatterns from the initial three settlement regions. Texas was settled primarily by peo-ple holding the individualistic and traditionalistic views of a political system. Theblending of these two views, along with the historical experience of the republic andthe frontier, contributed to the distinct characteristics of Texas’s political culture.16

These two political subcultures have merged to shape Texans’ general views ofwhat governments should do, who should govern, and what constitutes goodpublic policy. Given the characteristics of these two traditions, one might wellconclude, as have many scholars, that the Texas political culture is conservative.Politics in Texas tends to minimize the role of governments in providing socialand economic benefits for lower income groups, is hostile toward taxes—espe-cially those allocated toward social services—and is often manipulated by thefew for their narrow advantages at the expense of the general population.

Some scholars have reservations about the concept of political subculturesbecause the theory is difficult to test. Their reservations are legitimate, but weknow of no other single theory that presents such a rich historical perspective onthe relationship of settlement patterns in the state and the evolution of politicalattitudes and behavior.

The People of TexasThe politics and government of Texas can be understood, in part, from the per-spective of the people living in the state. What follows is a descriptive analysis ofa select number of demographic characteristics of Texans. In subsequent chapters,we examine the relationship of race, ethnicity, and other demographic character-istics to partisan behavior, public opinion, institutional power, and public policy.

Native Americans There are only three small Native American groups(Alabama-Coushatta, Tigua, and Kickapoo) living on reservations in Texas, andthe Native American population is less than one-half of 1 percent of the state’stotal population.17 Unlike Native American populations in Oklahoma, NewMexico, and Arizona, those in Texas have little influence on governmental insti-tutions, politics, or public policy.


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In the early nineteenth century, there were at least twenty-three differentNative American groups residing in Texas (see What Do You Think?: “What’s in aName?”). During the period of the republic (1836–45), President Sam Houstonattempted to follow a policy of “peace and friendship” with the Native Ameri-cans, but he was followed by President Mirabeau B. Lamar, who set out to“expel, defeat or exterminate” them. As the European populations expanded tolands traditionally claimed by various Native American groups, conflict ensued,and most of the Native American population was eventually eliminated or dis-placed to other states.18

In recent years, Native American tribes have cooperated with officials in manystates in establishing gambling casinos on tribal reservations. Such casinos areallowed under federal law, but some casino gambling comes into conflict withTexas law. The Kickapoos operate a limited casino outside of Eagle Pass, but theTiguas and Alabama-Coushattas have been denied the right to run casinos ontheir reservations. Recent efforts to change the state law have been unsuccessful.Some Native American leaders consider casinos a major source of revenue, jobs,and economic development for their people.

Hispanics In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, neither Spain norMexico was very successful in convincing Hispanics to settle in the Tejas terri-tory of Mexico. The Spanish regarded it as a border province with relatively lit-tle value except as a strategic buffer between Spanish colonies and those held bythe British and the French. By the time Mexico declared its independence fromSpain in 1821, the total Texas population under Spanish control was estimatedto be approximately 5,000. With the rapid expansion of Anglo American immi-gration to Texas in the 1820s and 1830s, Hispanics became a small minority ofthe population.19

Some Hispanics were part of the Texas independence movement from Mexico,and after independence in 1836, men such as José Antonio Navarro and Juan

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Betting on the FutureThe Kickapoo tribe has stakedits economic development ona limited gambling Casinolocated on its reservationoutside Eagle Pass.

“Sworn to Be a Texan”Jose Antonio Navarro(1795–1871) played a centralrole in the colonization andindependence of Texas.Largely self-educated, he wasa lawyer, merchant, andrancher and the only Hispanicor Tejano to serve as adelegate to the 1845 TexasStatehood Convention.

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Seguin were part of the republic’s political establishment. But the Anglo migrationrapidly overwhelmed the Hispanic population and greatly reduced its politicaland economic power. There was even an effort at the Constitutional Conventionof 1845 to strip Hispanics of the right to vote. The attempt failed, but it was anearly indication of Anglo hostility toward the Hispanic population.20

By 1887, the Hispanic population had declined to approximately 4 percent ofthe state’s total. In 1930, it was 12 percent and was concentrated in the bordercounties from Brownsville to El Paso (see Figure 19.1). There were modestincreases in the Hispanic population until it reached 18 percent of the state’spopulation in 1970, after which it grew at a more rapid rate. By 2000, it hadreached 32 percent, spurred by immigration from Mexico and other Latin Ameri-can countries as well as by higher birth rates among Hispanic women. Thesegrowth patterns continued in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and by2006, Hispanics were estimated to make up approximately 35.7 percent of thestate’s population.21 In addition to their traditional concentrations in the RioGrande Valley and South-Central Texas, large Hispanic populations are found inmost metropolitan areas. Except for the Asian population, which is still consider-ably smaller, the Hispanic population is growing at a significantly higher ratethan other populations in Texas.

Hispanics will continue to increase at a higher rate than most other popula-tions, and by 2030, the Hispanic population is likely to exceed 50 percent of thestate’s total.22 This growth already has produced significant political power andinfluence. Six Hispanics have been elected to statewide office. And, after suc-cessful redistricting and legal challenges to city, county, school board, and statelegislative districts, Hispanics in 2006 held some 2,169 elected positions inTexas, the highest number of any state.23

The regions of the state where Hispanics were concentrated (South Texas andalong the Mexican border) before their more widespread migration to cities wereareas heavily influenced by the traditionalistic subculture. Extreme poverty, lowlevels of education, and local economies based on agriculture contributed to thedevelopment of political systems dominated by a few Anglos, who often consid-ered Hispanics second-class citizens. Hispanics’ increasing political clout, how-ever, has produced major political and governmental changes in those regions.


What’s in a Name?The Native American legacy of Texas remains in thestate’s name. The word “Texas” came from Tejas,which means “friends” or “allies.” As Spanishexplorers and missionaries moved across Texas, theyconfronted a Native American confederacy, the Hasi-nai. It was to this particular group that they appliedthe term, and eventually the Anglo form of the namebecame the permanent name of the region and thenthe state.

In 1989, the Texas Department of Transportationproposed changing the state’s vehicle license platesto include the phrase “The Friendship State.” Theproposal was dropped, however, because of a gener-ally hostile public reaction. Some Texans apparentlyfound the phrase incompatible with the state’s ruggedfrontier image. The irony is that the state’s very name,which means friendship, is used almost every day bythese same people.

What do you Think?

Source: Rupert N. Richardson, Ernest Wallace, and Adrian N. Anderson, Texas: The Lone Star State, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1993, p. 1.

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African Americans Relatively few African Americans lived in Texas during thecolonization period, but the modern story of African American settlement didnot begin until after independence in 1836. When Texas was part of Mexico,Mexican law restricted slavery within the territory. During the period of therepublic and early statehood prior to the U.S. Civil War, there was a significantincrease in the African American population as Americans settling in Texasbrought cotton cultivation and the slavery system with them. At the time of theCivil War, 30 percent of the state’s residents were African American, but that per-centage declined after the war. By 1960, it had leveled off to 12 percent, aboutthe same level counted in the 2000 Census (see Figure 19.1). African Americansare expected to comprise between 11 percent and 12 percent of the state’s popu-lation through the 2020 Census.

There is a large concentration of African Americans in East Texas, wherewhite Southerners and their slaves originally settled. African Americans are


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0 10 20 30 40 50

Percent

Percent Anglo* Percent African American Percent Hispanic Percent Other

60 70 80 90 100

*White, not of Hispanic origin

Year

3211.653.1

25.511.960.3

211265.6 1.4

18.412.569.1

1512.472.6

1312.774.3

1214.773.3

6.530.363.2

2.3

3.3

35.711.448.1 4.82006

Figure 19.1 Ethnic and Racial Composition of Texas, 1860–2006

*White, not of Hispanic origin (2000 Census)Note: Data for Asian and other populations not tabulated by the Bureau of the Census prior to 1980.Spanish total for 1970 based on “Persons of Spanish language or surname.”Sources: Terry G. Jordan with John L. Bean, Jr., and William M. Holmes, Texas: A Geography. Boulder:Westview Press, 1984, pp. 81–83; U.S. Census Bureau, U.S Censuses, 1860–2000; U.S Census Bureau,2006 American Community Survey.

To Come

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also concentrated in the urban areas of Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Hous-ton. Relatively few African Americans live in the western counties or in thecounties along the border with Mexico. The increased number of AfricanAmerican state legislators, city council members, county commissioners, andschool board trustees representing urban communities is an indication of thepolitical power of the African American population in selected areas. In 2001,the most recent year for which data were available, there were 460 AfricanAmerican elected officials in Texas. Four African Americans have been electedto statewide office.24

The slaveholding whites who migrated to Texas from the lower Southernstates brought with them the dominant values of the traditionalistic political sub-culture. Although slaves were freed after the Civil War, continued political andeconomic discrimination against African Americans was commonplace in theeastern part of Texas into the 1960s. As in South Texas, the politics of East Texasserved the interests of the white elites, by reducing or eliminating African Ameri-can participation in the political process through election laws and outrightphysical intimidation.

Anglos In the vernacular of Texas politics, the white population is referred toas “Anglos,” although there is no census designation by that name. The termincludes Jews, Irish, Poles, and just about any other individual who is designatedby the U.S. Census Bureau as “non-Hispanic white.”

Scholars have identified two distinct early patterns of Anglo migration intoTexas from other states. These patterns, as well as population movementsthrough much of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, largelyexplain the regional locations of the state’s two dominant political subcultures.

In the early nineteenth century, the first Anglos moving to Texas were fromthe upper South—Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and North Carolina—aregion significantly influenced by the individualistic subculture of limited gov-ernment. The earliest settlements were primarily in what is now Northeast Texasin the Red River Valley. After Mexican independence from Spain, there was asecond wave of immigration from the upper South. Few of the early colonistswere slaveholders from the lower South.

After Texas became independent, slavery was legalized, and settlers from thelower South began arriving. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Anglos who hadmoved to Texas from the lower South were roughly equal in number to thosefrom the upper South. Arrivals from the slaveholding lower South initially set-tled in southeastern Texas near Louisiana, but soon they began to move north-ward and westward.

A line between Texarkana and San Antonio in effect divides Texas subcul-tures. Most of those Anglos who settled north and west of this line were fromthe upper South and heavily influenced by the individualistic subculture,which favors limited government. Anglos who settled south and east of theline were by and large from the lower South and shaped by its traditionalisticsubculture.

This pattern of immigration and settlement continued after the Civil War. Itwas primarily those populations from the upper South who pushed westward tothe Panhandle and West Texas. This expansion introduced into the western partof the state the cultural experience of those who resisted the notion that govern-ment existed to solve society’s ills. To this day, West Texas is still one of the mostpolitically conservative areas of the state.25

In 1860, Anglos constituted approximately 63 percent of Texas’ population (seeFigure 19.1). The Anglo population increased until it reached 74 percent in 1950.


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But by 1990 the stabilization of the African American population and the increasein the Hispanic population had reduced the Anglo proportion to 60 percent.Anglos accounted for only 53.1 percent of Texas’s population in 2000 and slightlyless than 50 percent in 2006. Although the number of Anglos will continue toincrease with Texas’s continued population growth, their share of the total popu-lation will continue to decrease.

The Anglo population is diverse, as exhibits in the Institute of Texan Culturesin San Antonio remind us. Towns throughout Texas are identified with immi-grants of national origin other than Anglo-Saxon, and these national groupsbrought with them a rich heritage. Castroville, for example, is identified with theAlsatians; New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, the Germans; Panna Maria, thePoles; West and Hallettsville, the Czechs.

The Asian American Population In 1980, Asian Americans accounted for 0.8percent of Texas’s population. By 2006, this group had grown to 3.2 percent ofthe population and was projected to increase to 4.2 percent by 2020. This rapidincrease parallels national trends. Changes in immigration policy and the disloca-tion of Asians because of war and political persecution have resulted in largernumbers of Asian immigrants entering the United States and Texas since the1970s. Moreover, the Asian population is increasingly diverse and includes indi-viduals from Vietnam, China, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, South Korea, and a num-ber of other countries.

The largest concentration of Asian Americans in Texas is in Houston, whereseveral Asian Americans have been elected to major public offices. Among them,community activist Martha Wong was elected to the Houston City Council in1993 and then to the Texas House of Representatives in 2002. Wong apparentlywas the second Asian American to serve in the Texas House. Tom Lee of SanAntonio, who served in the 1960s, was believed to be the first. Another Hous-tonian, Hubert Vo, a Vietnamese American, was elected to the Texas House in2004. Asian Americans hold or have held public offices in several other Texascities as well.


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Politics, Race, and EthnicityToday, few Texans go running around the state wearing Ku Klux Klan robes,burning crosses or marching in support of white supremacy. But there still areoccasions of extreme racial violence and cruelty, such as the murder of JamesByrd, Jr., an African American who was dragged to death by three white men in apickup truck in early 1999 near Jasper in East Texas. Despite such incidents, thestate has made progress in creating a more equitable society. A state law barringAfrican Americans from voting in party primaries was declared unconstitutionalin the 1940s, and many other laws intended to reduce the political participationof African Americans and Hispanics have been eliminated. The federal VotingRights Act, which was enacted in 1965 and extended to Texas in 1975, has alsohelped open up state and local electoral systems to minorities. There is still evi-dence of employment and housing discrimination, and opposition to the deseg-regation of a public housing project in Vidor received national publicity in 1993.But restrictive codes prohibiting specific groups of people from buying residen-tial property have been declared unconstitutional, and federal and state lawshave given minorities greater access to jobs.

Nonetheless, race and ethnicity are implicit in many contemporary political andpolicy issues. Throughout the long struggle to restructure the school finance sys-tem, the protagonists are identified as the “rich” and “poor” school districts of thestate. But, in large part, these are alternative terms for “non-minority” and “minority”school systems. There have been bitter debates about redrawing political districts toincrease Hispanic and African American representation on city councils, schoolboards, and special districts, and in the state legislature and the U.S. Congress. Andalthough many poor Anglos live in Texas, the disproportionately high poverty ratesamong minority groups often influence discussions about social services.

The budget crisis of 2003 produced a particularly contentious legislative ses-sion, when funding was reduced for many of the state’s health and social servicesprograms. Many state and local elections show evidence of polarized votingalong ethnic lines. Race and ethnicity also emerge in racial profiling by police,employment patterns, and contracts with state and local governments. Admis-sions policies of Texas colleges and universities resulted in a succession of legalchallenges centering on affirmative action and reverse discrimination.

More than 50 years ago, V. O. Key, a Texan scholar of American politics, con-cluded that Texas politics was moving from issues of race to issues of class andeconomics. He argued that voters in Texas “divide along class lines in accord withtheir class interests as related to liberal and conservative candidates.”26 In part, hewas correct, in that unabashed racial bigotry and public demagoguery are nolonger acceptable. In part, though, he was incorrect and much too optimistic. Ifthe state divides on economic issues, this division puts the majority of Anglos onone side and the majority of Hispanics and African Americans on the other.27

The Political Implications of DemographicsPopulation Increase Over the past 50 years, the population of Texas hasincreased much faster than the national average. According to the 2000 census,the state’s population was 20,851,820, an increase of approximately four millionpeople in 10 years. This growth rate of 22.8 percent was significantly higher thanthe national growth rate of 13.2 percent.28 In the first 6 years of this century, thepopulation increased by some 2.7 million people or 12.7 percent, a rate alsohigher than the national average. With a population approaching 24 million,Texas is now the second most populous state.29


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High birth rates explain part of the population increase, but migration fromother states has also been a significant factor. In recent decades, demographers(those who study populations) have described a nationwide shift in populationfrom the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West. For each of the censusesfrom 1940 to 1970, in-migration accounted for less than 10 percent of Texas’sgrowth. But in-migration jumped to 58.5 percent of the total growth between1970 and 1980. Between 1980 and 1990, it contributed 34.4 percent.30 In-migra-tion slowed down somewhat between 1990 and 2000, but at the beginning ofthis decade, approximately 23 percent of Texas residents reported other states astheir place of birth, and this increased to 26 percent in 2006.31

Although it is expected to become less significant in the future, in-migrationfrom other states has already contributed to the transformation of Texas’s tradi-tional one-party, Democratic political system into a Republican-dominated sys-tem. Many new residents came from states with strong Republican Partytraditions and brought their party affiliation with them. In the long run, in-migration may affect additional elements of the state’s political culture.

Texas also attracts individuals from other countries. Approximately 2.9 mil-lion, or 14 percent of Texas residents, were identified as foreign-born in the 2000census, and this number increased to 16 percent in 2006. Between 1990 and2000, approximately 1.4 million, or 6.4 percent, of the state’s population arrivedfrom other countries. More than 75 percent of Texans born in other countriescome from Latin America. Approximately 11 percent of all Texas residents arenot U.S. citizens, a fact that has several implications.32

Citizenship is directly related to political participation, and noncitizens, whilecounted in the census for reapportionment of congressional seats, cannot vote.The overwhelming majority of noncitizens in Texas are Hispanic, thus reducingthe number of eligible Hispanic voters in relation to their population.

Under current federal policy, noncitizens have been denied access to somepublic social services that are funded in whole or in part by the national govern-ment. Needy immigrants are especially affected by such policies, and in someinstances, the state has found it necessary to use its own funds to provide services.

THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF DEMOGRAPHICS 673

Are There Any MoreSeats?While some school districtsare experiencing declines inenrollment, many largerurban districts are seeing arapid rise in schoolenrollment, making it difficultfor these districts to providepermanent classrooms.Opened in 1998, Sandra DayO’Conner High School,located in the northern partof Bexar County, hadinadequate space the day itopened and now housesstudents in some 30temporary or portablebuildings.

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Some 7.3 million Texans older than five speak languages other than English athome, and 43 percent of them report that they don’t speak English well.33 Somestates have adopted English as their official language, but there has not been asignificant English language movement in Texas. Nonetheless, language is a pol-icy issue for Texas in terms of bilingual education, official documents and publi-cations, translators for court proceedings, and a host of related language issues inthe workplace.

The increase in population places demands on all levels of government, andmany local governments throughout Texas are hard-pressed to provide adequateservices. Many Texas cities, for example, are running out of landfill space. Envi-ronmental laws make it difficult to obtain new licenses for garbage and waste dis-posal, and without these additional facilities, new population growth cannot beserviced. The increased population has also raised questions about the adequacyof water supplies throughout the state with different cities, regions, and indus-tries competing intensely for the resources now available. Even though the statehas been engaged in a massive road construction program, streets and highwaysin urban and suburban areas are clogged with traffic (see Controversy: “Toll Roadsand the Trans Texas Corridor”). A driving survey, released in the fall of 2003,indicated significant increases in daily commute time in metropolitan areas. Thismeans additional gasoline consumption, pollution, and costs of time.34 Otherpossible transportation solutions include managing road systems more effi-ciently, restructuring demand, and increasing use of public transportation.35

The Aging Population Texans, along with other Americans, are aging. In2006, the median age of the state’s population was 33.1 years, compared to 36.4for the entire country. Approximately 10 percent of the state’s population wasolder than 65 in 2006, and that group was expected to increase to 17 percent by2030.36 This aging population will place unprecedented demands on the publicand private sectors for goods and services, including expanded health care andlong-term care. In recent years, increasing state expenditures under the Medicaidprogram for long-term nursing care have strained the state’s budget and forcedthe state to shift priorities in public programs.

Urbanization Although Texas was a rural state during the first one hundred yearsof its history, 83 percent of the state’s population in 2000 resided in areas classifiedby the Bureau of the Census as urban (Table 19.1). Urbanization and suburbansprawl now characterize Texas’s settlement patterns, and many urban corridors andsuburban areas cross county boundaries (see Politics Up Close: “The Texas Urban Tri-angle”). Residents of these areas often encounter problems that cut across politicaljurisdictions, and local governments sometimes find it difficult to resolve them.

The dramatic growth of Texas’s largest cities is shown in Table 19.2. From 1960to 2006, the populations of Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso more than doubled.Dallas increased by approximately 82 percent. Arlington had a population of only44,775 in 1960, but in 2006 its population was 372,566, an increase of more than730 percent. During this period, Austin’s population increased by 284 percent.

Three of the ten largest cities in the United States are in Texas, and, like urbanareas throughout the country, Texas’s largest cities increasingly are home tominority and low-income populations. This trend results from higher birth ratesamong minority populations, urban migration patterns, and what is oftenreferred to as “white flight” from the cities to suburban areas. Minority groupsnow account for the majority of the population in five of Texas’s ten largest cities(Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, and Corpus Christi). These minorityresidents include Hispanics, African Americans, and Asian Americans—groups


★ urbanization

Process by which apredominantly rural societyor area becomes urban.

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Toll Roads and the Trans Texas Corridor

Controversy

Study after study, cou-pled with the experi-ences of millions ofTexas drivers, point toincreased congestion onTexas roads and high-ways. The interstate high-way system has servedthe state well, butTexas’s increased popu-lation, projected to reach50 million in the next 50years, will make manyexisting highways impos-sible to negotiate.

Governor Rick Perryproposed the idea of ded-icated transportation cor-ridors during his 2002reelection campaign. In2003, the legislatureenacted the general out-line of the proposal,which was expected totake 50 years and, accord-ing to some estimates,$184 billion to complete. The Texas Department of Trans-portation (TxDot) presented its plan in 2004 and signed acontract with a consortium led by a Spanish company tobuild the first stage of a corridor project that will run paral-lel to Interstate Highway 35. The corridors will be up toone-quarter of a mile wide in some places, include “sixhigh-speed toll lanes for cars and trucks, six rail lines, andeasements for petroleum, natural gas, and waterpipelines as well as electric, broadband, and othertelecommunications lines.”

These facilities are to be constructed and maintainedby private companies. Rather than raising the state taxon gasoline (one of the lowest in the nation) to financethe new roads, the state will allow private corporationsto collect tolls and generate revenue from their controlover concessions along the routes. The corridors will beconstructed in phases, based on current needs.

TxDot argues that these new roads will permitmotorists to drive faster, circumvent congestion, andsave time. The agency says the roads will be builtmore quickly with borrowed money—to be repaid intolls by the people who use the roads—than theywould by relying on tax revenues. If you don’t want touse the roads, you won’t have to, TxDot says.

But many Texans, including some of Perry’s fellowRepublicans, oppose the plan. They say there was too

much ambiguity and secretiveness about the propos-als and the initial contract. They question why a for-eign company was included in the consortium thatgot the first contract. Critics also have accusedTxDot’s leadership of being arrogant and indifferentto community needs.

Environmentalists are concerned about the pro-ject’s potential impact, and farmers fear their landwill be taken for highway right of way. Some com-munities also fear that the new roads will bypassthem and hurt their local economies. Some studieshave suggested there is a relationship betweenincome and toll road usage, raising concernsabout the discriminatory effects of a massive roadsystem on lower income groups. One state auditwarned that costs could be much higher than offi-cial estimates.

Questions also have been raised about TxDot’s useof public funds to pitch its proposals to the public.Two groups—the Texas Toll Party and CorridorWatch—formed to oppose the proposal, and otherestablished groups, such as the Texas Farm Bureau,also announced their opposition.

The public hostility forced TxDot to modify its tac-tics, but it is clear that decisions for future transporta-tion will have winners and losers.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, or Just Tolling AlongToll roads, such as Texas Toll Road 45 in Round Rock, are seen by many political leadersas the solution to the ever-increasing congestion on state highways.

Sources: Texas Department of Transportation, Benefits of a Toll Road; Sylvia Moreno, “Texans are Divided over Plan for Miles of Wide TollRoads,” Washington Post, February 8, 2005, A03.

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Table 19.1 Urban-Rural Population of Texas, 1850–2000

Year Urban Rural Total

Percentage Population Percentage Population

1850 4% 7,665 96% 204,927 212,592.001860 4 26,615 96 577,600 604,215.001870 7 54,521 93 764,058 818,579.001880 9 146,795 91 1,444,954 1,591,749.001890 16 359,511 84 1,886,016 2,245,527.001900 17 520,759 83 2,527,951 3,048,710.001910 24 938,104 76 2,958,438 3,896,542.001920 32 1,512,689 68 3,150,539 4,663,228.001930 41 2,389,148 59 3,435,367 5,824,715.001940 45 2,911,389 55 3,503,435 6,414,824.001950 63 4,838,050 37 2,873,134 7,711,194.001960 75 7,187,470 25 2,392,207 9,579,677.001970 80 8,922,211 20 2,274,519 11,196,730.001980 80 11,333,017 20 2,836,174 14,229,191.001990 80 13,634,517 20 3,351,993 16,986,510.002000 83 17,204,073 17 3,647,747 20,851,820.00

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Censuses 1850–2000.

Table 19.2 Ten Largest Texas Cities, 1920–2006

City 1920 1940 1960 1980 1990 2000 2006

Houston 138,276 384,514 838,219 1,595,138 1,630,553 1,953,631 2,112,671San Antonio 161,379 253,854 587,718 785,880 935,933 1,144,646 1,296,265Dallas 158,976 294,734 679,684 904,078 1,006,877 1,188,580 1,233,970Austin 34,876 87,960 186,545 345,496 465,622 656,562 716,344Fort Worth 106,482 177,662 356,268 385,164 447,619 534,694 650,344E1 Paso 77,560 96,810 276,687 425,259 515,342 563,662 608,395Arlington 3,031 4,240 44,775 160,113 261,721 332,969 372,566Corpus Christi 10,522 57,301 167,690 231,999 257,453 277,454 283,700Plano 1,715 1,582 3,695 72,331 128,713 222,030 262,722Garland 1,421 2,233 38,501 132,857 180,650 215,768 219,141

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Censuses, 1920–2000; Texas State Data Center, Population Estimates and Projections, 2007.

★ population density

Number of residents livingwithin the boundaries of a city,county, or state in relationshipto the land area. Populationdensity is a significant factor indetermining the level of localpublic services.

that do not always constitute a cohesive bloc of interests. As minority growthcontinues, areas of potential conflict will emerge among these groups.

Population Density Population density refers to the number of people persquare mile in a specific political jurisdiction, and it provides another measure ofurbanization. As people crowd into smaller areas living in close proximity to eachother, problems are inevitable. Noise, land use, property maintenance, traffic pat-terns, and numerous other issues must be addressed There are marked differencesin the population and density of Texas’s 254 counties. Loving County in WestTexas has a population of about 60 persons living in an area of 677 square miles.The most populous county is Harris County (Houston), with more than 3.8 mil-lion people living in 1,777 square miles.37 Clearly, the problems and issues thatLoving County faces are significantly different from those encountered in HarrisCounty, yet both counties function with the same form of government created bythe Texas Constitution of 1876.

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Texas politics has often divided along urban-rural lines, creating conflict, atrend compounded by suburban areas of the state taking on more importance.Redistricting battles and a host of other public policy issues are evidence of that.Until recently, the Texas legislature was dominated by rural lawmakers, many ofwhom were often insensitive to urban needs. To make matters more difficult,suburban legislators with a different constituency base and interests often pursuepolicies in conflict with both the central city and rural legislators. Moreover,many of urban Texas’s problems are aggravated by constitutional restrictionswritten when Texas was still a rural state.

Wealth and Income Distribution There is a wide disparity in the distributionof income and wealth across the state. In 2006, the median household income inTexas was $44,922, and the median family income was $52,355, both belownational income levels (see Table 19.3). Approximately 28 percent of Texashouseholds reported incomes of less than $25,000 per year. By contrast, 16.5 per-cent of Texas households reported incomes in excess of $100,000. Income dispar-ities are evident among the different regions of the state. The median householdincome for Collin County, north of Dallas, was $71,419 in 2005. The medianhousehold income for Starr County on the border with Mexico was $17,843. Ofthe ten counties reporting household incomes of less than $25,000 in 2005, ninewere in South and Southwest Texas. Eight of the border counties fell below the$25,000 figure.38

Although many Texans are suffering economically, others make large sal-aries and have significant assets, including those on Forbes’s annual list of the 400


Politics Up Close The Texas Urban Triangle

About 80 percent of the state’s population lives withinor near a triangular area (often referred to as the cen-tral Texas triangle or the Texas Urban triangle) formedby linking the metropolitan areas of Dallas–FortWorth, Houston, and San Antonio. Population fromthe core cities is expected to continue expanding intoneighboring counties. This area dominates the state’seconomy and is projected to play a greater role in thefuture. The area has major research and educationalinstitutions, investment capital, an ample supply oflow-cost labor, available energy, a pro-business taxstructure, affordable housing, medical facilities, cul-tural venues, and other amenities. Each of the metro-politan areas has its own distinct characteristics, butthere will be increased integration and interdepend-ence in their economies.

Continued growth, however, also will be affectedby the availability of water and other utilities at

reasonable costs as well as state and local govern-mental policies, including regulatory restrictions andtransportation improvements. Many people opposeunregulated or unplanned growth, and they can beinfluential in electing public officials and setting gov-ernmental policies. Texas’s ability to provide the pub-lic infrastructure also will be affected by its taxstructure. Public outrage continues to grow over localproperty taxes, the major revenue source for mostlocal governments. Texas doesn’t have a personalincome tax. So state government relies on a regres-sive tax system heavily dependent on sales taxes.This tax structure leaves little room for new pro-grams, which is one reason Governor Rick Perry hasbeen advocating more toll roads as a solution to thestate’s growing transportation problems. Changes infederal immigration laws also could affect Texas’spopulation growth.

Sources: Federal Reserve Bank of Texas, “Houston Business—A Perspective on the Houston Economy,” April 2004; James P. Gaines,“Looming Boom: Texas Through 2030,” Texas A&M University, Real Estate Center.

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richest Americans. Thirty-seven Texans made the list in 2007, with a reportednet worth ranging from $1.3 billion to $17.2 billion.39 The vast majority of Tex-ans, however, have incomes or assets that are nowhere near those of the superwealthy (see Compared to What?: “Texas and Other States”).

On all measures of income, Hispanics and African Americans fall significantlybelow the Anglo population. According to the 2006 American Community Survey,36.5 percent of Hispanic households and 40 percent of African American house-holds in Texas reported incomes less than $25,000, but only 21 percent of Anglohouseholds and a similar portion of the Asian American population reportedincomes below that level. By contrast, 36 percent of Anglo households but only14.5 percent of Hispanic and 16.6 percent of African American householdsreported incomes of more than $75,000.40

Many Texans live in severe poverty. Some of the nation’s poorest counties arein Texas. These are border counties (Dimmit, Hidalgo, Maverick, Starr, Willacy,


Table 19.3 U.S and Texas Income Figures, 2006 Estimates

U.S. TEXAS

All Persons All Persons Anglos Hispanics

African Asian

American American

Median Income

Household $48,451 $44,922 $55,506 $33,354 $32,159 $60,159Families 58,526 52,355 69,863 34,758 37,941 66,500

Per Capita Income 25,267 22,501 31,063 12,815 16,333 25,423Percent of Persons

Below Poverty Level 13.3% 16.9% 8.9% 25.7% 25.4% 11.8%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey.

To Come

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Zapata, and Zavala) with large Hispanic populations and unemployment ratesthat are twice the state average. The per capita income (total state incomedivided by the population) for Texas was $22,501 in 2006. For the Anglo popula-tion, it was significantly higher, $31,063, but for African Americans, the figurewas $16,333, and for Hispanics, $12,815.

In 2006, the poverty-level guidelines used in Texas to establish eligibility formany federal and state programs were $20,614 for a family of four and $10,294 forone person. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 16.9 percent of the state’spopulation, or some 3.8 million people, fell below the poverty level. Nationally,13.2 percent or 38.8 million persons fell below the poverty level in 2006.41 Theimpact of poverty disproportionately affected children, particularly those living inone-parent households, and those who were Hispanic and African American. In the


Texas and Other StatesIf you compare Texas to other states, it ranks:#1. in exports to Mexico ($56 billion in 2007) in the

percentage of people five and older who speakSpanish at home (29.1 percent in 2006) in per-centage of the population without health insur-ance (24.5 percent in 2006)

#2. in total resident population (23.5 million in 2006)in total Hispanic population (8,385,139 in 2006) inmembers of the U.S. House of Representatives(32 in 2008)

#3. in the size of its economy ($1.3 trillion in 2006 incurrent dollars) in the number of immigrants(3.74 million in 2006) in the percentage of theforeign-born population born in Mexico (62.5percent in 2006) in the percentage of people 5and over who speak a language other thanEnglish at home (33.8 percent in 2006)

#4. in total number of African American residents(2,687,401 in 2006) in average household size(2.83 in 2006)

#5. in the percentage of total population classifiedas minorities (52 percent in 2007)

#6. in registered boats per 1,000 population in 2002 (29)#7. in the percentage of children below the poverty

level in 2006 (23.9 percent) in the percentage ofpeople who are foreign born (15.9 percent in 2006)

#8. in the percentage of the population below thepoverty level (16.9 percent in 2006) in the num-ber of superfund sites (45 in 2008)

#9. in the percentage of people 65+ below thepoverty level (12.3 percent in 2006) births

financed by Medicaid as a percent of total births(49.2 percent in 2002)

#10.in the unemployment rate in 2004 (6 percent ofthe work force)

BUT . . .#41.in physicians per 100,000 people in 2003 (220)#42.in elementary and secondary per pupil spending

in 2005–2006 ($7,561 per pupil) in the percentageof occupied housing units that are owner occu-pied (65.2 percent in 2006)

#43.in federal sources for public elementary and sec-ondary school systems in 2005–2006 ($4.7 bil-lion)

#44.in health care expenditures per capita ($4,601 in2004)

#45.in percentage of children aged 19–35 monthswho are immunized (76 percent in 2006)

#46.in average math SAT scores in school year 2005(502) in Medicaid payments per enrollee ($3,598in 2007)

#47.in the percentage of the population over 65 (9.9percent in 2006) in mental health expendituresper capita ($36.70 in 2004)

#48.in employer-provided health insurance in 2006#49.in average verbal SAT scores in the school

year 2005 (493) in the percentage of people25+ who have completed high school (78.6 percent in 2006)

#50.in the median age of the population (33.1 yearsin 2006) in government per capita expenditures($3,441 in 2004)

Sources: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Texas-Where We Stand, February 2006; U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract, 2006; U.S.Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey; U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States 2006; U.S.Census Bureau, Federal Aid to States for Fiscal Year 2006; The Kaiser Family Foundation, State Health Facts.org; Green Media Toolshed, Scorecard;Kendra A. Hovey and Harold A. Hovey, CQ’s State Fact Finder 2004. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004; Indiana Business Research Center,Indiana University Kelley School of Business, Stats Indiana.

Compared To What?

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seven counties mentioned above, 25 percent or more of the population fell belowthe poverty level in 2005 with 39 percent or more of all children living in familiesbelow the poverty line.42 In Hidalgo County, approximately 52 percent of the chil-dren fell below the poverty line, and in Starr County, 55.5 percent. Many of thesefamilies don’t have adequate housing or health care and depend on food stamps orcharities for food. Some 25 percent of Texans don’t have health insurance, includingsome individuals who can afford it but choose not to purchase coverage.

Although the state’s economic growth over the past several decades hasreduced poverty somewhat, scholars who study demographic trends fear thatpoverty is likely to worsen in Texas if several policy issues are not addressed.Without significant changes in educational levels and expanded economicopportunities, it is possible that approximately 20 percent of the state’s house-holds will fall below the poverty line by 2030, and income disparity will be espe-cially problematic for minorities.43

Financial resources can be translated into political power and influence throughcampaign contributions, funding one’s own campaign for public office, access tothe mass media, and active support for policy think tanks, interest groups, andlobbying activities. Wealth is not the only dimension of political power, but someTexans obviously have the potential for much greater clout than others.

Education and Literacy Public education has been a dominant issue in statepolitics for many years now. Litigation has forced the legislature to struggle withchanges in the funding of public schools, and education will be a primary factor indetermining whether Texas can successfully compete in a new global economy.

Over the next decade, many of the new jobs created in Texas will be in serviceindustries. Most of these jobs will require increased reading, writing, and mathskills, and high school dropouts will find fewer and fewer opportunities fordecent-paying jobs. Across the nation, millions of low-skilled jobs have beenoutsourced to other countries, and most of the higher paying jobs now require acollege education. Texas faces a crisis in public education, and the state’s abilityto resolve it will directly affect the financial well-being of many Texans (seePolitics Up Close: “How Is Immigration Impacting Public Education in Texas?”).

According to the 2006 American Community Survey, 78.6 percent of Texansages 25 and older had completed high school, and 24.7 percent had completedcollege (Table 19.4). Educational attainment improved between 2000 and 2006,and positive changes were reported for all racial or ethnic groups in the state.44


Table 19.4 United States and Texas: Educational Attainment by Race and Ethnicity forPopulation 25 and Older, 2006

United States Texas

High School Degree College Degree High School Degree College Degree

Anglo* 88.9% 29.9% 90.2% 32.5%Hispanic 60.2 12.3 56.0 10.3African American 79.3 16.9 82.1 17.8Asian 85.6 49.2 85.4 51.9All Persons 84.1 27.0 78.6 24.7

*White, not of Hispanic originSource: U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey.

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Politics Up Close How Is Immigration Impacting Public Education in Texas?

States have long complained that the failure of thenational government to develop an effective immigra-tion policy is having a significant impact on their abil-ity to improve their educational systems and providethe resources necessary to train young people for thetwenty-first century job market. President George W1Bush called for immigration reforms in his 2004 Stateof the Union Address, renewing debate within Con-gress and the public. The Texas legislature, mean-while, was faced with a court-mandated requirementto restructure the state’s funding of the publicschools. Proposals for significant increases in educa-tion funding during a special session in 2006 wereshoved aside as Governor Rick Perry and the Republi-can legislative majority instead focused more atten-tion on reducing local school property taxes.

Immigration, both legal and illegal, is having a pro-found impact on public education in Texas, and it willrequire much more than the funding changesapproved in 2006.

An estimated 3.7 million of the nation’s 37.5 mil-lion immigrants lived in Texas in 2006. About half ofthese immigrants were believed to be in Texas ille-gally, but public school districts were still obligated toadmit those of school age.

On a significant number of educational rankings,Texas has fallen in the bottom half of the states,partly because of the economic disadvantages ofmany students, including immigrants, and their lim-ited knowledge of English. Texas was next to last in

2006 in the percentage of Texans 25 and older whohad graduated from high school. The state rankedforty-sixth in average math SAT scores in 2005 andforty-ninth in verbal SAT scores. It ranked thirty-fifthin the percentage of eighth graders scoring at orabove proficient in reading in 2005. And the storygoes on and on.

Many students across Texas are getting anexcellent education, but if public officials do notaddress the impact of immigration on educationalachievement, there will be serious problems in thenear future. Approximately 47 percent of immi-grants 25 and above did not have a high schooleducation. Some seven million Texans report thatlanguages other than English are spoken in theirhomes, and some 60 percent indicate they do notspeak English well.

It is commonly understood that educationalattainment is linked to earning potential. More-over, changes in the nation’s economy requireincreased levels of education. Low educational lev-els relegate people to low-paying jobs. Personswith limited income are more likely to use publicassistance programs, have more limited access tohealth care and affordable housing, and fall belowthe poverty level.

The Texas legislature in 2006 failed to addressmany of the problems facing the state’s publicschools. If this neglect continues, it will bode ill forTexas in the future.

Sources: Steven Camarota, Backgrounder: Immigrants at Mid-Decade, December 2005, Center for Immigration Studies; Jeffrey S. Passel, Estimatesof the Size and Characteristics of the Undocumented Worker, March 21, 2005, Pew Hispanic Center; Gordon H. Hanson, Why Does Immigration DivideAmerica? Public Finance and Political Opposition to Open Borders, December 2005, The Center for Comparative Immigration Studies; U.S. CensusBureau, 2006 American Community Survey.

Although there have been incremental gains since 2000, there are still wide dis-parities in the educational levels of the three major ethnic-racial groups. In 2006,90 percent of the Anglo population reported that they had completed highschool, and 32.5 percent had college degrees. By contrast, 56 percent of the His-panic population had high school degrees and only 10.3 percent reported havingcollege degrees. Some 82 percent of African Americans graduated from highschool, with approximately 18 percent indicating they had college degrees. Par-ticularly compelling is the Asian population, which reported that 52 percent ofthose 25 and older had college degrees.

Education not only helps determine a person’s employment and income poten-tial but also affects his or her participation in politics. Individuals with high educa-tional levels are much more likely to believe they can influence the actions ofpolicymakers, be informed about politics, and participate in the political process.

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The Economy of TexasPolitics, government, and economics are inextricably linked. An economy that isrobust and expanding provides far more options to government policymakersthan an economy in recession. A healthy tax base is dependent on an expandingeconomy, and when the economy goes through periods of recession, state andlocal governments are confronted with the harsh realities of having to increasetaxes or cut back on public services, usually at a time when more people are inneed of governmental assistance.

Historically, the health of the Texas economy had been linked to oil and natu-ral gas, but by the last decade of the twentieth century, the state’s economy hadundergone significant diversification. In 1981, for example, 27 percent of theeconomy was tied to energy-related industries. The decade started with rapidincreases in the world price of oil, and there was an economic boom throughoutthe financial, construction, and manufacturing sectors of the state’s economy.45

Changes in international fuel markets, particularly a big drop in oil prices inthe 1980s, staggered the Texas petroleum industry. Natural gas prices also fell.Thousands of energy-related jobs were lost, and many exploration and drillingcompanies went out of business. Cheaper foreign oil weakened the demand forTexas oil, and a decline in recoverable reserves further reduced the importance offossil fuels to the state’s commerce. Within two decades, oil and gas-relatedindustries were contributing only 10 percent of the Texas economy.46

Other factors also hurt the situation. The Mexican peso experienced a precipitousdecline, which had a negative impact on the economies of border cities and counties.In 1983, a harsh freeze in South Texas and a severe drought in West Texas had seriousadverse effects on the agricultural sector. Some regions of the state were insulatedfrom these conditions, but other areas experienced a significant economic downturn.47

There also was a worldwide slump in the electronics industry. These events hurtthe construction and real estate sectors of the economy and, in turn, manufacturingand retail trade. For 16 straight months in 1986 and 1987, the state’s employmentrate dropped, with a loss of an estimated 233,000 jobs.48


Boom, Decline, andDiversificationOil played a dominant role inthe Texas economy for muchof twentieth century. Whenwildcatter Columbus M.“Dad” Joiner struck oil nearthe city of Kilgore, it started aboom that saw the city growfrom 500 to 12,000 and thecompletion of more than1,100 producing wells withinthe city. By the end of thetwentieth century, oil and gasreserves declined, the Texaseconomy diversified, and thisindustry played a reducedrole in the overall economy.

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These reversals had a disastrous effect on Texas’s banks and savings and loaninstitutions. “In 1987 and 1988, more Texas financial institutions failed than at anyother time since the Great Depression,” the state comptroller’s office reported.And the pattern of bank failures continued through 1990. The federal governmenteventually developed a plan to bail out institutions that were covered by federaldeposit insurance, and the state’s banking system ultimately was restructured. Butas the magnitude of the problem became clearer, there was a bitter debate over itscauses, including the deregulation of the savings and loan and banking industries,inadequate government scrutiny of banking practices, a frenzy of speculation withquestionable or unsecured loans, and outright fraud and malfeasance.49

State and local governments consequently suffered declines in revenues. Withfalling property values, local governments that depended on the property tax were par-ticularly vulnerable. The legislature convened in a special session in 1986 to pass an$875 million tax bill and cut the state budget by about $580 million in an attempt to“patch up” the widening holes in projected state revenues. In 1987, the legislature, man-dated by the state constitution to a “pay as you go” system of government and deniedthe option of deficit financing, enacted a $5.6 billion tax bill, including an increase inthe sales tax, a regressive tax that most adversely affects low-income people.50

With the exception of three years, the Texas economy has outpaced the overallnational economy since 1990. There have been ups and downs, including theimpact of the recession of 2001 and financial problems spawned by subprimelending practices in 2007, but the state’s economy is now in much better shapethan it was in the late 1980s. In 2007, Texas had a gross state product of $896 bil-lion in 2000 dollars (dollars are “chained” to an earlier period to permit meaning-ful comparisons and control for the effect of inflation). In current dollars, thegross state product in 2007 was $1.3 trillion. By comparison, the gross domesticproduct of the United States in 2007 was $11.5 trillion in 2000 dollars. The Texaseconomy was the third largest among the states, following California and NewYork. If Texas were a nation, its economy would rank eleventh in the world.51

Several lessons can be drawn from the state’s economic history. Because ofeconomic diversification, a number of experts believe that the state is now lessvulnerable to the volatility of the energy industry. So, even in recessionary peri-ods, not all regions of the state or sectors of its economy are affected the sameway. It remained to be seen, though, what kind of lasting, economic impact therapid increase in oil prices in 2007 and 2008 would have on Texas.

Another dimension of the state’s economic success has been an ever-increasingshift to high-tech industries. Many economic and political leaders believe that thestate’s future must be tied directly to these developing industries, and the state andmany cities have developed aggressive recruitment programs that include eco-nomic development bonds and tax abatements for high-tech companies.

The term high-tech is generally used to describe business activities that producenew technology based on highly sophisticated scientific research and computerapplications. Companies that make semiconductors, microprocessors, and com-puter hardware and software clearly fall into this category, as do companies thatproduce telecommunications devices, fiber optics, aerospace guidance systems,and some medical instruments. These industries have been joined by newbiotechnology industries involved in producing new medicines, vaccines, andgenetic engineering of plants and animals. Houston and Dallas have emerged ascenters for biotechnology, with some development also occurring in San Antonio,Austin, and Fort Worth.52 With the cooperation and support of state universitiesand two major research consortia in the area, Austin also has attracted a signifi-cant number of computer-related industries.

THE ECONOMY OF TEXAS 683

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Texas and the United States also are contributing to what is often referred to asthe globalization of the economy. Throughout the 1980s, as world oil prices directlyaffected the state’s economy, Texans were made keenly aware of their increaseddependence on the world economy. Foreign investment in Texas business hasbecome increasingly common. In 1999, Texas exported some $83 billion in merchan-dise to other countries. By 2007, total exports were $168 billion with approximately33 percent going to Mexico.53 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)among the United States, Mexico, and Canada, which will be discussed later in thischapter, has already produced changes in the economic relationships among thesecountries, and more economic interdependence for North America is anticipated.

Economic Regions of TexasOne approach to understanding the complexities of the Texas economy is tothink in terms of thirteen distinct economic regions, as defined by the Office ofthe Comptroller (see Figure 19.2). There are marked differences among theseareas.54 One may be undergoing rapid growth, while another may be experiencinga recession. Regions vary in population, economic infrastructures, economic per-formance, and rates of population growth. One region’s economy may be heavilydependent on only two or three industries. If one or two of those industries suffersan economic downturn, that region may have a more severe recession than thestate overall. There also are marked differences in personal income, poverty lev-els, and geography among the regions. All regions, meanwhile, share in one eco-nomic sector—fairly significant levels of government employment.

The High Plains Region, for example, is comprised of forty-one counties in thePanhandle. It includes Amarillo and Lubbock, but many of the counties in this


★ globalization of the

economy

Increased interdependence intrade, manufacturing, andcommerce as well as mostother business activitiesbetween the United Statesand other countries.

Amarillo

High Plains

Upper RioGrande

Gulf Coast

Metroplex Upper EastTexas

SoutheastTexas

Central Texas

South TexasBorder

Alamo

Coastal Bend

West Texas

NorthwestTexas

El Paso

Abilene

MidlandLufkin

Longview

Tyler

TexarkanaDenison

Galveston

HoustonBeaumont

Waco

DallasFortWorth

Odessa

Lubbock

WichitaFalls

Capital

Laredo

Corpus Christi

Del RioVictoria

San Antonio

Brownsville

McAllen

Austin

Figure 19.2Economic Regions of Texas

Source: Texas Comptroller of PublicAcounts.

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region are sparsely populated. Agricultural production, whose major source ofwater is the Ogallala Aquifer, is a dominant industry. Related businesses includeagricultural services, food processing, and the manufacturing of feed, fertilizers,and farm machinery and equipment. Oil and gas production remains an impor-tant component of the region’s economy.

By contrast, the nineteen counties defined as the Metroplex have the greatestconcentration of large and middle-size cities in the state, including Dallas, FortWorth, Plano, Garland, and Arlington. This area is a major financial center, withregional offices of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank. Itsmanufacturing base is the most diversified in the state, including a number ofhigh-tech industries. It is home to the Dallas Market Center (one of the world’slargest trade complexes) and the Dallas–Forth Worth International Airport, amajor hub for transportation and shipping. The metroplex experienced the largestpopulation growth in 2007 of all metropolitan statistical areas in the nation.

The South Texas Border Region includes the Lower Rio Grande Valley and otherborder counties upriver to Val Verde County. This area includes some of thepoorest counties in the state and has high unemployment, although it hasreceived a boost from the construction of manufacturing plants in Mexico andtrading benefits from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Laredo is now the state’s primary point of imports from Mexico. Agriculture, live-stock, and food processing are major industries in the region. The economy ofthe six-county Upper Rio Grande Region is directly tied to the economy of Mexico.El Paso (the oldest city in Texas) is across the border from Juarez, Mexico, amajor manufacturing center. NAFTA is believed to have played a major role inthe rapid industrialization of this area over the past two decades. This region islocated in the Chihuahuan Desert, and its potential for future growth also isdirectly related to water issues.

The geographic characteristics of these regions, including the presence of nat-ural resources, contribute to their economic diversity. These factors help shapethe policies of local governments and the policy priorities of state legislatorselected from the various regions.

Transnational RegionalismTexas shares a 1,248-mile border with Mexico, and common problems and inter-ests that bond the two neighbors, called transnational regionalism, have takenon increased importance since the mid-1980s.

Historically, relations between the United States and Mexico were oftenstrained. The United States fought a war against Mexico in 1846–48, and on subse-quent occasions, American troops entered Mexican territory, ostensibly to protectU.S. economic and national security interests. Apprehension about U.S. objectivesresulted in Mexican policies on trade, commerce, and foreign ownership of prop-erty that were designed to insulate the country from excessive foreign influenceand domination. Nevertheless, the interests of the two countries have long beenbound by geopolitical factors, economics, and demographics. One Mexican authorhas compared the interdependence of the two countries to Siamese twins, warningthat “if one becomes gangrenous, the other twin will also be afflicted.”55

Maquiladoras Changes in the economic relationships between Mexico and theUnited States began with the maquiladora program, an initiative under Mexico’sBorder Industrialization Program in 1965 to boost employment, foreign exchange,and industrial development. It was also designed to transfer technology to Mex-ico, help train workers, and develop managerial skills among Mexican nationals.56

TRANSNATIONAL REGIONALISM 685

★ transnational regionalism

Expanding economic andsocial interdependence ofSouth Texas and Mexico.

★ maquiladora program

Policies initiated by Mexicoin 1964 to stimulateeconomic growth along theU.S.–Mexico border.

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The concept was to develop twin plants, one in the United States and one inMexico, under a single management. The plant in the United States would man-ufacture parts, and its Mexican counterpart would assemble them into a product,which, in turn, would be sent back to the United States for further processing orfor shipping to customers.57 Parts shipped into Mexico would not be subject tothe normal tariffs, and the tax imposed on the assembled product would be mini-mal. In 1984, Mexico changed its laws to permit the United States and other for-eign countries to establish these relationships throughout Mexico, rather thanjust on the border, and to permit 100 percent foreign ownership of the assemblyplants in Mexico. The latter step was a radical departure from previous Mexicanlaw, which prohibited such foreign ownership.58

The maquiladora program has not resulted in the construction of a significantnumber of manufacturing plants on the Texas side of the border because Ameri-can companies have used existing plants throughout the United States to pro-duce parts to be assembled in Mexico. Nevertheless, Texas’s border counties havebenefited through the creation of thousands of support jobs in transportation,warehousing, and services.59 Some 4,700 maquiladora plants were in operation in2004, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs but also contributing to increasedpopulation density along the Mexican side of the border, where most of theMexican assembly plants are located.60

The maquiladora program continues to play a major role in transnational eco-nomic development. American organized labor opposes the program, arguingthat the maquiladoras drain jobs from the United States. But the program pro-vides a source of inexpensive labor for American businesses, which have com-plained for years that they cannot compete against cheap foreign labor costs.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Negotiations on afree trade agreement in 1991 marked another significant change in the relation-ship between Mexico and the United States. The negotiations were precipitated,in part, by world economics and the emergence of regional trading zones. But theadministration of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari also was reactingto the failure of Mexico’s economic policies of the 1980s and a fear of economicisolation. The end of the Cold War, a reduction in Central American conflicts,and internal population pressures also were factors.61

The convergence of interests of the United States, Mexico, and Canada pro-duced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to reduce tariffsand increase trade among the three countries. It created one of the world’s largesttrading blocs, which now has a combined population of approximately 447 mil-lion and a combined gross national product of $16.1 trillion.62 Other regions ofthe world have recognized the value of creating large trading blocs, and theEuropean Union, which now includes 27 nations, is estimated to have a com-bined population of 491 million and a combined GDP of $16.4 trillion.63

Approved by the U.S. Congress in late 1993, NAFTA has increased tradeamong the United States and its two neighbors, strengthened previous economicties, and created new ones. Texas has experienced significant economic changesfrom these new relationships, but the benefits have not been uniformly distrib-uted throughout the state.

NAFTA’s Infrastructure The Free Trade Commission, based in Mexico City, isthe central agency responsible for implementing NAFTA. Assisted by sometwenty committees, subcommittees, and advisory groups, it is charged withresolving disputes and developing and administering procedures, measures, andstandards authorized by the agreement.64


Economic ChangesSouth of the BorderHundreds of thousands ofworkers are now employed inthe maquiladora assemblyand manufacturing plantsthat have been constructed inMexico over the last fortyyears. Some economicexperts argue that furtherstimulation of the Mexicaneconomy will help stem theflow of illegal immigrants tothe United States.

★ North American Free

Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Treaty among the UnitedStates, Canada, and Mexicothat created the world’slargest trading bloc.Approved by the U.S.Congress in 1993, the treatyis designed to reduce tariffsand increase trade among thethree countries.

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Three agencies were created under side agreements to NAFTA to help addresscommon problems arising under the treaty. The Border Environmental CooperationCommission (BECC) is responsible for tackling international environmental issuesthat face the three nations. Working with states and local communities along theU.S.–Mexican border, the agency is charged with developing plans to improve suchthings as water supplies, wastewater treatment, and waste disposal. It is responsiblefor certifying infrastructure projects for funding by the North American Develop-ment Bank (NADBank), or other financial institutions. By the spring of 2006, it hadcertified 105 environmental projects with a total cost of $2.4 billion.65

NADBank, which is located in San Antonio, was created by the United Statesand Mexico to fund infrastructure and environmental projects along theU.S.–Mexico border. In response to complaints about NADBank’s early perform-ance, a change was made in 2006 to have the bank and the BECC share the sameboard of directors. By early 2006, NADBank had participated in 88 infrastructureprojects with loans and grants of $675 million. The total cost for these projects isestimated to be $2.25 billion.66

The Commission for Labor Cooperation is charged with improving workingconditions and living standards and strengthening the enforcement of domesticlabor laws with trade sanctions and other penalties. It takes complaints frominterested parties and conducts quasijudicial proceedings with recommendationsbased on the labor laws of the three treaty participants.67

Continued Concerns About NAFTA Some people on both sides of theU.S.–Mexico border believe that NAFTA is harming their respective countries.Labor unions in the United States are particularly concerned that lower laborcosts in Mexico have moved jobs from the United States. Some manufacturersargue that labor and capital costs in Mexico threaten their American markets.Some Texas officials and many Texas residents fear that opening up the state’shighways to Mexican trucks will create safety problems, and American truckinginterests, including owners and drivers, oppose the additional competition.

In Mexico, there is concern that American corporations will dominate andreduce Mexico’s control over its own economy, since approximately 82 percentof Mexico’s exports are going to the United States. Human rights advocates haveexpressed concerns about working conditions, workers’ benefits, and the broadersocial impact of the maquiladora plants on the lives of hundreds of thousands ofMexican citizens. Environmentalists have argued that increased commerce isworsening air and water pollution in both countries.68

Trade Patterns Between Texas and Mexico The United States, includingTexas, does a lot of business with Mexico. U.S. exports to Mexico were $12.4 bil-lion in 1986 and $137 billion in 2007 (see Table 19.5). Imports from Mexico,now the United States’ third largest trading partner, were $170 billion in 2007.Mexico accounted for 8.7 percent of all goods imported into the U.S. in 2007and 11.7 percent of U.S. exports.69

Texas exported more than $56 billion worth of goods, 6.2 percent of thestate’s gross economy, to Mexico in 2007, a dramatic increase over the $8.8 bil-lion exported in 1987.

The sheer volume of goods, services, and people is obvious on the highwaysleading into Mexico and in the long lines of autos and trucks at border crossingsin Brownsville, Laredo, and El Paso. There were approximately 98 million legalcrossings between Mexico and the U.S in 2007. This included 32.5 millionpedestrians, 59 million cars, and approximately six million trucks. More thaneight thousand trucks cross the border each day at Laredo, the nation’s largest


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inland port, and this number will continue to increase.70 Billions of dollars arerequired to upgrade and expand the roads, highways, bridges, water and sanita-tion systems, and other facilities on both sides of the border. Some initiativeshave been taken by both countries, but many facilities will not be completed foryears, contributing to delays and gridlock in both countries. As noted above,NADBank was established, in part, to address these needs.

Illegal Immigration Population growth in Texas has always been affected bymigration from other states and foreign countries. But the proximity of Texas toMexico has put the state in the center of a long-running dispute over the illegalimmigration of large numbers of Mexicans and other Latin Americans. The dis-pute erupted anew in 2005 and 2006 as President George W. Bush and the U.S.Congress debated changes in immigration law. With Democrats in control ofboth houses of Congress after the 2006 elections, no resolution was forthcoming,and the issue spilled over into the 2008 election cycle.

In late 2005, the U.S. House approved a bill to improve border security andmake criminals of undocumented immigrants, ignoring a proposal by presidentBush to provide illegal immigrants already in the country a way to become citizens.The U.S. Senate rejected the House bill and approved legislation providing a so-called pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who paid fines, learned tospeak English and met certain other requirements. Meanwhile, the controversyalso played out in peaceful, but noisy, demonstrations in many American cities,including Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, and in numerous political campaigns.Thousands of immigrants, their descendants and supporters took to the streets towave American and Mexican flags for their cause, while many Texans and otherAmericans, including some political leaders, advocated building a high wall alongthe U.S.–Mexico border. President Bush also ordered several thousand National


Table 19.5 Texas and U.S. Exports to Mexico, 1993–2007

Year

Texas Exports U.S. Exports Texas Exports

(in to Mexico (in to Mexico as a in percent

in billions of dollars) in billions of dollars) of U.S. Exports

1993 20.4 41.6 49%1994 23.8 50.8 471995 21.9 46.3 471996 27.0 56.8 481997 31.2 71.4 441998 36.3 79.0 461999* 37.9 87.0 442000 47.8 111.7 432001 41.6 101.5 412002 41.6 97.5 432003 41.6 97.5 432004 45.7 110.8 412005 50.1 120.0 422006 54.9 134.2 412007 56.0 136.5 41

*Note: The Massachsetts Insitute for Social and Economic Research applied a more advanced algo-rithim to data beginning in 1999. Thus, the post-1998 export figures more accurately account forunreported exports by states and therefore more accurately reflect actual export revenue that dopre-1999 figures.

Sources: Massachusetts Institute of Social and Economic Research and the U.S. Census Bureau(based on “origin of movement to port” state-level data series); Texas Department of EconomicDevelopment, April 2000; International Trade Administration, Trade Stats program.

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Guard troops to the border to help the Border Patrol. It was widely believed thepresident took that additional step to “secure” the border to boost support for hisproposal to allow immigrants already in the country illegally to earn citizenship.

Congress authorized and funded the construction of a fence on the border betweenthe U.S. and Mexico in 2005, and when the details of the fence became public in2007, there was another round of intense political controversy. More fuel was addedto the political fire in 2008, when the Department of Homeland Security announcedit would pursue construction despite potential conflicts with some 34 existing laws.

In 2006, there were an estimated 11.3 million people, mostly from Mexico andother Latin American countries, living in the United States illegally.71 Many enterthrough Texas and continue on to other areas of the country, but others remain inthe state. According to the most recent estimates, Texas has some 3.7 million immi-grants. Some 1.7 million, or 50 percent, are believed to be in the state illegally.72

The failure of the Mexican economy and the attraction of employment oppor-tunities north of the border have been major reasons for this migration, althoughpolitical instability and persecutions in Central America have also been significantfactors. Large portions of the Texas and U.S. economies were built on the availabil-ity of cheap, low-skilled Mexican labor.73 If arrested, illegal workers were returnedto Mexico, but, until 1986, it was not illegal for U.S. employers to hire them.

In 1986, the U.S. Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Control Act,which imposed fines on employers who hired undocumented workers and pro-vided jail sentences for flagrant violators. Potential employees had to providedocumentation, and employers had to verify their employees’ citizenship or resi-dency status. The new law also provided a means for giving legal status, oramnesty, to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who had moved to theUnited States prior to January 1, 1982. It also granted temporary legal status foragricultural workers who could satisfy specific residency requirements.74

Additional legislation was passed in 1996 to increase funds for border guardsand inspectors, to increase penalties for smuggling people into the United Statesand using fraudulent documents, to construct fences along the border, and tomake it easier to detain and deport illegal immigrants.75 But it soon became obvi-ous that these laws had not stemmed the tide of illegal immigration. There weremany reasons for the failure of these policies, including lax enforcement of the


Holding the Line?In its efforts to increaseborder security and reduceillegal immigration, Congressincreased the number ofBorder Patrol officers, butthere continues to be asteady stream of illegalimmigrants, such as thisgroup, crossing theMexico–U.S. border nearBrownsville, Texas.

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penalties on American companies, a need for cheap labor to fill many jobs in theUnited States, and insufficient funding and staffing of the Border Patrol.

According to recent surveys by the Census Bureau, educational attainment for theimmigrant population is much lower than for people born in the United States. Incomelevels also are lower. A larger percentage of the immigrant workforce is comprised ofunskilled labor. Poverty levels for families of immigrants are higher than for native-bornAmericans. Fewer immigrants are covered by health insurance, and more of the immi-grant population has been served by the welfare system than the native population.76

Children of illegal immigrants can represent a heavy financial burden for manyschool districts and taxpayers along the border. Undocumented workers also increasedemands on public health care programs. Some citizens, particularly unskilled work-ers, view the illegal arrivals as a threat to their jobs and standard of living.77

One of the unspoken realities of illegal immigration is that many native Texanshave no desire to curtail the flow of people from the south. Within blocks of whereone of the authors works, there are household domestics, nannies, and yardmenwho are in the country illegally, and neighbors know their status. Numerous busi-nesses throughout the state hire illegal immigrants for low-wage labor, despite thelegal and financial risks. Good, “law-abiding” citizens have hired undocumentedworkers for temporary, contract jobs and never asked their status, as required bylaw. There are so many undocumented workers in Texas that the responsible fed-eral agencies cannot always enforce the law. As a source of cheap labor, the illegalimmigrant is, in effect, subsidizing business interests and others throughout Texas.State funds that are spent for social services for the immigrants also are a subsidy.

Other Border Controversies Many Americans also are concerned about otherissues affecting the United States’ relationship with its neighbor to the south,including Mexican political corruption, the long time domination of Mexican pol-itics by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the stability of the country,increased drug smuggling into the United States, and human rights violations.

Drug-related violence and alleged collusion between high-ranking Mexican offi-cials and drug smugglers have raised questions about Mexico’s ability to fight thedrug problem. Americans also fear that violence among the competing drug cartelsin Mexico’s border cities could spill over into the United States. Nuevo Laredo, theneighboring city of Laredo, has seen numerous shootings. Several Mexican govern-ment officials responsible for enforcing drug laws have been murdered, as havemembers of the Mexican press who have reported on the drug cartels.

The potential for political instability in Mexico surfaced dramatically with theuprising on January 1, 1994, of the Zapatistas, a peasant-based guerrilla movementcentered in Chiapas. Although some efforts were made to address the Zapatistas’sgrievances, the massacre of forty-five people in late December of 1997 by gunmenwith alleged links to the ruling party cast more shadows on Mexico’s political system.

Presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated in March 1994, andJosé Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary general of the ruling party, was murdered inSeptember of that year. There are still widespread suspicions in the United States andMexico that officials of PRI, the then-ruling party, were involved in these murders.

When Vicente Fox Quesada, a candidate of the largest opposition party, theNational Action Party (PAN), captured the Mexican presidency in 2000, endingthe 70-year domination by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), there washope that he would initiate widespread reforms in the economy, the bureaucracy,the military, and law enforcement. Some changes have occurred, but the task hefaced was daunting, with formidable entrenched opposition. PAN’s presidentialnominee, Felipe Calderon, won the presidency in 2006 in a highly contentiouselection that produced an election challenge by his opponent, Andres ManuelLopez Obrador. For two months, Lobez Obrador’s supporters took to the streets


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of Mexico City in an effort to influence the decision of the Federal Electoral Tri-bunal, but on September 6, 2006, Calderon was declared the winner.

President Fox and President George W. Bush had developed a cooperativerelationship when they served as governors of their respective states, and initiallytheir cooperation extended into their presidencies. But their relationship souredin 2003 when Mexico, along with most other members of the United Nations,refused to endorse U.S. military action against Iraq. Relations between the twocountries further eroded because of a renewed debate over immigration, a dis-pute over water allocations from the Rio Grande, and the perception that theBush administration was giving little attention to the interests of Mexico andother Latin American countries. The construction of the fence along the borderhas further exacerbated tension between the two countries.

Common Borders, Common Problems To anyone living on the border, theeconomic interdependence of the United States and Mexico is evident every day.Tens of thousands of pedestrians, cars, and trucks move across the internationalbridges, to and from the commercial centers on both sides of the Rio Grande.When the Mexican economy suffered a precipitous decline in 1982, the pesodevaluation severely disrupted the Texas border economy, causing unemploy-ment to skyrocket and a considerable number of U.S. businesses to fail.

Much of the effort toward improving relations between the United States andMexico has focused on potential economic benefits, but other complex problemsconfronting both countries also merit attention. One is health care. On both sidesof the border, many children have not been immunized against basic childhooddiseases. On the Texas side are more than 1,200 colonias—rural, unincorporatedslums that have substandard housing, roads, and drainage and, in many cases, lackwater and sewage systems. These conditions have contributed to severe healthproblems, including hepatitis, dysentery, and tuberculosis. Higher than normalnumbers of both Texan and Mexican children along the border also have beenborn with serious birth defects. Public health facilities in Texas report that Mexi-can women come across the border to give birth to their children in U.S. facili-ties. This practice, which has the effect of creating “binational families,” increasesthe burden on public hospitals—and taxpayers—in Texas. Children born in theUnited States are U.S. citizens and are eligible for various public services.78

Industrial development and population growth along the border also increaseenvironmental problems. U.S. anti-pollution laws have been more stringent thanthose of Mexico, but air and water pollution generated in Mexico does not stopat the border. The side agreements to NAFTA provide a basic framework foraddressing these problems, but some have argued that a country such as Mexico,under enormous pressure to industrialize rapidly, is less likely to be concernedwith environmental issues. In addition, U.S. efforts to impose its environmentalstandards on Mexico could be interpreted as another American effort to domi-nate the country.79 In June 1994, several maquiladora plants in Matamoras, acrossthe border from Brownsville, settled lawsuits alleging that pollution caused rarebirth defects in children born in Texas. There have been numerous initiatives byboth governments and private groups to deal with these common health andenvironmental problems, but it will take years to see widespread improvements.

Regional interdependence, although perhaps not recognized by most people onboth sides of the border, has taken on greater importance in the press and in academic,business, and labor communities in the United States. Transnational public policies areemerging, creating legal issues in product liability, insurance, copyrights, and patentsthat must still be resolved. The governors of Mexican and U.S. border states havetheir own association, the Border Governors Conference, which meets regularly todiscuss such issues as free trade, the environment, education, and tourism.


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SummaryWho Gets What: The Social and Economic Milieu of Texas Politics

Politics, public policies, and the actions of decision makers are shaped by the complexenvironments in which governments function. People individually and collectively, “bringthemselves into action relations to their surroundings” and often engage in conflict as well ascompromise in pursuit of their self-interests.

★ Texas has distinct historic, geographic, and social fea-tures that shape its “brand” or style of politics. New gen-erations of Texans, including those native to the state andthose born outside the state, are confronted by the corefeatures of the political culture, but they add to this com-plex mix, producing incremental changes that take yearsto identify. Change often generates intense conflictbetween competing groups with different interests or val-ues. It also produces new or expanded demands of gov-ernment.

★ The conservative politics of the state are rooted in itsindividualistic and traditionalistic political subcultures.The beliefs Texans hold about what government shoulddo, who should govern, and what constitutes good pub-lic policy are rooted in these cultural patterns. These atti-tudes or beliefs are often articulated in the cultural mythsthat provide Texans with generalized views of the state,its common historical experience, and its people.

★ Demographically, Texans are diverse. Despite viewsshaped by the wide open spaces, more than 80 percent ofTexans live in urban areas. The population continues togrow at a rapid pace, with the most significant increasesamong Hispanics and Asian Americans. The state willhave a “majority minority” population in the first decadeof the twenty-first century.

★ Race and economics have historically shaped Texas’s pol-itics. Disparities in wealth and income levels amongTexans point to the political influence of class as well asof race and ethnicity. Largely excluded from participationin the past, racial and ethnic minority groups are quicklyacquiring political influence and power that will contin-ue to increase in the future.

★ Educational disparities among Texans follow race, ethnic-ity, and economics. With the exception of AsianAmericans, minorities in Texas report lower levels of edu-cational attainment than the Anglo population. Improvedliteracy and the development of a technologically com-petent work force are essential to the state’s ability tocompete in the global economy.

★ Over the past 30 years, Texas has experienced the normalbusiness cycles of “booms and busts.” But the state’s econ-omy has diversified, giving the state greater flexibility indealing with economic downturns.

★ The economy of Texas is the third largest in the nation,and it is helpful to view it in terms of thirteen distincteconomic regions, with significant variations in popula-tion, basic industries, growth rates, and overall productiv-ity. Periods of economic downturn and recovery are notfelt uniformly across the state. With the pattern of urban-ization that has occurred over the past three decades, theemerging “Texas urban triangle” points to new configura-tions and relationships in the Texas economy.

★ The Texas economy is bound to the economy of Mexicoand the world. This development has occurred rapidlyover the past 20 years, stimulated, in part, by Mexico’smaquiladora program, the North American Free TradeAgreement, and the globalization of the state’s economy.

★ Texas shares a 1,200-mile border with Mexico. The twocountries also share many common problems, including ille-gal immigration, drug smuggling, and environmental con-cerns. Transnational regionalism speaks to the increasedinterdependence of the two countries and the necessity forgovernments on both sides of the Rio Grande to collaborateon solutions.

Key Terms

republic 00individualism 00political culture 00individualistic

subculture 00

moralistic subculture 00traditionalistic

subculture 00elite 00urbanization 00

population density 00globalization of theeconomy 00transnational

regionalism 00

maquiladora program 00North American Free

Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 00

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SUGGESTED WEBSITES 693

Barr, Alwyn. Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas,1528–1995. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.

Buenger, Walter L., and Robert A. Calvert, eds. Texas through Time:Evolving Interpretations. College Station: Texas A&M UniversityPress, 1991. An analysis of Texas myths, emphasizing poten-tial distortions of the state’s history and the need to utilizecritical historical analysis to provide a more accurate under-standing of Texans and their historical experiences.

Elazar, Daniel. American Federalism: A View from the States. NewYork: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966. A groundbreaking analy-sis of American federalism focusing on the collaborativeaspects of state-federal relationships with emphasis onthe political culture of states.

Erikson, Robert S., Gerald Wright, and John P. McIver.Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the AmericanStates. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Using ideology “to assess the correspondence betweenpublic opinion and politics across the states,” the authorsdemonstrate the utility of political subcultures to explainthe conservative politics of Texas.

Fehrenbach, T. R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans.New York: Macmillan, 1968. One of the most compre-hensive histories of Texas. A must for the serious studentof Texas history and politics.

Frymier, Jack, and Arliss Roaden. Cultures of the States: A Handbook onthe Effectiveness of State Governments. Lanham, MD: The ScarecrowPress, 2003. Provides rankings across the fifty states with anemphasis on core problems facing state governments.

Hill, Kim Quaile. Democracy in the Fifty States. Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1994. A provocative “com-prehensive, empirical, theory-based analysis of the extentto which the governments of the fifty states can bejudged to be democratic and of the policy consequencesof the degree to which they are democratic.”

Jordan, Terry G., with John L. Bean, Jr., and William M.Holmes. Texas: A Geography. Boulder, Colo.: Westview

Press, 1984. An excellent introduction to the physical,demographic, economic, and cultural geography of Texas.

Langley, Lester D. MexAmerica: Two Countries, One Future. NewYork: Crown, 1988. A highly readable perspective on theimpact of Mexican immigration on the politics, economy,policies, and culture of the United States.

McComb, David G. Texas: A Modern History. Austin, Tex.:University of Texas Press, 1989. A brief narrative historythat provides a quick introduction to Texans, their cul-ture, and their experiences.

Metz, Leon C. Border: The U.S.-Mexico Line. El Paso, Tex.:Mangan Books, 1989. A chronicle of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.–Mexican border through “the eyes and experi-ences of government agents, politicians, soldiers, revolu-tionaries, outlaws, Indians, developers, illegal aliens, busi-ness people, and people looking for work.”

Murdock, Steve H., Md. Nazrul Hoque, Martha Michael, SteveWhite, and Beverly Pecotte. The New Texas Challenge: PopulationChange and the Future of Texas. College Station, Tex.: Texas A&MUniversity Press, 2003. Using extensive demographic data,the authors point to future problems for the state if significanteducational and economic disparities among racial, ethnic,and economic groups are not addressed.

O’Connor, Robert F., ed. Texas Myths. College Station, Tex.:Texas A&M University Press, 1986. Utilizing the generalconcept of myth, these fourteen essays address variousaspects of the state’s history and political culture.

Richardson, Rupert N., Ernest Wallace, and Adrian N.Anderson. Texas: The Lone Star State. 9th ed. Upper SaddleRiver, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2005. A comprehensive text onthe history of Texas.

Wright, Bill. The Tigua: Pueblo Indians of Texas. El Paso: TexasWestern Press, 1993. A pictorial history of the Tiguas.

Zamora, Emilio. The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas. CollegeStation, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1993. A historyof Mexican labor in the early part of the twentieth century.

Suggested Readings

State of Texas—Texas Online www.state.tx.usThe state’s Web page provides links to state agencies,local and county governments, and councils of states,where a wide array of governmental, demographic, andeconomic data can be located.

U.S. Bureau of the Census http://www.census.gov

Population and economic data for the state are providedby the Bureau of the Census, which conducts thedecennial census and a wide range of demographicstudies between censuses. For state and county data, use“State and County Quick Facts” or “American Factfinder.”

State Data Center and Office of the State Demographer

http://txsdc.utsa.edu

The Texas State Data Center “functions as a focal pointfor the distribution of Census information for Texas.”

Office of the Comptroller www.cpa.state.tx.usThe comptroller’s office produces reports on state financesand studies of select facets of the state’s economy.

Economic Development and Tourism, Office of the

Governor www.governor.state.tx.us/ecodevo/This agency provides extensive economic and marketdata to businesses and promotes tourism in the state.

International Trade Administration

http://ita.doc.gov/td/industry/otea/state/indexhtmlThis is a federal agency in the Department of Commercethat provides detailed trade data through its TradeStatsExpress program.

Suggested Websites

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