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The harsh right turn in Texas state policy this year has put it on the front lines of the US Culture Wars.
For many Americans who poured into the state’s booming economy in recent years, helping turn large state cities like Austin and Houston into liberal outposts in the traditionally conservative state, this was an unwelcome twist.
The so-called “Heartbeat Act,” enacted last week by the state’s Conservative Governor Greg Abbott, which severely restricted access to abortion, was the keystone of a legislature that pulled Texas far to the right on a variety of sensitive social issues drew, such as guns and voting rights.
Some companies and heads of state fear that the shift to the right, as well as government handling of the pandemic and the collapse of the state power grid amid an Arctic storm last February, threaten to turn down the kind of workers the state’s burgeoning economy needs.
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“I love Texas, but politics here can definitely be detrimental,” said Ashley Fleckenstein, who is from Michigan and moved to Austin in December.
She found the new abortion restrictions particularly disappointing, saying women were being used as “political pawns” as state lawmakers made a game for their conservative base trying to distract from the state’s failure to during the great February freeze on the light to start.
Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, combining a vibrant arts and culture scene with relatively affordable housing, no income taxes, and the kind of lax regulation that corporations seek.
Elon Musk planted his flag in Austin, making it his home base for everything from building batteries to satellites to electric vehicles. Other tech heavyweights Oracle and HP have moved their headquarters to Austin in the past few months, and Apple and Google are among those pumping money into town.
Many of the transplant recipients have settled in liberal enclaves that have felt largely shielded from the conservative policies of the state.
But the sharp right turn over the past few months has broken that bubble. “Live in the Bay Area and then move here and have this [abortion] The verdict would be particularly shocking, “said Fleckenstein.
The new abortion law bans the procedure once heart activity is detected, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy before most women know they are pregnant, making it one of the most restrictive in the country.
The Biden administration is suing the law, which puts Texas at the forefront of a new Conservative push to overthrow Roe against Wade, the breakthrough Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right to abortion without undue government restrictions.
Texas lawmakers have also passed new laws in recent months that have tightened voting rules and relaxed the gun law, as well as a number of other measures long advocated by groups on the right flank of the Republican Party.
People vote with their feet, and that doesn’t hold back the companies coming to the state of Texas
Some of the largest companies in Texas have regularly spoken out against Republican-enforced laws, most recently on voting restrictions.
But it hasn’t largely stopped these companies from investing in the state and, in many cases, donating to lawmakers who drive the law. The state legislators have meanwhile mostly dismissed the criticism of business managers or even used it to underpin their populist credibility.
Still, some companies in the state have concerns about the impact.
“A lot is happening in Texas right now. We all feel it, ”wrote Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, in an internal memo dated September 8th to the Texan employees of his company, which could be found in the Financial Times. The company’s management has “carefully examined the impact of the latest legislation on our business and on you,” said the memo.
In the memo, Dell did not specifically address the new abortion law, on which the company has not taken a public position, but said it wanted its employees to have “more reporting, not less. . . where and when necessary “.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweeted Friday that if the company’s employees want to relocate, we will help you get out of TX, referring to Texas in the process.
Governor Abbott has denied that the state’s conservative policies prevented businesses and people from entering the state.
“People vote with their feet, and this is not holding back the companies coming to the state of Texas at all,” Abbott told business television news channel CNBC after putting new abortion restrictions in place. “You are leaving the very liberal state of California.”
Texas has gained about 4 million more people than any other state since 2010, according to the latest census data. So far, there has been little evidence that the accelerated flow of people to Texas is slowing during the pandemic.
This influx of outsiders over the past decade has helped shift the state’s demographics to a younger and more ethnically diverse population, and fueled national Democrats’ hope that Texas will become a political battleground to win.
4m
The population in Texas has increased since 2010
However, Jim Henson, a director at the University of Texas at the Texas Politics Project in Austin, said migration “could have some impact in some places” but has not yet caused “major changes” in state politics.
The newly passed laws are popular with politically active Republican voters, many of whom live in rural areas around increasingly blue cities, where the “Keep America Great” and “Unborn Lives Matter” signs dot the landscape.
Henson expects state Republicans to continue to advance Culture War issues as they attempt to reach out to those voters ahead of the party’s upcoming primary election. Republicans feel unlikely to be threatened by a limping Democratic state party that was “pushed on their heels” after stabbing 2020 election defeats, he added.
Legislators will be addressing restrictions on transgender participation in youth sports and a bill that would ban Covid-19 vaccine mandates in the state in the coming weeks to create yet another potential showdown with the Biden government.
Fleckenstein, the Austin technician, said the new abortion law was disappointing but she plans to stay in Texas. “I’m going to live here, but it makes life more stressful and it’s just disappointing to live in the United States and have to think about things like that.”
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