TX Observer: “Like a political etch-a-sketch, Texas’ new maps shook away the geographic, demographic, and partisan sorting that successfully secured GOP majorities through the 2010s and drew a new political landscape that Republicans expect will get them through the 2020s. Red seats were drawn redder, blue seats bluer. Competitive districts were all but eliminated.
Soon after the Legislature ended its final special session this fall, a game of musical chairs ensued. Dozens of state legislators announced retirements or runs for higher office, leaving behind around 30 open seats—most of them in Republican-leaning districts. Now, Republican candidates are lining up to fill them in a race to the hard-right.
An increasingly ravenous crowd of GOP primary voters—primed by the pandemic-fueled culture wars and spurred by bans on books and “critical race theory”—will likely fill these seats. That means in 2023, the Texas House, which has long served to temper the GOP’s most extreme impulses, will be filled with an army of extremists eager to throw bombs.
“The tides are shifting again,” Representative Dan Huberty told the Houston Chronicle. Huberty, a moderate Republican and expert on state school finance matters, is among the dozens of experienced politicos retiring. “You have different political leaders, and the constituency has a view of what they want. You’re going to see a shift. I would assume it’s going to be more conservative.””