SE Houston area (question for IndyTX)

[freepcrusher]

what's the reason why its so republican? I've been to the port before and the area around it kind of looked straight out of a victor hugo novel. I would expect it to be kind of like downriver Detroit and pretty dem leaning.

Yet A lot of the precincts in the SE corner of the county (and Galveston) are heavily republican. Is it possible that these voters are not blue-collar workers but actually sunbelt-types who are transplants and work at NASA (which I think is in that area)?

[Ebsy]

I would think everyone at NASA would vote for those more likely not to severely cut their funding.

[YaBoyNY]

Most of the Republicanism in the Houston area that isn't about social conservatism can be summed up with "oil."

[jimrtex]

what's the reason why its so republican? I've been to the port before and the area around it kind of looked straight out of a victor hugo novel. I would expect it to be kind of like downriver Detroit and pretty dem leaning.

Yet A lot of the precincts in the SE corner of the county (and Galveston) are heavily republican. Is it possible that these voters are not blue-collar workers but actually sunbelt-types who are transplants and work at NASA (which I think is in that area)?

Clear Lake is about 10 miles from the Port of Houston.  Exxon donated the land for NASA, but kept a large chunk of it which they developed and later spun off as Friendswood Development, so it is very much a suburban area, but like much of Houston, job opportunities are widely dispersed.

Areas closer to the ship channel like Pasadena and Baytown are more blue collar.  But refineries, and cargo transfer are fairly automated, so that they pay well. and they are relatively tax rich, so that they have reasonably good schools.

[Indy Texas]

To add to jimrtex, I'd point out the low voter turnout of the more working-class Hispanics who live in places like Pasadena.

Galveston used to be the closest thing Texas had to a "labor Democrat" stronghold because there were so many longshoremen; the advent of container shipping and the shifting of cargo away from Galveston to the Port of Houston ended that era. So today their economy depends more on the University of Texas medical school and the various hotels, restaurants and bars that make up their tourism industry. Hurricane Rita in the mid-2000s was a big setback for them too. Basically they're a pretty stagnant place that is getting progressively smaller and older as time goes by - and more Republican. They still tend to provide some of the most plaintiff-friendly juries in Texas, though; I work for a plaintiffs' law firm and Galveston and Beaumont are by far our favorite places to try cases.

[RFayette]

^Wasn't Mississippi also considered a plaintiff-friendly place for a long time until Barbour passed tort reform?  It seems like being conservative and plaintiff-friendly are not at all exclusive, especially in Evangelical-heavy areas. 

[CatoMinor]

The Vietnamese communities in the area are also fairly Republican.

[Indy Texas]

The Vietnamese communities in the area are also fairly Republican.

Where in SE Houston are there Vietnamese? I thought they were mostly in Alief.

[Skill and Chance]

To add to jimrtex, I'd point out the low voter turnout of the more working-class Hispanics who live in places like Pasadena.

Galveston used to be the closest thing Texas had to a "labor Democrat" stronghold because there were so many longshoremen; the advent of container shipping and the shifting of cargo away from Galveston to the Port of Houston ended that era. So today their economy depends more on the University of Texas medical school and the various hotels, restaurants and bars that make up their tourism industry. Hurricane Rita in the mid-2000s was a big setback for them too. Basically they're a pretty stagnant place that is getting progressively smaller and older as time goes by - and more Republican. They still tend to provide some of the most plaintiff-friendly juries in Texas, though; I work for a plaintiffs' law firm and Galveston and Beaumont are by far our favorite places to try cases.

Does that have anything to do with what was going to trial locally.  For example, a local hospital with a history of surgeons operating drunk or some otherwise slam dunk negligence cases recurring at the loading docks?

[Indy Texas]

To add to jimrtex, I'd point out the low voter turnout of the more working-class Hispanics who live in places like Pasadena.

Galveston used to be the closest thing Texas had to a "labor Democrat" stronghold because there were so many longshoremen; the advent of container shipping and the shifting of cargo away from Galveston to the Port of Houston ended that era. So today their economy depends more on the University of Texas medical school and the various hotels, restaurants and bars that make up their tourism industry. Hurricane Rita in the mid-2000s was a big setback for them too. Basically they're a pretty stagnant place that is getting progressively smaller and older as time goes by - and more Republican. They still tend to provide some of the most plaintiff-friendly juries in Texas, though; I work for a plaintiffs' law firm and Galveston and Beaumont are by far our favorite places to try cases.

Does that have anything to do with what was going to trial locally.  For example, a local hospital with a history of surgeons operating drunk or some otherwise slam dunk negligence cases recurring at the loading docks?

No, it's because the population is almost monolithically working class and predisposed to identify with employees and workers rather than with management and the company in such cases. They probably know someone who got injured in some physically demanding job and know how devastating it can be, economically, emotionally, financially and physically. It doesn't matter if they're socially conservative or not, if they're Democratic or Republican, they're going to have more empathy for the plaintiffs in those cases.

When you request a jury pool and go through voire dire, the defense counsel is going to try to get as many white collar types on the jury as possible - people who are middle class or better, who went to college and who have never worked the sort of job where you have to wear safety equipment. They'd rather have a politically liberal doctor than a machine shop worker with McCain/Palin stickers on his truck. In someplace like Galveston or Beaumont, there aren't enough "defendant-friendly" people living there, so it's going to be hard to get enough of them on a jury.

[jimrtex]

The Vietnamese communities in the area are also fairly Republican.

Where in SE Houston are there Vietnamese? I thought they were mostly in Alief.

There are some apartment complexes near Hobby Airport that maintain some sort of village structure.

There is also a significant presences in NW Harris County.

You can characterize the following 3 maps as progressing from a significant Vietnamese presence to a dominant Vietnamese presence.  As you become more economically successful, you would tend to move further out.  Alief has a lot of rentals.  The same is happening in the northwest, where the heaviest concentrations are between the Sam (TX-8) and TX-6/FM 1960, but you are seeing more further out.