Belated TRF Post

One of the pitfalls of tight scheduling and an internet outage over the weekend is that I'm just now getting around to a post about something that I believe could be a big step in building the progressive infrastructure here in the Great State.

Thursday night saw something less than 100 pack a tight room at Ziggy's on Alabama to be "present at the introduction" of the Texas Research Foundation. The project, as it stands, has the imprimatur of one of the University of Houston's better offerings to academia: Dr. Richard Murray and is the continuation of his efforts that I initially blogged about a year ago.

Marguerite Reed does some heavy lifting by recapping the meeting with the Houston Democratic Forum (and others):

Now here in Houston the Texas Research Foundation has incorporated its name and has initiated the process to become a 501c3 entity. It will not endorse candidates, nor will it lobby for specific legislation; but it will:

• perform research on changing demographics that affect the political landscape (Example: areas that could possibly replicate Hubert Vo's upset victory in District 149)
• gather timely and accurate public opinion data
• create a message component to arm progressives for the media
• call conservatives on their misinformation and suppression of information
• utilize formats such as blogging to energize progressives and encourage feedback

There's also a bit of the TRF mission up on the site:

The Foundation's mission is to improve Texas government by gathering and disseminating academically sound data on important state issues, and making these findings widely known to business, civic, and community leaders as well as the general public.

A point that I think bears stating based on the reaction at the meeting was that there's still a tendency (post 11/2) to want to rebuild everything in the party in one fell swoop. I believe Dr. Murray presented as succinct a case for the need to rebuild, but the point that the TRF mission means it will be one layer of the network needed to get headed in the right direction.

Much has been written of two competing strands of thought: that we need to compete with the 1970s GOP plan to build up a network of think tanks, foundations, etc ... and the other side of the coin that suggests (rightly) that this is a new day and age. The problem before us is different than it was for the GOP in the late 60s and the solution must be unique to the problem before us.

Problem number one is that for a state as large as Texas, there is a dearth of credible, accurate information to guage what, for lack of a better term, is the lay of the land. In my view, that's a symptom of the old one-party state that has carried over as a benefit to the new one and it's time to call that era over. Presently, about the best detailed info we have on any public opinion material is elections. Imagine a State Rep or State Senator who wants to vote for or against a bill of whatever degree of controversy, claiming that any vote he or she casts is the will of his or her district. Who needs proof? The fact that they got elected is proof enough that the entirety of their own worldview is backed by the will of the people. So it is that Joe Nixon, whose district is comprised of over 60% renters, supported a property tax rollback that didn't offer a rebate to renters. True, elections are a vitally important barometer of public sentiment. But more and more, those very elections get gamed by a minimization of democracy when it suits the party in power. Information, pure unadulterated scientific-quality data, is the remedy to this. And that's one step in the process for the progressive movement to rebuild itself in Texas.

Another way of looking at it, I think, is that if you believe facts are on your side ... search for the facts. Right now, there's not a lot to point to for such data in Texas. The Texas Poll is a joke to anyone but the press, whom it gives a simplified cookie cutter answer to. Want to crosstabs with that poll? Tough luck. California and New York have us beat on this count. What's holding us back?

There are other aspects of the Foundation that will be explored once all the legalese is cleared and appropriate formation is complete. The monitoriing of state and local news is perhaps most intriguing of these. I doubt there will be enough competition for the $30 million GOP effort to game the refs, but I also doubt we need that much to call B.S. on the way the media buckle to the slightest catcall from the right.

For now, two things anyone can do to get the process moving along ...