Deck 5: Political Parties in Texas

Question 1

The geographical area surrounding a polling place where voters go to vote on election day is called

A) voting booths
B) venues
C) precincts
D) campaign districts

Answer 1

C

Question 2

The Democratic state party chair in Texas is

A) Kinky Friedman
B) Lloyd Bentsen
C) Julian Castro
D) Gilberto Hinojosa

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The most successful and active minor party in Texas is

A) Libertarians
B) Greens
C) Constitutionalists
D) Natural Law

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The last year in which a Democrat held statewide elective office in Texas was

A) 1982
B) 1990
C) 1998
D) 2002

Question 5

Which interest groups dominated the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1875?

A) railroads
B) agriculture
C) populists
D) retail

Question 6

Which Texas Republican won Lyndon Johnson's Senate seat when he left it to become Kennedy's Vice President in 1960?

A) Coke Stevenson
B) Allen Shivers
C) John Tower
D) Bruce Alger

Question 7

In what year did Greg Abbott first win the governorship?

A) 2006
B) 2010
C) 2014
D) 2018

Question 8

The term "gerrymander" is named after

A) a former Massachusetts governor
B) Texas Supreme Court Justice Gerry Bowers
C) Former Washington governor Gerry Locke
D) a salamander named Gerry

Question 9

Following the 2020 census, how many new U.S. House seats did Texas pick-up due to population growth?

A) two
B) four
C) six
D) eight

Question 10

Which political party in Texas tends to win the suburbs and the rural areas?

A) Republicans
B) Libertarians
C) Democrats
D) Greens

Question 11

The famous 1962 Supreme Court case requiring equal population electoral districts

A) Baker v. Carr
B) Marbury v. Madison
C) U.S. v. Texas
D) Kennedy v. Shivers

Question 12

How many voting precincts are there in Texas

A) 3,275
B) 5,212
C) 8,952
D) 11,255

Question 13

State party conventions are held in what month of even-numbered years?

A) March
B) June
C) August
D) November

Question 14

The Republican state party chair in Texas is

A) Karl Rove
B) Tom Craddick
C) Matt Rinaldi
D) David Dewhurst

Question 15

How many petition signatures were minor parties required to collect to get their candidates on the ballot in 2020?

A) 25,316
B) 47,183
C) 83,435
D) 100,007

Question 16

Who were the Republican and Democratic candidates for Texas governor in 2018?

A) Abbott and White
B) Abbott and Valdez
C) Perry and Davis
D) Perry and White

Question 17

Sam Houston was governor of Tennessee before moving to Texas. What was his party affiliation?

A) Democrat
B) Republican
C) Whig
D) Federalist

Question 18

Deep divisions first arose among Texas Democrats over the policies and political plans of what U.S. president?

A) Franklin Roosevelt
B) Harry Truman
C) Dwight Eisenhower
D) Lyndon Johnson

Question 19

The hero of Texas liberal Democrats in the 1950s and 1960s was

A) Allen Shivers
B) Coke Stevenson
C) Bruce Alger
D) Ralph Yarborough

Question 20

Before the special election in 1961 to replace LBJ in the Senate, who did Democratic Governor Price Daniel appoint as interim senator?

A) Coke Stevenson
B) William Blakley
C) Ralph Yarborough
D) Sam Rayburn

Question 21

The first Republican Governor of Texas in more than 100 years, elected in 1978, was

A) Bill Clements
B) Clayton Williams
C) Bruce Alger
D) Phil Gramm

Question 22

Which Democrat was Lt. Gov. during George W. Bush's first term as Governor of Texas?

A) Dolph Briscoe
B) Phil Gramm
C) John Sharp
D) Bob Bullock

Question 23

In what year did Rick Perry win election as Lt. Gov.?

A) 1988
B) 1992
C) 1998
D) 2000

Question 24

Which political authority has the initial responsibility for redistricting following each census?

A) governor
B) legislature
C) Texas Supreme Court
D) Federal courts

Question 25

Republicans win about what share of the Hispanic vote in most Texas statewide elections?

A) two-thirds
B) half
C) one-third
D) one-tenth

Question 26

What roles are political parties expected to play in a democracy and how well do Texas political parties play those roles?

Question 27

Given that Texas was a Democratic state for at least a century after the Civil War, how did it become a Republican stronghold?

Question 28

Evaluate the Supreme Court's findings in regard to the great redistricting battle of
2011-2020. Is highly politicized redistricting good for, bad for, or neutral for U.S. and Texas politics?

Question 29

Distinguish between the responsible party model and the big tent model of political parties.

Question 30

Describe the roles and responsibilities of the state party chairs in Texas politics.

Question 31

How do the major parties try to make it hard for minor parties to get their candidates on the ballot?

Question 32

When and why did Rick Perry change his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican?

Question 33

Over the next decade, what are the prospects for Republicans to win consistent majorities of the Hispanic vote? Why or why not?

Question 34

Party officials like precinct chairs, county chairs, and state party chairs are unpaid.

Question 35

Most Texans became Republicans after the Civil War.

Question 36

Gilberto Hinojosa is the Texas state Democratic chair.

Question 37

Rick Perry won his first election to the Texas House as a Republican.

Question 38

In the ruling on the Texas redistricting fight of 2011-2020, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that redistricting is an inherently political process.

Question 39

Organizations designed to elect government officeholders under a given label are called_________

Question 40

There are approximately _________ voting precincts in Texas.

Question 41

Minor parties have _________days after the March primary to gather the petition signatures required to get their candidates on the ballot.

Question 42

During the 1950s, the Texas Regulars were led by Governor_________

Question 43

The first Republican to win a U.S. House seat from Texas in the modern era was_________ in 1954.

Question 44

The process of redrawing electoral boundaries to reflect population shifts is called_________

Question 45

In the 1940s and 1950s, the conservative faction within the Democratic Party called themselves the Texas_________