The Factors Underlying the 82nd Texas Legislature’s Decision to Restrict Access to Family Planning in Texas

Abigail R. A. Aiken, University of Texas at Austin
Dan Garrette, University of Texas at Austin

The 2011 Texas Legislature enacted a series of laws restricting access to family planning. Such legislation is rising nationally, yet we have little understanding of what motivates legislators’ voting behavior on reproductive health issues. We address two main questions: 1) to what extent is the passage of such bills attributable to partisanship?; 2) how has the relationship between partisanship and reproductive health changed over time? Our dataset combines roll-call record votes for Texas legislative sessions from 1991-2011, with information on legislator characteristics and constituency composition. We employ a Bayesian factor probit model to identify correlations between legislators’ votes and candidate explanatory factors. Knowledge of temporal trends in partisanship and the relative contribution of other key factors is vital to understanding the current political climate surrounding family planning in Texas, and anticipating developments at the state and national level.