Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby Jr. will talk Texas people and politics in his free presentation, “A Political Atlas of Texas,” at 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 10, in the Robertson Auditorium in the Academic Building during Investiture Week activities at the University of Houston-Downtown.
Hobby served 18 years as the state’s lieutenant governor and two years as chancellor of the University of Houston System. His book, “How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics,” will be out this fall.
Hobby’s lecture is one of the week’s highlights as UHD officially welcomes its fifth president, William V. Flores. The formal academic ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, March 11, at the Wortham Center.
Hobby now serves on the National Advisory Council for the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. He also teaches a summer course using his Texas political research on qualitative methods for data set analytic techniques at UM’s Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. His students are graduate students, post-doctoral students and young faculty members interested in using statistics and data sets for projects in world social science, public health, historical data or criminal justice.
“Actually, the most fun for me is during my 5 o’clock office hours when students come in to talk about their projects. That’s when I learn the most,” Hobby said.
In his UHD presentation, Hobby examines the Republican vote percentage and election results in terms of the Voting Rights Act variables considered in redistricting. He also uses county census data and demographic information such as age, race, ethnicity, income and education. The numbers produce some interesting results. For example, 27 percent of all Texans live in two counties, Harris and Dallas.
His new book deals more with how the legislature works. “It probably won’t make the bestseller list,” he said. “The main people interested will be Texas political junkies.”
He offered a glimpse of what readers can expect in his new book from his unique perspective.
Hobby notes that the Texas political climate has changed in recent years and not all of those changes have been for the better.
“Partisanship now is as important as it ever was in Washington and that’s a change for the worse,” Hobby said. “For many years, partisanship wasn’t a big thing (in the state legislature). When they take the oath of office it doesn’t say, they swear to defend and protect the Democrats or Republicans. It says they swear they’ll do the best job they can. In other words, they need to read the directions.”
UHD will hold a reception for Hobby after the lecture at 2:30 p.m. in the Coffee House next to the auditorium.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 / UHD Public Affairs
