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Texas, like most states, is red in the countryside and blue in the cities, with a purple gradient through the suburbs, with a twist: the usual red-leaning lande

Texas, like most states, is red in the countryside and blue in the cities, with a purple gradient through the suburbs, with a twist: the usual red-leaning landed gentry is turbocharged with mineral rights - which were initially related to, but for any given parcel, not necessarily still connected with, ownership of the land on top. So you get rich Republican rednecks who have a strong vested interest in the petroleum industry being willing and able to give them their due, either now or someday. (Grew up in a red-leaning, increasingly exurban county between Waco and Austin, with roots in deep red East and West Texas, and in the economic class of people with "would pay off a small mortgage"-level hopes in mineral rights)

dylan604 3y ago
Texas is one of the most gerrymandered states to keep it those shades. Just look at the maps and see the shapes of the districts as evidence. Which makes me think how much more obvious the maps were in the state where SCOTUS, just ruled their maps illegal.
- rayiner 3y ago
  The net effect of gerrymandering isn't especially large in Texas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Texas#:~:text=The%202022%20United%20States%20House,results%20of%20the%202020%20Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Re.... Texas has 38 House seats. Republicans won 65% of seats and 58% of the popular vote. California has 52 House seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Re.... Democrats won 77% of seats with 63% of the popular vote. Texas is just a red state. Abbott won by more than 10 points in a statewide election. The cities aren't even that blue. Beto won Harris county by less than 10 points.
  - dctoedt 3y ago
    > Beto won Harris county by less than 10 points. Beto was (and is) damaged goods politically; I voted for him but figuratively held my nose doing so.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      In Harris county, Beto ran only a point behind Biden in 2020. What’s happening in Texas is that the suburban Republicans aren’t RINOs as much as in other states. My suburban/exurban county (a good chunk of which is farms) voted for both McCain and Romney. But Biden did better here than he did in Harris County, even as Larry Hogan win the county by 38 points. Democrats can’t flip Texas without getting that suburban vote.
hotpotamus 3y ago
I believe it was my great-grandparents who sold their farm in Moulton, Texas, but kept the mineral rights, and as a result my father gets some fraction of a fraction of money out of it. It used to be close to worthless, but something about shale or fracking or other market changes has meant that he actually gets perhaps a few hundred dollars a year out of it now (or at least there was a good year or two in there; I'm not too up on the current state of things). I've never understood how this is supposed to continue - in theory, I'd get a further divide of it, but why would I get some right to go stick oil extraction equipment on some farmer's land because my ancestor lived there a century ago? I don't know how you unwind such a system, but it seems like moving towards thinking of it as a collective resource of the citizens makes some sense, and I'm lead to believe that that's the way it's done in other places like Norway or Alaska.
- MandieD 3y ago
  Depends on in what form he's making use of them... most small holders end up leasing them to a bigger operator for a set period of time, with a cut to the agent who made the deal happen. Those leases have gotten a lot more lucrative over the past 20 years or so than they were in the 90s. Texas will get state-funded universal healthcare and Tesla will be able to sell you a car right there in downtown Dallas before mineral rights are seriously reformed. For non-Texans: those first two things have two of the more powerful lobbies in Texas against them, but not the even more widely-distributed power of mineral rights holders.
- nocoiner 3y ago
  Oh boy. You could write a book on mineral rights in Texas. Just kidding - it could fill a library. If you’re interested in knowing more about what your family might own and how this works, happy to take some educated guesses. Just let me know if you’re interested, and I can pose a few general follow up questions to narrow it down. Smart of your great-grandparents though - my west Texan forebearers never retained any mineral rights lmfao. By the way, for what it’s worth, Texas’s public university systems are in large part funded by state-owned mineral rights in West Texas which includes a little oil field called the Permian Basin. As a result, UT’s endowment is either comparable in size, or perhaps now larger than, Harvard’s famously large endowment (that’s what she said?). Obviously smaller on a per capita basis, but definitely the mineral resources of Texas do fund some public goods. Final comment - I can still hear a quote from some game on unlocking part of the tech tree (Civ VI? Alpha Centauri?): “The meek shall inherit the earth - but not its mineral rights.”

dylan604 3y ago

Texas is one of the most gerrymandered states to keep it those shades. Just look at the maps and see the shapes of the districts as evidence. Which makes me think how much more obvious the maps were in the state where SCOTUS, just ruled their maps illegal.

rayiner 3y ago
The net effect of gerrymandering isn't especially large in Texas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Texas#:~:text=The%202022%20United%20States%20House,results%20of%20the%202020%20Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Re.... Texas has 38 House seats. Republicans won 65% of seats and 58% of the popular vote. California has 52 House seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Re.... Democrats won 77% of seats with 63% of the popular vote. Texas is just a red state. Abbott won by more than 10 points in a statewide election. The cities aren't even that blue. Beto won Harris county by less than 10 points.
- dctoedt 3y ago
  > Beto won Harris county by less than 10 points. Beto was (and is) damaged goods politically; I voted for him but figuratively held my nose doing so.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    In Harris county, Beto ran only a point behind Biden in 2020. What’s happening in Texas is that the suburban Republicans aren’t RINOs as much as in other states. My suburban/exurban county (a good chunk of which is farms) voted for both McCain and Romney. But Biden did better here than he did in Harris County, even as Larry Hogan win the county by 38 points. Democrats can’t flip Texas without getting that suburban vote.

hotpotamus 3y ago

I believe it was my great-grandparents who sold their farm in Moulton, Texas, but kept the mineral rights, and as a result my father gets some fraction of a fraction of money out of it. It used to be close to worthless, but something about shale or fracking or other market changes has meant that he actually gets perhaps a few hundred dollars a year out of it now (or at least there was a good year or two in there; I'm not too up on the current state of things). I've never understood how this is supposed to continue - in theory, I'd get a further divide of it, but why would I get some right to go stick oil extraction equipment on some farmer's land because my ancestor lived there a century ago? I don't know how you unwind such a system, but it seems like moving towards thinking of it as a collective resource of the citizens makes some sense, and I'm lead to believe that that's the way it's done in other places like Norway or Alaska.

MandieD 3y ago
Depends on in what form he's making use of them... most small holders end up leasing them to a bigger operator for a set period of time, with a cut to the agent who made the deal happen. Those leases have gotten a lot more lucrative over the past 20 years or so than they were in the 90s. Texas will get state-funded universal healthcare and Tesla will be able to sell you a car right there in downtown Dallas before mineral rights are seriously reformed. For non-Texans: those first two things have two of the more powerful lobbies in Texas against them, but not the even more widely-distributed power of mineral rights holders.
nocoiner 3y ago
Oh boy. You could write a book on mineral rights in Texas. Just kidding - it could fill a library. If you’re interested in knowing more about what your family might own and how this works, happy to take some educated guesses. Just let me know if you’re interested, and I can pose a few general follow up questions to narrow it down. Smart of your great-grandparents though - my west Texan forebearers never retained any mineral rights lmfao. By the way, for what it’s worth, Texas’s public university systems are in large part funded by state-owned mineral rights in West Texas which includes a little oil field called the Permian Basin. As a result, UT’s endowment is either comparable in size, or perhaps now larger than, Harvard’s famously large endowment (that’s what she said?). Obviously smaller on a per capita basis, but definitely the mineral resources of Texas do fund some public goods. Final comment - I can still hear a quote from some game on unlocking part of the tech tree (Civ VI? Alpha Centauri?): “The meek shall inherit the earth - but not its mineral rights.”