Mark Jones of Rice University Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, there you go, seven fifty two our time here
on Houston's warning, this survey is rather interesting. Now, it's
only twelve hundred Texans. Obviously, we have a lot of
people live in Texas, so I wanted first we should
talk about the methodology here because I think some people
will be surprised to find out that sixty percent support
the sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes and
seventy percent of Texans support destination resort casinos. Mark joined

(00:24):
Jones with us from Rice University. You're part of the study,
I guess let's start with the sample size. It's twelve
hundred enough to get a good field. These weren't all
in Austin, were they.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Now they're representative of all Texans. So yeah, in survey research,
at twelve hundred is a very good number to give
you a representative sample of what Texas adults think about
an issue.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Okay, were you surprised at the results that they did?
Support was so high?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
This is a little higher than we've seen in the past,
but it's pretty much trending in that we see we've
seen strong support for both destination resort casinos as well
as for particularly medical marijuana, and then let's support a
little lower in majority, but not a substantial majority, favoring
the legalization of recreational marijuana and things like online sports betting.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay, so was the study done just to take the
temperature of Texans?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Or maybe is there some hope here that once these
results are shared with the state legislature they may get
off the dime on these two issues.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, no, this survey isn't done for any advocacy. This
is something the Hobby School at the University of Houston
does every two years at the start of the biennial
legislative session, and it asked Texans about issues that have
on bills that have already been filed or are likely to
be filed. And in this case, we already have legislation
filed to legalize marijuana, to legalize recreational and medical marijuana,

(01:49):
and to legalize destination res or casinos, as well as
online sports betting. And the goal of the survey is
to sort of understand, Okay, where do Texans stand on
these issues. So, of course we have about a host
of other issues like education, savings, accounts, and property text relief,
but this report was focused on marijuana. Legalization and gambling legalization.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Okay, do you break it down to ask any questions
about political affiliations? In other words, do we know what
percentage of this would be Democrats for example, versus Republicans?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, and so there's some pretty strong differences if we
depend on whether we're talking about gambling or marijuana. On
casino gambling, and there's pretty much strong bipartisan support. Three
quarters of text and support it, three quarters of Democrats
support it, three quarters of Republicans support it. It's very
different though, if we say look at the legalization of

(02:40):
medical look at the legalization of recreational marijuana. A large
majority of Democrats support that. Republicans are split pretty much
fifty to fifty. Half oppose it, half support it. And
then if you look at groups like Evangelical Protestants, Evangelical Protestants,
a majority of them oppose the legalization of recreational marijuana.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Okay, how about the Evangelicals, how did they come down
on gambling, because you would think they probably would oppose
that too.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Uh. There it's not. The support isn't as strong for
gambling as it is among other groups. But a majority
of Evangelical Christians are in favor of the creation of
destinations our casinos. They tend to be a little more
lukewarm on online sports betting.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
It's interesting. It makes you wonder why it's been so
difficult for the you know, for the state legislature to
to deal with that particular issue because they because lieutenant
governor won't even bring it up.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, yeah, I think the Lieutenant governor there's looks at
when he when he looks at the issue of casino gambling,
he looks at the pros and benefits, things like more
jobs and more tax revenue. But then he also looks
at the costs, that is, there are negative social costs
whenever you legalize gambling.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
The governor uh, and I think the House Speaker seem
more pros than cons to casino gambling. The Lieutenant governor
and the majority of the of the Republicans of the
Texas Senate still see more costs than they see benefit.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Interesting stuff. Thank you as always, Mark, good to talk
to you from Rice University. Mark Jones