FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Monday, July 17, 2017
Patrick Poll: Support for Privacy Legislation Remains Strong
Texas Majority Does Not Back Down Despite Media Assault Against Privacy
AUSTIN TX – The voice of the Texas GOP majority is loud and clear when it comes to privacy legislation. They want to maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities for men and women and boys and girls and they don’t care if the media thinks it is politically incorrect. Privacy legislation passed the Senate in the regular session and would have passed in the Texas House had the leadership allowed a vote. (Privacy legislation died in committee even though the bill had 80 co-authors.)
A poll conducted by Texans for Dan Patrick in the run-up to the Special Session shows overwhelming support among Republican voters for privacy legislation that would assure women and girls have privacy and can feel safe in public restrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities. Previous polling also shows majority support for privacy legislation among Democrats.
The latest poll shows no statistically significant change from previous polling on privacy legislation in November. Sixty-four percent of GOP voters support “making it illegal for men to enter a women’s restroom, locker room, or shower in order to assure that women can have privacy and feel safe.”
Importantly, 72 percent of those GOP voters said support for privacy legislation is one of the issues they will look at in determining who to vote for in the GOP primary in March.
These findings echo a public poll taken by the University of Texas/Texas Tribune last month which found a dramatic increase in the number of Republican voters who believe privacy is an important issue – up 13 percent among all GOP voters and 31 percent among core Republican voters. It is notable that the number of voters who believe privacy is unimportant did not increase during the legislative session, despite an avalanche of negative news reports from the media which has mobilized against this issue and made no attempt to provide balanced reporting. For the facts on privacy legislation, https://danpatrickstg.wpengine.com/fact-sheet-texas-privacy-legislation/.
(Two previous UT/Texas Tribune polls also showed majority support for privacy legislation. UT Pollsters didn’t ask voters if they supported privacy in the June poll, presumably because they already knew it had majority support.)
The Texans for Dan Patrick poll was conducted by Baselice and Associates from June 27-29. It included 601 respondents and had a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percent.
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