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to start a great new career. Learn more at TSTC dot eduse. Hello,
and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for April twenty one, twenty
twenty three. Names Matthew Watkins, Managing editor of News and Politics for the
Tribune. This week, it was a week of ramping up tension between Lieutenant
Governor Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Feeling as Dan Patrick continues to express frustration
with the pace of the House at which the House is working, and you
know, disagreement over policies around property taxes, leading to our fun new nickname
California Dade that Dan Patrick invoked in an interview with Spectrum News. But one
interesting thing about this year's conflicts is that it is so far focused mainly on
what we sometimes call, for a lack of a better term, bread and
butter issues like property taxes in school finance rather than the kind of hot button
social issues that often prompt the conflagrations between the two channels. But that doesn't
mean that those social issues aren't playing a major role and won't play a major
role in the kind of development of the session moving forward. There's a bevy
of legislation touching on all kinds of LGBTQ issues that have already passed the Senate
so far this year. They're now pending in the House, leaving a lot
of us to kind of question what the next step is and when whether they
will become law. We're going to talk about those issues this week, and
joining us are two folks who have just given their own geographic based nicknames.
We've got Pacific Northwest Nwin Alex newin our reporter covering this issue. Hey Alex,
Hi, thanks for having me, all right? And plain no,
Brandon, that's our news editor, Brandon Formby. Hey Brandon, Hello,
thank you for having me. I was waiting for you to come back with
the Westlake Watkins, but I appreciate yours all right. So, like I
said, we were talking about LGBT bills this session, and Alex I want
to start with you. You were closely following these and will be for the
upcoming weeks, and I want to just start by kind of walking through some
of the big ones, what they do and where they stand. So let's
start here with FB fourteen. This would block the use of puberty blockers and
hormone treatments for kids in Texas. Tell us a little bit about this bill,
how it's kind of evolved, and where it stands right now in the
chamber. Yeah, for sure. So I think this is a legislative priority
for the Texas Republican Party going into the session, obviously a priority for Lieutenant
Governor Dan Patrick, and it has moved the furtherest amongst the Senate bills that
he considers to be, you know, priority bills focusing around social conservative issues.
So right now it is in the House Senate Bill fourteen and its House
companion bill have vote been voted out of committee mid April, and we'll see
when they will get to the floor. It is not a priority in the
House, so we're kind of watching to see how we would play out.
And I think the interesting thing is, you know, when it went up
for a flow bote in the Senate, It initially received an amendment from the
bill's author, Senator Donna Campbell, that would allow trans kits who already receiving
put blockers or hormone therapies to be continuing to receive them. But then obviously
they got pushed back, and she removed that amendment abruptly on the third reading,
very dramatic scale back, and so it got voted out the Senate basically
as the original version that it was written, that would ban trans kits from
receiving transition really to care like hormone therapies and put blockers that you know,
leading medical associations have supported, and you know, trans kids say this is
affirming their identity and save them from the psychological distress of you know, facing
puberty as the opposite gender. Um So, Send Both fourteen is now in
the House. In mid April, it got a House committee vote where the
House Public Health Committee vote out both sent A Bill fourteen and its companion bill,
House Bill sixteen eighty six. And the interesting thing here is that it
also received another amendment that now allows instead of an abrubbed cutoff for kids who
already receiving these treatments, the language is now that these kids will be tapered
off in a medically safe and appropriate way, though we don't know exactly know
exactly what that entails in terms of who's going to be deciding or what's medically
safe. How long that would take would be different by individuals. And from
conversation that I've had with you know, trans youth and their parents, they
say, this isn't really it's better than an abrupt cutoff. But at the
end of the day, the goal of the bill is still to you know,
ban trans kid from a treatment that they consent to and they want to
stay on. And so now we'll kind of wait and see how it will
when it will get to the House floor for a vote. And whether you
know, the new amendment in this two bills would create some sort of conflict
between the Senate versus the House to reconcile that language, and I think that
is still in play. I don't think it has gone through calendars committee as
off today yet. Something in the next few weeks to watch. Pretty good.
Okay, so we can I want to talk more about this bill,
but let's go through some of these other bills first, and and and we
can come back to this. Another area that has gotten a lot of attention
is drag shows, placing new rules and restrictions on them, a particular focus
around children's access to drag shows. The big bill that we saw in the
Senate on that was SB twelve. Tell us what that bill does and and
where it stands. Yeah, SP twelve is now also in the House,
and I believe it is now in the House Data Affairs Committee. I don't
think um it is still sitting in there as of today. But the bill
would basically, you know, criminalize shows that consider prian to be UM.
I can never say that work. How do you say that same? I
cannot tell you basically sexual explicit dract shows. It would also find business owners
hosting these shows I guess in front of kids like ten thousand dollars. It
would criminalize performers, you know, doing so in front of kids with a
class A misdemeanor, which would be which could result in jail time. And
so I think the language in terms of pruned sexual explicit and it has more
I guess definitions in this bill compared to other bills that we have seen in
this session that tried to restrict direct shows. Because all the bills have such
broad definitions that for example, a trance individual seeing in avar with their friends
could be considered a drag performer, and we restricted that way. But you
know, like even with this definition in the bill, like drag performers have
told me that it could be open to so many do so many different interpretations
that they could be targeted and therefore like criminalized. So that's the big drag
band drag restriction bill. I should also know that there's another drag bill,
send a bill sixteen o one that would initially only bar state funding for libraries
hosting drag story time, where drag performers read to kids to promote like literacy
in public libraries. Initially it will only bar state funding, but these public
libraries received very little money from the state each year, and then when it
got to a floor vote on the Senate, it was amended to band all
public funding which for the fiscal year that after the event happened, so essentially
amounting to defunding public libraries for hosting drag story time in the fiscal year following.
And I believe both bills are now in the House State Affairs Committee.
Yeah, I think it was kind of a weird day on the Senate floor
when both those bills came up. When the session started, it was,
you know, drag shows, all drag shows, like the bills that were
moving, all drag shows were just automatically going to be redefined as sexually explicit.
It didn't matter what behavior was happening. But then they scaled that back
and actually you know, gave a definition of like what sexually explicit is,
but then at the same time expanded the library bill kind of doing the same
thing where it was just like any time a drag queens reading to kids,
like the innuendo is like that sexual and the kids have to be protected.
Yeah, well, I mean, Brandon, this is you're touching on a
point that I wanted to get into. So let's let's go ahead and get
into it. I mean, you saw this with like you said, the
drag bill, where there are all different kinds of definitions and challenges. There
was, of course, a controversy that popped up earlier in the session about
a lawmaker who you know, was made a video when he was a kid
dressed in drag, and that was kind of dismissed as you know, a
non harmful, like silly game you know, there are I think all different
kinds of questions going around about you know, what about the movie Missus Doubtfire,
what about you know, Midsummer Night's Dream, what about Like there are
all different kind of situations that, um, you know, may not be
treated so with such alarm by folks who are on the you know, the
political right in this realm that you kind of once you got into the details
of actually legislating it got fairly complicated. I mean, we've seen similar instances
right on SP fourteen, the bill related to puberty blockers and hormone treatments about
you know, who is eligible you know, correct me if I'm wrong.
There was at least at a point in time where the bill was written in
a way that like if you were already receiving these that those treatments can continue,
you know, leading to questions of like why is it okay for those
kids but not for kids who might be starting in the next year or so.
I mean, it seems like a lot of this this has been a
very messy process, you know, and a lot of contradictions at times coming
up as as these kinds of things are being debated and talked through. Oh
yeah, for sure. And it's the confusing part is kind of like it's
hard to read the tea leaves because on different bills they're going in kind of
different directions. Yeah, you know, by like kind of watering down the
drag Show bill, but then escalating the library bill. Um, and then
the like um kind of whiplash on SB fourteen with gender affirming care for kids.
Um. Yeah. It just makes it like really difficult to figure out,
Um, what what is going to happen next? Yeah, especially because
you have this, you know, this element of through many speakers. Um,
you know, Dan Patrick not satisfied with the conservativism of the speaker in
the House. So you know, it's hard to tell if that's gonna continue
on these bills. But at the same time, like with uh, you
know SB fourteen's companion bill, a majority of House members want to pass that
bill yep, yep, exactly. And another bill that we've seen an indication
that a majority of House members want to pass as a bill related regulating college
sports and who can participate on which college sports teams. Alex tell us about
that build. Yes, So in the last session, you know, there
were like multiple efforts or at times to pass the ban on trans student athlete
at the cage twelfth level, and obviously, you know, the Republican lawmakers
were able to do so on the third special session of the twenty twenty one
so that was a huge, a huge fight. And then you know in
this session they're now trying to prioritize expanding that restriction up to the college level,
and that is a priority for Dan Patrick, it's a legislative priority for
the party in the House. I believe it has also received the majority of
support from Republican lawmakers. So the Senate bill has been now in the House,
so we'll we'll see where it's moving. But it's a continuations of the
games that they have made in the last session. And it is also you
know, something that's happening in all those states as well that we're watching,
and there's a fight at the moment in the federal level as well on the
same issue. There's one other topic I'm going to go to you on this
one, Brandon, that is even more complicated and legislatively at least than some
of these other ones, which is the idea of a measure kind of trying
to restrict conversation around you know, sexual ideas in school right what opponents of
in Florida called the Don't Say Gay Bill. And in that situation, we
have legislation tied to a school choice bill, which we've talked about a lot
on this show, which is controversial in its own right in the Texas House
as well. Tell us a little bit about the dynamic that's playing out on
that particular measure. Yeah, So, I mean the measure itself is pretty
clear cut in this sense that it would ban you know, classroom lessons,
teacher guidance, school activities about sexual orientation or gender identity. But it doesn't
say which sexual orientations or which gender identities. So I mean, one way
you could read that bill is that, like there you can't mention that Abraham
Lincoln was with his wife when he was assassinated, because then you have to
acknowledge that he had a wife and therefore was heterosexual. When that came up
on the floor, a Democratic senator, you know, tried to amend it
to add language making clear that like this applies to all gender identities, all
sexual orientations, which Republicans were buffed. Um, but it is tucked in
this broader bill that would you know, kind of remake how uh you know
schools work and would create savings accounts A subsists subsidized private school tuition with with
public dollars. UM. One way to look at that is, you know,
if SBA gets to the House floor, you have a lot of House
Republicans who do not like education savings accounts UM. But if if that bill
gets to the House floor, UM, you put House Republicans in the position
of UM all like voting against UM, you know, blocking these UM.
You know what a lot of conservatives will call like woke ideologies UM in classrooms
UM, while also voting against education savings accounts UM, which like come primary
time, could very easily give a challenger some campaign. Ad Ammo saying that
you know, a particular Republican voted against this language. So it'll be interesting
to see if that bill even comes to the House floor. I mean one
thing worth noting though, is that provision is also in other legislation that hasn't
come to the Senate floor. But they are not putting all their eggs in
the SBA eight basket. You could likely have a standalone bill on the like
quote unquote, don't say gay provision coming out of the Senate soon. Right,
all right, let's pause for a minute and hear from our sponsors,
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ADU. Okay, I want to get into the politics of this, let's
just do. I'm going to give a quick recap of what we said here.
Right. SP fourteen banning puberty blockers and home hormone treatments for kids,
has passed the Senate and has passed a House committee. All the other bills
that we talked about here, the school choice slash Dante Gay Bill, the
SP twelve related to drag shows, SP fifteen related to college sports, all
of these have passed, you know, essentially sailed through the Senate with Republican
support, sailed quickly through the Senate, and now are sitting over there in
the House not moving yet. That you know, is not a I think
cause for alarm at this point yet there's really not much from the Senate that
is moving at this point, and it's just we're in this interesting situation right
where it's all all eyes are on the House as essentially, Alex, you
and your colleague Will wrote in a story about a week ago, waiting to
see what is going to happen here. The background here on this is that
the House has traditionally been where these bills actually live or die. There has
long been an appetite for these measures to pass the Senate. It's nothing new.
I think you could maybe make the argument and Brandon, you might want
to make this argument that you know, it's a particularly large amount and you
know, going farther than they have in the past amount of legislation. But
at the point is is that like this is where things usually happen. It's
in the House where these things are decided. So, Alex, with that
being said, what are we hearing from the House so far? Yeah,
so, I mean from the speaker priority less, like he doesn't really prioritize
these social conservative issues the same way that we have seen from the Senate.
Um. So that's one I guess that was one signal very early on in
the in the session that we saw. UM. But at the same time,
you know, like he cannot block every single bill going through the House
from the Senate. He has to pick and choose. And UM write like
that just because it's not a priority doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't support it.
M. That's very very very fair point. UM. But yeah, you
know, like back in twenty nineteen, UM, he publicly stayed out that
he is, you know, done with bashing the gay community. UM,
what's up with that now? So I think, like I think, like
every time these conversations come up, we look back at twenty nineteen, we
like, has that change? Well, he did not comment for our story,
so we do not know, but I guess, like, you know,
we've seen that he's not afraid to pick, you know, put up
a fight against the Senate on you know, property tax issues. So we'll
see if there could be similar fights over social considered issues like these one.
UM. Repulican lawmakers have majury support for some of these bills, so you
know, if they do get to a floor vote, they will probably pass.
UM. So we'll see. If you know, the House UBQ Cockets,
which is now has the most number of lawmaker at nine, Uh,
we'll see how they would be able to maneuver um in committees or on the
floor to push back against these bill um. So, like it's still a
bit of like uncertain territory. I think at this point in that the politic,
the political dynamic four feeling is so different from twenty nineteen when he made
that comment. You know, at the time he was a State Affairs chair.
Now he's speaker. UM. And you know, unlike the lieutenant governor,
who's elected by everybody in the state, the speaker is elected by the
members of the House. UM So if if you're the Speaker and you want
to hold that position for another session, you have to be very careful about
um, you know, blocking bills that a majority of members want. UM
So, even if you know that's something that feeling still feels four years after
he said that, um, you know, he does have to be mindful
of the majority of the chamber. Yeah, I mean, I think the
enduring mystery is what does feeling want right, not just around this, but
around a lot of topics. I mean, he certainly has things priorities that
he has said, you know, he is he's listed out his list of
priorities. You know, they are less kind of combustible in terms of the
politics than than what Dan Patrick has said he has wanted. You know,
we're talking about expanding Medicaid for for new parents after as up to twelve months.
You know, we're talking about certain division provisions, you know, related
to protecting the privacy of children and other people online. UM, things that
you know have a lot of support in the UM, in the House.
UM. And you know, as I continue to watch this, I just
continue to wonder, what is he trying to set up for, what kind
of negotiations are he is he is he gearing up for, and what does
he want to fight for? And what does he not want to fight for?
UM? And I guess the answer is we don't. We don't fully
know. UM. No, we really don't know, because they he the
House and the Senate, and particularly Feeling and Patrick are so far apart on
you know, what you call some of these bread and butter issues, and
Feeling knows that, you know, some of these LGBTQ bills are priorities for
Patrick. And I mean this could be like really hard for LGBTQ people to
hear because so many of these bills, you know, could affect their lives
in so many just dramatic ways. But sometimes the way the legislature works is
once you get to the end of the session, it kind of becomes I
think sometimes through the eyes of lawmakers, the bills are more seen less as
like particular policies and more like chips to kind of like trade and like to.
So they'll be they often will hold bills towards the end to use as
leverage to get like other bills passed. So what those are, whether it's
the LGBTQ bills or other bills like, it's just not clear yet. I
think that'll kind of become more clear. It may. And one of the
things that I think we've talked about on this show before is that bills in
the legislature rarely fail because they get voted down. You know, they fail
because someone puts the brakes on them and they don't make it through right.
A committee chair never brings it up for a committee hearing. Alex, you
mentioned the Calendar's committee earlier. The way the House works is that there is
a committee of lawmakers that sets the calendar on what they vote on each each
day in the full House, and if it doesn't get on the calendar,
then it's not going to pass, even if it does have the support of
the full chambers. And you know, we are now reaching the point,
you know, we're not here there yet, but we're getting closer where those
deadlines are really going to start to matter. You know, the first kind
of major deadline in the House is May eighth, and that's the deadline for
House bills to get voted out of House committees. And once you kind of
hit that deadline, you see a bunch of others, deadlines for House bills
to get voted out, to be put on the calendar, that line for
Senate bills to be put on the calendar, all those different things. And
you know, we over the course of a legislative session get upwards of,
you know, close to ten thousand bills, and there's not enough time,
particularly at the pace that the House is moving. You know, Dan Patrick
paid pointed this out in an interview this week that the House, when he
said it, which was a few days ago, had only passed eighty three
bills so far this session, and there's not going to be time for all
of them. And when that happened, it does matter how much of a
priority it is of the leadership because even there are going to be some bills
that I think they feel and is perfectly happy to get, would be perfectly
happy to pass through that aren't going to make it because of those priorities.
And the question is are these going to be any of those bills? I
mean, Brandon, what do you think about this? I mean, the
state of the Republican Party right now in Texas and nationally is a lot of
interest on these measures. I mean, do you think I'm off base in
saying that, um, maybe all these bills don't make it through, but
Feeling would face some pretty big heat from his h you know, the people
who voted him into that office if none of these measures made through, and
that there's a very strong political incentive to be able to say that we did
something along these issues this year. Oh oh, definitely, I think so.
Um. I mean, political experts that Alex and Will talk to last
week, you know, said that with m within the GOP like these are
um, you know, really really popular measures and that there's really no way
to there's there's no harm to Republicans for passing bills that kind of restrict LGBTQ
people's lives. Um that for a lot of voters, transgenderism, gender identity
are such new concepts that, um, they want the government to be pumping
brakes on things and and limiting things. So you know, when you look
at the house and you know they have to go home and answer to their
constituents, many of whom um, you know, may really really want some
of these bills to get through. That kind of pressure translates on up to
feeling yeah, yeah, and it's it's kind of a it's a trick,
not a trick, but I mean if if he wants to block things,
you know, there are ways to do it, but you have to kind
of tread carefully. And that is like where you where when you bring bills
up to the floor, and like how close to the deadline and how far
down the list on the last day, um to where it's like, oh,
well we did move on it, we passed out of committee and we
did put on the floor, but we just ran out of time. You
know. Um, whether that'll happen on these bills is I mean kind of
what a lot of people are waiting to see. Yeah, and I think
like from what of s we've seen this session, you know, the right
flank of the party, like the Right to Freeland is a very pretty mad
at him for you know, not doing the banning Democrat chairs earlier this session,
which is a legislative priority for the party. So yeah, you know,
one thing I would say about the House so far this session is it
seems pretty unified. You know, they're the grumbling seems to be coming from
Dan Patrick. It is not uncommon for Dan Patrick to be in a fight
with the House Speaker at this time. It has happened with multiple House speakers.
But Veelan does seem to kind of have the troops in line in the
House, you know, not least because one of his kind of biggest,
you know, rabble rousers is facing his own kind of scandal right now and
has sort of taken on a lower profile thing. But like I mean,
I would say dissent in the House right now is at a minimum. And
I think one of the other things that will be interesting to watch Alex is
does that continue if we see that these bills continue to not move, and
again there's still plenty of time for them to move. Almost no Senate bills
are moving at this point right now in the House. Will we start to
see any of that kind of descent. Will we hear from people who are
frustrated and things like that? And I think that'll be another interesting and important
thing to watch. That's who feeling has to keep happy here more than anyone
else. Alex, You've been to a lot of committee hearings where these bills
have been held, including um, you know, ones that you know,
thousands of people have shown up to and and just like overwhelming opposition. Um,
you are at a LGBTQ rally at the Capitol last weekend. You know,
people pushing back against um, these bills. You know, as these
politics kind of play out, and as is a lot of um, you
know, political insiders look at it, you know through the lens of of
you know, how conservative is the House now? You know, will you
know feeling um, you know, put his finger on the scales on these
bills. What are you hearing from LGBTQ Texans? Like? What what as
they watch this play out kind of how are they feeling? What are they
thinking? Yeah? So, I mean I mean for HBQ Texans, like
these policies are about their lives, right, Like it's not lawmaker and lobbyists
pushing chess pieces around. So obviously there's a lot of fear and anger and
frustrations with sessions. After sessions, they've just been a growing focus on UM
policy and legislation that would restrict their life and how they want to be represented
and their you know, their existence in public life. UM. So there's
a lot of anger and frustration. When I talk to trans family, there's
a lot of concern about whether they need to leave the state so that they
can't their kids can continue accessing the care that they need. UM. And
obviously, like people continuing to hold rallies UM in the Capitol, continue to
engage the lawmakers. I think like at this point they have to keep fighting
UM because like these issues are so important to so many people UM. And
obviously it's it sounds it's very bleak for a lot of people, but it's
something that they just have to keep fighting and see through to the end of
the session. And who knows if there will be more special sessions and how
many of them this UH this year, So good luck with that, UM.
But obviously, like it's just a constant fight UM that they are fighting
every sessions and this one is no different. But obviously it's definitely a lot
more that they're fighting over a hundred of these bills as opposed to I don't
know, it was like seventy five or seventy seven in the three sessions in
twenty twenty one. And obviously it's not justin Texas but also around the country.
So there's definitely a feeling that you know, this um a lot of
just all encompassing fear, I guess is how it is happening. All right,
Well, this is definitely something that we will continue to be keeping an
eye on and watching. To Thank you Alex, and thank you Brandon for
helping walk us through this, and thank you to Justin, our producer,
and also thank you to our sponsors, the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute,
Texas State Technical College, Texas BioMed in ut Arlington. We'll talk to you
all next week. Subscribe to The Blast Today, the Texas Tribune's premium newsletter,
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