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This week's trip Cast is sponsored by
Educate Texas, delivers creative solutions to key

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Report. Surprised find out more at
UT Dallas dot edu. Well, Hello,

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and welcome to the Texas Tribune and
trip Cast. I'm Matthew Watkins,

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Managing editor of News and Politics for
the Tribune. It is May nineteenth,

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twenty twenty three, and we are
in the week that we saw our summer

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plans start to crumble, or maybe
our fall plans as the House scene to

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as hopes seemed to kind of fade
away that a school choice bill would pass

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the House, and expectations seemed to
grow that Governor Greg Abbott would find that

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unacceptable and call a special session to
get them to try again. Joining us

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this week to discuss those developments are
our k K through twelve reporter Brian Lopez,

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Hey, Brian, you done?
And politics reporter Patrick Spieta, Kay,

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Patrick, either thanks for having me? Yeah, no, Paul,

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I'm all right, So, Brian. The Senate passed its school choice bill

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in April, sitting over a measure
that included provisions from Florida's similar to Florida's

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Don't so called Don't Say Gay Bill, and you know, maybe even more

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headlining allowing parents to access education savings
accounts that used eight thousand dollars in taxpayer

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money per student to pay for homeschooling, private school tuition, or a few

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other things similar to that. The
bill sat in the House committee for over

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a month, but the action really
began to pick up last week. Can

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you just kind of catch us up
on what has happened since then and where

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we are now with that bill.
Yeah, So, you know that that

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first kind of iteration of sent ability
SBA was very universal and scope. You

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know, virtually, you know,
upboards of five million Texas kids and including

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you know, the hundreds of thousand
home schoolers that we have in the state

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would be able to kind of access
this pot up money to pay you know,

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for private school or whatever other educational
expenses would have been approved. And

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that was really the proposal. I
think that you know that Lieutenant Governor nan

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Patrick and of course Governor Abbot was
really behind this universal kind of voucher programs,

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and you know, but the hurdle
was always we kind of knew it

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was always going to be in the
House, which traditionally, historically has always

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kind of been against um anything that
you know is going to give a taxpayer

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money to pri schools, whether you
want to call it, you know,

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a traditional voucher educational you know,
program at tax credit anything you know.

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UM. So basically I was going
to be over the hurdle. So you

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know, it took them a month
to actually bring something to the House Education

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Committee. UM. And you know
it once we saw what that was,

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it was a completely revamped bill from
what create an originally you know passed in

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the Senate. Um. Uh.
It included things like getting rid of the

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star It included things like, you
know, uh, taking away certain graduation

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requirements for high schoolers. UM.
And you know, it was really an

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effort to try this way those House
members, you know, especially you know,

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those kind of Democrats and rural publicans
who also have kind of been opposed

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to the star test, you know, and and the stars highly debated kind

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of UM topic in the House Committee
every session. So you know, it

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was really a way for you know, Buckley, the chair Buckley, uh,

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to kind of see where he can
gather some votes. Um, you

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know, and that one it kind
of tailored, tailed back a little bit

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the eligibility to uh so it wouldn't
be as universal I think, you know,

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still most of Texas students would be
eligible for this one, um,

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you know, would be economically disadvantaged
students mainly and those that you know have

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a disability and attended to hear at
F campus. And you know, he

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quickly found out that that was not
gonna also gathering of votes, and so

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he cobbled up something even another iteration
of this bill, which was way more

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restrictive and eligibility. It would only
apply to those students with disabilities and those

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that attended an F campus really and
siblings and and and so it was really

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a really scaled back approach now with
those star exams and things like that.

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But then you know, I don't
know, we don't really know what Buckley

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thought this was going to be the
one to get those votes. But then

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you know, Abbott really just throw
blew up his whole plan by you know,

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uh this past weekend on Sunday saying
you know this, he's going to

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veto this bill. And then you
know how that's when you have you know,

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a Chair Buckley telling us, you
know, having doubts that he doesn't

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even think that he should bring this
up in committ anymore because of that threat.

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So that's where we stand right now. It's you know, tomorrow is

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the deadline, and right now we
haven't heard of any plans for the Education

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Committee in the House to even meet
again, So that begs you know the

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question here too, you know,
hearing from other lawmakers in the House that

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you know, they think that they're
going to be back in the fall because

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you know, nothing got passed on
school choice this session. So it's kind

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of like a quick wrap up of
where we at. And you know it

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also you know, as we mentioned, we'll see how negotiations take place too

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in the last kind of week.
You know, we don't we know that

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nothing is ever really dead, you
know, until lawmakers kind of leave town.

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So we'll see if anything kind of
changes, but you know, it's

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still the House remains that biggest kind
of hurdle there. And we'll also see,

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you know, with other school bills
at the House wants to pass right

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you know, they have a big
funding bill that's in the Senate that's been

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stuck in committee. So that's another
you know, bill to kind of watch

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out for and see if you know, that's included in negotiations with school choice.

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So we'll see what the next kind
of ten days holds for us.

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Yeah, yeah, you know.
Um Brad Buckley, the representative who chairs

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the Public Education Committee, as you
mentioned, has it seemed to really be

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in sort of in between a rock
and a hard place, right, So

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he brought in that slightly toned down
version as you mentioned, the where the

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people eligibile for the vouchers of the
education Savings account depending on you know,

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your political leanings, what you call
it being as you said, economically disadvantaged

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or students in schools that are graded
a d r F on the accountability scale.

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That was a pretty large amount of
students though, right, because sixty

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percent of students in Texas are economically
disadvantaged, a smaller number of course attending

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those DNF schools. There was also
I think a provision for school choice,

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but the House sent I think,
you know, maybe not a crystal clear

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message, but a message that they
didn't like that bill when they essentially voted

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to deny the Public Education Committee the
ability to meet to vote out that bill

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on kind of a last minute meeting. They didn't necessarily state their reason for

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doing so as saying, you know, we don't support this bill. They

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said it was kind of moving a
little bit too quickly, but you know,

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I think still sort of a message
there, so it tries to tone

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it down significantly. We all kind
of see that as an attempt to get

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something that actually could get through the
House. And then Abbott comes out,

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you know, before it's even brought
up in committee, comes out and says

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that held veto that bill. Patrick, I mean, that was a pretty

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big move by Abbott. I don't
recall him ever coming out and basically saying

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he'll call a special session like this
before the session has even ended. I

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am I missing an example. Yeah, I think it was unprecedented in two

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ways for Abbot. I don't recall
a previous time where he has publicly issued

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a veto threat at the height of
negotiations like this. I guess maybe you

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could dispute whether at the height of
negotiations, but you know, but you

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know, in the in the heat
of the moment like this. And then

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number two, Yeah, I don't
recall you know, a time previously where

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he's threatened a special session so publicly
and openly while the regular session is still

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under way. I think in the
past, you know, there's certainly been

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speculation that he's looking toward a special
session privately behind the scenes, but for

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him to just come out and say
it as governor, you know, at

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this point, at this late stage
in a regular session, I also think

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of unprecedent, didn't have to check
all of our clips and everything. So

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yeah, it was a very very
remarkable statement by Habit. Yeah, I

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mean, and Brian, it kind
of seems as though Buckley has sort of

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thrown his arms up into the air
at this point point, right, I

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mean, he didn't tell you specifically
that he's he's giving up on the bill,

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but we have not seen anything publicly
to indicate that, you know,

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before the deadline to vote bills out
of committee, which is Saturday tomorrow the

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twentieth, that he's really throwing out
any other proposals, right, I mean,

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anything can happened in the ledge,
but it's certainly not looking good.

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Yeah, totally. No, I
mean, it gives you, I think

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the fact that you know, it's
not like he can bring up Freighton's original

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universal kind of bill and try to
get past that, because that's just not

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even the most scale down version with
these provisions of getting rid of the Star,

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which a lot of people want to
get rid of on the Education Committee,

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like a lot of people of it, and they're still saying no.

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I think that for him, it
must be one of those things where it's

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like, yeah, like what else
can I do to push this through?

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And you know, we people thought
that, yeah, if you do it

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just for a certain population and started
out small, then you know that will

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have a bigger chance. But I
think you know, people that are against

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the against this bill, rural Republicans
and Democrats really you know, pointed at

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other states that said, you know, all these states started small, but

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now they're spending you know, hundreds
of millions, billions of dollars on this

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program. Uh, you know,
because it just keeps expanding. So I

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think, you know, you're right, he hasn't come out and said,

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you know, this is dead or
this isn't gonna work. But I think

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the fact that he has on plans
of bringing it up you know committee,

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and like you said, anything could
change, and already this very scaled version

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of this bill with a lot of
provisions that most people would like. On

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testing, um, you know,
on standardized testing isn't going to I think

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it gives us a kind of a
clear picture of where school choices the session.

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00:11:37,039 --> 00:11:41,200
trip caest listeners. Before we continue
with this conversation, I want to let

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you know that we'll be having a
live recording of the trip cast at our

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studio nine one nine headquarters on May
thirtieth at ten am. That's the day

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after the legislature wraps up. Signy
dye, and we'll be talking about the

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session and what happened and what will
happen next. If you want to attend,

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and we'd love to have you,
visit Texas Tribune dot org slash events.

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A lot is going to happen between
then and now, and let's talk

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a little bit about some of those
things that can happen. Patrick. I

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mean, one thing, when this
was when we were talking about school choice

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back in March, back in February, we knew this was a big priority

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of Abbot, but there was a
lot of skepticism. I expressed a lot

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of skepticism on this show about you
know, we've heard from the House on

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this issue. What makes us think
anything is going to change. We've now

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gone through all these different negotiations,
all this push by Abbot, and at

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the end of the session there still
does not seem to be any support in

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the House for this measure. I
mean, what is what is a special

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session going to do? What moves
are still left for the supporters of this

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bill to get it through even if
it's not, you know, before May

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twenty nine. Yeah, that's a
great question with a special session, is

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you know what change anytime you call
special session on a proposal that feels during

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a regular session, and it's it's
you know what, what can you change

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in the in the calculus, the
boatmath, or the legislative strategy between the

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regular session and the special session?
And I'm really drawing a blank trying to

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think about, um, you know, what what could change between um now

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in a special session, whether that
special session is immediately, in the medium

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term, in the long term,
It's really hard to think, um,

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what exactly could change? UM.
You know. One thing that could change,

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but I don't think will necessarily contribute
to the chances of success, is

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that right now, I mean,
we are ending this regular session with so

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many active priority issues still on the
table. It is a very cluttered,

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uh, you know, very crowded
space right now. The priority bills are

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all you know, still really up
in the air at the going into the

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final week, the final full week
of this regular session. And so I

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mean, you still have very hot
debates under way about property taxes, about

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the power grid, about a host
of you know, social conservative issues.

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So, you know, the one
thing that could change is that there could

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be a singular focus in a special
session on school choice, as Abbott calls

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it. But I don't I don't
know a singular focus on school choice necessarily

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increases the chances of it passing,
if it actually increases the chances of it

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passing, because it gives everyone,
you know, more time and space to

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focus on fighting forward. Or fighting
against it. So it's it's a really

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big open question right now, what
could change in a special session. Yeah.

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One thing that I think we should
keep in mind as we you know,

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await the possibility of a special session
announcement is look back at history,

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right and what Abbott did last session
when you know, the Democrats broke quorum

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in order to block a voting bill
from going into place. This was you

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know, something that the Republicans were
united in favor of. So it was

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a little bit different. But he
didn't just call a special session and say

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come back and post that voting bill, past that voting bill. He vetoed

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the legislatures funding and um, you
know said I, you know, I

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won't do it. I won't you
know, approve you basically have to come

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back in order to you know,
preserve get your preserve your budget and have

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money to continue to function. And
so I wonder one thing to watch is

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will he have any kind of tricks
up his sleeves to try to give himself

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more more leverage through that you know
line adam veto that he has in the

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budget or his other veto powers as
well, you know, can Yeah,

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I mean I was going to say, I mean, he has a proven

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record of trying of using the power
of his office very aggressively. Um,

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you know, whether it's the way
in which he stretched his veto authority,

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um, you know, like you
said, vetoing the you know, the

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funding for the legislature. So I
mean, if i'm lawmakers, that's what

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I'm watching for next. I'm not
necessarily watching for any new legislatives, you

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know, like any new kind of
way to reconfigure the votes in the House.

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I'm watching for a sweeping executive Um, you know, power play by

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Abbot, because we know he's done
that before. I mean, that's been

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a through line of his entire governorship, is how he's tried to capitalize and

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maximize his executive powers, so that
that could be the next shoe to drop.

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Where that's likely the next shoe to
drop my opinion, Yeah, I

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mean the other possibility here is also
just the closer you get to twenty twenty

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four, the closer you get to
the primaries, is there are there any

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of these opponents of school choice,
um, you know from the Republican side

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who might see you know, opponents
popping up or you know, money backing

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opponents that could pop cause them to
change their mind you know. Yeah,

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the problem there is that I think
so many of these world Republicans who you

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know, who have been standing in
the way of this and a way of

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Abbots what Abbot wants on this,
they've been through competitive primaries before, they've

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survived them, and they may not
like them, you know, They you

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know, may have been tough,
they may have spent a lot of money,

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work harder than they expected to,
but they've already kind of been through

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the political fire on this. Of
course, you know, it could be

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different if you are you know,
Appot's endorsing your opponent and spending hundreds of

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thousands of dollars against you in a
primary. But the you know a lot

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of these rural Republicans are pretty confident
in their political standing back home because they've

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just they've been through this debate so
many times. Yeah, Brian, how

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how dug in do the Republican opponents
to this bill seem to you? I

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mean, I think, you know, going off of Patrick's you know assessment,

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it's kind of the same thing.
It's I think it's it's kind of

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a no, nothing would really change
their minds or no negotiation will change their

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minds that this is the way to
go. And going off of you know,

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rural Republicans, I mean, the
people that live there don't want really

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aren't in support of this issue too. So it it makes that question too,

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you know, I think not only
through they don't like get there are

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people that they were present also don't
have an interest of this being have a

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negotiation in this or having seen this
pass. So I think, you know,

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this coalition that's kind of formed in
the past, you know, decades

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in the House of you know,
both Republicans and Democrats, you know,

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kind of standing tall on this issue. I think it's still going pretty strong.

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Even though some of these kind of
the budget amendment votes showed that there

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was a little bit more support on
you know, this issue, I think

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there still isn't enough there and I
still think, you know, they are

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laser focused that this thing is not
going to pass. Right Patrick, what

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else has your iami's final you know, ten days of the legislative session.

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Where do you think the key points
of tension are the uncertainty things like that.

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Yeah, property taxes remains a big
debate. You know, we saw

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the House pass the latest version of
its property tax plan. You know,

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this week, this weeks or recording
this, you know, and that seemed

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to be a dare to the Senate
to say no because it included their priority

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provision, which is appraisal caps.
But it also included a homestead exemption that

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the Senate has prioritized, but went
even bigger than the Senate and had one

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hundred thousand dollars homestead exemption. So
we'll see where that goes. You know,

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As I think I've said, and
we've maybe we've agreed on this podcast

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throughout the session, it's you know, even though the property tax debate has

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attracted so much conflict and tension between
the two chambers, it's really hard to

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think of them not getting something agreed
to on that in the regular session,

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given that there is just so much
unanimity in the legislature that that is a

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top issue for the bipartisan unanimity an
agreement that that's something that needs to get

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done this regular session. So I
think that's going to continue be a big

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issue. May not be you know, the toughest issue, the toughest issue

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you know in terms of gridlock in
these final days, but certainly wanted to

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watch power grid you know, I've
would defer to our beat reporter on that

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because I've I've lost the plot on
some of those muzzles a little bit.

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But from what I can see,
you know, there is some movement to

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come together on that, but still
a lot of uncertainty, you know.

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And then we talked about school choice. We'll see, if you know.

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I think we never say anything's dead
for good, but I do think school

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choice, as as Avid imagines,
it is pretty dead at this point,

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and that's going to likely be a
special session at this point, you know,

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And there's still you know, it's
a number of outstanding issues that I

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would kind of put in the second
tier of priority issues. Obviously a big

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priority of the speaker date feeling is
an overhauled version of this corporate tax break

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program that was previously known as Chapter
three thirteen that is kind of, you

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know, arduously winding its way through
the process in these final days. The

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Lieutenant Governor has openly said, you
know, has openly suggested that he is

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maybe okay with that program only if
the House is more amenable to his good

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proposals. So we have the Lieutenant
Governor on the record suggesting those could be

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two issues that are kind of go
hand in hand at the end of session

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here. So those are some of
the issues that I'm watching in the final

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days. Yeah, you know,
I would add to that list the university

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tenure and and d EI questions in
the House. I think like that is

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an interesting one. You know,
the attempts to get rid of tenure reached

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the House floor yesterday, although the
bill that would get rid of tenure it

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had been kind of changed in the
House and hit a point of order which

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Democrats used to postpone the vote.
So it'll be interesting to watch those things

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as well. What's your give me
a temperature check on Dave Feeling and Dan

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00:21:44,759 --> 00:21:48,039
Patrick right now? How do we
feel about their relationship and their ability to

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negotiate through some of these, you
know, issues they might be united on

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wanting to take action on, but
maybe you know, at least publicly,

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are fighting about the ways to do
it. Yeah, I think their relationship

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is is still poor. Um,
I don't think, you know, much

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as much has changed this session.
Maybe it's it's gotten worse as others have

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reported. And you know, we've
confirmed at the Tribune the big three,

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the governor, Lieutenant governor, and
the Speaker you know, they have not

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had their traditional weekly breakfast at all
this session. Looking at Abbot's public schedule,

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he's opted for just one on one
meetings individually with Feeling and Patrick,

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and at least up until May first, which is later schedule. I saw,

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you know, those meetings weren't really
happening that often, and so um,

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you know, so I think the
relations among the Big three are still

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pretty uh, you know, still
pretty fraught, and I would honestly say

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it's it's not necessarily uh, you
know, tensions just between Feeling and Patrick,

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00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:48,680
those are very well documented. But
I think Abbott, you know,

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you see tensions emerging between Abbott and
Feeling over the lack of progress in the

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00:22:53,039 --> 00:22:57,640
house UM, vouchers um. And
then you know, Abbott and Patrick.

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00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:03,759
M know, if the relationships is
as tense as it may just be a

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00:23:03,799 --> 00:23:07,839
little more distant than previously. So
we'll see how it all. You know,

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00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:11,240
how that you know, lack of
relationship manifests itself in these final days.

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00:23:12,079 --> 00:23:15,400
Yeah, you know, it feels
a it's a far cry from twenty

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00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:19,039
nineteen, when you know, the
Big three we're holding joint press conferences over

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and over again on issues around you
know, school finance, property taxes,

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and things like that. I don't
think we've seen the three of them together

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publicly at all of this session.
Unless I'm missing something, it will be

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00:23:33,759 --> 00:23:36,519
good now, I was gonna say
no. I mean, you know,

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at the end of the session,
you know, the Big Three do tend

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to individually kind of hunker down,
focus on their priorities. They're not necessarily

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00:23:41,319 --> 00:23:45,160
out there having a lot of events
together. But even earlier in the session,

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00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:48,480
we weren't seeing a lot of joint
appearances or even you know, we've

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00:23:48,519 --> 00:23:52,039
seen joint statements in the past from
the Big Three when they've wanted to try

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to send a united front on some
you know, aspect of legislative negotiations.

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We haven't seen that this session.
So you know, the unified front,

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00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:03,920
if there is one, has been
pretty under the radar of this session.

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All right, Well, lots to
watch in the next week and a half.

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Thank you Patrick, Thank you Brian, Thank you to our producer Justin,

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00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:15,960
and thank you to our sponsors bp
UT, Dallas, Educate Texas and

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00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:21,279
the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. We'll talk to y'all next week.

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00:24:21,279 --> 00:24:33,000
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