Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune Trip Cast. I
Speaker 1: am Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texas Tribune,
Speaker 1: and we are live from the campus of the University
Speaker 1: of Texas at Arlington, our second straight live trip cast,
Speaker 1: joined as usual by co host and politics reporter Eleanor Klibanoff.
Speaker 2: Hello, Eleanor, Hello Matthew.
Speaker 3: Good to see you on the road again.
Speaker 1: Exactly has been fun So in our Austin podcast, I
Speaker 1: believe a college student came up to you afterwards and
Speaker 1: said that she really loved the podcast because she loves
Speaker 1: millennial humor, and.
Speaker 3: That was offensive to me.
Speaker 4: In fact, what she said was she's getting all of
Speaker 4: her friends to listen to it because gen Z loves
Speaker 4: millennial humor. And I was like, well, whatever gets I'm listening.
Speaker 4: You know, I like to think of myself as also
Speaker 4: one of the young people, but apparently.
Speaker 3: That is a myth.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I took it as an invitation for more
Speaker 2: dad jokes.
Speaker 3: Matthews like, we think I'm a millennial.
Speaker 1: Amazing, So we are very pleased to be joined for
Speaker 1: this episode by two state representatives. First, we have it
Speaker 1: is his district. We are in his domain. State Representative
Speaker 1: Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie. Thank you for
Speaker 1: being here, Thank you for having me. Great to be here,
Speaker 1: and we also we are near his district, not quite
Speaker 1: there a state Representative Mitch Little of Republicans Lewisville, and.
Speaker 5: It's good to be here with you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: I'm playing the road game, Chris is in the home game,
Speaker 5: and I will try to contribute to the millennial humor.
Speaker 5: I'm on the cusp between gen X and millennial.
Speaker 3: But you know, all generations welcome. We're being listened to
Speaker 3: by the youth.
Speaker 6: You should know, surely gen X no millennial humor here.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, Well, you know we need someone to balance
Speaker 1: this out here. Okay, So let's we're here to talk
Speaker 1: about the legislative session. It's impact, what happened, some of
Speaker 1: the politics, and maybe look a little bit forward. So
Speaker 1: I want to start off just by talking about some
Speaker 1: of the big ticket items. I think, more than anything,
Speaker 1: this legislative session was an education session, an issue where
Speaker 1: education was kind of at the forefront. It was something
Speaker 1: we were talking about in the lead up to the session.
Speaker 2: One of the.
Speaker 1: Biggest bills being HB two and eight point five billion
Speaker 1: dollar infusion into the school system. And you know another
Speaker 1: major bill that has sort of in some ways dominated
Speaker 1: legislative politics for years now, the school voucher education Savings.
Speaker 2: Account program that passed this session as well.
Speaker 1: I believe, if I'm not mistaken, we have a yes
Speaker 1: vote and a no vote on the voucher bill.
Speaker 5: That's how that went, right, Chris, which one was? Which?
Speaker 3: Tell us?
Speaker 6: I think he was a yes. I was definitely an.
Speaker 1: And two yeses on HB two right, yes, yes, all right,
Speaker 1: I want to let's start. We're on your home turf,
Speaker 1: so let's start with you. Representative Turner. Let us kind
Speaker 1: of help us understand from your perspective what this legislative
Speaker 1: session meant for education in this state overall.
Speaker 2: I mean, in your.
Speaker 1: Opinion, I think there's good and bad, right, but what
Speaker 1: should our big takeaway be?
Speaker 2: You know, now that it's all all said and done.
Speaker 7: Sure, well, thanks again for having me. It's great to
Speaker 7: be here, and thank you all for doing this at
Speaker 7: u T Arlington. So there was definitely good and bad
Speaker 7: from my perspective. So we'll start with a good. The
Speaker 7: eight and a half billion dollars additional to our public
Speaker 7: schools is definitely a good step for public education this stay.
Speaker 7: And just to remind everyone, you know, in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 7: which has now been six years, we had landmark public
Speaker 7: school finance reform in the form of House Bill three
Speaker 7: that really increased funding and also made a lot of
Speaker 7: reforms that they funding work better for our public schools.
Speaker 7: But a lot has happened since then. We had a
Speaker 7: global pandemic, we've had high inflation, and there has not
Speaker 7: been a subsequent funding increase to our public schools in
Speaker 7: the six years since. So that's what made House Built
Speaker 7: two so very important this year. While it was an
Speaker 7: important step forward, I'm gonna temper my enthusiasm just a
Speaker 7: little bit by pointing out two things. One, despite the
Speaker 7: eight and a half billion dollar additional investment, that does
Speaker 7: not get us back to twenty nineteen levels of funding
Speaker 7: because of inflationary pressures. It would really take almost probably
Speaker 7: a little more than twice that amount to get back
Speaker 7: to twenty nineteen level. So that's number one. Number Two.
Speaker 7: I think that the bill the House passed in April
Speaker 7: was again it could have been more. I think it
Speaker 7: was structured well, and it was structured around an incre
Speaker 7: in the basic allotment, which is the foundational funding mechanism
Speaker 7: we use for our public schools. We'll say it changed
Speaker 7: a lot in the Senate, it changed a lot coming
Speaker 7: out of the Conference Committee. I think it's still a
Speaker 7: good bill, but I do think it's a little overly
Speaker 7: prescriptive in how the funds are allocated and gives less
Speaker 7: flexibility to our school districts than I would like to see.
Speaker 7: But on balance, it's a good step forward. I think
Speaker 7: the key thing is we need to not take another
Speaker 7: six years before we address public school funding again. This
Speaker 7: needs to be something we prioritize every two years. On vouchers, essays, Look,
Speaker 7: I'm strongly opposed to taking public funds and putting them
Speaker 7: into private schools, and I think that, you know, we
Speaker 7: have a constitutional obligation in our state to provide for
Speaker 7: a free and efficient system of public schools. That's what
Speaker 7: our constitution says, and I think vouchers flies in the
Speaker 7: face of that, and data from other states indicates vouchers
Speaker 7: have not been successful in improving outcomes and call have
Speaker 7: ballooned in the out years, and that is what I
Speaker 7: fear is going to happen in Texas if we don't
Speaker 7: have serious guardrails on this, but obviously it had the
Speaker 7: votes to pass this time. It has passed, and we'll
Speaker 7: see how it works. But ultimately I do not think
Speaker 7: it is going to make a significant difference positive difference
Speaker 7: for education in our state.
Speaker 3: So that was the good and the bad for you?
Speaker 3: Was it good and good on education?
Speaker 5: I didn't see anything bad. So as we look at
Speaker 5: the eight billion dollar bill that came out of the
Speaker 5: House on HB two, it got another half billion dollars
Speaker 5: added to it when it came back over from the Senate.
Speaker 5: Only the eight and a half billion dollars was more
Speaker 5: cabined by its use, so it is compartmentalized as opposed
Speaker 5: to simply dumping more dollars into the basic allotment. We
Speaker 5: know that the money will get to classrooms. We know
Speaker 5: that it will get to teachers, so I think that's
Speaker 5: a wonderful thing. HB three obviously provides some more educational
Speaker 5: options for families, and it's not going to be something
Speaker 5: that every single family in Texas is going to be
Speaker 5: able to access. It's a program and it's still a
Speaker 5: government program, and we'll see what improvements it makes if any.
Speaker 5: I think I look at the grand scheme of all
Speaker 5: the bills that were targeted education, and for me, there
Speaker 5: was a lot to be excited about. Especially Tasby and
Speaker 5: Taska were also very excited about the school discipline bills
Speaker 5: and their ability to get their hands around some of
Speaker 5: the things that were going in the classroom. We have
Speaker 5: SB twelve, which was the Parents' Bill of Rights. I
Speaker 5: think there's going to be a significant impact there bringing
Speaker 5: the Ten Commandments in prayer time back into schools, making
Speaker 5: that possible for families to integrate that into their students learning.
Speaker 5: It's a wonderful thing. I also was able to successfully
Speaker 5: pass out of the House Bill forty six twenty three,
Speaker 5: which in sovereign immunity for students who were sexually abused
Speaker 5: in the school system, which I think is important. There
Speaker 5: are a lot of things in the session that were
Speaker 5: targeted at education. I think it's a comprehensive overhaul of
Speaker 5: some things in the past that haven't worked.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: We also ended the affirmative defenses for educators on harmful
Speaker 5: display of content to minors in the school system, and
Speaker 5: I think that was also an important step.
Speaker 1: I wonder do you agree with Representative Turner's assessment that
Speaker 1: there's more work that needs to be done in this realm.
Speaker 1: What's your assessment of kind of how schools should be
Speaker 1: feeling about their financial situation now.
Speaker 5: Well, my school districts seem to be excited about the
Speaker 5: infusion of capital into the system, and I think it
Speaker 5: will make improvements. I think we constantly have to be
Speaker 5: diligent to determine whether what we're doing at the state
Speaker 5: level is actually reaching and improving student outcomes, because at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, it's about outcomes. Are our
Speaker 5: students improving or not. It's not just about injecting cash periodically.
Speaker 5: Are we getting the intended result? And I think we'll
Speaker 5: see improvements in the results as a result of this investment.
Speaker 1: Okay, another big measure that passed that got a lot
Speaker 1: of attention is getting a lot of tension is the
Speaker 1: ban on THCHC. This, as people may know, we have
Speaker 1: seen all these stores and shops pop up all across
Speaker 1: the state, big cities, rural areas, pretty much everywhere you
Speaker 1: can imagine selling you know, substances with THHC. They're you know,
Speaker 1: not I guess marijuana, but hemp like substances that can
Speaker 1: get you high, like marijuana, the legislature moved to ban them.
Speaker 1: There is a push by some people to get Governor
Speaker 1: Rabbit to veto this bill. I'm interested to see whether
Speaker 1: the y'all think that's at all a realistic possibility. But
Speaker 1: it was interesting, you know, for you two House members,
Speaker 1: because if you looked at past sessions, it seemed like
Speaker 1: the House was going in a different direction in marijuana,
Speaker 1: like maybe being more open to expanding medical marijuanna, which
Speaker 1: also happened this session I should acknowledge, but also, you know,
Speaker 1: even exploring ideas of decriminalization. Then we come around and
Speaker 1: take this very dramatic measure in a little you voted
Speaker 1: for this measure. I wonder if you could just tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about why why you felt like
Speaker 1: this was a good idea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's an it. SB three was an interesting prism
Speaker 5: for how you view this topic. And on the Republican side,
Speaker 5: so not on Christ's side, but on the Republican side,
Speaker 5: you have this interesting schism between what i'll call conservatism
Speaker 5: and a more libertarian bent, and so not everyone on
Speaker 5: the Republican side is in agreement on SB three. I
Speaker 5: voted for it because I heard the stories. So there
Speaker 5: it's very impactful when you can hear families that have
Speaker 5: a child that was that was actually impacted by THHC
Speaker 5: induced psychotic disorder from synthetics that are sold in stores
Speaker 5: that are completely unregulated and that children can walk into
Speaker 5: the store and buy it. In fact, they did. They
Speaker 5: did kind of a sting operation or test kids going
Speaker 5: into smoke shops who they weren't even asked for ID.
Speaker 5: They're selling them to underage kids, and it's highly addictive
Speaker 5: and highly dangerous and completely unregulated. So on one end
Speaker 5: of the spectrum you have the synthetics which are extremely dangerous,
Speaker 5: seriously affecting young people. On the other end of the spectrum,
Speaker 5: you have what i'll call it low grade THC edible
Speaker 5: stuff that you saw in Governor Patrick's press conference. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to throw anything at you guys today.
Speaker 5: You'll see that my hands are empty. I didn't bring
Speaker 5: anything with me, no props. But so there is a
Speaker 5: schism in philosophy of adults saying, well, why can't we
Speaker 5: when in reality the people who are most negatively affected
Speaker 5: by this are young people, And so the question is
Speaker 5: do you address that with the band? So we've decided
Speaker 5: to start with the band. You saw the bill that
Speaker 5: came over the House. It was a clean band when
Speaker 5: it came overt of the House, and the committee substitute
Speaker 5: was about a million pages long, very complex, and it
Speaker 5: was amended back to a ban on the floor. Fortunately,
Speaker 5: I think there was enough momentum there to resolve that issue.
Speaker 5: The more libert Harry inside of our party is going,
Speaker 5: how dare you This isn't this isn't good. This is
Speaker 5: you know, our liberties are being impinged. Reality. If you
Speaker 5: go to these package stores where they're selling alcohol, liquor,
Speaker 5: et cetera, a big percentage of their profits are coming
Speaker 5: from THC oriented products and they're upset about it. Certainly
Speaker 5: there are a lot of adults that are upset about it.
Speaker 5: My principal focus is are these synthetics harming Texans? And
Speaker 5: I think the answer to that was a clear.
Speaker 1: Yes, Representative Turner. I mean, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: blowback to this. It's also true though, I mean it
Speaker 1: didn't really seem like this was what the legislature intended
Speaker 1: when they passed you know, the original hYP law, right,
Speaker 1: The idea was never for these you know, these substances
Speaker 1: to be sold and these stores to pop up all
Speaker 1: over the state. Am I wrong on that?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: I think I think that's fair to say. I don't
Speaker 6: think that.
Speaker 7: I don't think this industry was contemplated when when the
Speaker 7: hemp law was passed in twenty nineteen, I say that,
Speaker 7: you know, I sit on the State Affairs Committee and
Speaker 7: we had a sixteen seventeen hour hearing earlier in session
Speaker 7: on at Center Bill three as well as a house
Speaker 7: build that also sought to ban most forms of HEMP, and.
Speaker 6: We heard a lot of a lot.
Speaker 7: Of powerful testimony from both from people who supported a
Speaker 7: complete ban, from parents, moms in particular whose children have
Speaker 7: been adversely affected. We heard the law enforcement perspective. We
Speaker 7: also heard from a lot of veterans who have found
Speaker 7: some comfort, some treatment really in being able to access
Speaker 7: certain THHC products to help address both physical and mental
Speaker 7: scars from their time and service. We heard from a
Speaker 7: lot of business owners and talk about you know, how
Speaker 7: they are running responsible businesses and in what the LEFE
Speaker 7: sites are in ended up doing was going to disrupt
Speaker 7: a business that employs tens of thousands of people in
Speaker 7: our state. I think what came out of the House
Speaker 7: State Affairs committee that Chairman Ken King put together on
Speaker 7: a bipartisan basis, addressed a lot of the very legitimate
Speaker 7: problems around him and represent a little articulated them. Well, yes,
Speaker 7: kids should not be able to access this stuff. Absolutely,
Speaker 7: there should not be products marketed to kids, you know,
Speaker 7: in the form of looking like a bag of chips
Speaker 7: or a bag of M and ms. We should absolutely
Speaker 7: ban all that. We need to ban the synthetic garbage
Speaker 7: that's out there, which is I think has been proven
Speaker 7: to be harmful in many cases. But can you can
Speaker 7: you do that and then regulate an industry that obviously
Speaker 7: has some benefit to some adults in our state and
Speaker 7: allow it to continue to operate. And that was sort
Speaker 7: of the approach that came out of our committee, and
Speaker 7: I think that was the approach that made the most
Speaker 7: sense to address the bad actors, address underage and some
Speaker 7: of the bad products out there, but be able to
Speaker 7: have an industry still be able to survive. So that
Speaker 7: was the approach I took. Ultimately, you know, the Senate's position,
Speaker 7: the Lieutenant Governor's position won out, and yeah, the Governor's
Speaker 7: got a big decision to make. I will not take
Speaker 7: debate and try to predict what he might do. That
Speaker 7: was my questioning about I'm good at predicting with the government.
Speaker 5: The fascinating thing to me about this was what it
Speaker 5: revealed is going on with our veterans in our state.
Speaker 5: So this was an issue where veterans kind of came
Speaker 5: to the forefront pretty aggressively toward the end of the session.
Speaker 5: And we have all these we have all these piecemeal
Speaker 5: approaches to addressing what is a very serious problem with
Speaker 5: our veterans coming home from service in foreign countries is
Speaker 5: they're dealing with post traumatic stress, they're dealing with TBI
Speaker 5: traumatic brain injury. And we had little piecemeal bills designed
Speaker 5: to rest like we have the Ibogain initiative that was passed,
Speaker 5: and I think that was an important thing to do.
Speaker 5: There was another bill as well with a different type
Speaker 5: of chemical treatment, and then it really came through with
Speaker 5: the thcpiece. And what was interesting to me was my
Speaker 5: friend David Lowe on the four arguing, I'm a veteran,
Speaker 5: I came home with injuries, i came home with post
Speaker 5: traumatic stress. Don't use me as a pond for explaining
Speaker 5: why this should be available to self medicate. And so
Speaker 5: you've got him on one side as a veteran saying
Speaker 5: this is this is not good, and a bunch of
Speaker 5: other veterans going, actually, this is really helpful. We need
Speaker 5: to really get to the bottom of that issue. The
Speaker 5: problem in the legislative session is things happen so quickly,
Speaker 5: and these are complex, very serious issues that are being
Speaker 5: addressed in a matter of days. On the flour.
Speaker 1: I want to we talked a little bit about education already.
Speaker 1: There were some other big kind of expenditures from the
Speaker 1: legislature that will have I think big impact on the
Speaker 1: future of the state. Water being a key one. Right,
Speaker 1: two point five billion dollars you know, appropriated this session
Speaker 1: toward water. Assuming voters I think it's probably a fairly
Speaker 1: safe assumption, assuming voters passed a constitutional constitutional amendment this November,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about another billion dollars each year for the
Speaker 1: next twenty years. So really we're talking about more than
Speaker 1: you know, twenty two point five billion dollars committed towards
Speaker 1: water in this session. You also had a big investment
Speaker 1: in our energy grid five billion dollars to the Texas
Speaker 1: Energy Fund to create more power to ensure that our
Speaker 1: grid can handle the growth of the state and these
Speaker 1: new industries that are demanding AI, bitcoin mining, those types
Speaker 1: of things that are demanding a ton of energy in
Speaker 1: the state. I had a conversation with a Republican yesterday
Speaker 1: where he made the case to me. You know, he said,
Speaker 1: he said, not you, the text Tribune, but the media
Speaker 1: in general. And I was like, okay, focused so much
Speaker 1: on I appreciated the not you, but you know, anyways.
Speaker 3: I'm just being polite. You're standing in front of him.
Speaker 1: But I mean, he said, you know, the media focuses
Speaker 1: so much on these social issues, some of these you know,
Speaker 1: things like THHC. The big story of this legislative session
Speaker 1: is the investment that the Texas legislature made into the
Speaker 1: future of this state this year. I'm curious, as a Democrat,
Speaker 1: do you agree with that assessment? Is that the story
Speaker 1: we should be telling about this most recent legislative session.
Speaker 7: Well, I think I think both stories are important to
Speaker 7: I think, you know, in terms of long term investment,
Speaker 7: I think, yeah, there's some good things to talk about.
Speaker 7: I think water to me stands out as a really
Speaker 7: good accomplishment done on a bipartisan basis, that is taking
Speaker 7: a long term approach to addressing a long term challenge
Speaker 7: in our state and and I think that was one
Speaker 7: of the most positive things to come out of this
Speaker 7: session without a doubt. And I would add from a
Speaker 7: North Texas perspective, we beat back in a attempt that
Speaker 7: seems to happen every two years to kill the Marvin
Speaker 7: Nichols Reservoir, which is critical to our long term water
Speaker 7: planning for those of us here in the Dallas Fort
Speaker 7: Worth region. So that was a really important win for
Speaker 7: our region. But as you're telling that story about long
Speaker 7: term investment, I will say on the Energy Fund, the
Speaker 7: five billion dollars that you've mentioned, there was five billion
Speaker 7: dollars allocated two years ago, another five billion dollars in
Speaker 7: this budget. In my view, it's a boondoggle and is
Speaker 7: that we're lighting money on fire in the Texas Energy Fund.
Speaker 7: This is something that if you talk to electricity generators,
Speaker 7: which is what this fund is designed to do, is
Speaker 7: to get more generation in the state of Texas, they
Speaker 7: will tell you, and they have told us in State
Speaker 7: Affairs Committee in the last two sessions, we do not
Speaker 7: need this financing is not the issue. And frankly, when
Speaker 7: this was originally passed two years ago, interest strates were
Speaker 7: still at historically low levels, so access to.
Speaker 6: To low interest loans was not the issue.
Speaker 7: The issue is how how our electricity market is structured
Speaker 7: and in our de regulated market, our generator is able
Speaker 7: to come in and be able to make a profit
Speaker 7: and a return on investment for their shareholders, which is
Speaker 7: ultimately how they make a business decision. And the legislature
Speaker 7: still has not fully addressed that. And and that's the
Speaker 7: and that's a difficult issue to address. And it's easier
Speaker 7: to say, well, we're just going to take ten billion
Speaker 7: dollars and put it in this energy fund and problem solved,
Speaker 7: but it is not. It is not solving the problem.
Speaker 7: So I think that's that's an important issue that is
Speaker 7: going to continue to fester until we really figure this out.
Speaker 7: I will say, thirdly, on transportation, UH, that's an area
Speaker 7: where again we need some long term planning, long term thinking.
Speaker 7: Not a lot seemingly happened in the transportation UH area
Speaker 7: this session.
Speaker 5: UH.
Speaker 7: And I would just say being in a in a
Speaker 7: you know, the fourth largest metro area in the country
Speaker 7: that we're in the heart of right now. From a
Speaker 7: Texas from a state wide transportation playing perspective, we have
Speaker 7: got to as we continue to upgrade capacity and safety
Speaker 7: of our roads and highways. Uh, we have also got
Speaker 7: to get serious about mass transit in the state because
Speaker 7: the growing population, we cannot we cannot pour enough concrete
Speaker 7: to keep up with it. And we've got to have
Speaker 7: a comprehensive statewide or at a minimum, regional approach on
Speaker 7: those issues.
Speaker 2: All right, I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: politics here.
Speaker 6: Why why.
Speaker 5: You want to?
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, let's have some fun the we we
Speaker 1: came into this session. Well, let's let me do a
Speaker 1: quick history here. Right at the end of last session,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of backlash against the speaker daide
Speaker 1: feeling at the time, in part because of what happened
Speaker 1: with es A school vouchers, in part because of the
Speaker 1: impeachment of Kim Paxson.
Speaker 4: Something you're gonna have to catch represent a little up
Speaker 4: on that. I think he wasn't there last session, so
Speaker 4: I actually think no.
Speaker 5: I recall that were watching it on the news, the impeachment.
Speaker 5: I remember it. You were there.
Speaker 1: Representative Little of course, represented Kim Paxson in the impeachment trial.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the millennial humor they're talking about.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a big push to remove that speaker,
Speaker 1: which then uh led to for a brief period of time,
Speaker 1: a very open race, and that led to a race
Speaker 1: between Dustin Burrows, the current speaker, and another candidate who
Speaker 1: was supported by what we would maybe call the right
Speaker 1: wing of the party. Right in that race, I believe
Speaker 1: we have a Dustin Burrows vote and a non Dustin
Speaker 1: Burroughs vote. And I'm curious because we then went through
Speaker 1: a legislative session that many have talked about, including Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Governor Dan Patrick, as perhaps the most conservative legislative session
Speaker 1: we have been through. I wonder whether each of where
Speaker 1: each of y'all stand now, no refunds, Chris, the Dustin.
Speaker 3: Burroughs, we might just have switched seats on this.
Speaker 1: Speaker decision that was made at the beginning of the session.
Speaker 1: You got your mic up, so let's start with you.
Speaker 5: Totally fascinating how that had played out. Obviously you'll you'll
Speaker 5: probably know I'm a freshman. Chris has been doing this
Speaker 5: this like seventh term, right, eighth term. My goodness, you
Speaker 5: very experienced, you know what you're doing. You've actually been
Speaker 5: through this multiple times. This was my first time to
Speaker 5: be exposed to it. You know, you you go into
Speaker 5: politics or you're going into the Texas House thinking that
Speaker 5: things are going to be one way and they end
Speaker 5: up being another. I mean, I didn't know how much
Speaker 5: I would like Chris and Terry Mason, Salomon and some
Speaker 5: of the other folks that are that are here, and
Speaker 5: it's it actually is very easy to work with one
Speaker 5: another as professionals. But you don't know going in what
Speaker 5: it's going to be like with the new speaker either
Speaker 5: is he going to carry quote unquote carry water for
Speaker 5: the Democrats? Is he going to shut down Republican ideals?
Speaker 5: I was pleasantly surprised with the number of Republican Party
Speaker 5: of Texas priority bills that we passed, as well as
Speaker 5: some other important legislation. It things did not go the
Speaker 5: way that I thought they were going to go, Matthew,
Speaker 5: What did they go the way you thought they were
Speaker 5: going to go?
Speaker 2: Kind of.
Speaker 3: You've also been doing this about how many eight sessions?
Speaker 5: Matt Yeah, yeah, he's been doing it longer than me.
Speaker 5: But so.
Speaker 1: When you say things did not go the way you
Speaker 1: thought they were going to go, I I taken that implicit.
Speaker 1: Is it you mean it went better than you thought
Speaker 1: it would.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it went a lot better than I thought it would.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think Dustin Burroughs should be speaker
Speaker 1: next time around?
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, that's Dustin Burrough's hype team. That was
Speaker 5: just intro music exactly.
Speaker 3: He's coming out, folks.
Speaker 5: Well, I'll just say it from not from a an
Speaker 5: evaluative standpoint, just a normative statement. He's going to be
Speaker 5: the speaker again. And I think he probably earned the
Speaker 5: right to be the speaker again based on the results.
Speaker 5: So I found, as someone who did not vote for
Speaker 5: him and should have been pushed to the margins, I
Speaker 5: found that he was very receptive to our initiatives and
Speaker 5: ideals in the House. And I think the results not
Speaker 5: only incentive Bill's past, but a house Bill's past bear
Speaker 5: that out.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm just curious on that, like going forward, do
Speaker 4: you feel like, and I mean I've heard this from
Speaker 4: other members. You know that you know your freshman term,
Speaker 4: you come in really from the perspective of like almost
Speaker 4: the you share the same perspective as many people that
Speaker 4: you represent too, like don't have that insider view, and
Speaker 4: then you go inside and you realize, like you said,
Speaker 4: there's a lot more collaboration, there's a lot more working together.
Speaker 4: Do you think going forward that will change anything in
Speaker 4: sort of how you think about the role, how you
Speaker 4: talk to voters, sort.
Speaker 5: Of how you are about the speaker's role.
Speaker 3: No, about like they about my role, about your role.
Speaker 3: That this has been you know that there is more
Speaker 3: room for collaboration, that it's less.
Speaker 5: My role in ideology didn't change what I was pleasantly
Speaker 5: surprised by. I think I had in my mind the
Speaker 5: vision that everything that happens on the House floor is
Speaker 5: the product of what the Speaker wants. And when you
Speaker 5: see it play out in real life that there are
Speaker 5: negotiations going on led by Tony Tenderholt from the Conservative
Speaker 5: Caucus with the Speaker's office, and there are negotiations going
Speaker 5: on between the House Democrat Caucus and the speaker. You
Speaker 5: see that there is so much important stuff going on
Speaker 5: on any given day, and the Speaker has to manage
Speaker 5: it all simultaneously. It's a much bigger, more difficult job
Speaker 5: than I realized I might go in. I might go
Speaker 5: on to the floor on any given day with three
Speaker 5: things that I'm really focused on. His office has to
Speaker 5: be focused on everything that goes on, so it's very complex.
Speaker 5: But my role didn't change or my attitude didn't change.
Speaker 1: Do you think, I mean one of the reasons this
Speaker 1: happened was because an unhappiness among the right wing of
Speaker 1: the party among the voters right, do you think the
Speaker 1: voter's opinion has changed or do you think there's going
Speaker 1: to be backlash for the people who Backburrow Us?
Speaker 5: Oh? I wouldn't, don't. I don't think I could speculate
Speaker 5: on that. Here's the problem from my perspective, speaking only
Speaker 5: for my party. My party's problem are the Republican representatives
Speaker 5: who vote with Chris and Salmon and all those representatives
Speaker 5: instead of voting with me. Okay, that has nothing to
Speaker 5: do with the speaker and Chris.
Speaker 6: We like those people.
Speaker 5: I know you. I know you do. That's why we
Speaker 5: need to get rid of them. So on our side
Speaker 5: of on our side of the Ledger, our problem is
Speaker 5: fidelity to the values that the party espouses that they
Speaker 5: run on behalf of if they if they want to
Speaker 5: express fidelity to some other ideology, they can run under
Speaker 5: that system. Our problem with the previous speaker was not
Speaker 5: poor communication or poor leadership. It just was total infidelity
Speaker 5: to our value system. You know, nobody sent the Speaker
Speaker 5: there to impeach the Attorney General who was sitting. They
Speaker 5: did send the Speaker there to help manifest the Republican
Speaker 5: Party of Texas's priorities. And none of that happened in
Speaker 5: the previous two sessions meaningfully. So I see this as
Speaker 5: tremendous progress.
Speaker 6: All right, So we're to start here, So, so some context.
Speaker 7: So Speaker Burrows is the fourth Speaker I've served under,
Speaker 7: Speaker Joe Strauss, Dennis Bond, and Elen and now Dustin Burroughs.
Speaker 7: They're all Republicans, and you know what, they're all pretty different,
Speaker 7: different shades, different maybe wings of the party, but all.
Speaker 6: Pretty conservative people.
Speaker 7: And guess what, in a Republican majority in the House,
Speaker 7: not to mention the Senate, and with a Republican governor,
Speaker 7: Republican things are going to happen. And that has happened
Speaker 7: every session I have been there. There's an all And
Speaker 7: so what my I guess my after action review of
Speaker 7: Speaker Burrows is, I think it was basically what more
Speaker 7: or less would I expected it to be. He's a
Speaker 7: conservative guy, and the House Republican caucus got more conservative
Speaker 7: in this last election. People like Mitch and some of
Speaker 7: his classmates came in and they're shade more conservative, or
Speaker 7: maybe several shades more conservative than the people they replaced.
Speaker 7: And frankly and my party lost two seats in the
Speaker 7: last selection, so there were ideologically the House shifted to
Speaker 7: the right in a couple of different ways. And so
Speaker 7: that said, you know, it's it's a fallacy to think that, well,
Speaker 7: you know, Speaker Feeling, who who I like a lot
Speaker 7: and respect a lot, was somehow this moderate to liberal speaker.
Speaker 7: Under Speaker Feelings speakership, the legislature passed unlicensed Carrie, passed
Speaker 7: a complete and total ban on abortion in this state,
Speaker 7: and a horrific anti voter bill in twenty twenty one
Speaker 7: that the Democratic Caucus broke quorum over for five weeks.
Speaker 7: So while I like Speaker Feeling a lot of really,
Speaker 7: from my perspective, bad things happened while he was speaker.
Speaker 7: And I could say the same about Joe Strauss, who
Speaker 7: I like a lot as well. But you know, under
Speaker 7: Joe Straus, who passed Sanctuary City, we passed Campus Carrey
Speaker 7: open carry. So so the point is in a Republican
Speaker 7: majority legislature and a Republican Speaker, and a complete Republican
Speaker 7: control of state government. There's gonna be things that happened
Speaker 7: that are, you know, from my perspective, really far out there,
Speaker 7: pretty far out there on the right, and this session
Speaker 7: was no exception to that. Now, the question is how
Speaker 7: did Speaker Boroughs run the House? I think he ran
Speaker 7: it well, uh and he I think gave every member
Speaker 7: the opportunity to have a voice and have a role
Speaker 7: in the process. Whether you're a freshman Republican coming in
Speaker 7: to reform things like like Mitch, or whether you're a
Speaker 7: Democrat who you know is trying to play some defense
Speaker 7: and get a few things done for your district, like
Speaker 7: like I was. You had the opportunity, and that's what
Speaker 7: a good speaker is supposed to do. And I think
Speaker 7: by large he allowed that environment to happen. So that's
Speaker 7: my thumbnail sketch.
Speaker 3: I'm curious.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've been now eight terms. I mean the
Speaker 4: House has certainly only gotten more conservative. As we've just discussed,
Speaker 4: we've seen, you know, coming out of the last election.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's signs necessarily that that is a
Speaker 4: trend that's going to meaningfully swing in the other direction anytime,
Speaker 4: you know soon the makeup of the Chamber likely isn't changing.
Speaker 4: How have you seen, like the Democrats role change in
Speaker 4: the time you've been there, and what do you see
Speaker 4: as the future for the party in terms of even
Speaker 4: just within like the House Chamber, like getting things done.
Speaker 7: Sure well, and I'll disagree slightly on that because I've
Speaker 7: seen it ebb and flow in the time I've been there.
Speaker 7: So in twenty seventeen, it was Joe Strauss's last session
Speaker 7: when we passed sanctuary cities and a lot of other
Speaker 7: really bad stuff that year, you know, Democrats were we
Speaker 7: had fifty five seats in the Chamber, and then the
Speaker 7: twenty eighteen election came around and we picked up twelve
Speaker 7: seats and we go up to sixty seven. And if
Speaker 7: you to Democrats who have served since at least twenty nineteen,
Speaker 7: I think we would all say, to a person from
Speaker 7: our perspective, that was absolutely the best session we've ever
Speaker 7: been a part of. And part of that was Part
Speaker 7: of that credit goes to Speaker Bonna and how he
Speaker 7: ran the House that session, But a lot of it
Speaker 7: has to do with just there was an electoral backlash
Speaker 7: to the Republican Party in twenty eighteen, and the Republican
Speaker 7: leadership in the Capitol adjusted accordingly in that session, and
Speaker 7: that was a much more bipartisan and I would argue
Speaker 7: productive session in twenty nineteen. And so looking ahead to
Speaker 7: the next session, here we are. Of course, twenty eighteen
Speaker 7: was President Trump's first midterm election. We were coming up
Speaker 7: on his second midterm election. And I won't predict. You know,
Speaker 7: the political environment is changing so quickly right now, but
Speaker 7: historically the president's party loses seats in a midterm election. Uh,
Speaker 7: we as Democrats can't count on that, and we need
Speaker 7: to go out there and recruit good candidates. We need
Speaker 7: to work hard, and we need to make our case
Speaker 7: to the voters. But there are several opportunities around the
Speaker 7: state for Democrats to pick up seats in this next election.
Speaker 7: So that's that's number one. But in terms of how
Speaker 7: we uh navigate the process, it's it's a mixture. On
Speaker 7: On the one hand, Uh, there's things that we know
Speaker 7: Republicans are going to bring to the House floor and
Speaker 7: then we're just going to have a big partisan fight
Speaker 7: over because and we know what the outcome is going
Speaker 7: to be so vouchers would be the probably the best
Speaker 7: example of that in this In this most recent session,
Speaker 7: we knew after this last election the votes were there
Speaker 7: to pass pass vouchers, and that would have happened, I think,
Speaker 7: irrespective of who the speaker was. So we've got to
Speaker 7: go and make our best case as to why this
Speaker 7: is bad policy and and hopefully be able to to
Speaker 7: translate that into some electoral success for us going forward.
Speaker 7: But at the same time, we're not there just to
Speaker 7: do that. I mean, every member of the legislature, Republican
Speaker 7: or Democrat, is there to get something done, whether that's
Speaker 7: a big policy issue they want to work on, whether
Speaker 7: it's a little thing for their district or some of both.
Speaker 7: And so Democratic members are trying to figure out how
Speaker 7: do we work within this system to get things done
Speaker 7: for our district, whether that's getting something in the budget
Speaker 7: or getting a local bill passed, or whether this is
Speaker 7: a policy area I really want to work on and
Speaker 7: I've got some expertise in it, and so I'm going
Speaker 7: to use my expertise to help advance policy for the
Speaker 7: state of Texas. And by and large, I think members
Speaker 7: of the House Democratic caucus punch way above our weight
Speaker 7: in terms of what we've got in terms of numbers
Speaker 7: in the Chamber, and we're able to get a lot done.
Speaker 7: If you look at the budget, if you look at
Speaker 7: some of the policy decisions that were made, some of
Speaker 7: the bills that were going to pass that were mitigated
Speaker 7: and made less harmful.
Speaker 6: I think Democrats had an outsized influence in the session.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to paraphrase a question from Sarah from
Speaker 1: New York, New York Fort Worth Man.
Speaker 6: A big audience.
Speaker 1: That asks, but I'm gonna ask it in my own way,
Speaker 1: which is a representative little You and the Speaker have
Speaker 1: one thing in common, Well, you have lots in common,
Speaker 1: but one of the things you have in common is
Speaker 1: that the biggest donor to Republican elections in the House
Speaker 1: right now, Texans for Lawsuit Reform.
Speaker 2: Seems pretty mad at both of y'all.
Speaker 1: And I heard that that came across my feet exactly.
Speaker 1: There's been some reporting today quoting a letter that seems
Speaker 1: to strongly hint an interest or a willingness to support
Speaker 1: primary challengers to folks like you and and maybe even
Speaker 1: the Speaker for what happened with Senate Bill thirty.
Speaker 5: Chris is laughing. This is no laughing matter. Chris stopped laughing.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, well they're mad at me too.
Speaker 4: We should just briefly say this is Texans for Lawsuit Reform, right,
Speaker 4: which is like one of the largest his you know,
Speaker 4: Republican donors brought this bill SB thirty to and that
Speaker 4: you you know, this reporting from the Houston Chronicle and
Speaker 4: the Texas Tribune showed, you know, played a role in
Speaker 4: killing or you're neutering to a certain degree, used.
Speaker 5: To really aggressive words killing and neutering.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's the let's back up sensationalist media for you.
Speaker 5: Let's see it is. You guys are tabloid. All right,
Speaker 5: Let's back up a couple of steps. So that bill
Speaker 5: that came over from the Senate came over almost unanimous
Speaker 5: Senate Bill thirty. It was, in my view, the most
Speaker 5: significant rewrite of civil jurisprudence maybe in the history of
Speaker 5: our state. Okay, by the time it came out of.
Speaker 3: Okay, who's being sensationalist now.
Speaker 5: I'm just telling you the truth. That's what it was.
Speaker 5: The page the bill was about probably twenty five pages long.
Speaker 5: Did made major major changes to both civil an appella
Speaker 5: jurisprudence as it relates to personal injury cases or really
Speaker 5: any case involving noneconomic damages. And then we had an
Speaker 5: opportunity to work on the bill. I was invited to
Speaker 5: work on the bill. I did work on the bill.
Speaker 5: We got it to a place where he could come
Speaker 5: to the House floor, and we had an amendment go
Speaker 5: on by seventy two to seventy vote, and Joe Moody
Speaker 5: carried the amendment. I helped him with the amendment. And
Speaker 5: let me explain to you the reason. The reason was
Speaker 5: not politics, It was not lawsuit reform versus trial lawyers.
Speaker 5: It was is this good for the civil justice system
Speaker 5: which I practice in and which a lot of my
Speaker 5: constituents practice in too, And if any of them actually
Speaker 5: get injured, they're going to live inside of that system.
Speaker 5: And the question I had to ask was is this
Speaker 5: good for the people of Texas? And I decided that
Speaker 5: we needed to have that amendment on. Joe Moody carried
Speaker 5: the amendment. It passed by the most narrow margin possible.
Speaker 5: If it had been a seventy one to seventy one vote,
Speaker 5: it would have failed. It passed seventy two to seventy.
Speaker 5: The amendment goes on, and he thought, Okay, this is good,
Speaker 5: and then I voted for the bill. The bill passed out,
Speaker 5: so it goes over the Senate and goes to Conference committee,
Speaker 5: and they want to strip the amendment out. I was
Speaker 5: on the House side, one of five conferees, and I
Speaker 5: was a swing vote there on the conferees, and no,
Speaker 5: I didn't vote to take the amendment out because I
Speaker 5: don't think it's good for civil practice. I've been practicing
Speaker 5: in the courts of this state and all over the
Speaker 5: United States for the last twenty one years. I've got
Speaker 5: a pretty good feel for what the rules of evidence
Speaker 5: are and are not and when you try to massage
Speaker 5: the rules of evidence to get in information in cases
Speaker 5: where that may not be relevant or maybe more prejudicial
Speaker 5: than pro but I have a problem with it. And
Speaker 5: so if we had started this discussion literally in January
Speaker 5: when the bill was filed instead of, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 5: maybe a day or so before the deadline on second reading,
Speaker 5: we could have had a more fulsome conversation about but
Speaker 5: what the rules of evidence should be massaged to do
Speaker 5: and what they shouldn't be massaged to do. So now
Speaker 5: we're in politics, right, We're out of the legslative session.
Speaker 5: We're no longer making policy. And the political kickback or
Speaker 5: the political recoil from this is we don't like those
Speaker 5: people because they worked on our bill. The only reason,
Speaker 5: I will tell you, I'm one of the only reasons
Speaker 5: that that bill came to the fore period. And Marklehood
Speaker 5: is too, and Speaker Burrows is too. And so the
Speaker 5: question people of Texas should be asking is is this
Speaker 5: good for the people who live in my district? And
Speaker 5: we decided that as it was written it was not.
Speaker 5: So is their political recoil from it? Probably? And I'll
Speaker 5: just tell you they spent probably a cost ten million
Speaker 5: dollars against me in the primary. That won't be anything new.
Speaker 5: If they want to find a primary challenger, the people
Speaker 5: who live in my district will decide who represents our district.
Speaker 5: And I'm fine with that outcome.
Speaker 1: So one last question, as we were talking about primaries
Speaker 1: is which primary will you be in? Because we of
Speaker 1: course also have a Attorney General's seat that will be open,
Speaker 1: and your name has been floated as a possible candidate there.
Speaker 2: Will you be running for that?
Speaker 5: You'll be the fourth or fifth to know. Matthew, Okay, this.
Speaker 3: Wounds us, wound shoe, we want to be first.
Speaker 5: I invited first to the trip cast. Okay, now the
Speaker 5: shoes on the other foot. Actually, to be fair, Eleanor,
Speaker 5: I'm on the trip cast because I bothered Matthew on
Speaker 5: the floor and I said, I listened to the trip cast.
Speaker 5: Why you inviting me?
Speaker 4: And Mitch you did representive little did a little bit
Speaker 4: invite himself onto.
Speaker 3: The trip cast, which I love.
Speaker 5: I I was just getting coffee at Starbucks and you
Speaker 5: guys asked me to come up here on the tram.
Speaker 4: I'll say, consider that an open any lawmakers that want
Speaker 4: to invite themselves onto the trip cast.
Speaker 2: You know, we've got to see.
Speaker 5: What was the question again?
Speaker 3: Are you are you running for Attorney General?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll decide that when it's proper. I think here's
Speaker 5: the thing. I just came out of a really traumatic experience.
Speaker 5: You know, Chris, it's traumatic, isn't it. Yeah? I mean,
Speaker 5: so you've done this eight times. This is the first
Speaker 5: time I've done it. Where you're you're up until two
Speaker 5: in the morning, you're back on committee at eight am,
Speaker 5: and it's like that for literally weeks and weeks and weeks,
Speaker 5: and so you get out of it and you come
Speaker 5: home and you try to reacclimate to your life. I'm
Speaker 5: trying to, you know, drive my daughter to dance, go
Speaker 5: to my son's baseball games, fix all the things at
Speaker 5: our houses that are broken in our absence.
Speaker 6: You have a list as well, Yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker 5: I have a list. I'm about halfway down it. But
Speaker 5: what I was going to say is the people. Here's
Speaker 5: the thing, Matthew about this race. The people of Texas
Speaker 5: need to hire the best lawyer that they can hire,
Speaker 5: someone who's fought in the courtrooms of this state, in
Speaker 5: the courts of appeals, in courtrooms in other states. This
Speaker 5: is not a role where the people of Texas can
Speaker 5: afford to hire someone and expect them to gain new
Speaker 5: skills that they do not already have. And so hopefully
Speaker 5: the voters are going to evaluate that race. I don't
Speaker 5: know whether I'll be in it. I've had several conversations
Speaker 5: with my wife and my kids about it, and other
Speaker 5: people too who have been very thoughtful in asking me
Speaker 5: whether I want to be in it. I will tell
Speaker 5: you and the many many people who listen to the
Speaker 5: trip cast, that it would constitute a gigantic sacrifice and
Speaker 5: totally upend my life and the law firm that I've
Speaker 5: helped build for the last twenty one years. And if
Speaker 5: I decide to do it, you will know that I'm
Speaker 5: extremely serious about it. Is that kind of answer your question?
Speaker 2: Okay? Good?
Speaker 4: Matthew would like to leave it there, But I actually
Speaker 4: have something that we would like to share, and we
Speaker 4: would like, actually represent Turner, you to be the judge
Speaker 4: of this, which is that we have a long running
Speaker 4: outstanding question at the Texas Tribune, which is that And
Speaker 4: I did bring props and let me I'll go with
Speaker 4: you with the real.
Speaker 5: This is a major breach of decorum. I agree.
Speaker 4: Are Matthew and Representative Little separated at birth?
Speaker 3: This is a question we have.
Speaker 4: This is a photo we have where they look, This
Speaker 4: is Representative Little, where they look remarkably similar.
Speaker 5: Okay, so this is from eighteen, and this is him in.
Speaker 3: An astronaut costume that Twitter created.
Speaker 5: This is from twenty eighteen. I've got less hair now
Speaker 5: than I did then, but this suit still fits. So
Speaker 5: I'm proud of that. Great. I'll just say I don't
Speaker 5: I don't know if we were separated at birth. But
Speaker 5: I like him a lot. We could have been thank you.
Speaker 1: I like you too, and this, so you know, is
Speaker 1: something that Rinzo Downey has been pushing in the newsroom
Speaker 1: for a very long time, that we look very much.
Speaker 5: Yes, well, he didn't tell me about that. I saw
Speaker 5: him every day for the last several months. He didn't
Speaker 5: tell me that.
Speaker 3: I asked him for the copy of the photo. He said,
Speaker 3: Oh my.
Speaker 6: God, I am not saying this similar.
Speaker 8: I am not thank you for your honing something, thank
Speaker 8: you for your honest I will say Mitch wore some
Speaker 8: very uh neutral appropriate socks here at ut Allington today,
Speaker 8: whereas Matthew is wearing hats.
Speaker 6: And I think I think there's a rule against that.
Speaker 5: TA socks. Can we get him some UTA socks? Allright?
Speaker 1: Thank you to I actually did have a moment when
Speaker 1: I was sitting up here and I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm wearing these socks. I can't believe that
Speaker 1: the background of these socks is that they were a
Speaker 1: giveaway at trip Fest. There's a little goodie bag they
Speaker 1: do for speakers, and we have about like twelve longhorns
Speaker 1: on staff, and they all gave me the aggie. There
Speaker 1: the Aggie socks that came from the giveaway. So basically
Speaker 1: these are the only songs I wear.
Speaker 4: So what I'm hearing you say is we need UTA
Speaker 4: to become a part of trip Fest and get us
Speaker 4: all socks. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well this has gone completely off the rails.
Speaker 3: Absolutely cast usually does, yes.
Speaker 1: But thank you both for being here. This has been
Speaker 1: a great conversation. I really appreciate y'all. Thank you, and
Speaker 1: this concludes the Texas Tribune Tribe Cast.
Speaker 6: Thanks Guessing, Thank you all.