Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for Monday,
June twenty third. We are coming to you with an
emergency trip cast because less than twelve hours ago, as
all of us were getting ready to go to bed
and get ready for the week, Greg Abbott vetoed the
Texas THHC band and ordered a special session for July
twenty first, later next month. We are throwing out our
trip cast plans and talking about this because it's the
big story in Texas politics. And I am joined this
week by politics reporter Kayla Gwow. Hello, Kayla, I Kayla.
We were talking before went to sleep around three point
thirty last night after all that news, so I want
energy from all of this. And then Jasper Sharer, Hello, Jasper,
good to be with you.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 1: I know you were watching the NBA Finals last night,
So is there at least a little bit of you
that was happy that he waited until that was.
Speaker 3: Over a little bit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was.
Speaker 3: It was kind of overall just like a rude welcome
back from my vacation where I was wistfully, you know,
not paying the usual attention of this kind of stuff.
But here we are.
Speaker 1: I'm back in the game here we are. Indeed, I
for one, was very happy that the NBA Finals game
was starting at seven o'clock. It meant I was gonna
be able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.
And then I'm brushing my teeth and I think it
was you, Kyla who dropped in our slack channel Abbott's
vetoed SB three and that blew up everything. Let's just start.
Oh and by the way, Eleanor Clemenov, you may have
heard of her. She's the co host on the show.
You may remember a couple of weeks ago when I
was in Aspen and I knew I was it's too important.
I got to join the trip Cast as a zoom. Anyways,
I don't want to disappoint our listeners. Eleanor also now
an Aspen, and she didn't care at all. She was like,
I'm skipping it. I'm hanging out in the mountains, so
you know, e clipping off at text tribute dot com.
If you want to email your disappointment, we're here. The
true trip Cast stands giving you the information that you
need to know. But anyways, anything y'all want to say
mean about Eleanor before we move on, I mean.
Speaker 3: Come on, Yeah, just the worst timing she could have
possibly picked, obviously pre engineered.
Speaker 1: So all right, well, it was a wild night last night,
so let's just start, Kayla. Can you just sort of
like walk us through what happened last night to get
us to the point we were in here.
Speaker 2: So we got an earlier round of vetos earlier in
the evening of twenty five bills total, including a couple
from earlier in the session, and that was it. I
don't think I didn't feel off the hook yet at
that point, but I had sort of prepped for two
opposite outcomes if the governor vetoed it or let it pass.
And then I think it was around eleven fifteen that
the SB three veto on its own sort of quietly
came out.
Speaker 1: Fifteen, which is forty five minutes before the deadline to
beat veto bills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, forty five minutes before the deadline eleven forty five
on it or eleven fifteen on this Sunday night. And
that was that. So we rushed to get that up.
And then, in a really strange twist, Governor Abbott responded
to a tweet by our friend John Moritz of the
Austin American Statesman, in which Moritz had said that a
bill by Simpronia Thompson had been vetoed and Abbot rushed in.
This is just minutes after the SB three veto, says
there was a flaw in miss Te's bill and he
put it on a special session, which was our first
indication that maybe we were heading to a special session.
But it was bizarre because it was in reply to
eight reporters tweet, so minutes after that then her, I
guess it was more like thirty minutes after that, around
midnight or just after midnight, after the veto deadline passed,
Abbot officially announced a special session, with SB three at
the top of the list.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I think I can confidently say that this
is the first time a special session has been announced
in a reply to a tweet and an Austin reporter. Pretty wild,
I what I'm struggling to even come up with a
question here. What do we think explains Abbot waiting until,
I mean almost literally the last minute to do this.
We've known about this bill for weeks. Why did he
wait until you know everyone was going to sleep on
Sunday night to act on this?
Speaker 3: I think some it was genuine indecision about how to
handle this kind of a hot potato politically. I mean,
I think he I don't know if that explains fully
why he waited until forty five minutes before the deadline,
but at least you know that there were some other
bills that he vetoed, you know, much earlier on that
were just obviously clearer calls for the governor.
Speaker 2: And I know.
Speaker 3: His you know, folks on his his team have said
he was he really didn't, at least initially know how
he was going to handle the veto versus you know,
sign decision. And I think you know, you also saw
that his veto proclamation was unusually long and detailed, sort
of laying out you know, both his his reasoning and
sort of a you know, I think the governor had
previously said like he was going to put on his
judicial hat to kind of decide this, you know, harkening
back to his time as a text of Supreme Court justice,
and you you know, his part of his his proclamation
kind of read like a legal decision where he was
saying like he didn't think that SB three would you know,
stand up to legal scrutiny or at least it would
get tied up in the courts. And then he even
went as far as to suggest, you know, kind of
the regulatory framework that he'd be okay with when you know,
when he calls lawmakers back in July to sort of
reconsider an amended version of SB three. So I think
kind of the combination of like indecision and then wanting
to have as bulletproof of a explanation as possible to
kind of make clear, look, you know, I still want
to do something on this, but you know this, I
think he went to great lengths in his proclamation to say,
you know, it was sort of targeted at Dan Patrick
to me in some ways. I think he was like, look,
you know, I'm kind of with you on this to
an extent. I just I'm trying to help you not
get your your top priority tied up in endless litigation.
Speaker 1: Right, Let's let's actually step back and do a little
bit of a history of how he got here. Right,
So Dan Patrick had been calling for this thhe ban, Well, actually,
let's sit back even farther than that. Right, These THH stores,
these products have been available in gas stations, you know,
all over the place for the last couple of years
after the action taken both by the federal government and
the state government to legalize him. Right, This creates a
situation where these sort of like marijuana like substances that
can get people high are now essentially legal, almost by accident.
I think everyone sort of agrees that was not the
intent of the original law. So Dan Patrick comes into
this session and says he wants to ban these substances.
These are dangerous for folks. The measure passes the Senate,
but the House sort of like significantly amends the bill
in committee, right, Kayla, basically saying, you know, we're not
going to ban this, we're going to regulate it. Then
what happens, Kayla, Well, the House.
Speaker 2: The House has this bill, They've been through committee. It's
Chairman King's Bill out of State Affairs, obviously a very
powerful committee. That bill is, you know, it contains a
lot of what Abbott ultimately recommended in his proclamation explaining
his veto have barred sales to minors. It would have
barred marketing to miners and put some more restrictions in
testing and bolstered law enforcement, all those things. It was
a pretty substantial regulatory framework and then drama happens on
the floor. We saw Representative Tom Oliverson, who is an
anesseciologist and also Dan Patrick's neighbor, introduced an amendment to
substitute the regulatory framework for the full out band that
the Senate had passed months before. We saw kind of
a hodgepodge of people sign on to that, some Democrats
in addition to a bunch of Republicans, and the House
managed to do that. And at the same time all
this was happening, there were some negotiations about school finance.
Speaker Burrows has said that you know, they were independent
and there was no hostage taking, and the school finance
package was just a tough, big, complex piece of legislation
to put together. But I think there was definitely some
criticism after the fact that school finance and THC got
tied up together and we saw the House pass this
full on ban and that is what ended up making
it through the legislature, in addition to an expansion of
the medical marijuana program.
Speaker 1: Right, and so then there were all these calls for
Abbot to build. People upset about the economic impact, people
pointing to maybe the use of these substances by veterans
dealing with various issues. Abbot kind of remains completely silent
on this until this happens. So Jasper, are you surprised
by Abbot's decision here?
Speaker 3: You know, I would say I am. I mean I
sort of from the beginning was that he would he
would rather than sign or veto it, just kind of
let it take effect. But you know, at the same time,
if you just think of kind of the volume, the
pitch of the opposition to this, you know that was
coming from I mean, really the key is that that
was coming from the right, which is you know what
just you know, dictates a lot of the decision making
by by Republican lawmakers who are running the state right now.
It's it's is this how is this issue going to
play out in upcoming primaries in you know, I think
Governor might have sensed a you know, potential political liability
for you know, folks in his own party. So I
think it's he just saw that like they kind of
needed to not go back to square one, but just
like sort of reset and come up with a version
of this that might be less politically toxic. When you know,
the march in May primaries roll around I'm not sure
if this would have really been like a political killer
at by itself as an issue, but so, you know,
I'm surprised based on like what I expected at the beginning,
but just given the kind of the volume of the
chatter over the last few weeks and just the intensity
of the pressure on the governor, you know, it sort
of makes sense in retrospect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've said this on the podcast before, but it's
it's one of those things right where it's just very
easy to draw a direct line to lawmakers decisions and
impact on people's lives. Right, Like, these these products are
available kind of all over the place. There's these stores everywhere,
whether in like city downtowns or you know, small towns
and everything like that, and they're going to be gone,
right or they were going to be gone before this veto,
And you know, people were upset about that, and they
knew who to blame. It's not like one of those
situations where you're having to kind of wade through and
point fingers and explain like the complexities of school finance.
Right it's like, this isn't going to be here, and
it's because of these lawmakers that this happened, and maybe
that has something to do with the decision. The question
now is what will happen next, Kayla. Governor Abbott was
pretty prescriptive in terms of what he wanted to see
from lawmakers on this issue. Tell us a little bit
about what he laid out for wanting to see.
Speaker 2: He got about a long list of possible regulations. He
suggested that lawmakers consider an approach similar to the way
alcohol is regulated, with a particular agency looking over at
certain rules, like again baring the sale of THHC products
to miners, barring marketing and packaging that is meant to
attract miners. I think he had, you know, something about
not having stores in your schools, requiring testing at every
phase of manufacturing and processing, you know, funding extra funding
for law law enforcement to be able to enforce all
these rules. So he has a fairly comprehensive list of
proposed rules, and there are more than what I just listed. Again,
a lot of them overlaped with what was in ken
Kings Bill. But yeah, I guess they'll come back July
twenty first, and this is the first thing on the agenda.
I will have to see how open damp over clearer
that it was a ban or bus throughout the regular session,
you had forced to threaten a special if you didn't
get his way if lawmakers did pass a regulatory bill.
So they're gonna have to work through that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will say, just jumping in real quick on
Cayla mentioned the fact that it's on the table to
you know, ban the sale to minors of these products.
I think the fact that that needs still needs to
be done for this industry really underscoes how it's kind
of a free for all, you know, ad hoc system
that's you know, that's been operating over the last six years,
and why there has been kind of this clamor for
something to get done this session. Just the fact that,
you know, they passed the bill that ultimately allowed for
this industry to proliferate, intending to boost the agriculture industry,
so they didn't even bother to set you know, an
eighteen or twenty one age limit. I think that just
underscores how, you know, how much you know, regulatory clamor
there is. And it also if we're thinking about what
might come next, you know, I think even Democrats generally
have been pretty on board with doing like some sort
of regulation and the debate has really just all along
been about the band versus regulation conversation.
Speaker 1: Yes, but as Kayla kind of waived that there is
another very influential and powerful statewide leader who will have
a say in this, and out of course is Dan Patrick.
You said in your story last night or I guess
early this morning, Kayla, that he had listed this is
what one of his top five bills of his career
in terms of most important. He you know, called a
press conference in which he was really blasting the media
and other folks for you know, what he perceived as
being critical of this bill. How is he going to
react to this? Do you think how has he reacted already?
Speaker 2: He seems pretty mad. Yeah, I don't think he's thrilled. Yeah.
I mean he put out a pretty blistering statement immediately
on Twitter last night after the Veto came out, called
it a quote unquote late night Veto that he argued
would leave law enforcement and people whose loved ones have
been affected by high potency TC products leaving them feeling abandoned.
So he's clearly disappointed. Some of his allies, like Tom
ulliverson have come out with other statements saying they're disappointed.
I'll be headed to his press conference in about an
hour and a half from when we are speaking right now,
and I think one of the main things we'll be
looking at is just measuring like just how mad he is.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, be careful. We all know that he
threw some products that reporters the last press conference, so
you know, just keep your head on a swivel as
we go from there. I mean, it does seem though
jasper like Dan Patrick might be unhappy about this, but
he's going to be fixed with the decision of no
regulation at all or regulation more aligning with what Governor
Gravig Abbott does. So I mean, you know, he is
not one who's afraid to play a game of chicken
with the governor, but it does seem like the governor holds,
you know, the most leverage in this situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, I mean, it's going to be fascinating
to see how he handles the situation, how Dan Patrick does,
just because he has I think found success in the
past kind of playing hardball on these seemingly intractable disputes,
like if you think about the the property tax debacle
after the twenty twenty three legislative session, that was kind
of the only other real example of Governor Abbott and
Lieutenant Governor Patrick really being publicly and very directly at
odds over like a you know, a major policy issue.
I can't I think of another example that really comes
close to the THHD situation here, you know. But to
your point, Matthew, like, it's you know, if tenant Governor
Patrick comes out guns blazing and you know, just trying
to take down Abbott over this issue, he risks you know,
getting less of what he wanted you know, in the
first place. So I think it's and he's a crafty politician,
he's no doubt like considering you know, the stuff that
we're talking about here. So I wouldn't be surprised if
he comes out with, you know, at least by by
the Dan Patrick standards, maybe a little bit more of
a measured tone, just trying to you know, express his disappointment,
but saying, you know, like he still does have another
chance to you know, try to move the ball on
this issue in you know, a month from now. So
I don't think he's going to want to you know,
establish a you know, kind of needlessly antagonistic relationship with
the Governor heading in if it's only gonna you know,
sour his chances.
Speaker 1: Well, by the time most people are hearing this, that
press conference will likely have happened. So check out text
tribute dot or Kayla will have her story on it
and you'll find out what happened there. It might be
horribly wrong, who knows. Yeah, we'll see, we'll see. Well,
you know, Jasper, I believe the last time you were
on the podcast, you and I both predicted there would
be no special session, and I think maybe even kind
of rubbed it in with Eleanor that she predicted otherwise.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yes, we were wrong, and maybe it's for the best
that Eleanor couldn't couldn't make it to this podcast. I mean.
The other thing that sort of caught my I and
I'm sure a lot of other people's eye about Abbot's
announcement last night was the word initial when he said
the initial list of agenda items. I guess first before
we go on whether something might be added, Kila, did
anything jump out to you about other things that will
be on that initial list?
Speaker 2: Not particularly, I don't think you know some of them.
Looking at the veto statements there were just flaws in
the bill or you know, some sort of tweaks that
could be made. And I mean overall, there was a
bunch of criminal justice bills that he vetoed entirely that
are not on the special agenda yet, but you know,
like none of them were major, major, major bills that
anyone any of us have been following throughout the session.
But like you said, that's an initial list. I think
I wouldn't be super surprised if we saw something like
bail pop up on there, or taxpayer funded local municipality
or government lobbyer, and maybe redistricting. So I think we'll
we'll see, and one of the means.
Speaker 3: One of those Vito proclamation is nodded at that, Kayla, right,
the possibility of a bail special session item. You know,
he was kind of citing the failure of one of
his bail priorities as you know, something that needs to
happen first before one of those bipartisan criminal justice bills
could get through.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think the big thing people are going
to be wondering and talking about between now in July
twenty first though, is what you mentioned, Kayla, redistricting, Right,
It has been reported by US and others that there's
been some pretty strong pressure from the White House to
consider a mid term redistricting, specifically redrawing the congressional lines
in an effort to maybe help Republicans nationwide hold on
to the House. That is not on the list, but
maybe it will be. Jasper, what do you think the
state of play is there right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think well, first of all, you know, baseline understanding
here is like the governor can add an item to
the special session call at any point. You know, these
things can last up to thirty days, sometimes less. But
you know, this very much is not that's not necessarily
the end of the agenda. I think, you know, it's
been pretty clear that Abbott is kind of waiting to
take his cues from what however, you know, kind of
the Trump political team and the Texas Republican delegation in
DC kind of how they work out this situation. You know,
I think the Governor has kind of been signaling you know,
you guys handle this and I'll just go with the
sort of the way the winds are blowing. And what
we have seen is that the Texas Republicans are you know,
not super jazzed about the idea. They are worried about
spreading them their districts too thin ahead of you know,
it could be a tough mid term cycle. So it's
you know, but we've also gone some medication that you know,
they might not be thrilled about it, but they're still
likely to go along with it if if Trump the
Trump folks stand their ground, which is kind of I
don't know a microcosm of how most of these congressional
White House relations play out, so all you know, kind
of the the expectation right now is that this is
going to happen and that it probably would get added
to the special session call, you know, at some point.
But you know, it's also possible that this is done
in a separate session. You know, we had what four
of them last year and earth and then three of
them the year before, so it's this could just be
the first of multiple I don't want to jinx us,
but it's always a possibility. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's just such a fascinating dynamic because I can't say
that I've spoken to any Republicans rely who think this
is a particularly good idea for the Texas delegation. Right
many look back at last decade. We wrote a story
about this back at the time about how, you know,
Republicans got really ambitious in the Texas House, trying to
hold on and expand their majority by drawing a bunch
of seats in Dallas County that were attractive to them.
But what they did was they spread out their voters
so much that by the end of the decade, Democrats
had essentially won every seat in that county. They got
a little bit overly greedy when they redrew the lines
this past time. For the current district lines, they really
emphasized longevity and you know, as opposed to adding more seats,
and that was a conscious decision to avoid being put
in a tough position at the later part of the decade.
But I think the big question is, right, when the president,
who clearly controls so much and has so much influence
over your voters, is asking something, can you say no
to them? I'm very excited to see. I think the
other question here is, you know, how would Democrats participate
right because they still have the ability to do a
quorum break. I was in San Antonio last week interviewing
some members of the San Antonio delegation. I asked them
about this possibility. Senator Menandez, I'm quoting him. He said,
I don't know why any Democrat would show up to
a special session where that's what you would do. Speaking
of the redisserting Representative Ray Lopez coyly saying, I've been
known to leave before when the issue is a BS issue,
when democracy is at stake, you cannot put a penalty
on me that will keep me from exercising my voice,
and if that means walking away, not showing up, and
then he sort of tailed off. But I mean, pretty
strong signals that they would not be interested in playing
a game. But it's interesting because now they need to
come back to deal with some of these issues. So
I think there will be an interesting little game to
be played here about you know, who shows up, when
do you disappear? If you add it to the call,
When do you add it to the call? We don't know,
but it's going to be incredibly fascinating to watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you could easily see some of those congressional Republicans,
you know, going along with this because they don't want
to upset the Trump administration. Then almost kind of hoping
or banking on the Democrats, you know, holding out in
Austin so they don't have to worry about it. And
it's also interesting that like for example, Pete said, you know,
you were talking aboutthew about past examples of Republicans stretching
themselves too thin, like Eat Sessions is one of the
kind of the more seasoned Republicans in Congress from Texas,
and one of the leaders is MI understanding of, you know,
in some of these talks, and he is like a
prime example of somebody who lost his seat in twenty
eighteen to call it all read after that, you know,
in a district that radically changed from you know, reach
from when the lines were drawn at the beginning of
that decade. So, you know, I think there's there are
some fresh memories in the delegation about you know, Lizzy
Fletcher beating John Colberson as well. I think they're trying
to avoid those situations.
Speaker 2: He saw Hakeem Jeffries, who's the Democratic Minority lea leader,
also sort of he wasn't necessarily bullish, I think, but
he pointed out, you know, like this could actually potentially
benefit Democrats if they're not careful enough, and you know,
you create situations where Democrats do have an edge and
possible opportunity to win.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. It's really both sides will have their own
kind of like, you know, how much do you want
to gamble on this decision to make? If indeed they
go through with that, there will be plenty of time
to talk about that if they do. Lots of everyone's
favorite topic, redistricting that you know, few things can cause
someone to buck their president or you know, decide not
to show up more than you know the lines that
determine whether they get to keep their seats or not.
So that'll be a fun one. This THC fight will
be a fun one. I'm sure we will see other
fun things coming up in the meantime, but we will
talk about those later because Kayla's got to go cover
a press conference. Thank you Kayla for joining us, and
thank you Jasper. Thank you to our producers, Rob and Chris.
We will hopefully be back to our regular schedule next
week and hopefully we will not be working until three
am the night before. Talk to y'all next week.