Speaker 1: Today's episode of the trib Cast is sponsored by the
Safer Texas Alliance, protecting American consumers together the Texas Managed
Care Alliance and the Lone Star Economic Alliance. Welcome to
the Texas Tribunes Tribcast. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff Women's health reporter,
joined as always by my co host, editor in chief,
Matthew Watkins, who is once again in a little screen Matthew,
where are you?
Speaker 2: I am in New Orleans for a work conference. I'm
in the hotel monte Leone, which I learned yesterday on
the quick little thing that plays on Loop when you
turn on your TV was a favorite haunt of such
luminary lights as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Richard Ford and
you know, I think they're gonna add my name to
the plaque absolutely soon as I leave, so looking forward
to that.
Speaker 1: I feel like every hotel in New Orleans, but also
sort of every where has like those names as someone
who stayed there, I'm like, do they these people were
just in hotels?
Speaker 3: Willy nilly?
Speaker 2: They have like suites named after the the individual authors.
Speaker 3: So oh, they're like really working it.
Speaker 2: They're really working it. Yes, I'm a sweet I have
an irregular.
Speaker 3: Little room in the Watkins suite.
Speaker 2: That's great. I'm going to write it in pen on
the door when I leave.
Speaker 1: And you were telling us just before we got started
that it is allegedly extremely nice weather there.
Speaker 2: Yes, is the first time I've ever been in New
Orleans where it's great weather, seventy eight degrees sunny. I
hear there's a tornado warning right now in Austin, so
I hope everyone's safe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so hate that for us, I mean love it
for you.
Speaker 1: I will say this episode is a little bit I
fear it's a little bit cursed in that I started
working last night at five pm, started working on the script,
and as I started working on the script, my power
went out, and I thought, that's okay, that's why we
have the morning work on the script. And this morning
I sat down at my desk at nine am to
work on the script and my power went out.
Speaker 3: So, oh, we're kind of winging it here. I'm gonna
be honest. That's uh.
Speaker 1: That's on the weirdest, wettest May we're having. But that's
not what we're here to talk about. As I just
alluded to this is our first episode in May on
an odd numbered year, which means we are officially in
the final month of the regular Texas legislative session.
Speaker 3: So much has.
Speaker 1: Already happened, There's so much left to happen and to
discuss all of this. We are joined by two of
The Texas Tribune's best or ace political reporters. Uh Kayla Guo,
who is a politics reporter for the Tribune, Kayla, how
are you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing all right? Surprisingly not as strench. I just
got back from the Capitol and it's it's missying out there.
Speaker 3: Okay, great. And Renzo Downey lative.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, I feel like every legislative
session there was at least one terrible storm that happens
like while people are legislating, and we all like hear
the windows rattle and everything like that. So maybe that'll
be today, and it's better than maybe. I'm in New Orleans.
I have no idea yet.
Speaker 1: He's like, it couldn't be today. It's beautiful and sunny.
It is possibly today. It's really quite ominous, but I
think it's passing. And Renzo Downey, the lead author of
the Blast, our subscription newsletter for Capital insiders, Renzo, how
are you doing all right?
Speaker 5: You know, I stayed pretty dry because I somehow found
the only ten to twenty minute window when it wasn't
raining to bike over here.
Speaker 3: So that makes me you biked over here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's my one personality trait, so I got to
keep it up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fair. I get that.
Speaker 1: Real conversation starter. Yeah, well, I'll be honest. We are
in a bit of an unusual position for May sixth.
We are today May sixth. May sixth, we are you know,
a little less than a month until Siney die. And
on Saturday, the Saturday before this, couple days ago, Governor
Greg Abbott has already signed the biggest bill of the session.
On Saturday, he put his Greg Hancock on legislation creating
a one billion dollar school voucher program. Despite the power Outgiess,
I did manage to write that into the script. This
has been you know, this was like the.
Speaker 2: Huge power tour, Mike.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, the I really was like, this is the
one thing we must get in. I mean, this has
been the issue of the session. We've been talking about
this all session. They did it, They passed a voucher's program.
It passed both chambers, it was signed into law, and we.
Speaker 3: Still have a month left. So what is left to do? Matthew.
Speaker 1: Can you remember a session like this where kind of
the big swings were done and dusted this early?
Speaker 2: I cannot, I you know, I mean, I think the
more memorable sessions tend to be the ones where the
big bill doesn't make it across the finish line, like
vouchers last year, like the bathroom bill in twenty seventeen.
You know, usually when it's an exciting session, it's an
exciting session because we're wondering whether they'll get things across
the finish line. I think there's still plenty of an
opportunity for there to be drama and you know, special
session conversations. But no, this is a impressively efficient way
of getting through a major controversial bill. And I think
a lot of that credit, you know, goes to Abbott
for really pulling this off politically.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: There is another piece of this though, with the school vouchers,
that was sort of its buddy legislation, which was the
school finance legislation. Renzo, tell us a little bit about
that and where that stands, because that has not already
gotten the Greg Hancock correct.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so as the House was calling it. This is
kind of their Texas two step plan where they have
the the ESA bill, which that's the one that just
got signed, that's the voucher bill, and then they also
have the public school finance portion, which so far has
been only referred to the Senate Education K sixteen Committee.
They got a little fancy with the name this year.
And it sounds like Senator Creighton Brandon Crayton, he's the
chairman that committee. Sounds like his staff has been reviewing
that bill, but there hasn't been much talk about, you know,
what's actually happening with that bill. Yesterday, so Monday, we
had the Governor Dan Patrick, we had Dustin Burrow's old
kind of put out on social media that they just met.
They talked about their priorities. I mean, they've been doing
this frequently, but they did again on Monday, and in
that Burroughs mentioned public school funding as one of his priorities.
So sounds like maybe that's moving forward. And you know,
I heard from Brad Buckley, who's the gairman of the
House Public Education Committee, that doesn't sound like there's any
hold up really that there's agreement that will get move
in soon, so you know, maybe that's still to.
Speaker 1: Come because those are really like we're seen as like,
you know, you can't you could have one without the other.
The politics around it was you can't have one without
the other. And so now we have essays education savings accounts.
As you said, it would be necessary sort of to
hold uphold the promises that they sort of were were
talking about.
Speaker 5: Yes, and I'd say that public schools would certainly not
see it as you know, a political move. It's you know,
they're funding that. You know, they're feeling, they're feeling the
hurt that they haven't gotten that pay raise since what
twenty nineteen was that last public education session, so you
know they think they're due.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, this feels to me like kind of standard
late May. We got to figure this out, and we're
going to figure this out.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It feels this very hard for me to imagine them
getting through this session without figuring out school finance, both
because of, as you mentioned, how much the schools need it,
but also because if Democrats are going to be attacking
Republicans over schools in the upcoming election, it's going to
be really nice to have a you know, be able
to say we put X billion amount of dollars into
public schools last year to kind of blunt that attack.
So I feel, you know, this is around the time
where everyone starts worrying about whether they're going to be
able to get something done, but this, you know, feels
like one they have to and probably will.
Speaker 1: Right that seems the fate of the school finance bill
seems more set and certain than perhaps some of the
other priority legislation that we threatens to potentially ruin our
summers as political reporters, Kayla, you've been covering these other
two top priorities, which are you know, the THHC ban
or regulate question and then bail reform. Let's start with
bail reform. What gives a little background on that as
an issue and where's that stand?
Speaker 4: Yep. So this has been a priority of the governors
for a few sessions running now it hasn't gone through
because the constitutional amendments need this time around at least
twelve Democrats to get on board. Governor Abbott sort of
threw a wrench into discussions last week when he called
for the legislation to go even further than it does. Basically,
the premise is trying to allow judges to deny bail
altogether in more cases. The Texas Constitution currently outlaws when
that or outlines when that can happen, and the goal
of this legislation is to widen that list. He called
for making it automatic denial of bail in some cases,
which again goes further than what the legislation currently does.
I think Democrats were a little bit uneasy about that
and the A package, which also calls for automatically denying
bail to any undocumented immigrant who commits a crime or
is accused of a crime, rather and so the conversations
were about how do we get twelve Democrats on board
to get to the one hundred votes we need to pass
a constitutional amendment. Democrats were calling for some changes to
the bill to make it a little more palatable. They
wanted to see some measures that would help people on
the lower end of crimes, first time misdemeanor offenders, nonviolent
offenders be able to get out pre trial and not
be detained just because they couldn't afford their bill. So
we were trying to track where those negotiations or negotiations
were going as of this morning, it seems like they're
close to an agreement. I spoke to Chairman Smithy, who's
sort of the lead Republican. He chairs the Criminal Jurisy
Prince Committee, talked to Gen Wu who's House Democratic Caucus chair,
and they both said we are expecting agreement in the
next couple of days, and both seemed okay with where
they had their trying to land and seem to think
that enough people in both parties would vote rude on
the House side. And they've been discussing with the Senate
all this time.
Speaker 3: So what seemed like.
Speaker 4: A pretty thorny issue, it seems like people are pointing
towards the direction that it may get resolved and so
we may have our summers after all.
Speaker 5: Great so was that the members on the House side
saying that they have a deal.
Speaker 4: Was that fair? Smithy was saying probably sometime today they
would know if they would have a deal. Jeane moves
sort of in broad Strokes said he was aware of
an agreement coming together and to expect some movement out
of committee in the House this week, which they have
to if they want to make it happen.
Speaker 1: What are sort of the two sides of it, not
like politically or not like boats wise or proposals wise,
but like, why does Greg Abbot feel like this is important?
Speaker 3: And what are the Democrats fighting for?
Speaker 4: So Greg Abbott and other Republican leaders and Democrats don't
necessarily disagree on this point, but the point is, we
want to keep dangerous people who have been accused of
violent crimes, or who have a record that shows they
might be a threat to public safety and or might
not show up to their court hearing. We want to
keep those people behind bars so that they don't go
out and commit more crimes before their case is resolved.
And Greg Abbot specifically, and other Republican leaders like Joan Huffman,
who's leading the bills in the Senate, they've pointed to
pretty graphic and horrific cases of people who have seemingly
been let out on bond who go ahead and then
commit some other violent crime. They're often surrounded by these
lawmakers are often surrounded by family members of crime victims,
and they say this is because judges, particularly in places
like Harris Crowney, are not being thoughtful by the decisions
they're letting these people out onto the streets, and that's
a threat to public safety. On the flip side of it,
there's the concern and that you know, liberty should be
the norm. These are people who are legally presumed innocent.
That's a constitutional guarantee. And if we make detention the norm,
that is an infringement of civil rights. It's going to
swell our jail populations. It's an unfunded mandate to counties
who have to hold all these people in these jails
now and again just threatens to pull back on constitutional protections.
Because anyone can be accused of a crime, not everyone's
going to be an actual threats public safety. And it
also people on the flip side of it argue that
detaining people pre trial actually hurts public safety because it
separates people from their families, makes people lose their jobs.
Jails are not a pleasant place to spend your time, obviously,
and cannot blasting effects on that side.
Speaker 1: We've sort of talked about this on the podcast before, Matthew,
you and I about like the pendulum swing and on
this and the next issue we're going to talk about.
Right of like, there definitely was a moment where it
was like everyone is raw rack criminal justice reform. You know,
jails are over crowded in just and now we're sort
of going back in the other direction of like certainly
from Republicans, like we need more like harshire penalties, more
of this like war on crime mentality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean one of the things that I've found
confusing about this debate as it has gone on session
after session is the sort of changing definition of bail reform, right,
Like a lot of what bail reform was originally talked about,
you know, particularly in places like Harris County, was addressing
some of the things that you were saying, Kayla about
like growing jail populations, this idea that you're, you know,
innocent until proven guilty. Bail is not supposed to be
you know, holding someone pre trial is not supposed to
be a punishment. It's supposed to, you know, be a
public safety measure and things like that. And Abbott really
kind of turned that on its head, right and made
bail reforms for him instead, like let's stop this practice
of allowing dangerous criminals to go back onto the streets,
you know, while they're awaiting trial, pointing to a lot
of these cases that have happened, and you know, it's
been a very sort of topsy turvy up and down
process for criminal justice in this state in the last decade.
Speaker 3: Or so, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely is an example of like the limitations
of language and the like shorthands we use, like because
I think you say bail reform to anyone in the capital,
you're gonna like, reform means very different things depending on
who you ask, So at least for us, like I
think we've sort of stopped using that as a term
in like headlines or stories because reform doesn't mean anything
if we don't agree on what the problem is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the other issue that we've seen a real pendulum
swing on in the last couple of years and is
the other thing potentially threatening our summer vacations by which
we mean like potential for special session is THHC. We
did a whole episode on this, so if you want,
like all the in the weeds stuff, not I didn't
even write that pun that was just right off the top,
you know, go back.
Speaker 3: And listen to that.
Speaker 1: But the gist is I understand it, Kayla, and correct
me if I'm wrong, because you've been covering this is like,
you know, we passed this bill and that sort of
led to.
Speaker 3: Many sessions ago twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: That led to like a deluge of consumable hemp products
THHC products on the market that now are like there
is regulation, some regulation written into the law. The effect
on the street is that this is basically unregulated. The
legislature would like to put this genie back.
Speaker 3: In the bottle to some extent.
Speaker 1: The Senate broadly speaking, would like to see it banned entirely.
The House, broadly speaking, would like to see it regulated.
Speaker 3: Where do we stand on this now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean he summed up the differing approaches pretty well.
I think Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick says, you can't regulate
this stuff, You got to ban it. It's too hard
for law enforcement to try to test different products to
see how much THC is in there. We just got
to ban it all together. That's the only way to
protect young people and protect people from using products that
have way more THHC than the law technically allows as
it stands. That is a very different approach. We saw
State Affairs Chairman Ken King advance his own bill out
of his committee. I believe it was last week. It
is a much more regulatory bill rather than a straight
up ban. He does address certain things that Dan Patrick
thought was important, which was banning synthetics, banning vapes, but
his bill would still allow for edibles for beverages. I
believe it called. It funnels money from the from the
sale of these things. The tax of manufacturing and selling
and producing these products in Texas funnels some of that
money to crime labs, to law enforcement to help them,
you know, keep the guardrails on this. And it also
makes sure that children that the packaging of these products
aren't marketed toward children and are not you know, accessible
to children. So's it's a much more complicated bill, I guess,
and in that it's not just as straight up black
and white ban. But it is a very different thing
than what Dan Patrick has called for. And Patrick has
said that he would force a special session if he
doesn't get this ban, So I we'll have to see
how they reconcile.
Speaker 2: Those has dan Patrick weigde in on the House bill, like,
do we have any sense of how he feels about
this attempted a compromise.
Speaker 5: I haven't heard Dan Patrick say anything about the House bill,
but I have heard that Dan Patrick is serious about
the special session threat when it comes to THHC, specifically
THC so.
Speaker 3: With the ban like uh TV on whether whether enough
regulation would get there, but he is saying the ban
is the move correct. All right, Well, that's fine.
Speaker 1: We like no opinion on the legislation, but opinion on
the concept of a special session vacation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, we're gonna talk a little bit later about
like some of the politics and the infighting we've been
seeing in the chambers. But Renzo, sort of off the
top of your head, what are some of the other
major piece of legislation we have to see get over
the finish line this session that's still sort of yet
to be done.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, if we look at some of the governor's
other emergency items, he did seven this year. That's you know,
he did seven last session as well. That's kind of
a lot of emergency items to do.
Speaker 3: Lots of emergencies, a lot of emergencies.
Speaker 5: And the big, great, big state of.
Speaker 3: Texas is on fire.
Speaker 5: I mean well actually speaking of Yeah, well, one of
the major priorities that have been talked about is the
water bill. I believe that's still moving through. Don't think
there's any set agreement on that yet. And the grid
bill as well as moving through. I haven't been following
those as closely probably should be at this point, right.
Speaker 3: But got other reporters doing that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's moving yeah, yeah, yeah, so water grid.
I think there's still property tax Yeah, that's getting resolved.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it sounds like we have a deal on property taxes.
We had both relevant committee chairs in the House and
Senate announced yesterday. It's mostly the Senate plan. So it's
raising the homestead exemption from one hundred thousand to one
hundred and forty thousand for everybody, and then the additional
senior and people with disabilities that homestead exemption is going from.
That additional homestead is going from ten to sixty thousand,
So for those seniors, that's going to be a two
hundred thousand dollars homestead exemption. In Dan Patrick hopes that
that's going to basically wipe out property taxes for every senior.
I think it was saying forever. I don't we'll see
how long you know, two hundred thousand dollars last. Yeah,
so that's the main component. Well, no, I shouldn't say that,
but that's the Senate portion that was kind of approved
as is. And then there's also the business Let's see
if I can get this right business personal property tax exemption,
so that's like the intangible intangible things that business would have,
and that they kind of met in the middle on that.
The Senate wanted to raise it from to twenty five
hundred to twenty five thousand, so ten times increase, and
the House wanted to go to two hundred and fifty thousand,
and so they met in the middle under twenty five thousand.
So that's still a pretty good chunk and businesses are
pretty happy about that.
Speaker 1: Fantastic And we're actually gonna next week have a whole
episode getting into housing and property tax. We're gonna take
a quick break and thank our sponsors. Today's episode is
supported by Protecting American Consumers Together. Learn about pack's mission
to protect families and consumers from rising costs driven by
excessive litigation and lawsuit abuse at Protecting American Consumers dot org.
To Safer Texas Alliance supports SB three, advocating for responsible
THC policies that protect public health and safety.
Speaker 3: Learn more at Safer Texas Alliance dot com.
Speaker 1: The Texas Managed Care Alliance is working to protect high
quality healthcare from Medicaid patients, ensure accountability for taxpayer dollars,
and advocate for fair and competitive contracting policies. Find information
at Texas Managedcare Alliance dot org, slash Procurements and the
Lone Star Economic Alliance, a coalition of nearly one thousand,
one hundred and fifty Texas job creators, citizens and business
associations working to restore transparency and fairness to the state's
court system. Learn more at l s e a t
x dot com forward.
Speaker 3: Slash v issue. So I want to now turn to
sort of the vibes of the session.
Speaker 1: We as we've talked about a lot on this podcast,
we've seen a remarkable amount of cohesion between the chambers,
between the big three, between the LEADLeadership of the House,
the Senate, the Governor. As Renzo you mentioned, they're having dinners,
they're having lunches, they're having breakfast, they're shown up at
press conferences together a whole different vibe than last session
where things were icy. But within specifically the House chamber itself,
there's been a lot of infighting. There's been a lot
of sort of messiness. If we will, maybe you can
sort of start us off and explain a little bit
about you know, there's been several battles start us with
the what we've been calling sort of the constitutional amendment blockade,
which the blockade has been lifted, but what sort of
brought us to this moment of pretty significant conflict on
the House floor.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you're talking about the vibes. The vibes are
certainly weird in the House.
Speaker 3: Is weird.
Speaker 5: Everybody's talking about it. They're like this, this is a
weird we can't get our finger on it. Yeah. Yeah,
So the constitucial amendment blockade that began, that began pretty
early on when they set the first House calendar. The
first couple of constitutional amendments got through. And basically what
the blockade was is that it takes one hundred votes
in the House to pass the constitutional amendment, to adopt
a constitutional amendment, and with eighty eight Republicans, you need
twelve Democrats at least on board. And so what the
Democrats are doing was they all got together and I
think fifty, you know, high fifties of the sixty two
Democrats said we're not going to vote for constitutional amendments
until we get and they had, you know, kind of
a secret list of things that they were pushing for.
One of them was to put the voucher question on
the ballot in November, and that got scuggled partially by
the governor and you know, Republicans you know, left you know,
left Democrats out to dry on that vote. And that
was just one component though, and after that they kept
the blockade going. They're trying to basically the idea was
to tell House leadership that the House is an independent
part of the Texas government. You know, they're independent of
the Senate, they're independent. The governor in the House needs
to assert itself as such. And as you remember, as
you may remember, the Democrats basically got Burrows elected at
the start of the session and so they they're you know,
major part of his governing governing coalition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've like kind of come to collect you know,
and like basically, yeah, it's an interesting strike. I mean,
they're not saying like we want everything right. They're saying, like,
there's a couple of things that we refuse to kind
of compromise on now on at least one you mentioned
was like the boucherss thing.
Speaker 3: They kind of got steamrolled anyway, So there's some they're
showing some power, but there's also limitations to their power.
Speaker 4: Right, they also have to have something to show for
electing Burroughs and you know, paving that way for him
to get a life. And if they don't like that,
it's like why did you vote for this?
Speaker 3: Right, they have to answer to their constituency, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: In recent days you've been seeing the House Democratic Leader
Jeen Wu really going to the back mit and back
mic and you driving the point home when it comes
to the public education funding. I think at this point
that's kind of what the Democrats see is their biggest
win that they can get right now. Yeah, So, anyway,
that that was going on the whole blockade and that
you got some of the the more conservative members in
the in the House, there's between you know, like a
dozen to two dozen Republicans that have kind of been
anti Burrows or anti Leadership to varying degrees, and so
a group of them kind of because of all the
constitutional medment stuff on specific bill and that you know,
broader things as well. But they went and tore down
the local and consent calendar, which is this important vehicle
for passing bills that everybody agrees on they're like local bills,
you know, the hospital, the fire department.
Speaker 1: Rename this bridge, We need funding for the hospital district,
we need like you know, all sorts of like boring
stuff that like you don't need everyone else to agree on,
You're just like, my district needs this, Yeah, please say yes.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So the Conservatives went and they took down a
couple of bills from Democrats who were pulled a move
during Budget Night that this is such a huge web
of everything going on.
Speaker 3: It's like yeah, yeah, it's like a sort of a
little slap fight basically. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So kind of in response to the constitutional amendments and
Budget Night, they took down a couple of the Democrats bills,
and then the Democrats went down took down all the
Republican bills, and just the entire local and Consent calendar
fell apart, and you know, today's Tuesday. On Wednesday, they're
sounds like they're going to try again with a new
local and consent calendar, And the Conservatives are kind of
seeing this as a little test of are they still
serious about using the local and consent calendar as their
leverage Because we talked about the constitucial amendments being the Democrats.
Speaker 3: Leverage the local and consent is the Conservatives.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because that threshold to take down a bill is
five members, and so now that you've got a dozen
who are consistently anti leadership, they're able to pull that
whenever they want.
Speaker 1: And the tangible effect of that is it just like
slows everything to a halt because every single bill has
to then get called up, heard voted on.
Speaker 3: Like I mean, we're going to be every single day.
We'd be here all night, and a lot of stuff
would probably sort of just end up missing deadlines because yeah, yeah, Matthew,
you've seen a wide range of strategies from.
Speaker 1: These different parties over the years. I mean, what's your
sense of like this pulling the local and consent calend
as a strategy to get what you want.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a really good way to piss off
a lot of people in the House, right, because these
are the bills that just like it's constituent relationships, right.
It's again like renaming the bridge, like people don't people
in Abilene don't care about the name of the bridge
and Corpus CHRISTI or you know that type of stuff.
But it matters to a slight group of people that
lawmakers want to make happy. As I sort of watched
this from Afar, it sort of feels to me like
two increasingly irrelevant groups in the House trying to find
a way to make themselves relevant, or at least like
show to the people who support them that they can
be relevant. You know. You know, I remember in the
I think it was the twenty twenty three type trip fest,
I moderated a panel of House Democrats and it sort
of evolved into this very angry confrontation between John Bryant
and Trey Martinez Fisher about like whether Democrats are doing
enough to you know, exert their will in the House.
And you know, there's definitely a segment of the Democrats
who feel like they should be acting stronger and fighting back.
And I think some people look at that and be like, Okay,
but you don't actually have that much power, right And
and that's where they come up with this constitutional blockade,
and you know, the Republicans essentially they just call their bluff.
They're like, we're going to pass this voucher bill and
then you're really just going to be responsible for killing
a hugely necessary needed water, you know, infrastructure bill like
go ahead, do it and see if it works. And
then on the other side, you know, you have a
House speaker who has This is a position that in
recent years has traditionally fought with the sort of what
may or may not be accurately called the grass roots
wing of the party right, and they've always been a
thorn in the side. There's at times been you know,
Dan Patrick jumping in and backing that wing. This year
Patrick taking a different approach, not really taking that side.
But there's a segment of that population that really wants
to step in and still sort of assert their will
or at the very least show a certain constituency of
voters that they are not just like, you know, laying
down and accepting what's going on there. But it feels
to me like a session in which, you know, the
most important players in the legislature on the Republican side
are rowing in the same direction, and in which Democrats
are sort of in the weakest position they've been in
in this state for a considerable amount of time. I mean,
I'll just go back. I can talk about how you know,
in the twenty nineteen session, we were coming off the
betto Ork race, we were coming off this situation where
we thought maybe in twenty twenty that Democrats might be
able to flip the House. We are in a just
completely different world right now. Democrats got trounced in the
twenty four election. There was a poll that came out
recently that showed Donald Trump plus eight approval rating in
the early part of April compared to being minus eleven
and twenty seventeen the first year of his first term.
I mean, Democrats are just it's really bleak right now,
and I think they're just looking for something, anything to
point to a win. Whether they can find anything, I
guess I have my doubts.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of like for Democrats and these
like further right Republicans, like their worst nightmare politically is
the Big Three rowing in the same direction.
Speaker 3: Then it's like, what do we need you guys?
Speaker 1: And I think the We've talked about this a lot,
but the interesting thing is, like, like Democrats have a
significant ideological difference from leadership on how the state should
be run, on what we should using our money for,
and what we should be legislating period. The gap between
what these grassroots conservatives want and what Burrows, Patrick and
Abbott three very conservative elected officials are doing is not
that vast, but we're seeing sort of equal degrees of
attempted flamethrowing from each which is interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, being authorn in the side of House leadership has
been a successful strategy for a certain wing of Republican
if not for gaining power in the House, at least
for you know, getting financial support and making you know,
people happy and the like most activist wing in the party.
And there are some people who seem to want to
be kind of holding onto that playbook, even if you know,
Dan Patrick, who might be the biggest representative of that,
seems to be thinking like I can work with this guy, right.
Speaker 1: I want to briefly talk about even a schism within
those more conservative in sometimes like their main tool is
like the performance art of being a thorn.
Speaker 3: In the side.
Speaker 1: But even within that little cadre of people, there's been
a schism which is between you know, our conservative lawmakers,
the sort of House leadership and the poor bullied, beleaguered
Brian Harrison, who has really become sort of like a
side show of this whole session.
Speaker 3: Kayla.
Speaker 1: There was like a pretty explosive hearing where conservative Republican
Jeff Leach as well as many other members of the
committee really sort of took Harrison to task.
Speaker 3: What's the backstory here on what's going on?
Speaker 4: So Brian Harrison had his first bill ever this session,
scheduled to be heard in committee and Jeff Leech's committee,
I think it was the week before this encounter happened.
Harrison was not there when Leech called him up to
lay out his bill. Harrison said he was obviously voting
in a different committee, and he accuses Jeff Leach of
intentionally bringing up his bill while he wasn't there so
he could put it aside and it wouldn't get to
be heard that day. Leech said he texted him and
didn't know it hadn't been told that he was voting
in another committee. By the next week, it's on the
agenda again. Harrison is facing this panel of lawmakers who
again take him to town on what is in his
bill and what it would do. It's a really testy
back and forth. Leech steps in a couple of times,
one to reprimand rep Harrison for being on his phone
while members were questioning him. It's a really like tense
and it seemed to be a somewhat cathartic interaction for
the people on the panel. I mean it was Jeff,
it was Democrats and Republicans were getting into Harrison because,
I mean, as you said, he's been kind of a
sideshow all this session. He's been complaining from day one
that the House is not moving fast enough, that conservative
priorities are not getting heard, that actually the budget is
a liberal bloated budget, and everything that really conservative members
are putting forward are actually liberal priorities, and Democrats are
actually wielding power and running the show here. And he's
been making all these complaints for a long time, and
I think a lot of lawmakers were looking around saying,
I've been working for twelve hours today. You know, I've
been hearing my contituents. I've been in so many committee hearings.
You know, I've been trying to work on my bills
that I think are really conservative and really important. I
don't know what you're talking about, but that is not
helpful to me, and you are trying to You're putting
all all of us on blasts on X as if
we were all the same, as if we were all Democrats,
and that's just not true, right, Rinzo, What are you
hearing from lawmakers about how just how sick they are
of representative and Harrison.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well it's not just House leadership. I mean when
Brian Harrison was saying that, you know, this is the
most liberal budget, then Dan Patrick Wade and he was
saying that, you know, like some people just want to
make news. And a few weeks ago I've lost track
of time at this point, but when Brian Harrison tried
to remove Burrows from the speakership and only got yeah,
it was only him and one other rep. Who you know,
you know, David Lowe. You know, he was kind of
he'd been like Brian Harrison's wing man, like always buy
him on the mic, you know, just like not even
necessarily speaking on the mic, but just being there showing support,
showing face. And you know, he sided with him on
this one. He was the only one. And since then
he's kind of stopped being at his side. And the
word to hear from some of those conservative members is
Brian Harrison is just and doing his own thing. Like
they kind of they could have had a game plan
when it came to removing Burroughs, and Brian Harrison just
kind of busted through and pulled that on his own,
and they didn't have support, you know, they didn't have
a backup plan, and so I think that was kind
of the straw that broke the camel's back. But it's
kind of been festering longer than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they're like very very conservative members of the
House who have like sort of gotten together around these
issues of like our bills aren't getting passed, we're not
you know, they're doing these strategic things and then very
strategic Brian.
Speaker 3: Harrison out on his own.
Speaker 1: I think to some extent he wants to be like
I was the only member to vote for to take that,
you know, like he is not trying to in reality
show parlance, he's not here to make friends.
Speaker 5: Brian Harrison against the world.
Speaker 1: Brian Harrison against the world, which makes it very easy
to call us against him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like he's unlikely to, you know, on
the vibes of that committee, like ever get a bill passed.
Speaker 3: But he'll probably get re elected.
Speaker 1: I think his constituents and his fan base on X
like loves them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and a lot of his critics are suggesting that
maybe getting reelected isn't the goal, but getting elected to
Congress or another seat might be the goal as well.
And you know, he has definitely been effective in a
lot of different ways at getting public attention. You left
out one other place where he got kind of wrapped
on the knuckles, which was when he was questioning the
head of the Texas Water Development Board over DEI policies too,
which brought a red uke from if I'm not mistaken,
all three of the Big three, right, It's been an
interesting session because I think there have been these moments
of sort of like public humiliation that feel like they've
gone a little bit farther than they have in the past.
I mean, the other example of this is the Brisco
Caine bill that went up, you know, creating what like
states City of Austin, Strict of Austin or whatever, taking
away like, you know, local control from the City of Austin.
They brought up that bill in a committee. It was
voted down unanimously, and the lawmakers were just like cackling,
laughing among themselves as they voted it down. And something
that like I had just really never seen before in
terms of just kind of you know, I don't think
Kane was in the room when that happened, but it
was you know, it definitely felt like a you know,
kind of a brushback pitch from the legislature, so just
a little bit spicier this time around in the House committees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely feels like, you know, some sessions like
the parents are fighting and the kids are just like
along for the ride, and some this session the parents
are all in agreement and the kids are tearing each
other apart, and it's like, you know, it makes for
a arguably like a more productive session when you know
the parents are all in agreement and a slightly messier
session when the kids are left their own devices to
really go at each other's throats. Yeah, yeah, great, any
let's do this right now. Everyone make a prediction and
we'll come back at the end of the summer.
Speaker 3: Are we going to have a special session? And if so,
how many? Kaylie I'm saying noyla. No, Kayla is saying
no special session. I think bail is.
Speaker 4: Is you know, there's a pass forward on at TC
is really the only thing I can think of that
there is such a far clash, but a special over.
Speaker 5: TCHC Apparently Dan Patrick is serious.
Speaker 3: Come on, don't poke the bear now.
Speaker 5: I'm putting no out there with you know, with Dan
Patrick being serious, I'm going to put it at one
special session, maybe not the most urgent special session, but
a special session none the less, a.
Speaker 3: Special session on the less.
Speaker 2: Matthew, I'm going no. I think they'll they'll get somewhere
on THHC. There's time to figure it out. I know
they're pretty far apart, but there might be some middle
ground there. And yeah, it just seems like it feels
to me like a low drama session. These things, I
feel like they alternate a lot, you know.
Speaker 1: So all right, well then I will say yes as well.
So we are two v two and we will come
back at the.
Speaker 3: End of the summer.
Speaker 1: And how many, Oh, I'm gonna say one special session,
Oh my god, one special.
Speaker 2: Session where wins gets a one hundred dollars gift card
to Big Dan's weed van on Congress.
Speaker 1: That feels like a false promise for those of us
who bet on a special.
Speaker 3: Session that will fan teach. But yeah, we will leave
it there for today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for our guests for joining us,
and Matthew for joining us from New Orleans. You can
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