Speaker 1: This week's episode is sponsored by the Lone Star Economic Alliance,
the Texas Managed Care Alliance, and the Safer Texas Alliance.
Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for
Tuesday May twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. It is the
last Texas Tribune trip cast of the regular session.
Speaker 2: We did it?
Speaker 3: We did it? Did we do it?
Speaker 4: You specified regular sessions?
Speaker 3: Yes, we will get into that.
Speaker 1: Parentheses are soon. I am Matthew Watkins, Editor in Chief
Text Tribune. Next to me is my co host, Eleanor Klebanoff. Hello, Eleanor, Matthew.
And next to her is jasper Cher, politics reporter, not
co host, but frequent guest and friend of the podcast,
Friend of.
Speaker 4: The pod, favored guest, guest to guests, favorite guests.
Speaker 3: How's everybody doing?
Speaker 2: Doing well?
Speaker 5: Tired, very tired, hanging in there? Ready for ready for snyde?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I was sad to have missed all the
intense text A and M discussion in last week's podcast.
Speaker 6: Oh, I actually do have some feedback I got about
that episode.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: I would like to offer the audience a male coolpa
on okay, which is that we got a lot of emails,
and I'm sure I didn't respond to all of them
because it's been very busy, So consider this My response.
The feedback was that we, uh, the average listener listen
to that episode might have thought that there were only
two institutions of higher education in Texas.
Speaker 3: Really there's only one text A.
Speaker 6: And M not helping, uh, But yeah, we you know,
obviously spend a lot of time talking about UT and
A and M, but we hear your feedback that you know,
there's that, there's the Texas States and the University of
Houston's and the couple people email me about RICE. We're
not gonna spend a ton of time time at RICE, guys,
because we largely cover state institutions, but we hear your feedback,
and on a future episode, we'll get Kate and Jessica
back to.
Speaker 2: Get into the weeds on those systems.
Speaker 1: Listen, Eleanor cannot help it that all those other schools
are so much more functional than A and M and
U two.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they just suck all the oxygen out of
the room.
Speaker 1: But I have lots of takes, but I'm just gonna
go ahead and keep them to myself because we don't
need to do another higher education podcast because it is
May twenty seventh, which means there is less than a
week left in the legislative session, and we are officially
at the point of the calendar where things are moving
so fast and furious that it's hard for even me,
whose job it is to keep track of these things,
to keep up. Today, the twenty seventh is deadline for
the House to pass Senate bills. Tomorrow is the deadline
for the Senate to pass any bills. All that's left
off for that is conference committee reports ironing out you know,
the differences between the chamber bills the chambers past in
different in different chambers. You know, this is the time
where people are tired, tensions often run high. Uh be
worried are things going to break down? And I can
think of no one better to help us talk this
through than Jasper, So thank you for being here. Of
course we are, you know, usually at this time going
through the list of all the legislative priorities, what's happening,
what's not What is the thing that is most likely
to ruin our summer vacation. And so that's the exercise
I want to go through with you. Where do we
stand on the big priorities. We're going to start with
schools education issues. School vouchers obviously passed a long time ago.
No big issue, it is, it is law. We are
we are there. But the the second step of the
Texas two Step s B two, the school Finance Bill,
remain means somewhat open up in the air. Although both
the chambers have seemed to made somewhat of a deal here,
Desper can you tell us a little bit about what
this deal is around school finance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think kind of the top line,
big picture summary is, you know, both chambers got a
little bit of what they wanted.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 5: I think we described it in our story as kind
of a face saving compromise for both folks in the
sense that, you know, Dan Patrick and the Senate get,
you know, a big bucket of the money narrowly targeted
at teacher pay raises, and there's kind of this newly
created fund that, from what I can tell, kind of
replicates a lot of the functions of what the basic
lawment increase would have done, you know, kind of dedicated
to helping schools pay for overhead costs, giving them some
of that flexibility to pay for stuff beyond teacher pay raises,
but still kind of how do I put it, like
complying with the dan Patrick mandate, the brand and creating
mandate to you know, have more oversight kind of tell
schools what they can and can't spend their money on.
So but from what we can tell, it's, you know,
eight and a half billion dollar deal that unless there's
some weird last minute hiccup, it's trending towards being signed
into law.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's break this down.
Speaker 1: I mean, the disagreement seemed to en large part be
centered around how much to go into the basic allotment,
which is, tell me, if I'm describing this poorly, like
sort of the big pot of discretionary money that the
schools can spend. Dan Patrick wanted to put less in
the house, seemed to want to put more. What the
compromise ended up being would be creating a new allotment
for basic costs that would put one point three billion
dollars toward that kind of feels like just sort of
changing the order of the words here from basic elipment
to allotment for basic costs.
Speaker 5: See how that could get mixed up a little bit? Yeah, yes, Yeah, yeah,
but it does you know, a lot of the I
was referring to overhead costs, you know, the kind of
the list of allowable uses for that fund. It replicates
a lot of what I think the schools would have
wanted to spend the basic alowment increase on transportation, utilities,
insurance cost increases.
Speaker 1: That kind of stuff feels a little bit like a
distinction without much of a difference.
Speaker 4: I think, so.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And if it does sound like the overall increase
to kind of the equivalent increase of the basic allotment,
you know, even with it's going to be a fifty
five dollars increase to the basic allotment, and then on
top of that, even factoring in this new fund, it's
still not quite I think what the schools were looking for.
But a lot of that extra difference is going to
be made up with the money going directly to teacher
pay raises.
Speaker 1: Which is four point two billion dollars for teacher pay
raise is a pretty substantial increase there to nearly two
billion for special education four hundred and thirty million in
additional school safety funds. That was a big issue last
session where there are a lot of new rules and
not a lot of money to spend toward them.
Speaker 3: What is the reaction of the schools on this.
Speaker 5: I think it's it's been sort of a grudging, a
big grudging acceptance of it. You know, they eight and
a half billion dollars is a lot of money, you know,
no matter how much how you spend it. And I
think what I've seen it's generally positive, with you know,
the caveats that you know, they always would have liked
to see more, They would have maybe liked to have
a little bit more flexibility in an ideal world. But
I think everyone's also just kind of breathing a big
sigh of relief. You know, you go back to twenty
twenty three, the school voucher fight. This kind of a
similar amount of money got caught up in was a
casualty of that fight. So just I think big sigh
of relief has been kind of the overarching response that
I've seen.
Speaker 1: And do we feel like the big hurdle has been crossed?
I mean, the Big Three put out a press release,
all of their names, all of their quotes. There are
even some Democrats in that press release that you know,
we're not done yet, right, Like the bill has passed
the House, it's going back to the Senate. They can
concur on the amendments or request a conference committee. But
is there anything that you're seeing in that situation right
now that makes you think that this is at risk
in any way?
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 5: I think I think this And if I'm remembering correctly,
I've there's so many different bills that have been trying
to track. But I think the Senate has officially signed off,
so we're like, we're good to go. I think we're
they have, I believe so, unless I'm mixing this up
with something else, but they they have. You know, Dan
Patrick put out a bit when they passed it in
the Senate the other day. Dan Patrick's up on the
die is making a big show of, you know, saying
basically smacking down the haters, saying, you know, people were
accusing us of holding this hostage and complaining about what
was taking so long, and sort of touting it as
you know, you got to work through the details on
this thing. And so he was taking a big victory lap.
And I think everyone's considering this this done at this point.
Speaker 1: So around the same time that happened, we also saw
action in the House on a THHC ban, a previously
skeptical house in which they voted to essentially ban the
sale of any substances with you know, a detectable amount
of THHC that will essentially, you know, starting September first,
completely erase what you know, you have reported to be
an eight billion dollar industry in this state. This is
the House that last session voted to decriminalize marijuana. So
we're talking about a pretty significant shift from being pretty
pro marijuana to being pretty anti anything you know, THHC
related at all.
Speaker 6: Well, and in twenty nineteen being like, you know, open
for a bit, like you know, yeah on THHC specifically
like the pendulum swim.
Speaker 5: What happened there, Well, there's a lot going on.
Speaker 4: I mean the kind of the to word answer is
like Dan Patrick happened.
Speaker 5: You know. He he adopts this as his you know,
one of his top pet issues, you know, almost six
months ago now, and was pretty much driving the hardest
bargain possible from the get go, you know, made clear
that he was going to go to the mat force
a special session over this, and the House you know,
I think this was sort of a frustration of mine
in reporting on this story throughout the session, it was
really difficult to get a sense of where the House
stood on this. Even you know, Ken King, the State
Affairs Chairman who carried the bill throughout the session, kind
of was, I think it's fair to say, a little
bit all over the place, or at least was you know,
he put out different versions of the bill that you know,
would have regulated the industry almost to the point of extinction,
and then sort of went back and it was, you know,
maybe a little more of a permissive regulatory approach, and
that was the version that got to the House floor,
and Tom oliverson another Republican state representative, brought forth an
amendment that that essentially reverted the the build back to.
Speaker 4: The Senate ban.
Speaker 5: And to my initial point, I think the House was
pretty ambivalent about this issue sort of from the get go,
and you sort of saw them falling in line with
what the Senate wanted on it. And it's I think
it was a show of Dan Patrick's way over you know,
kind of both chambers of the Legislature in some points.
Speaker 6: So we're seeing a lot of blowback to this sort
of anecdotally, right, I mean, a lot of I think
this is not an issue that falls along partisan lines always.
I mean, it sort of ensnares a lot of like
veterans groups are very active around this, a lot of
you know, older people who use these products sort of
you know what they would say, like medicinally, like not
not through like an official medical marijuana program, but they
just sort of use them that way. And so I
think this is there's like I'm hearing a lot of
chatter almost like is this something?
Speaker 2: Is everyone else on board with this? Or is this
Stan Patrick's thing? Would Abbot veto something like this?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we haven't gotten It's been sort of radio silence
from Abbot on, you know, not just whether he'll veto it,
but kind of the issue overall. He's been pretty adamant
about just letting the sort of the will of the
ledge dictate what happens.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I do think that the kind of trying to read
the tea leaves here. The other part of this equation
is the expansion of the state medical marijuana program. And
I think the kind of the cliff notes version is
that the two chambers seem to have reached deal to
do a more expansive expansion than what was previously thought
to be on the table, and I think that maybe
slightly decreases the odds of Abbot vetoing this. You know,
the kind of the outrage meter was at its like
fever pitch when it seemed like we're going to have
the ban and also, you know, a less permissive expansion
of medical marijuana. So I think you know now that
the medical program tea cup is being seems like expanded
to include chronic pain in some of the you know,
the things that were on the table that seemed to
be on the table in the House when lawmakers were
deciding whether to do the THHC ban. You know that
the band was sort of sold as going in tandem
with this major expansion of medical marijuana. I think the
fact that that seems to be happening now, maybe Abbot
just doesn't want to ruffle, you know, feathers with with
Dan Patrick. I mean, he he had that happen on
property taxes two years ago, and it was a messy situation.
We're kind of at this point now where all the
Republicans are more or less on the same page. You know,
everything's fine. My money would be on no Veto at
this point. But I also, you know, stranger things have happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the twists in terms of this have been very interesting,
right because you mentioned the the kind of deal to
expand the medical marijuana provision. Then you see that measure
go up in the House and there's the Senate then
removes chronic pain from the list of those provisions, which
then creates this whole stir Tom Olliversen you already mentioned
kind of tweets up against you know, against this decision.
People seem to think that maybe Dan Patrick has pulled
a fast one on them and you know, has kind
of gone back on the deal. Then they come out
on social media and are sort of having their.
Speaker 3: Little like that.
Speaker 1: It would be quite a twist if Abbott were to
then come in and veto that.
Speaker 3: But it'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, where we land on all this
will be curious because you know, you've seen times in
different states where you had a more broad medical marijuana
program and you could basically just go find a doctor
to write you a prescription and then.
Speaker 3: You know, do that.
Speaker 1: I think Dan Patrick seems very intent on keeping that
from happening again in Texas.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was pretty clear that that was like his
big the thing that he wanted to make sure was,
you know, not part of the equation was and he's
kind of been riding that train for for years now,
like he just you go back to some of the
comments he's made over the years. He that's been his
big sort of line in the sand or sticking point
that he doesn't want to open this up to you know,
anyone being able to get their doctor to write this prescription.
I think also the big unexplored question is what does
what's kind of the ripple effects of this in twenty
twenty six, how big of a you know, a backlash
I guess on both or on either side of the aisle.
Speaker 4: You guys were mentioning just.
Speaker 5: Some of the kind of the opinions on this issue
within the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've got farmers that.
Speaker 6: Are upsett veterans, You've got small business owners. I think
it's an example of like, particularly in these final days
of session, like things that are happening inside the dome
feels so like like, of course Abbot couldn't veto this
because like Alliver sin Patrick struck this d and everyone
is on board finally, and it's like that can become
so insular that it's like you sort of lose track
of like what do people outside of this don't want?
Speaker 2: As we get into like the nitty gritty of negotiating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is one of those I mean, we
were talking about school finance earlier, and it's like, do
people really understand and notice that, like, you know, however
much is in or not in the basic a lotment
determines whether I have like a music teacher in my
elementary school or whatever. Like there's a lot of different
kind of steps you have to get to understand that.
But the number of people, I don't know what that
number is, but there's clearly enough of a number that
it allows these stores to pop up pretty much everywhere,
not just like in downtown Austin, but like every you know,
rural parts of the state too. You can find these
these things. And starting September first, those stores are probably
going to have to close and that you know, product
that they're selling will be illegal and like in some cases,
like you could get a felony charge for having it
and you've got you know, and it's going to be
very clear who did this, Yeah, right, and that'll be
interesting to watch. I honestly have no idea of like
how much of a political impact or penalty this will be.
It might be fairly limited. And I think in defense
of the of the Senate of Dan Patrick for this,
it was never the intent of the legislature to have
all these stores pop up when they legalized him. They
were trying to do something very different than what they've
done right now. But yeah, this will be This will
be one to watch politically.
Speaker 5: And just on your your last point, this one comment
that Raphael and Sheia, the Stay lawmaker from a Democrat
from Dallas, made on the floor as this THHC band
debate was going on. He he made the comment that essentially,
you know, we as the legislature kind of you know,
if you're looking for someone to blame for this, it's
kind of the legislature's fault for, as you say, sort
of inadvertently creating this issue, this industry six years ago
and then basically doing nothing to step in and you know,
put some at least reasonable regulations on it in the
intervening time, really laid the groundwork for folks to come
in and you know, say, we just got to get
rid of it altogether.
Speaker 1: So yeah, all right, Let's take a break and hear
from our sponsors. A coalition of more than one and
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to Texas's courts. That's the Lone Star Economic Alliance. Learn
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competitive contracting policies. More at ww dot Texas Managed Care
Alliance dot org. That's Texas Managed Care Alliance dot org. Okay, so, Jasper,
I think one of the big topics of conversation then,
is is dan Patrick just getting everything he wants here?
And you know, I think we talked about these two
bills HB two, the school finance and the THHC ban,
and I think one of the big questions here is
how related are these pieces of legislation? Is this a
part of some kind of big deal struck between the
big two? We're going to give you your THC band
if you give us a little bit more on the
on the school finance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, uh, you know, Dan Patrick's folks at
least dispute that notion. But I think it just if
you kind of look at the timing of you know,
when these you know, for example, SB three, the THHC
band kind of getting increasingly postponed and delayed until you know,
sort of a trust uh, but verify a situation where
the House was waiting for the Senate to take action
and on approving the school finance deal. So I think
clearly those backroom discussions were happening to an extent.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I also think that HB two school the school finance
package was always going to pass in some form anyway.
I don't think, you know, anyone in either chamber really
realistically saw an opportunity to go back to their school
districts and say like, we're again giving you zero dollars.
But you know, I think think kind of the timing
of how all this came together, maybe certain provisions within
HB two were potentially tied to THHC. But you know,
it is wild that after all this, you know, thousands
of bills, it comes down to these two completely unrelated issues.
And I should say also a point of correction going
back to what we were talking about before. HB two
has passed the Senate, but the House does need to
sign off on those changes, so they.
Speaker 1: But it seems like they've given the indication that they're
going to exactly yeah, okay, very good, all right, But
I mean, let's tick off some of the other dan
Patrick priorities. The lottery, right, he wanted to abolish the
Texas Lottery Commission, moved that lottery at least temporarily over
to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The House
voted over the weekend to do that. Film incentives passed
on Sunday, increasing States film incentives to more than five
hundred million dollars. That passed the House on.
Speaker 5: And they did amend the amount down I believe it
was to three hundred million or so.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you for that.
Speaker 5: A bit of a change, but still another check mark
checked off.
Speaker 1: Ten commandments in the classrooms appears poised to pass and
be signed into law. Water SB seven past the House
yesterday in a big infusion. H JR seven, which would
be the constitutional amendment directing funds to that automatically, is
on the Senate calendar. I think we could probably expect
that one to go through as well. I mean, if
you just tick off the things that Dan Patrick has
been talking about, maybe unlike any other session, it's hard
to find something that he was really pushing for that
is not going to become law of this year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think he's and he has kind of established
this pattern or habit of putting out his list of
top priorities early on at the start of session, even
you know, getting out right before Greg Abbott's State of
the State. So he's kind of he's the first of
the big three to kind of lay out his action items,
and he put out forty items this year, you know,
not including the state budget, which always kind of comes
down to the end, but all the other items. I mean,
it's they're really only a couple that are still standing
out there that haven't at least been put on a
House calendar, you know, And therefore I think we can
assume our dead like ban on taxpayer funded lobbying, letting
cities and counties send their own lobbyists Austin. I think
that was one of the handful that didn't make it through, which.
Speaker 1: A measure that amazingly still has not become given how
logic considered.
Speaker 5: It is kind of shocking with Dustin Burrows being the speaker
this year and you know, author of the kind of
the I guess what critics named the death star bill
targeting cities last session, kind of shocking that didn't get through.
But you know, one point that was made to me
for I published a story kind of looking at how
Patrick was getting a lot of what he wanted. I
think the one point of new there is that you know,
the it's this the House and Speaker Burrows kind of
they don't put out their own corresponding list to kind
of it makes it hard to do kind of an
apples to apples comparison of which chamber is getting, you know,
more or less of what they want. Just if you
look at you know, Speaker Burrows is a pretty conservative guy.
The House has a much more conservative make up this session,
and the kind of the argument that you know a
lot of folks are saying the House has been getting rolled,
or that the you know, the Senate is having their way.
I think to an extent, there's some truth there, but
also it's kind of they're they're both growing in the
same direction on a lot of these things, right right.
Speaker 1: It's is the House getting rolled, if it's if it
wants the same things the same exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but there is sort of a also a reality
that's like Dan Patrick, obviously as Lieutenant Governor the House
spent all this time trying to just pick a speaker,
like he gets to get out in front, he gets
to set his priorities, and then how says like, oh, well,
those are kind of our priorities too.
Speaker 2: There is you lose a little bit.
Speaker 6: Of the bicameral nature of absolutely this when we just say, like, well,
we'll let Dan Patrick decide for both chambers.
Speaker 5: And that is an important point too, that it's a new,
first time speaker. You've got the biggest freshman class in
the House since twenty thirteen, over like one in five
members in the lower Chamber are folks who are still
kind of like learning where the bathrooms are, learning the ropes,
and that is just by nature going to seed more,
you know, more power to the Senate. And then when
you on top of that, you've got a guy who
in Dan Patrick, who is really you know, he has
firmly established he has shown what he will do to
make life miserable for past speakers. He's kind of in
his element more so than any other session. It's a
recipe for the Senate to really drive the agenda.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you talk about a new speaker, and
not only a new speaker, a speaker who entered the
race for speaker quite late in the process, and we
really didn't know for sure was going to be the
speaker until at the start of the leg.
Speaker 5: After, you know, we don't even Burrows isn't even a
candidate for speaker until you know, a bunch of House
low house bill numbers have been pre filed already, so
he maybe even has less of a chance to set
his own agenda this at that point.
Speaker 6: So and replacing a speaker who you know, tried to
take on Dan Patrick to some extent, exactly got you know.
I will briefly tell you my allegory, okayis I have
a personal anecdote that I believe represents actually a couple
of themes of the legislative session, which is that yesterday
before my house shift, I as true fans of the Pod, No,
I've been getting bar into playing tennis. And so I
went into a tennis clinic and there was a girl
that I was I had never played with before, who
was so good. She was like so she was hitting
from the baseline.
Speaker 4: So powerful, like the Dan Patrick of the Some might
signe okay.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I was kept being paired against her, and
I was like, that's insane.
Speaker 2: I got to get on her side.
Speaker 6: I got to get on her team, and so I
sort of I moved around so that I was standing
near her when they were splitting up the teams.
Speaker 4: So you're the Dustin Burrows in this in this allegory.
Speaker 2: Some might say.
Speaker 6: And then when we got on the court, she's hitting
so powerfully. She's on the baseline. I'm on the service line.
She sets up, hits the first shot and it nails
me directly in between the shoulder blades at full speed,
which was extremely painful.
Speaker 4: And I was like, you know, and this is a true,
legitally something happened yesterday.
Speaker 6: I've got like a weird bruise on the back in
between my shoulders and I was like, oh, that feels
like a metaphor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know how that applies.
Speaker 1: And then she took all the TSC TCS tennis bag
and threw it in the trash.
Speaker 2: Right and said, but no more property taxes. I was like,
I'll take it.
Speaker 4: I'll take How far can we extend this allegory?
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's a long, proud history of tennis players,
you know, dating back to our founder Evan Smith, our
current CEO Son Shaw issues. Yeah, our current editor in
chief JV had a short lived JV tennis career.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, so you're saying I'm being groomed to become
a CEO of the Texas Tribune.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it all felt very you know. So yeah,
I do think there's also to some extent of metaphor
and there about the Democrats and sort of how they've
strategized all of this.
Speaker 2: But certainly seems like everyone's kind of.
Speaker 5: They're the folks who are getting served to in that
in that allegory, I guess.
Speaker 2: Are there being like, hitt it to me and I'm
getting just knocked over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they seem to be the ones who seem
to be trying to push the House getting rolled narrative
the most right, Jean Blue, you know, trying to.
Speaker 3: Make that argument and everything there.
Speaker 1: There, of course, is another very powerful person in the Capitol,
and that's Greg Abbott, who had his own set of
priorities and has landed a lot of them as well. So,
I mean, we mentioned a bunch of those water, teacher pay,
school choice, of course, being like his signature is shoe
on this issue.
Speaker 3: Property tax cuts.
Speaker 1: Another thing that seems you know, some bills already done,
others well on their way to being passed. Water, and
one other one that we haven't talked about yet that
seems to be kind of crossing the finish line for
the first time, bail reform.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about that issue.
Speaker 5: Well, this is another issue that kind of falls into
the genre of stuff that was a perennial priority that
just kept falling short of the finish line, you know,
would always pass the Senate overwhelmingly, and then because it
requires amending the Constitution, Republicans just could not yet enough
Democrats in the House on board. But you know, the
short of it is that the this is there's a
big bail package that kind of the centerpiece of it
is for certain violent crimes, giving judges discretion to to
deny bail outright and in other cases requiring judges to
deny bail. So this was I think Abbott has kind
of governor Abbot has spearheaded this issue. But you know
it's also you know, a perennial item on Dan Patrick's
list of top priorities. So I think what happened here
was that Democrats sort of saw the writing on the
wall that this was it was going to happen. You know,
there were more Republicans in the House than we've had
in several sessions now, so they only needed a dozen
Democrats to get on board. And you know, this is
also kind of a bipartisan issue in some ways where
you know when this when this issue has come up
in the past, like in twenty twenty one, there were
one hundred votes for it in the House, but it
just happened to die when the Democrats walked out to
kill the voting bill at the end of the regular session.
So just and then in twenty twenty three it just
ran into a a deadline. So it's not really there
are I will say a lot more partisan issues than
this in the legislature, and I think it just you know,
the House and Senate got together earlier, I think, in
a much more concerted fashion to try to strike a
compromise that could get at least twelve Democrats on board,
and it turned out that they I think ended up
with like one hundred and thirty plus for the constitutional Amendment.
They did fail to get a more stringent, kind of
a eleventh hour play to get an even more stringent
version of that through over the weekend, but still I
think a huge win for the Republicans on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing that didn't make it through this weekend
was a measure that would make it if you were
an undocumented immigrant arrested that you were not eligible for
bail period. That failed would have required two thirds.
Speaker 5: And that could still theoretically pass. They've I believe they've
postponed that continue nally with I you know, the deadline
is still coming up, so they still do have a
little bit more time to try to pass that, I believe,
but it's not they have postponed it enough. I think
it's been a full week now that you know, that's
what you do when you're trying to find the votes
and they're not coming together.
Speaker 3: Right, And do you think that's enough?
Speaker 1: Do you think that this is enough for Greg Abbott
to declare victory and say I'm satisfied with this with
this measure.
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's it's something that you know, he can say.
We still have more work to do in future sessions
when we come back in twenty twenty seven. But I
would be surprised if he you know, calls him back
simply over this issue. But I also haven't have not
talked to the governor about this, so we'll see what happens,
all right.
Speaker 3: So one measure eleanor that did not pass.
Speaker 1: Really, the only measure that does not seem like it's
going to pass, or it has not passed at least
so far, but seems highly unlikely to pass, is Senate
Bill twenty twenty eight eighty, Yeah, which is a bill
to stop the flow of abortion inducing drugs in the
state using a well, I'm just going to let you
explain the complicated legal situation here. Tell us about the
bill first, and then we'll talk about its fate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So this was a bill as an authored by Representative sorry,
by Senator Brian Hughes that is a really wide ranging
crackdown on abortion pills. It's kind of an answer to
blue states that have passed shield laws that you know,
protect their providers who mail abortion pills into Texas. This
is Texas's way of like upping the ante on the
other side.
Speaker 2: It would do.
Speaker 6: You would be allowed to sue for one hundred thousand
dollars anyone who manufactures, distributes, produces, or provides these pills
in Texas. Which and it contains some like very thorny
legal strategies in it. Sort of that Brian Hughes sort
of testing the bounds of the judicial system's response to
to their bills.
Speaker 3: It was seeming dead.
Speaker 6: I was sort of getting the it was stuck in
the It passed the Senate, it got stuck in the
State Affairs Committee. Ken King's committee in the House was
getting the sense that it was not moving. There was
a big push from like the sort of far right
in the House to get it moving.
Speaker 2: They called a last minute committee meeting.
Speaker 4: They voted it out.
Speaker 2: It got stuck there again.
Speaker 6: It did not get reported to calendars and sort of
missed the deadline to make it onto today's calendar. There's
still optimism I would say among some of the anti
abortion groups, particularly those were maybe like less burst in,
like the strictness of the deadlines that you know, Burroughs
will come through for them in some way, or this
will get saved last minute, but it seems likely.
Speaker 2: It did.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's review we a prior trip cast.
We all made our predictions about whether or not there
would be a special session. I believe it was Eleanor
who insisted that we make these predictions.
Speaker 3: Who remembers how they voted.
Speaker 5: Jasper, I feel like I predicted that we wouldn't have one,
but I I, uh, and I'm sticking with that.
Speaker 4: Seems like that's where we're going.
Speaker 3: Eleanor.
Speaker 6: I think I predicted we would largely to be contrarian
because I think you both voted that we would not,
and I that's.
Speaker 4: What you say now.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's all a strategy. I think we will not.
Speaker 6: I think if if part of a special session is
like getting the you know, just getting threatening special sessions,
like getting compliance, I think everyone got sort of what they.
Speaker 1: Wanted, agreed. I believe I predicted no, I will. I
think we all. I think we all feel pretty good
about the fact that this is not going to happen.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm nervous though. This feels like a thing we're going
to play.
Speaker 4: We'll see some like last minute impeachments that everything.
Speaker 6: You know, we were talking about it yesterday in the house,
like how crazy it is that yesterday was basically like
the yeah, like.
Speaker 4: How late that all right to your anniversary?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about went esp the torte Form bill was.
We were like the fact that this that set into
motion this series.
Speaker 6: Of events that blied us to you know, Mitch a
little watering down the TLR bill.
Speaker 2: It's like deep cuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, another big milestone happening at the end
of the legislative session is some job changes for both
of y'all.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 1: Jasper will no longer be a politics reporter and Eleanor
will no longer be a women's health reporter.
Speaker 3: Why is that?
Speaker 2: Eleanor, I am joining the politics team to work for Jasper.
Speaker 5: Yes, and I'll be hanging up my reporting shoes and
we'll be very excited to you know, take the rein
of the reins of the politics team and just I
feel like we have a powerhouse team that we're building
and want to continue all the good coverage we've been
doing this session, you know, into into the future. We're
already already thinking about twenty twenty six. It feels like
a ways away, but with our March primary system be
around the corner before we know it. So I'm really
excited it's gonna I think it's We've got a great
team that we're building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that tell us, tell us about the rest of
that team.
Speaker 5: So we're bringing on Eleanor to to take over a
the legal affairs beat that she can maybe talk a
little bit about herself. But it's I think just like
the perfect fit for Eleanor. She kind of pitched this.
I don't know, it's just a perfect kind of transition
from what you've been covering on the women's health beat
for the last three years. Now. We're also bringing over
Alejandra Serrano, another internal hire too, you know, kind of
still figuring out what everyone's purviews will will include. But
and then we're also filling a vacancy with our DC correspondence.
Stay tuned for that.
Speaker 3: But uh, and always like Kayla, that's right.
Speaker 5: Kayla Guo will be continuing just you know, she has
done a lot of great coverage especially of the House
this session and of the bail fight that we were
just talking about. So I think you know, just that
trio of Eleanor, Alejandro and Kayla plus are kind of
one of our maybe team MVPs Renzo this session. Continuing
to put out the Blast, our premium newsletter, politics newsletter,
and then are soon to be announced hopefully DC Correspondent.
It's a solid five person band right there.
Speaker 1: Absolutely it's going to be great. One other kind of
internal plug. June eleventh, the Trip Cast will be live
in Austin from the Austin Central Library seven pm. We
will be digging into the impact of the legislative session
on Texas schools and what to expect next school year
with all these changes. So go to Texas Tribune dot
org slash events to get more details at that or
just show up at the library at seven pm.
Speaker 2: It's hanging out at the library.
Speaker 3: But you know, we like it if people are SVP,
so so do that too. And that is all for today.
Speaker 1: We will see what happens and whether our special session
predictions hold up. Thank you to Jasper, thank you to Eleanor,
thank you to our producer Rob, and thank you to
our sponsors, the Lone Star Economic Alliance, the Texas Managed
Care Alliance, and the Safer Texas Alliance.
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you all next week.