Speaker 1: This week's episode of the Tripcast is supported by Raise
Speaker 1: Your Hand Texas and Water Groves. Hello and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune trip Cast for January tenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: We are back.
Speaker 1: The Tribune trip Cast is back after a short hiatus.
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for joining us back. My name is Matthew Watkins,
Speaker 1: editor in chief of the Texas Tribune, and I am
Speaker 1: joined by our two new Trip Cast co hosts, Eleanor Klibanoff.
Speaker 3: Hello, Eleanor, Hello, thanks for having.
Speaker 2: Me and James Bettergan.
Speaker 4: Hello, gat to be back.
Speaker 1: Great to have you back, and we are Our guest
Speaker 1: today is Jasper Sharer Paulitics, reporter for the Texas Tribune.
Speaker 5: Hey, Jasper, Hey, thanks for letting me crash.
Speaker 1: Absolutely we are happy to have you. The subject of
Speaker 1: this first special edition of the trip Cast is the
Speaker 1: legislative set that begins Tuesday. It'll be the beginning of
Speaker 1: a one hundred and forty day sprint that will touch
Speaker 1: the lives of every single Texan in the state. They'll
Speaker 1: determine how much to spend on schools, how much our
Speaker 1: property taxes are, you know, road construction, little things, you know,
Speaker 1: will designate some state flower that pollinates or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know. We already have a.
Speaker 1: State flower of anything's like that. But but you know,
Speaker 1: a major moment in the lives of Texans, whether they
Speaker 1: know it or not. And today we are going to
Speaker 1: preview that that session, talk about the key issues, but
Speaker 1: maybe most importantly and what will take up a big
Speaker 1: part of our discussion at the beginning is the speaker's race.
Speaker 1: Any ledge preview has to start there. And what I'm
Speaker 1: going to do here bear with me all three is
Speaker 1: I'm going to just go through a sort of table
Speaker 1: setter of where we are right now. I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to do it as fast as I can, but
Speaker 1: it's complicated. So here we go. Last year's legislative session
Speaker 1: and the special sessions that fall ended with many people
Speaker 1: sort of repeating the claim that House Speaker Dade Feelin is,
Speaker 1: if not the most then at least one of the
Speaker 1: most conservative speakers in Texas history. But there were three
Speaker 1: things that happened under his watch that turned many Republicans
Speaker 1: against him. The first one he continued the tradition of
Speaker 1: selecting Democratic committee chairs. The second one is Attorney General
Speaker 1: Ken Paxon was impeached under his watch, later acquitted by
Speaker 1: the Senate. The third one is Greg Abbott's Priority voucher
Speaker 1: bill failed in the House multiple times under his watch.
Speaker 1: Essentially since then there has been intense pressure on the House.
Speaker 1: Abbot and Paxxton and their allies targeted multiple Feelin allies
Speaker 1: in the GOP primaries. Anti Feelin forces sort of rallied
Speaker 1: around David Cook as a new Speaker candidate, and under
Speaker 1: that pressure, Dade Feelin dropped out. Dustin Burrows, a Republican
Speaker 1: from the Panhandle Lubbock area, stepped in. It created what
Speaker 1: sort of is a two person race, although we'll talk
Speaker 1: about whether that actually is true or not, in which
Speaker 1: really kind of both sides have at various times claimed victory.
Speaker 1: Caucus rules say that GOP members must vote for the
Speaker 1: caucus endorse candidate. On December seventh, that caucus met, but
Speaker 1: Burrough's supporters walked out of the meeting after two rounds
Speaker 1: of voting where no one could get to the sixty
Speaker 1: percent threshold. The remaining voters then voted forty eight to
Speaker 1: fourteen to endorse Cook, earning him the official endorsement of
Speaker 1: the Majority Party and the requirement that basically or the
Speaker 1: expectation that Republicans in the caucus vote for him, but
Speaker 1: soon after that, Burroughs on that same day declared that
Speaker 1: he had the seventy six votes necessary to become a speaker,
Speaker 1: half Democrats, half Republicans. But soon after that some of
Speaker 1: the people on Burroughs list said they shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: on it, which brought his vote count back under seventy six.
Speaker 1: It's been very intense, a lot of pressure on people
Speaker 1: to change their votes, particularly the Borough supporters. After that,
Speaker 1: we've had Amoro businessman Alex Ferry saying he'd spend twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars in the next primary to quote, expand a
Speaker 1: new majority. We'll talk more about what that means. Paxton
Speaker 1: has toured the state in support of Cook. Abbott has
Speaker 1: said members should select a speaker quote in accordance with
Speaker 1: caucus rules, which many people to take took to mean
Speaker 1: a sort of endorsement of Cook and the GOP. The
Speaker 1: actual state party has said it'll censure members who vote
Speaker 1: for the non caucus pick, potentially removing them from the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six primary ballot. Meanwhile, Democrats don't really seem
Speaker 1: to all be on the same page, or at least
Speaker 1: publicly have not rallied around an individual candidate. This all
Speaker 1: sets up Tuesday, the first day of the session, when
Speaker 1: there will be a vote on the House Speaker. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'll be basically, I think the first time since
Speaker 1: the seventies where we'll go into that day not knowing
Speaker 1: who the House Speaker is going to be unless something
Speaker 1: changes between then and now. First of all, Jasper, did
Speaker 1: I get that right? Did I miss anything?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think that was a pretty pretty solid summary. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's it's it's kind of weird how you mentioned. This
Speaker 5: is just sort of unprecedented over the last handful of
Speaker 5: decades to go in with so much uncertainty. It's kind
Speaker 5: of created this sense of, you know, just sort of inertia,
Speaker 5: just a lack of movement. You know, nobody really you know,
Speaker 5: the polsy discussions that you might expect to be having,
Speaker 5: you know, heading into the session. There's just way more uncertainty,
Speaker 5: you know, a week before we're set to kick off,
Speaker 5: because nobody knows who's going to be in charge of
Speaker 5: you know, one half of this b cameral legislature.
Speaker 1: James, give me, like a brief introduction to these two
Speaker 1: candidates are what do they represent? Who what's their backgrounds.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a certain extent, it's not really about the
Speaker 6: two candidates. It's about the camps that they're in, which
Speaker 6: is that Dustin Burrows is the establishment candidate of the
Speaker 6: traditional business minded Republicans, and he argues that he is conservative.
Speaker 6: He just doesn't want to do every single thing that
Speaker 6: the right wing of the party wants him to do.
Speaker 6: And I think he would say that, particularly the people
Speaker 6: who fund the right wing would want him to do.
Speaker 6: David Cook is an unusual pick for this right wing
Speaker 6: coalition that's trying to take over the speaker's gavel in
Speaker 6: the House because he's kind of a pretty moderate guy.
Speaker 6: He's like in the middle of that GOP caucus, so
Speaker 6: it's kind of strange that he is the guy that
Speaker 6: they went with. But people in his camp had said,
Speaker 6: it's not really about him, it's not really about his policies.
Speaker 6: We kind of disagree with him on some of the policies,
Speaker 6: but it's about changing the way the speaker operates, meaning
Speaker 6: we want there to be you know, less ticky tacky
Speaker 6: points of order or less like more flow with the
Speaker 6: parliamentarians and more I would say, looseness on the rules
Speaker 6: they might contest that, but that's I.
Speaker 4: Think what it is.
Speaker 6: They want a commitment from the speaker to prioritize Republican
Speaker 6: Party of Texas legislation, and they want no democratic chairs,
Speaker 6: which Burrows hasn't committed, but he sort of has because
Speaker 6: he says he'll leave it up to the will of
Speaker 6: the members, which with an eighty eight Republican majority, it'd
Speaker 6: be hard not to see that ban on democratic chairs.
Speaker 6: So a lot going on there, but it's basically a
Speaker 6: showdown between the right wing of the party and sort
Speaker 6: of that traditional business minded Republican faction of the party.
Speaker 3: Can that's a question what is a speaker of the House,
Speaker 3: Like why does this matter? You know, for like outside
Speaker 3: of the sort of the Republican Party has dominated Texas
Speaker 3: for a long time. This is all like we're talking
Speaker 3: about a small corner of the party fighting against another
Speaker 3: small corner of the party. Like what is the impact
Speaker 3: for Texans?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think a lot of it is like inside baseball, honestly.
Speaker 6: But what the speaker does is he's the traffic cop.
Speaker 6: He directs the flow of how the chamber is going
Speaker 6: to run. He appoints the committees, he appoints the people
Speaker 6: who lead the committees, which bestows a lot of power
Speaker 6: because if a chairman or chairwoman doesn't like your bill,
Speaker 6: then they're not.
Speaker 4: Going to move it right.
Speaker 6: They also appoint the calendar's committee chairperson, who like decides
Speaker 6: what gets on the House floor, and they also decide
Speaker 6: sort of, you know, what the flow is going to be,
Speaker 6: what the pace is going to be of the chamber,
Speaker 6: which goes into a lot of the dynamics between the
Speaker 6: House and the Senate. You know, they theoretically are working
Speaker 6: together to pass legislation, but sometimes they are at odds
Speaker 6: because you know, there's one hundred and fifty House members,
Speaker 6: so they're elected by less people, and then there's thirty
Speaker 6: one members in the Senate who are elected by more people,
Speaker 6: and so there's like a little bit of a different constituency.
Speaker 1: I would also say that in the recent history of
Speaker 1: the legislature, there's always been one chamber that has been
Speaker 1: sort of the like calming, cooling, moderating force on the legislature.
Speaker 1: For a while, that was the Senate, particularly under David Dewhurst.
Speaker 1: At the time they had the two thirds rule. Basically,
Speaker 1: any bill that reached the House of the Senate floor
Speaker 1: had to have the approval of two thirds of the chamber.
Speaker 1: That usually meant some kind of bipartisan support for the
Speaker 1: bill to reach the floor, and that you required compromise
Speaker 1: in order to get that done. Dan Patrick, when he
Speaker 1: was elected Lieutenant governor to preside over the Senate, changed
Speaker 1: that rule to three fifths, which then gave Republicans essentially
Speaker 1: a super majority and able to kind of exactly it
Speaker 1: lowers the threshold. But around that time you had Joe
Speaker 1: Strauss come into the House, and Joe Strauss was elected
Speaker 1: by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. He
Speaker 1: was a more moderate member and was sort of a
Speaker 1: thorn in the side and enemy of that kind of
Speaker 1: hardline right side of the party. Speakers since Strauss have
Speaker 1: gotten I think more conservative. I don't think anyone would
Speaker 1: disagree with that, but to the extent that there has
Speaker 1: been things to kind of slow down that a Republican agenda,
Speaker 1: it has often been in the House. The school voucher
Speaker 1: vote is an example of that. I think one of
Speaker 1: the questions heading into this session is will the House
Speaker 1: continue to be that moderating force? And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the people supporting Cook want it to not
Speaker 1: be and sort of want those sort of guardrails taken off,
Speaker 1: you know, and they have reason to do that, right.
Speaker 1: The body is a very conservative body. The Texas voters
Speaker 1: have voted for very conservative candidates, and I think their
Speaker 1: argument is that agenda should be pushed through without any
Speaker 1: friction because they control that chamber.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think it's also important to remember that
Speaker 5: I completely agree with the characterization of sort of the
Speaker 5: two chambers. The House has been the more sort of
Speaker 5: moderating body. But you know, even in over the last
Speaker 5: couple legislative sessions where we've seen just this array of
Speaker 5: conservative laws getting passed, I think, you know, even that
Speaker 5: role for the House has started to diminish a little bit.
Speaker 5: And it sort of gets to the point that whether
Speaker 5: it's Dustin Burrows, David Cook, or someone else, you know,
Speaker 5: this is still gonna be It's still gonna be a
Speaker 5: very conservative house. There's gonna be a lot of pressure
Speaker 5: on you know, whether again, whether it's Burrows or whoever,
Speaker 5: to you know, enact the priorities of kind of Governor
Speaker 5: Dan Patrick.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: You know, Governor abbott Is has been pushing for a
Speaker 5: private school voucher program pretty aggressively for the last couple
Speaker 5: of years. So it's you know, it's we're not really
Speaker 5: considering a situation where it's like, is the House going
Speaker 5: to be, you know, super moderate versus you know, ultra conservative.
Speaker 5: I think it's it's regardless of what happens, it's going
Speaker 5: to be on the closer to the ultra conservative end.
Speaker 5: What what really is up for debate is how much
Speaker 5: power sharing there's gonna be with with Democrats and and
Speaker 5: sort of also you're starting to get at this point, Matthew,
Speaker 5: just the the kind of the influence of the Senate
Speaker 5: in Dan Patrick over you know, the the way the
Speaker 5: House operates. I think there is that is sort of
Speaker 5: up for debate. Just's if it's David Cook or someone
Speaker 5: from the wing of the party that supports David Cook.
Speaker 5: You know, I think the feeling is that Dan Patrick
Speaker 5: will have a much easier time getting his way on
Speaker 5: and that does mean a lot more conservative legislation. But
Speaker 5: there are also things that you know, his for example,
Speaker 5: he has voiced his view that he wants to ban
Speaker 5: THHD in Texas. You know, that doesn't fall neatly along
Speaker 5: partisan or even conservative and moderate lines necessarily, So I
Speaker 5: think that is. It's sort of the democratic power sharing
Speaker 5: and also the independence of the House that's kind of
Speaker 5: up for debate right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, But like you said, the key word, which is power, right, Like,
Speaker 6: that's what this is all about. It's not really about
Speaker 6: like who's more conservative who's less conservative, because the reality is,
Speaker 6: you know, Lieutenant Governor Patrick sometimes does things that aren't
Speaker 6: really associated with traditional Republican conservative ideology. I'm thinking back
Speaker 6: to when there was a winner freeze and you try
Speaker 6: to claw back all that money from the energy companies,
Speaker 6: Like that doesn't fall neatly into traditional conservative lines of thinking,
Speaker 6: and a lot of it, like getting involved in THHC
Speaker 6: that also doesn't like really fall in line with conservatives.
Speaker 6: There's this sort of new conservative of like we are
Speaker 6: the conservatives, and we say who what conservatism is, which
Speaker 6: goes up all the way to President Trump to a
Speaker 6: certain extent to Governor Abbott. There's no like real rules
Speaker 6: of what conservative is. So they say, we are the conservatives,
Speaker 6: and if you are not doing what we're doing or
Speaker 6: what we want you to do, then you are not
Speaker 6: conservative enough. And I think that's what the traditional Republican
Speaker 6: faction is arguing about. They're saying, like, we're actually the
Speaker 6: real Republicans, we actually have ideology that we've been following
Speaker 6: since the eighties, and you guys are just making up
Speaker 6: new rules. One of the things that you hear a
Speaker 6: lot with the Cook supporters is it's not really about feeling.
Speaker 6: It's not really about Strauss, it's not really about Burrows.
Speaker 6: It's about the members being able to drive the conversation.
Speaker 6: And literally everybody says that, you know, Dennis Bonden said
Speaker 6: that when he came in, Felan said that, and to
Speaker 6: a certain extent, Felan let the members drive the conversation.
Speaker 6: So it's just interesting to see this. But it's all
Speaker 6: really about power. I mean, it's not really about who's
Speaker 6: more conservative or less conservative.
Speaker 4: It's who has the power.
Speaker 6: And if you look, sorry Eleanor, but if you look,
Speaker 6: a lot of the people who are backing Cook are
Speaker 6: people who don't have a lot of power. I mean,
Speaker 6: there's some chairman in there, of course, and they have
Speaker 6: valid reasons, i'm sure, for supporting Cook, but it's a
Speaker 6: lot of new either freshmen or sophomore legislators who aren't
Speaker 6: going to have the power because of seniority.
Speaker 4: If you look at Burrows this it's people.
Speaker 6: Who are chairmen who've been there a long time and
Speaker 6: who are invested in maintaining that power.
Speaker 5: And I think one other way to look at this
Speaker 5: and kind of illustrate the point you're making is just
Speaker 5: the ideological range of members who are supporting the two candidates.
Speaker 5: There are tons of super conservative members who are supporting
Speaker 5: bur and there are a bunch of you know, folks
Speaker 5: who fall on the more moderate or maybe you know,
Speaker 5: sort of establishment side of the party who are who
Speaker 5: are supporting David Cook. So it's it's not neatly divided,
Speaker 5: you know, down the middle ideologically.
Speaker 3: And it seems like this is sort of like an
Speaker 3: inevitability of politics. So because like we're talking about like
Speaker 3: really splitting hairs of conservatism, right like, there are very few,
Speaker 3: like like you said, this is not a question of
Speaker 3: are we gonna have a very liberal session or a
Speaker 3: very conservative session. And it sort of speaks like you
Speaker 3: cannot really have one party in dominant power without eventually
Speaker 3: having like schisms within that. So it seems like the
Speaker 3: impeachment of at traditional Kin Paxson was like sort of
Speaker 3: a watershed moment for that, which is like we're gonna
Speaker 3: have two We're have two sides fighting each other. They
Speaker 3: agree ideologically on almost everything, but you have to have
Speaker 3: a schism.
Speaker 1: And of course David Cook voted for the impeachment of
Speaker 1: Kim Paxon, even though now Paxson is now out in
Speaker 1: this state campaign four Cook, which I think is just
Speaker 1: pretty fascinating. I mean, I'm I got to say, I'm
Speaker 1: really struck by and I think James and Jasper the
Speaker 1: what you just described about power maybe answers the question
Speaker 1: that has been going on in my head, which is
Speaker 1: the pressure against these Burrows and previously feeling supporters has
Speaker 1: been so intense. You know, we just saw a blood
Speaker 1: bath in the Republican primary last year where members were
Speaker 1: just wiped out. They had so much spinning against them,
Speaker 1: even the ones who one felt like there were lies
Speaker 1: being told about them in the primary. It's very just
Speaker 1: uncomfortable to be in that situation when there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of money coming against you. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: a pretty safe bet at this point unless something happens
Speaker 1: between now and Tuesday, that there's going to be an
Speaker 1: effort to remove each of those vote members from the ballot.
Speaker 1: Like I think we will see that attempt happen. And
Speaker 1: I mean, they're really in their political stake up for
Speaker 1: grabs here putting four sort of splitting of hairs of conservativism.
Speaker 1: And maybe the answer is just there's only so many
Speaker 1: positions of power in the House, and when you have one,
Speaker 1: when you're in with the person who's in control, it's
Speaker 1: you want to fight to keep that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, I mean, thinking ahead to the twenty
Speaker 5: twenty six primaries, I think it will sort of serve
Speaker 5: as the ultimate test of you know, how is it possible,
Speaker 5: you know, sort of testing the limits of how much
Speaker 5: you know these kind of typically what has historically been
Speaker 5: an internal battle. You know, the House speakers race traditionally
Speaker 5: is a member to member thing that you know, that
Speaker 5: the public only finds out about after the facts. So
Speaker 5: twenty twenty six will really test just the you know,
Speaker 5: how the public's appetite, the ability of the folks on
Speaker 5: the right to you know, make this a central component
Speaker 5: of these primary campaigns. And they you know, they've they've
Speaker 5: been trying to do this generally for for the past decade,
Speaker 5: but it has gotten into such a degree of hair
Speaker 5: splitting that they've sort of been fishing for for issues
Speaker 5: to you know, include on their on their campaign mailers
Speaker 5: and sort of accuse the you know, alleged Rhinos of
Speaker 5: of not supporting. So I think it's it's you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of this is kind of inside baseball, as
Speaker 5: James was saying, And you know, it's I think kind
Speaker 5: of if if we do get a speaker, Burrows or
Speaker 5: somebody who the the right wing of the party is
Speaker 5: unhappy with, you know, they're of course going to be
Speaker 5: going scorched earth against the you know, the members who
Speaker 5: didn't vote the way they want to. But you know,
Speaker 5: our our primary voter is going to be receptive to that.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure.
Speaker 6: I do want to get into like whether we think
Speaker 6: it's going to be Burrows or Cook, just because I
Speaker 6: think that would be fun and I want to put
Speaker 6: you guys on the spot. But I but I also, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, I pushed back on that twenty twenty sixth
Speaker 6: things just because you know, it's so far away. It's
Speaker 6: so far away, it's like a year and a half way,
Speaker 6: and that's like an eternity in politics, right. And then
Speaker 6: also we have this whole session for lawmakers to really
Speaker 6: try to pass conservative legislation to go back to their
Speaker 6: constituents and say, look, this is actually conservative legislation, Like
Speaker 6: it doesn't matter what everybody else says, Like this.
Speaker 4: Is what we're passing, right.
Speaker 6: And I think the third thing that people are overlooking
Speaker 6: is that in the last primary cycle, there was a
Speaker 6: couple of things that converge to create that like really
Speaker 6: crazy storm for a lot of these incumbent Republicans. It's
Speaker 6: the things that you talked about Paxston getting impeached that
Speaker 6: really catalyzed the right wing of the party. School vouchers
Speaker 6: not passing that really catalyzed, and so it was Paxton
Speaker 6: and Abbot sniping their own Republican fellows. I don't see
Speaker 6: that happening because I think we are going to see
Speaker 6: school vouchers pass this session. I think the Republicans feel
Speaker 6: that pressure and they know that they've got to pass something,
Speaker 6: and so I just don't see that same storm coming.
Speaker 6: And so if then you take Abbot out of the
Speaker 6: equation and potentially and potentially have Abbot backing you as
Speaker 6: a school about your supporter, that really really changes the equation.
Speaker 6: And when Abba gets involved on the side of the
Speaker 6: traditional Republicans, it's a completely different game, and I think
Speaker 6: that's a calculation they're making.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: Okay, well let's do this then, James, you wanted to say, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's yea Burrows. I'm not going to ask for a
Speaker 1: prediction because I don't I don't know if we need
Speaker 1: to make predictions. But let's hear from the three of
Speaker 1: y'all on who the who you think the favorite is
Speaker 1: right now at eleven twenty four on Friday.
Speaker 5: Well, I think just I mean it's got to be Burrows.
Speaker 5: Just sort of reading some of the tea leaves lately,
Speaker 5: and part of the reason I have twenty twenty six
Speaker 5: on my mind is just at some of these campaign
Speaker 5: stops that that Ken Paxson has been making over the
Speaker 5: last few days, going around to try to pressure, you know,
Speaker 5: hold out house members to get behind Cook. You know,
Speaker 5: you sort of heard some of the language there has
Speaker 5: they you know, has been we think we're going to win,
Speaker 5: but if we don't, you know, these these guys are
Speaker 5: in trouble in twenty twenty six. So I think, just
Speaker 5: sort of again trying to read the tea leaves there,
Speaker 5: you know, it feels like the groundwork is maybe being
Speaker 5: laid a little bit for if things go the way
Speaker 5: of Dustin Burroughs on Tuesday, I think also just looking
Speaker 5: at the coalition that Burrow's put together in his initial list,
Speaker 5: you know, he has lost some members from that list.
Speaker 5: You know, we haven't seen a public you know, list
Speaker 5: of supporters from him over the last month or so.
Speaker 5: But I do think just looking at the sheer math
Speaker 5: of it, you know, David Cook is trying to get
Speaker 5: to seventy six votes through a route that doesn't really
Speaker 5: give Democrats a lot of obvious reasons to support him.
Speaker 5: You know, his whole kind of platform is predicated on
Speaker 5: eliminating power sharing, you know, all sorts of changes that
Speaker 5: if I'm if I'm a Democratic lawmaker, I'm probably going
Speaker 5: to be looking elsewhere first. And so Burrows just has
Speaker 5: a much easier path to go compared to David.
Speaker 2: Cook at this point.
Speaker 6: James, Okay, well, Jasper stole all my lines, So no,
Speaker 6: I would say I would agree with that. I mean,
Speaker 6: I think I've shared this with you guys. I think
Speaker 6: that Burrows is in pole position just because, like if
Speaker 6: you just look at the lists, he's got the highest number.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's not seventy six. We know that for sure,
Speaker 6: but it's still higher than the fifty six.
Speaker 4: Fifty seven.
Speaker 6: Then we saw David Cook put out at his highest.
Speaker 6: His watermark is fifty six. Even Burrows after losing the
Speaker 6: seven people he lost, is still higher than fifty six, right,
Speaker 6: And so I think the other thing too is we
Speaker 6: have to talk about the role of Democrats, right and
Speaker 6: the role of like these squishy Republicans who maybe are
Speaker 6: on both lists, who are trying to figure out if
Speaker 6: they want to be in power, who's the guy that's
Speaker 6: going or gal who's going to get them to be
Speaker 6: in power? And you're on if you feel like you're
Speaker 6: on sinking ships, like neither one of them is going
Speaker 6: to get to seventy six, which some of these folks
Speaker 6: do feel like. We've seen the letters from Gary Gates.
Speaker 6: They're looking for a third option, and they've been looking
Speaker 6: for a third option for a while. And there's that
Speaker 6: uncommitted group of Democrats who are neither Cook nor Burroughs,
Speaker 6: and they're trying to figure out, can we build a coalition,
Speaker 6: can we pull from these other coalitions to build our
Speaker 6: own coalition so that we are in power. I think
Speaker 6: that's still an interesting thing to look at. But like
Speaker 6: I said, I think it's Boroughs third candidate and then Cook.
Speaker 6: But I do think that the ironic thing in all
Speaker 6: of this is that these two guys who are fighting
Speaker 6: to be the more conservative Republican, the conservative choice for speaker,
Speaker 6: are going to have to rely on Democratic votes and
Speaker 6: it's going to be interesting to see like how exactly
Speaker 6: they go about getting those.
Speaker 2: Owner Are you going to be a contrarian?
Speaker 3: Sure, I will, I'll make the case for you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the main thing is, like we is,
Speaker 3: we've got a lot of people who are on both
Speaker 3: sides of this that are sort of just trying to
Speaker 3: predict accurately where the power goes. So I do think
Speaker 3: there is a chance that this, you know, a sort
Speaker 3: of the fear campaign that's being lodged against some these
Speaker 3: members takes hold. You just need, like the numbers are
Speaker 3: so small that you really do just need like a
Speaker 3: few people to move in either direction. I do think
Speaker 3: it's also possible that we have, you know, a third candidate,
Speaker 3: that someone else emerges, that this all like becomes sort
Speaker 3: of all this like back and forth becomes irrelevant. But
Speaker 3: I kind of think, and I guess it's a question
Speaker 3: for you guys. But like, regardless, the fact that they
Speaker 3: sort of I mean, it's reminiscent of the House Speaker
Speaker 3: vote in Congress. Like the fact that they can't agree
Speaker 3: on this first question does sort of set up a
Speaker 3: potentially very painful, drawn out session.
Speaker 6: And I'm curious, like how long that first day is
Speaker 6: gonna go. The other thing we have to say is
Speaker 6: that there is officially a third candidate, which is Anna
Speaker 6: Maria Ramos, who hasn't dropped out, and she's got her vote,
Speaker 6: and then as of this morning, she has Ray Lopez.
Speaker 6: So that's two votes for Anna Maria Ramos, have to
Speaker 6: say it, but there's other Republicans still kind of floating
Speaker 6: about in there. But yeah, I'm curious, like how long
Speaker 6: this thing is going to go, if we're going to
Speaker 6: have like multiple votes, or if it's going to wrap
Speaker 6: up pretty easily.
Speaker 4: And also, just like the session at large.
Speaker 5: I do think the point about the Democrats though, is
Speaker 5: that could be maybe the it might be the leading
Speaker 5: contender as sort of the factor that could upend Dustin
Speaker 5: Burrows's chances. If the Democrats, you know, just come out
Speaker 5: Tuesday totally fractured, you've got the the you know, I
Speaker 5: don't know the exact number of folks who are you know,
Speaker 5: planning to go to the to the mat, go to
Speaker 5: the floor casting their vote for for Anna Maria Ramos,
Speaker 5: even knowing that she doesn't have the math to win.
Speaker 5: There's also sort of another faction of House Democrats, you know,
Speaker 5: apparently led by Sinfronia Thompson, one of the longest serving
Speaker 5: members in the House, who who has been through a
Speaker 5: whole lot of speaker races in her time, so, you know,
Speaker 5: assuming she knows what she's doing, she's also kind of
Speaker 5: leading the Burroughs like sort of the holdout members who
Speaker 5: are keeping their powder dry. And then, you know, the
Speaker 5: biggest faction of Democrats as of now at least are
Speaker 5: the ones who are publicly supporting Burroughs. You know, there
Speaker 5: might be some crossover between the Sinfernia Thompson Onno Maria
Speaker 5: Ramos Camp's not sure, but it's you know, if.
Speaker 4: If that's the same camp.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but if it's you know that that if it's
Speaker 5: evenly divided or even there's you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm not sure exactly how the math works out, but
Speaker 5: just enough Democrats who aren't willing to support Burrows, and
Speaker 5: you know, the pressure campaign against the Republican members causes
Speaker 5: enough to hold out that could sink him, and then
Speaker 5: you know, the Borough's supporters have to look to someone else.
Speaker 1: There's one other thing I just want to bring up,
Speaker 1: which I was sort of skeptical of the Borough's path
Speaker 1: because of the pressure.
Speaker 6: But I will say, and because a lot of Democrats
Speaker 6: hate him, like there's a lot of animals.
Speaker 4: Not really like ally meaningful allies.
Speaker 1: Yet I will say, you know, I mentioned the Alex
Speaker 1: Fairley money earlier here, twenty million dollars that he said.
Speaker 1: He's he's a Marilla businessman. He's sort of a new
Speaker 1: player in the like Megadna worlds of Texas, particularly kind
Speaker 1: of perceived on that like hard line right. He put
Speaker 1: out that he was going to spend twenty million in
Speaker 1: the next primary to quote expand and you know a
Speaker 1: real conservative majority.
Speaker 2: I think I'll speak for myself.
Speaker 1: I saw that as a sort of implicit threat against
Speaker 1: people voting for Burroughs. He put out a statement like
Speaker 1: right before we came in to record this where it
Speaker 1: seemed like the tone had shifted a little bit. He
Speaker 1: said the speaker should be elected with a majority of
Speaker 1: Republicans supporting him or her, which right, and did not
Speaker 1: mention the caucus endorsement at all. And he said the
Speaker 1: fund will not primary members based solely on their speaker vote.
Speaker 6: And that felt a little different from what the Republican
Speaker 6: Party of Texas.
Speaker 1: Is exactly, And that felt a little bit almost like
Speaker 1: like someone people can read that and view that as
Speaker 1: permission to vote for Burroughs or a third candidate in
Speaker 1: this way. And I think that's meaningful because twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars is a lot of money. That's more than Abbot
Speaker 1: was spinning in the past primary. And if you feel
Speaker 1: like that money is not going to be used against you,
Speaker 1: that might make you feel a little bit more.
Speaker 4: Comfortab It's a notable tone change.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I'd put that in the category of the
Speaker 5: tea leaves that make me think Burrows is maybe the
Speaker 5: favorite as of right now.
Speaker 6: Yea, all right, let's pause a disclosure that this is
Speaker 6: all pre recorded on Friday.
Speaker 2: Right right, exactly.
Speaker 1: Speaking of disclosures, let's pause and hear from our sponsors
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Speaker 1: let's talk about some Paul here. Vouchers is the big
Speaker 1: ticket item. We talked about the primaries. Many of those
Speaker 1: primary defeats of Republicans were people who voted against vouchers
Speaker 1: and drew the attention and the considerable financial resources of
Speaker 1: Greg Abbott. We're somewhere, you know, the back of the envelope.
Speaker 1: Math is sort of like we're around like seventy nine
Speaker 1: voucher supporters right now.
Speaker 2: Is this a sure thing?
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's it's I think we're heading into the
Speaker 5: session with you know, vouchers or education savings accounts, the
Speaker 5: kind of voucher like policy that's being proposed. I think
Speaker 5: it has its best shot of passing maybe ever, at
Speaker 5: least in decades. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 5: the official or I guess unofficial whip count that's being
Speaker 5: thrown around in the House is seventy nine votes. Who
Speaker 5: you know members who would support some sort of voucher
Speaker 5: program if it hits the floor. You know, the big
Speaker 5: caveat there is that a whole lot of those members
Speaker 5: are not on record saying what type of voucher program
Speaker 5: they would support. And when you pair that with just
Speaker 5: how slim that margin is, you know, you're only three
Speaker 5: votes past the number you need to reach majority in
Speaker 5: the House. I think it's, you know, the smart money
Speaker 5: now is basically something is more likely to pass than not.
Speaker 5: But nobody really knows what you know, format is acceptable
Speaker 5: to a majority of House members, right, I.
Speaker 6: Think it's I mean, nothing's for sure in the legislature,
Speaker 6: but I think this is a pretty safe bet. As
Speaker 6: Jasper put it, just because you saw what Governor Abbott
Speaker 6: did in the primaries, you don't want to be facing
Speaker 6: him again in the primaries next time around. He wants
Speaker 6: to get something done. He's been very clear about that.
Speaker 6: He's brought in a whole new batch of lawmakers who
Speaker 6: want to get something done on school choice. It just
Speaker 6: is a question of what that sort of voucher legislation
Speaker 6: looks like and I think that's going to be a
Speaker 6: sticking point, but I'm pretty sure it passes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like you, if you're David Cook and
Speaker 1: you and Speaker, you're you know, I think going to
Speaker 1: be more aligned with Dan Patrick in the future, and
Speaker 1: like it's a little bit more smooth sailing. If you're
Speaker 1: Burrows or some other candidate, I think you probably politically
Speaker 1: want to get Abbott as close to on your side
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible, and probably the best way to
Speaker 1: do that is to move a bill through and move
Speaker 1: it through quickly so that we don't end up in
Speaker 1: the situation we ended up in twenty two.
Speaker 6: And Burrows I think has been supportive of school actually, right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: so that's not an issue.
Speaker 2: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay, what other issues are standing out to y'all in
Speaker 1: the session? I'll start with you eleanor Well.
Speaker 3: I as the women's health reporter, I got to make
Speaker 3: a pitch for you know, twenty twenty three last session.
Speaker 3: I joke, and this is very overstated, but that like
Speaker 3: the word abortion was not said under the Capitol Dome
Speaker 3: in the twenty twenty three session. It just like was
Speaker 3: not touched at all, so, I obviously am watching to
Speaker 3: see whether, you know, we've seen some momentum from conservatives
Speaker 3: around trying to crack down further on abortion pills. We
Speaker 3: see a couple bills that modeled after like a Louisiana
Speaker 3: bill that makes abortion inducing drugs a controlled substance, a
Speaker 3: couple like smaller things on that front. And then I'm
Speaker 3: also watching after the election, where we saw so much conversation,
Speaker 3: particularly from conservatives about trans kids. Trans adults really was
Speaker 3: seen as like a very powerful tool during the election
Speaker 3: for conservatives. I think we're expecting to see more bills.
Speaker 3: You know, last session we saw a huge victory for
Speaker 3: conservatives on this effort they've been pushing for a while
Speaker 3: to ban gender firming care for minors. It's not yet
Speaker 3: clear like what the next frontier is whether they're going
Speaker 3: to sort of try to regulate trans adults lives or
Speaker 3: further restrict sort of this care for trans miners, but
Speaker 3: that probably will We'll see more conversation on that front
Speaker 3: than on the abortion front.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you watched college football in the fall ahead
Speaker 1: of the election, you know that that was maybe the
Speaker 1: most popular Republican ad in Texas and beyond and so
Speaker 1: you got to think there's going to be something related
Speaker 1: to that, you know, women's sports, trans kids, any of
Speaker 1: those types of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tricky because Texas has done a lot of
Speaker 3: that already. But every I mean there's a group out
Speaker 3: there that tracks like anti trans legislation, and it's just
Speaker 3: like the years Texas meets in the legislature, you can
Speaker 3: see there's like a huge spike nationally and then the
Speaker 3: years we don't meet, like other states are just not
Speaker 3: doing nearly as much as we are on that front.
Speaker 3: So they'll do something.
Speaker 2: James, what's on your radar?
Speaker 6: Social conservatives are in so more socially conservative legislation.
Speaker 4: Ten Commandments bills, a lot of the trans bills.
Speaker 1: Ten Commandments is requiring schools to hang them in the
Speaker 1: classroom walls.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: And then I think immigration is thing to watch. The
Speaker 6: return of this question of banning whether cities and counties
Speaker 6: can pay lobbyists to advocate on their behalf in Austin,
Speaker 6: I think that's a big push my social conservatives.
Speaker 4: And then I guess immigration is something to watch too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean right, the big question is how much
Speaker 1: does the state invest in immigration? And that Trump presidency.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean all of the above for sure.
Speaker 5: I think also just looking at the the budget surplus
Speaker 5: that we're expected to see for the second straight regular session,
Speaker 5: it's going to be a sizeable, you know, share of
Speaker 5: some billions of dollars. We don't have the official estimate
Speaker 5: yet from the Comptroller, Glenn Hagar, but that's going to
Speaker 5: be you know, doled out to presumably property tax cuts,
Speaker 5: property tax relief of some sort. Just looking to see
Speaker 5: how big that relief packages, and also whether the two
Speaker 5: chambers can agree on what format takes or whether we
Speaker 5: see a redux of the you know, endless, endless fighting
Speaker 5: that led to multiple special sessions. I think also keeping
Speaker 5: on the theme of the budget surplus, like water, infrastructure
Speaker 5: is a big one, just continuing the investment made last
Speaker 5: regular session to you know, fix the leaky pipes all
Speaker 5: over the state and find new sources of water and
Speaker 5: just kind of infrastructure in general. You know, we spend
Speaker 5: billions of dollars on highway expansion and just all kinds
Speaker 5: of stuff that sort of flows under the radar of
Speaker 5: these these charged political debates. But I think you know
Speaker 5: a lot of the big issues will kind of flow
Speaker 5: through that the budget surplus two we're talking about like
Speaker 5: public school finance, you know, kind of parent that that
Speaker 5: conversation is always just by nature paired with the voucher talk.
Speaker 5: Just you know, how much gets spent on raises for teachers,
Speaker 5: and you know, trying to shore up.
Speaker 4: That issue, the workforce shortage.
Speaker 5: In public schools. I think that's a big one. And
Speaker 5: I guess the last one to flag would be the grid,
Speaker 5: the power gridg just you know, Dan Patrick has said
Speaker 5: he wants to continue providing the low interest loans to
Speaker 5: incentivize the construction of new natural gas plants. So just
Speaker 5: you know, whatever gets passed in that genre is hugely
Speaker 5: important for the state.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Urkott really support late last year or middle of
Speaker 1: last year, actually saying predicting demand on the grid going
Speaker 1: up seventy five percent over the next six years. Anyone
Speaker 1: who lived through twenty twenty one, that's a scary thing
Speaker 1: to think about. I think the politicians of the state
Speaker 1: would really like to not have something like that happen again.
Speaker 1: So I think you'll see some commitment there. I'll add
Speaker 1: two more gambling not I don't think a lot of
Speaker 1: support for that in the Senate at least at the top,
Speaker 1: but a lot of money being spent by lobbyists on
Speaker 1: that one, So that'll be a fun one to watch.
Speaker 1: And then THC marijuana. We talked about this already, Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick coming out wanting to ban all those THHC products
Speaker 1: that are sort of like marijuana, sort of being unregulated
Speaker 1: and right now in the way that they're sold.
Speaker 6: That was interesting too because Sid Miller kind of came
Speaker 6: out against that, and there's obviously a lot of rural
Speaker 6: lawmakers who's that's a big cash game for them in
Speaker 6: their district.
Speaker 1: Well, and people forget that the House passed a marijuana
Speaker 1: decriminalization bill last session. It's a very different House, of course,
Speaker 1: but I think a big a good question to ask
Speaker 1: of whether there's support for that in the.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's kind of an early sleeper pick
Speaker 5: for like a big issue that could divide the two chambers,
Speaker 5: you know, when we get around to like April or May,
Speaker 5: and you know, thinking about bills that could could bring
Speaker 5: drag other uncontroversial bills down with it. You know, there's
Speaker 5: always a few of those every session. I feel like
Speaker 5: it seemed like the vibe that in the House is
Speaker 5: generally among the Republicans is against banning THHC, maybe more
Speaker 5: regulation of it. It sort of depends on where Dan
Speaker 5: Patrick wants to go with that.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope y'all have your suits already and you
Speaker 1: know your floor passes ready to go. It's going to
Speaker 1: be an interesting one hundred and forty days. We will
Speaker 1: be here, The trip Cast will be here, We're going
Speaker 1: to be running through the legislative session. If we built
Speaker 1: find an audience, if people are enjoying it, we're going
Speaker 1: to keep going after that. So if you like the show,
Speaker 1: you want to keep hearing it, share it with your friends,
Speaker 1: give us a good review, do all the things that
Speaker 1: can help kind of promote the trip Cast and everything there.
Speaker 1: Our schedule here is we're going to have a special
Speaker 1: version of the trip Cast sometime after the speaker vote
Speaker 1: when we know who the speaker is, likely Wednesday, when
Speaker 1: that episode will come. Then after that will be in
Speaker 1: your various podcasting apps every Tuesday from here on out.
Speaker 1: So it'll be me James and Eleanor and other Tribune
Speaker 1: journalists alongside you know, some experts and other things like that.
Speaker 1: So looking forward to going through that with y'all. I
Speaker 1: want to say thank you to our sponsors, raise your hand,
Speaker 1: Texas and Water Grows. Our producers for this show are
Speaker 1: Rob a Vila and Chris Voboda. Our music our theme
Speaker 1: music that you heard at the beginning composed by Rob,
Speaker 1: so shout out to him for that. And we will
Speaker 1: see y'all next week