Welcome to Party Politics.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina, political science professor at the University of Houston.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor, also here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for hanging out with us and talking a little politics on party politics.

This hopefully will get you ready for your weekend and get you ready to talk about the biggest news.

And that's the fact that the legislature is about halfway done.

The cotton is halfway to the gin Geronimo.

But don't be confused about how low things have been because things are starting to heat up.

And like a spring storm, you're going to see this thing roll in fast and hard and then roll out just as quick.

So we're going to talk this week about what to expect for the next couple of months, relationships between the big players, where certain issues are in the field and just all things that are associated with the legislative circus.

So the first thing is give us some context for where we are and kind of why it is the legislature does what they do in such a infrequent basis.

Right.

Well, that's in the Texas Constitution.

Right.

And it's this part of the, I guess, Texas foundational political myth that less government is good government.

And that's why we meet or they meet every two years for 140 days.

Yes, our legislature is a quote unquote, part time legislature in the sense that they're not meeting every single year for most of the year.

And finally, it is a very jam packed process, right, Because you only have 140 days for the next two years.

Yes.

So you have to pack everything.

Most of the statistics that like in every legislative legislative session, they are around 10,000 bills or more or at least introduce more or less.

About 7,000 of those bills do not make the cut, so you're talking about between 2,000 and 3,000 bills that actually get voted up and down in the floor.

Yeah, the process is very simple.

It's only six steps.

Yes.

Okay.

Wow.

That's it seems surprisingly like compact first.

So they introduce a bill.

That bill then is referred to a standing committee.

Then that's.

About where we are right now, right, bills are going to committees.

Exactly.

So that's where we are in terms of the referral after that.

Right For the second half or the after the half time.

Yeah, but they don't have.

Not quite halftime yet.

We're almost at halftime basically.

Yeah.

Then it is putting the calendar is sent to the floor up and down and if it passes it goes to the, to the, to the Senate.

The Senate does whatever they want to do or the other way around.

Conference committee, which is basically the House and the Senate hashing out differences.

They do a conference report.

After the report, they say up and down, if everyone agrees, goes to the governor, if the governor agrees, signs it becomes a law.

Yeah.

And a lot of this obviously is about the politics of it.

Right.

So the process looks simple on paper, but the reality is, is a lot of the kind of political turn around it.

Right.

So I think that like truth barbecue would be envious of the amount of red meat that's going to go through the legislative process.

Maybe we get a like an endorsement thing.

Truth barbecue.

Yeah.

I mean.

We could work it out.

But I think that most Texans are going to need a big bib to like, keep the meat juice off of them, considering how much like red meat is going to happen.

And partly because we know, like a lot of the policies flow from the politics.

And so from the election, there was clear kind of unanimity that the Republicans were in charge.

Right.

And so they're winning big at the state level.

They obviously won every big, you know, statewide race.

So that definitely put them into good stead.

The most of this is led by the big three, the governor, the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House.

They're all Republicans, but they're not totally in agreement.

Right.

So there's definitely some divergences there.

So I'm interested in sort of how the House and Senate dynamic plays out, because I think that's really interesting is also some dynamic between the governor and lieutenant governor and things like how successful the grid has been.

But there's certainly enough unanimity there in terms of policy preferences that we're likely to see some of that go.

But like the sun never sets on the Republican Party empire in Texas, right?

Like almost like the British Empire of old like right.

Is not the case that it won't go.

It will go.

And so we're going to talk a lot about kind of how the Democrats have fared in all of this.

Right.

And pushing back on some of these things and we're going to talk about some of the big issues.

But let's get to that first question.

That's about the big three.

The relationship between the key players at each institutional level really is meaningful.

So give me your sense of kind of how that is played out and what effect will have on like whether legislation goes quickly or at all.

Woof.

Well, I think it's a very delicate balance because each of them have their own legitimacy.

Each of them are elected independently from, you know, the general state in the case of the speaker of the House from his district.

But then he's elected inside the the the House, the lieutenant governor it's not elected by the Senate.

That's a constitutional prerogative that he has as lieutenant governor.

And then obviously the governor elected all over the state.

So it's given that they have their own constituency, they have their own mandates and they have their own political power, they have their own political capital.

And obviously, there is this tension in terms of advancing their own political agenda.

And then they do.

Have their own agendas.

Right.

I mean, we saw and have talked about the fact that the lieutenant governor and Speaker have kind of come up with their own agenda.

The governor is kind of touring the state, trying to drum up support for vouchers, which we'll talk about.

So these things do matter.

Right.

And there's been a lot of tension in the last decade, and it's not necessarily a Dan Patrick issue, but Dan Patrick has definitely been a part of it where the House and Senate have butted heads.

Right.

They have really been very much at each other.

And it's partly because the rules dictate this kind of complicated flow of things so that certain bills have to be done certain at certain times in order for it to be heard by the chair.

And that gets way too into the weeds for like, well, our little show here.

We'll save that for class, right?

Okay.

We'll bore our students with that.

We won't bore you with that, folks.

But the basically the same thing applies, right, where they have to kind of work through and with each other.

And that can be challenging, Right?

So I think the speaker and lieutenant governor are basically like political frenemies, right?

They have to work together.

They have a okay working relationship.

But I don't think it to be like buying a timeshare together anytime soon.

Right.

But no, it's not that kind of friendliness.

Right.

Well, you know, timeshares is like you have your week and they have their week, so.

Maybe they.

Maybe they would.

So.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I describe it more like, like Tango and Cash, right?

Like, yeah, they're working together the same level right now.

That's a deep dive.

That is a deep dive.

Into like, Poncherello and Baker, something like that.

Not that good.

Okay.

Not that they have to ride in tandem.

That's okay.

Yeah, that's absolutely right.

And it's, you know, I think it's on the one hand is, I guess the the political style of each.

Yes.

Of the speaker of the House and the lieutenant governor that has to do, you know, very, very important to me.

The speaker of the of the House, I feel, doesn't like to get into a lot of the of the, you know, cultural wars.

I think he has a different feeling of what needs to be done.

Yeah.

And on the other hand, Lieutenant Governor Patrick likes to get into that political agenda.

Yeah.

You know, he's prerogative and, you know, kudos and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, but then I think there is the institutional side and the institutional side is speaker Phelan's say like, wait a minute, I'm like by the Texas Constitution, we are a bicameral legislature.

And that means that you need me as much as I need you.

Yeah, Yeah.

So we're not the little brother.

The little sister or anything like that?

Yeah.

We want respect.

Yeah.

Just because.

Yeah, I mean, we're on the same footing, right?

Like the floors are the same level, Right?

Exactly.

And I think part of the reason there's this tension is that, like, number one, that you say there's institutional divide and Patrick kind of is impatient.

He wants his way politically.

Right.

And to his credit, he's moved the party in that direction in a significant way, maybe more than almost any other kind of current elected officials, including Greg Abbott.

And that's, I think, resulting from the fact they've got different political constituencies.

Right.

Like, you know, the constituency for Phelan is basically the House, but it's also the kind of more moderate wing of the party, right.

Who's got to kind of be the brakes on things.

And internally, this has been the sort of always the norm, right, with the House has always been those breaks you've had historically, you know, speakers who have said that we should let the members vote their districts like they need to go back and represent people.

So they have to make their choices, which means sometimes they have to buck their party.

The relationship between the governor, lieutenant governor, interesting, too, because they have really been together.

The last time we actually saw lieutenant governor, governor actually run together was like Perry and Bush when they ran together, because after that, they stopped doing it.

It really was kind of an all for myself, sort of a deal.

And it's I'd say they're not going to agree on things.

But like Abbott is, the more cautious, wise and approach.

And so I think that, you know, definitely is his personality.

Patrick's more vocal and aggressive.

So while Abbott kind of contemplates the blast, racy at Radius, you see Patrick kind of lighting a fuze, right?

And so, you know, that's why the governor's out kind of stumping support for vouchers which is probably a big issue and Dan Patrick just says just put it on the calendar.

Let's see how it goes.

He's got the votes, there's no question.

But the votes necessarily, aren't there in the House.

Yeah, right.

And so that's going to be interesting question.

But let's talk about some of those things because we talked weeks ago about the role of the lieutenant governor in trying to push legislation this week.

One of the sort of things that happened was that he put SB 2 on to the intent calendar.

So by the time you're hearing this, this will be something that the Senate's already taking up.

SB 2 is the first of many controversial bills.

This bill in particular increases the penalties for fraudulent voting.

So this is definitely a kind of first step at this.

And we know historically Patrick's move quicker than the house.

That's just his nature.

But also the fact that he controls the Senate matters.

I think that's really thrown a lot of things into frenzy.

So that's how we know it's half time, right?

Like, you know what I mean?

The score is close.

Right?

And so we have Rihanna coming out, right, to do something big.

If that happened, I think you get a lot more people paying attention to.

True.

But but what do you make of Dan Patrick sort of approach?

Right.

His priority bills are pretty conservative, right, Reflecting the fact that he is basically governing often from the right.

Right, right.

So what is your take on kind of how that's going to settle out in the next couple of months?

Well, look, I think that, you know, the more that you are focusing on these very ideological, very partisan issues, the more potential unintended consequences you're going to create.

Yeah.

So the state is moving perhaps in in these big urban areas to different, I guess, more moderate stance on politics.

Also, people are tired.

Yeah, people are tired of hearing all these stuff, right.

When you know, perhaps they have, you know, individual economic problems, like paying the mortgag like thinking about, well, now I need to buy a new car and cars are super expensive.

And the roads are all chewed up.

Exactly.

Chewed up by this and that.

And, you know, it's like you get into a car accident and the insurance takes three months, Right.

To respond and all those things.

It's like, okay.

And in the meantime, you're talking about something that in reality doesn't exist, like electoral fraud.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, I don't know.

Critical Race Theory, which people may object to in some generic way, but like specifically, that's like unclear that this is like the top priority.

Right?

Exactly.

So I yeah, there's those issues right.

Okay.

He's about infrastructure issues about that people really perceive every single day.

Yeah.

And I want to ask you this because like I think you're right about Patrick's sort of approach, right?

I mean, he clearly has been, you know, the kind of vanguard of the right.

And like I said, he's governing more or less, you know, from the right for the right.

And that's been a kind of consistent thing.

And now he's effectively controls the Senate in a way that the rules allow him to do.

He's changed those rules to give himself more power, to reduce the ability, the need to be able to get more Republicans to support him or bipartisan legislation.

20 years ago, the rules had that you had to have.

You know, 2/3 of members agree.

That's interesting because that presented a really bipartisan legislation.

That number has been whittled down right now.

Basically a simple majority.

And that's changed the dynamic in the Senate.

And Patrick really is the reason that happened.

So, you know, I suppose you say if you're a hardcore, you know, craven institutionalist, you're say good job because that's what you're supposed to do, right?

As a leader.

You try to get your policies pushed forward.

But Phelan, The speaker is taking a different approach.

Now, this week he announced a couple of priority bills that complement the ones that came out last week.

So some of them include, for instance, infrastructure development, such as broadband, Internet and water and water policies, speeding up cities and counties, processing for new construction approval.

Like I'm yawning internally because these things are so boring.

They don't excite the base, but they are the things that basically that the people want, right?

That the Texans need, right?

Absolutely!

And so my question to you is like, is this going to be a benefit to feeling like in this grand scheme where like they're going to have to jockey for position here?

Do you see the House as being able to kind of overcome Patrick's insistence that the whole chamber chambers move on this kind of conservative policy?

Right.

Because, look, I think this is very simple in terms of human behavior, right?

If you go on to the Internet and you are living in a rural community.

Don't do it.

Right.

Right.

The Internet is a cesspool.

Right.

Exactly.

So it's like I want Internet because, you know, education, farmers, etc., etc., etc..

Right.

And then you're telling me, Well, we ban CRT.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you're not going to know because you can't get on the Internet.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So maybe that's part of it.

It's like, you know, you have to be able to show that you are governing.

And I think that not only in Texas but across the nation, the Republican Party is not been, you know, or paying special attention to the act of governance.

Yeah, Yeah.

You know, the the famous leader of the Republican Party, small government caught red tape allows small businesses to thrive, etc., etc.. Those things were very important for many Americans.

Right.

And now we are shifting into a very, I guess, constant trade, a part of the Republican Party.

But the rest is going to say like, okay, I need Internet, I need more infrastructur because we're going to have problems of water.

Right?

We have said that before many, many times.

And when farmers when branches are going to be scrambling for water, like they're scrambling, for example, in California and Nevada, yes, that's going to be a very, very important issue.

It's a really good point.

And I think at some point there'll be a reckoning where the like Republicans start to realize that they have underfunded the state and then it'll start to look like these sort of places that companies are moving from to into Texas.

Right.

Like land is cheaper, regulations are low.

So, you know, workforce is strong.

That's always been the sort of Texas model, right.

Until it's not.

Until it's Not right and because you stop investing in it.

And so I think that's the long term worry like that's not going to affect the '24 election or 6 or 8.

But like you're talking about a kind of long term issue here.

But I'm not so sure because, you know, companies and people that make investments and stuff, they just on look, you know, two years or three years from now, they're going to see, do we have enough power, Do we have enough, you know, capacity to increase our production based on the electric grid?

Totally.

Do we have enough water?

Do we have enough of human capital?

If I cannot get human capital, you know, need to get a workforce locally.

And I have to import them from a state 'X', just not to name.

Yes.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

So still planning some vacations So I don't know.

Yeah.

You won't be Oregon won't be exciting except here.

Exactly.

My application to go are the important here is that what if I'm bringing, you know, human capital?

That is the most important thing in a company.

What am I doing here?

Yeah, and I think in this case, then yeah, then Phelan is kind of representing the house in that way.

Exactly.

And I think that, you know, he's standing up institutionally for his members who are all pushing these issues, which.

We've seen and and Phelan, he's bringing Democrats, right?

Yeah, he's bringing them into the equation.

Because when you say, "what infrastructure?"

there's an old Democrat that to say, oh, no, no, no, like we don't want that kind of stuff.

Broadband, let's bring broadband.

Just do it.

Yeah.

He's bringing also Democrats into the fold.

I mean, obviously there's going to be a little bit of red meat here and there.

But overall, it's like I'm bringing people in and look, I'm showing you how to govern.

And that's also part of the, I guess, Texas myth, right?

That is like we can work together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's always been the way that it's worked.

And it's not always perfectly, but like generally, yeah, I think this is going to be a session where like the house takes its time and that's going to infuriate Dan Patrick Yeah, and so that's going to be a major kind of determinative, this battle on that point.

Actually, the fact that the state has so much money now, we talked about this like one of our very first episodes ever of party politics, and that was the state is rich, right?

$33 billion with a B, ready to be able to be spent on things.

Everyone's fighting for.

Their efforts.

Both the House and Senate tentative budget had about $15 billion for tax cuts.

Now, actually, one thing that happened last week was that we saw competing proposals come out.

So Speaker Phelan's got his proposal.

Speaker Patrick got his, sorry, Dan Patrick lieutenant governor's got his proposal.

So not surprisingly, they are fighting about it.

So the feeling proposal basically is takes a certain direction and that is to place a cap on how much your appraisal can increase.

So it's 10% right now of an increase over last year.

Phelan wants to reduce that to 5%.

So that's the way that he wants to do it.

Now.

Dan Patrick basically says that a blowing the appraisal cap won't work.

Now, keep in mind, he once supported that, but he's going a different direction.

And I understand financially, I think, how this works, what they want to say basically is that all you're doing is moving taxes around.

They say the appraisal cap only helps people who are going to buy their home now and keep it forever.

People who are new buyers or renters won't benefit from that presumptive tax cuts.

So that's what the left and right say.

Actually, you saw every Texan come out.

You saw a TPPP by the conservative think tank come out saying that these is going to be a problem.

So politically it's going to be an issue.

It's a thorny not to unravel because not only is it complicated generally to do this, but also the fact that they're fighting about it and unsure of kind of which way to go, because Patrick wants to go the route of, you know, reduce or increasing your homestead exemption, it's going to create some friction.

So what's going to happen?

How how are we going to get our tax cut?

Basically, what's it going to look like?

I have no idea.

And I mean, so basically, if you follow the Senate plan, you know, a household is going to get around $200 right on that.

On the other hand, when you cut the cap to half the 5%, you're expanding that also right to small businesses.

Right.

And you're expanding to certain extent the base that you would tend to benefit.

In every single public policy, there's going to be a constant problems.

Right.

And these may be in terms of how that tax is going to be allocated.

Yeah, we have it's a tax system that is not fair by definition, right.

In many cases, more affluent individuals spend less of their money on basic necessities and, you know, proportionately, proportionally speaking, right.

So having that, you know, at the end, you may end up at having the same amount.

And again, it's an issue of 200 bucks per household on average, right?

Yeah, based on the median value of a house of a house.

So it's not such a cut as a cap.

Right.

Exactly.

Fair for people because like they want to see a limitation of.

Right.

And so no matter how you slice it, it's going to get us there.

It's just a question of financially what that looks like today and tomorrow.

Right.

Because as we said weeks ago, talking about like what, a budget with a reduction in the homestead exemption or increase in homestead exemption would look like it's, you know, complicated for the future because it puts a structural hole in the budget.

Correct.

And if it's the case that they reduce the sales tax like they've talked about possibly doing and the governor has embraced, maybe it's the case that that will also create a different kind of structural problem.

So and the issue is also, you know, people that rent.

Yes.

Yes, exactly.

Oh, always a thorny problem because it is it's hard to find tax relief for them.

Right.

And that's why the sales tax would do.

But it's expensive.

Yeah, but then when you're looking at all these things, you can not watch or you can not think about it.

But for example, because what if you remember correctly that I know you do, you're very smart.

Yeah.

It's all let's see.

If you remember correctly, part of the how they want to fund education, savings accounts, school vouchers, school choice, school freedom whenever other name to talk about the same thing is through a reduction of property taxes and using sales tax, right, to fund the hole that you would have in property taxes reduction.

But when you put everything together right, you're throwing or you're making a cocktail that has chocolate cake jalapeño, you know, tequila.

These and that, etc..

Etc., that's a good Christmas right there.

Let's go.

Right.

So eat.

You don't know how it's going to taste.

And at the end, what is going to balance?

Because on the one hand, you said what we cut here and when we're going to use here.

But then you have another proposal.

But wait we want to cut here as well.

And so let me let me just bring in like, yeah, some more some more, some more spicy and Sichuan chicken to drop.

A couple of drop of the spicy hard seltzer that you make.

So.

Okay.

It's good.

That's all.

Right.

That's right.

Okay.

That's hot stuff.

It's dangerous.

Yeah.

Let me add some more to it.

That is that the legislature is also considering changing how they fund the education like formula.

Basically, right now they give schools money based upon attendance, whereas they want to do it in a more fair way, which is to give it upon enrollment.

Exactly.

Which is a slight difference, but means millions of dollars for some school districts.

So that means that the state's going to have to pay millions of dollars.

Right.

And so that's one thing that's definitely worrisome.

Vouchers are going to be a big issue.

Like we said, the governor's out trying to make some hay for this, trying to get low income and rural areas to join on this.

I think he might have some success at this.

So that'll be interesting to note.

But I want to talk about some controversial bills because there's been a bunch of them.

Let's do like a lightning round here.

Here's one question that is that the one of the members, Brian Slate, introduced a bill to allow Texas to vote on whether it would secede or not.

The so-called Texas vote Lightning round going to pass or not pass?

Oh, absolutely not.

Because it's illegal.

No.

It doesn't mean it'll pass, right?

Yeah, No, but it can't happen.

There's also been a lot of controversy about about like drag shows we've talked about there's been controversy about limiting classroom lessons for, you know, sexuality or LGBTQ information, expanding anti-discrimination protections, restricting college sports teams from allowing transgender athletes to be on the team.

Are these going to pass?

What's your read like?

Is it is it a conservative section like that or not?

I'm I don't I mean, yes and no, because we have 33 billion that people are going to be more focused on.

And I think that, you know, there's a likelihood that some of these bills are going to pass.

They're not going to pass the entirety and they're not going to pass, you know, as written or introduced.

So I think that everything is going to be, as you say, stopped at the house and the house.

Maybe it's just going to wait.

The question is, if we're going to go to a special session.

Okay, what's a bill you're watching?

You think that needs to be on people's radar?

Well, I think, you know, all the bills regarding school finance overhaul, I think those are extremely important for every every single person in the state of Texas.

So I'm looking very closely at that.

I'm also looking at how some of these other bills in terms of abortion exceptions and the expansion of Medicaid are going to fall down at the end in in in the legislature.

What about you?

I'm watching this bill about banning Delta 8.

Delta 9.

There's a variety of THC that's legal federally because of the laws that Congress passed.

But some states have banned it, including Texas.

Considering banning it.

So that will be of interest to me because a lot of veterans use that.

And so they're going to be pushing hard for it.

Okay.

So I would expect the last thing, the last three months, what's going to happen?

Big predictions?

Well, I mean, we are going to expect the unexpected.

Okay, good.

Yeah, I like that.

Right.

I think a couple of things.

I think, number one, that fight over taxes will dominate.

Right?

This process we've talked about is going to be suck up a lot of oxygen.

And I think if Democrats are smart, they can take advantage of that to slow down some of the social legislation or even possibly push it off to the next session.

And I think vouchers passes in some form.

I don't know what form, but I think that there's enough consensus that they'll.

Get that there.

So, Brandan, for this week, this has been the halftime report brought to you by us.

So we'll continue next week.

Hey, thanks for watching party politics and thanks to everybody Houston Public Media for making this show look awesome.