<Music> Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

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

Thanks for hanging out with us and talking a little legislative politics, my friend.

That is that time of year.

I think the ledge is about ready to gavel out.

Sunny day is within sight.

Probably as of this recording, it doesn't look like there's going to be a special session.

But honestly, sometimes you just never know, right?

Things are a little bit chaotic over there, so chaotic that it prompted one of my favorite journalist, Molly Ivins, to use the following phrase, and that was that.

We know that ledge meets once every two years for 140 days, but what she said is that they really should meet for two days every 140 years.

It saves everybody a lot of time and hassle, but I think that there are still winners and losers from this, right?

I mean, it's true every session, but we definitely some ups and some downs here.

So we'll get into all of that.

But let's talk some numbers for a second.

And that is that the kind of trend in terms of the number of bills filed in past is increasing by kind of a lot.

So in the 88 session, which was the 20 2023, there are about 8600 bills filed and about 1200 bills that were passed.

As of this moment, the 89th legislature had about 9000 bills to were filed, is about 600 plus, and there are about 300 more bills that have been passed even now.

And they're probably gonna be in a couple hundred more.

So basically demand is up, the number of things passing is up, government is growing really, if you think about it from that perspective.

So definitely Republicans are worried that that's happening.

Some of them are objecting to certain things that are going on.

Some of them are totally satisfied with what's happening here.

Democrats.

Who?

Crickets.

We'll get into all of it.

But you give me your kind of top level, 10,000ft view of the 89th legislature.

Well, I mean, yes, production has increased.

The real question here is, what kind of production are we producing?

Are they doing.

Well, I mean, not what are they doing?

It is clear that they're passing and voting builds up and.

Right.

Which is fine.

The question is if those are the right priorities, if those are the real things that we really need to be spending significant time, given that the state legislature meets every, other year and really dwell into, you know, a couple of pieces of legislation that are very significant for the future, some big ones.

Yeah, yeah.

So instead of producing, you know, 800 or 9000 or 1200 and by your accounts, we're going to be around 1500, more or less.

More than that, probably 16 1700.

Okay.

Like a fair number.

I mean, the percentage will be about the same in terms of the pass fail.

Sure.

But like the number of bills will be considerably higher.

And look, it's a lot to get a bill over the finish line, right.

Oh yes.

You know, to get it all the way to the end is really an accomplishment.

Right.

And so it has to have through, you know, many of these different stages.

Let's talk about kind of from the top down.

My impression of the session was that this is really, a session where you had essentially a power vacuum, right?

You had basically, not surprisingly, a session where you had the governor and lieutenant governor dominate.

We had a new speaker of the House who was born kind of in chaos, right?

Just in the middle of this fantasy.

Yeah.

The Avengers.

Like boom Yes.

Exactly.

Like.

And you're this sort of hulking creature that doesn't know what to do with its power.

That's kind of the way the speaker was.

Right?

So you, you know, you didn't have any real priorities to go into it.

He had to placate all these leaders who basically were telling him what to do.

Dan Patrick shows up and says, do this or else.

That's kind of what ended up happening on a lot of these bills.

Governor Abbott, a little more quiet, I think, you know, still putting pressure on on occasion, but he set out his agenda.

And he really, as we've said before, kind of owns the house, right?

He built this party the way he wanted it.

And was able to get more or less what he needed from the house in a way that he didn't in the 23rd session.

So mostly the leaders were on the same page.

But that's only because Burrows kind of just let them do it.

Am I wrong about that?

Am I misinterpreting the kind of role of the speaker here?

Because it seems to me that the house kind of got rolled in a bunch of different ways this time.

I mean, yes, I think so.

And I think that, you know, the first maneuver is Governor Abbott primary now.

Yeah.

Folks that did not vote for the essays in the previous session.

But also when you think about the role of speaker borrows, speaker borrows is a true conservative, right?

I mean, he's priorities are 100% aligned one way or the other with, Texas Republican conservatives, so to say.

Or let me rephrase the question.

Okay.

In in a sense is like, was he actually rolled over?

Yeah.

Or when you look at the venn diagram between, Abbott Patrick and Burrows, the three circles have a lot of overlap.

There's, like, almost no, like, room and the moons at the end.

Yeah, exactly.

So.

So is that something possible that, you know, he said, like, yeah, I believe in school vouchers.

Sure.

We're going to do it.

I believe also in these.

Right.

Priorities from, Lieutenant Governor Patrick.

So I'm going to play game, but I think I don't know, I.

Think that's probably right, actually.

I mean, certainly that's true.

If you're a rank and file house member and Dan Patrick says, please vote for this bill or Abbott says vote for this, you know, vouchers bill.

Probably they would.

But Burroughs has an extra obligation and that's to protect the institution.

Sure.

Protect the house.

Now remember they specifically voted for him.

Now Democrats and a lot of Republicans specifically voted for him because they wanted him to protect the House.

They feared that David Cook, right.

The other option way, way back when.

Right.

And beginning a session while we all were still, you know, kind of cognizant, was going to basically roll over and give Patrick what he wanted.

Well, that's kind of what happened, right?

So maybe it was a political inevitability, but I think for sure, if you look at the tail of the tape on this, at the end of the day, it's that Patrick dominated the narrative, but Abbott dominated the agenda.

Abbott got everything he wanted.

All of his six seven emergency priorities all got met.

Most of Patrick's got met, although we'll see kind of.

When all is said and done.

Some of these may not see the light of day.

A lot of them also got kind of watered down in a way that may be unhappy for him, but they definitely, give him, at least enough to be able to brag about.

So I think to me, this was really the governor session.

We talked about this with vouchers.

It's the most important session of his career.

And he frankly nailed it.

He did a good job making sure that he got everybody on board.

You know, he in the past has been seen as kind of to milquetoast somebody who wasn't really able to deliver on these conservative priorities.

He did that this time, right.

He kind of definitely hit for the cycle.

So if you look at things he wanted property tax relief check.

Water investment check.

Although it's like a modest check, which we'll talk about.

I know you have issues with that teacher pay raise.

Basically, yes.

Expanded career training?

Yes.

School choice.

Big.

Yes.

Bail reform.

Still unsure.

Actually, as of this recording, they're still debating some pieces of the constitutional amendment in particular.

So we'll see how that goes.

Cyber command but basically vouchers was the big brass belt buckle.

And he more or less got that.

So Texas is totally different now financially.

Educationally things are totally new.

Oh absolutely.

And here comes the question, in terms of the, price tag and in terms of the amount of money that we are committing for certain policies that may or may not be significant, right?

I mean, the education savings account is, as you say, one of the most important priorities of Governor Abbott.

Fine.

We still don't know, right?

I mean, the output is clear.

It past the outcome of that policy is, TBD, to be decided because we don't know.

And we have other examples in other states in which we have seen what has happened.

Yeah.

So when you combine that with, property tax relief, etc., etc.. Yeah.

Then you're putting a lot of money into a place that you don't know what's going to happen.

Like if you look at the budget and you look at how much money is already committed, like it's a constitutional means, or by just virtue of the promise of tax relief or vouchers, you're talking about that commitment to the tune of, say, 70 to $80 billion already fixed in an hour.

And the general revenue side of the budget is only like not even quite 200.

So there's a lot of money that's going to be spent on these promises.

So the question is, what's Texas going to look like in another decade or two decades when these bills become, like out of control?

Right.

It's like you buy two fancy cars, two fancy watches, right?

And a nice new house.

Well, this all seems great.

And we can live at large until that comes due.

And then one day we're like, okay, well, there's not enough money to pay the mortgage.

I got a hawk, one of the watches, and one of the cars.

Yeah, we're going to have to commit insurance fraud to get rid of it.

Right.

So this is a definitely like, I think a conundrum that the state is going to face.

But right now they're living large, right?

And delivering on promises.

Right.

Dan Patrick in particular has been sort of on, on a, on a win streak, I think.

Right.

I mean, some of the things he's been pushing through, include, you know, making sure the THC ban pass, which we'll talk about in a second, that got passed, he wanted and was desperate to get more money for property tax relief, which they got.

He was all in on vouchers.

He got that to a few other things.

But, you know, of his 40 bills, three are effectively dead.

He didn't get non-citizens banned from voting, which is a different issue.

It's not, it's already illegal.

Now.

They just wanted to kind of codify into law, that eventually didn't go anywhere.

Taxpayer funded lobbying still exists.

That's something the right's been pushing for for a long time.

But mostly he got everything he wanted with some, you know, small details like watered down a bit.

But he had a good section too, just like Abbott.

But, that leaves the question.

If one branch of government is doing really well, one chamber is sort of succeeding at getting things done.

Is the other one inherently not?

Or is it just that their priorities are aligned, as you say, in such a way that, like, everyone wins?

I don't know, because in the house we have seen, you know, very important divisions within the Republican caucus.

You have those, members of the House that tend to be against, the speaker of the House, right.

And then we have, I guess, some sort of moderate Republicans, whatever that means.

And so those divisions have created, I guess, a situation for the House that he's not so good.

I'm, I know obviously Democrats.

Right.

But Democrats are who are you know you know but I want.

To talk about that too because that definitely matters.

Oh yeah I.

Agree system is like definitely limits the.

Right.

It matters.

But it doesn't matter.

Right?

I mean like right now in terms of what they have done, I mean, we have seen, for example, when we think about, the THC ban, we have seen, you know, Democrats using the same rhetoric that Republicans have used to say, like, what are you doing?

Right?

These does not make any sense for the things that you say.

Killing businesses, you're hurting our freedoms.

Yeah.

Like, wait, like what?

I said, it's like a head scratcher.

He's like, wait, what?

But it wouldn't.

So it's people don't know how or what to think about.

In terms of those policies.

Is there an erosion of what it means to be a Republican?

And if it's the case that my thesis is correct, that basically Patrick and Abbott kind of tell the party what they want, then is it really like, is there like really a core of what the Republican Party is anymore?

We joke about this a lot, but they were bad mouthing like Bluebell.

They were bad mouthing and had resolutions against Charles.

Butt who's the CEO of H-e-b?

Right.

H-e-b that delivers, like, delicious groceries, during terrible times of crisis for the state and is otherwise a pretty good store.

We're not sponsored by them, but maybe we.

Could.

Angle our way into it.

Wink, wink.

But like, this is sort of an odd thing that Republicans are doing.

So I guess my question is like, is there still some core conservative Republican value that, like you would point to and say, that's unwavering?

No.

I think there is a redefinition, restructuring of what it means to be a Republican.

But again, is something that we're not used to see the fact of going against, you know, an entire industry, right, that could be regulated, right, that people are still going to consume those products.

Yeah, not with any type of legislation here.

I mean, people are going to consume them.

Yeah.

To be frank.

And then having going against businesses is kind of.

Yeah.

Or bizarre in the sense of, I'm not understanding what's going on.

And what are you doing?

And again, is why fighting.

Yeah.

Every single little thing why fighting H-e-b.

Yeah.

Well, Bluebell like I don't understand the.

The purity of parties is so intense now that no deviation can be accepted and members are scared, frankly, they're not sure what will come in a primary.

And they're worried that they're not going to get reelected.

So there's a lot of people who are kind of voting with the leaders because they don't want to get primaried.

They don't want the heat and the money that's going to flow into their district.

If it's the case that they choose to find something different to support their district, like Dan Patrick, so few of dissents, of the Republican Party exist anymore.

Like, one is like the feeling who's like, you already came at the King and you missed sort of.

Right.

Like he's still there and he's not speaker but he and like a few other Republicans are saying, like, I'm willing to buck you on this, but that's definitely a big change because those numbers used to be much bigger, where you'd see them really kind of fight for the things that they believed in.

And I'm not saying that they're not doing that, but for sure, you don't see as much dissent from what the leaders want.

So again, to me, this seems like a very kind of leader focused, sense of priorities.

But this is a very conservative session, right?

Like the 88 session people said this is the most conservative solution, but I think this is as conservative if not more conservative.

Think it's more recently I went to Texas de Brazil a year been there.

This is like the steakhouse place.

Like the Brazilian.

Yeah yeah yeah, yeah.

Where they bring you kind of red meat and cut off pieces of and scream uncle.

That's like what the session was, right?

Every week there are some new bill that was like super conservative and the kind of rallying, you know, the kind of base.

And you had talk radio all aflame and Twitter wasn't backing it.

There's a lot of those issues that came about.

I mean, vouchers is one thing, which, okay, sure, it's a conservative policy, but, you know, there are Democrats who supported it, but there's also a lot of stuff that like, was just sort of standard sort of Republican policies that got pushed that are really to me pretty conservative.

So one, for instance, prevents hostile nation individuals from owning land in Texas.

That was a big one.

Yeah.

There is there are bills to basically enforce Texas sheriffs to collaborate with ICE, which otherwise wasn't required.

Right.

There's a lot of bills that basically infuse religion into public schools, including requiring display of the Ten Commandments.

There's more control over what school boards and school libraries do in terms of books in classrooms and on, on and on.

So there's a lot of these bills that are very conservative.

So I mean, maybe it's just that it's ratcheting up every session.

And this is not going to end until like there's some kind of sea change politically.

But that's hard to see on the horizon anyway.

So I guess what I'm saying is that if you're a conservative and you're a Republican, you look at this and you think, this is a pretty good session, right?

Not everything got done, but a lot got done.

Sure.

But once again, is is the nature of what it's done.

Yeah, right.

I mean, look, for example, when you're thinking about, I don't know, prosecution of election crimes, where do we have laws?

Yeah, yeah.

Voter citizenship requirement.

There's already laws on that, right?

Any other issues?

You know, like displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms?

I mean, certainly that law is going to be challenged because people are going to say it's unconstitutional 100%, in terms of their argument.

But again, it's one of those things.

It's like, okay, fine, sure.

You got elected.

You have the majority.

So be yeah.

My real question from a policy perspective is, yeah, what is he doing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like what's the end goal here exactly.

Yeah.

Well I mean a lot of bills are just messaging bills, right.

And sometimes they don't get that far where they just want to have it sort of as a talking point.

That happens every legislature.

Right.

It's just a messaging bill.

But some of these bills then become law and they have to be implemented.

And I think that's right.

And so I think your question is a good one that's like, okay, we got the bill, it passed.

Now we have to implement it.

That's one issue that's still dicey.

But when we do implement it and people figure out that, holy cow, this is the new law, is there going to be backlash against some of these bills?

One of my friends, I'll frame it this way.

One of my friends made the following comment to me and he said, basically, this is a can't do session.

This is a session filled with bills telling you you can't do things.

So for instance, like if you're a, minor, you can't use social media, right?

That ban you.

And if you're a parent, you can't control that.

Like you can't decide that.

My 13 year old is mature enough to do it with some restrictions.

They can't.

You have also limitations on what books can go in libraries, right?

There's a kind of community effort to kind of police this.

That's one thing that you can't do.

And so it was a kind of consumer of a potential book.

You can't have that book because it won't be in your school library.

You can't have THC products, no more gummies, no more sleep aids.

Right?

All these little things that happen with a THC, no more.

Right.

Assuming that that passes.

And, that is to say, the governor signs it.

So there are a lot of can't do's this session.

So I guess my question to you is like, is this going to catch up to the Republican Party where.

Oh yeah, no point.

Somebody looks at this and say, wait a minute.

Like all of my things I like to do are now like it away.

Oh, absolutely.

Because there is no more freedom.

And the quintessential issue about the Republican Party was personal responsibility.

Yeah.

And personal responsibility is taking 1,000% of the equation.

Yeah.

Because you can't.

Right?

I mean, it's just like boot banning, right?

Yeah.

Why do you, me, the parent of the kid, you're telling me that I have the rights over my kids?

Because that's that was the whole premise of ESX of education savings account.

Yeah.

Let the parents decide.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

Okay, then let me decide.

Don't tell me if I if you're just gonna let me decide.

Yeah.

On issues that quote unquote.

Yeah.

You want me to decide.

Yeah.

But it goes in other issues.

You're not going to allow me to say if I want my kid to use social media.

Yeah, that's between me and my kid.

Yeah.

And how I policed that and how I implement that.

Right.

Because social media's here.

They need social media leaders.

See.

Yeah, they need to know what is good, what is bad.

They cannot they will not know that when they're 21 or 18.

Right.

You have to start at the beginning.

Yeah.

That's a bad loser.

mean that's the values i'm communicating to my kids So those things are going to catch up eventually because people are going to realize, yeah, That is.

Wait what?

Well yeah.

Why why we can't do.

Well yeah I didn't know.

I mean my sense and we've talked about this a lot is that people don't pay enough attention to what happens at state government.

Right?

There's so much about like all of this menu of things that happen.

Definitely make it clear that, like, they have a tremendous amount of effect on people's lives and people should definitely pay more attention.

So that's one thing for sure.

But the worry is that, you know, that's going to be something that people will wake up one day and say, hey, this doesn't make sense to me.

This isn't right.

Then the question then is sort of, are there any implications to this?

Are people going to stop voting for Republicans?

Probably not.

Right.

The money is there.

They've got the candidates sort of lined up.

They've got a bench built.

Their party structure is pretty well set.

But the Republicans definitely are going to have to be cautious of this.

But do you think?

Yes, cautious.

But let me ask you this.

Do you think that the combinations and multiple interactions of all these fronts, may accelerate things one way or the other?

So you're basically if, Governor Abbott signs, banning or, THC you're basically killing a multibillion dollar industry in the state.

Yeah, right.

So that's one issue.

Then on the other hand, you're attacking, H-E-B, Blue Bells, right?

You're limiting people's, individual liberties.

Yeah, limiting personal responsibility, etc., etc..

So all these little things, do you think that, eventually people are going to say, yeah, I don't know.

That's the worry.

Right?

And that's the problem that I think Republicans are kind of coming to face.

Some of them inside the party are worried about this because they're looking at kind of where their voters are, and they're looking at the degree to which their policies are affecting people.

And they're certainly worries.

Right.

This is definitely true in the case of like rural Texas, where you have people like Glenn Rogers who got beat by Aberdeen, is very, very bitter about it and very vocal about what he thinks is wrong with right looking party.

He says basically these like you know, billionaires and you know, or basically control the Republican Party, the Republican Party, then sort of Abbott and Patrick kind of control what the rest of the House and Senate do.

That means that that's a really small number of people who are basically determining what happens, and the erosion of the values that the Republicans once had that, you know, kind of characterize the party are definitely not what they were.

So Roger says, like, we're neglecting, just, for example, like rural voters, right?

Not spending enough money on water to make sure that the people can live there.

This is tremendous financial implications for the state that has to feed itself and clothe itself.

You also have problems of infrastructure.

You have problems of delivery, of communication, broadband.

Right.

And you've got health care problems, right?

Rural hospitals are closing.

That means that people don't have any place to go for care.

Or if they do, they've got to drive, you know, forever to get there.

So that definitely has implications to the way that the state functions.

And if Republicans aren't the voice of that constituency, which has been super loyal to them, then you have to think that there's concern that that's going to be a problem in the long run.

Well, absolutely.

Coupled with what's going on at the national level with tariffs on the farm equipment that you need, feeding, etc., to something that has very important implications.

Yeah.

And they issue, for example, for water is you don't need to be a water scientist.

Right.

I just need to go down the Capitol, go and look at Lake Travis.

And look how how it is scary.

Yeah it is very scary.

Right.

You need to go and look at what's happening in Canyon Lake.

Yeah.

Right.

Yep.

And all these urban sprawls are growing, are taking away water.

Slurping up all that water.

Exactly.

Right.

Yep.

So that is extremely worrisome in the sense that yes, we need to grow, but we need to growing them in a manner that it can be sustainable.

I'm not saying, you know, tree huggers and and wishy washy and no, no no no no no, you're.

Not chaining yourself to it.

No no no no no no.

These has to be done in such a way that you are good steward of the environment, good steward of the earth.

So you can move forward in a responsible developmental way.

If not, is going to be chaos.

And the water wars are very, very messy.

Flash forward to like mad Max style.

Absolutely.

But it's almost at that point where all of these thirsty suburbs need water to grow.

And you've made this point before, like the state won't grow if we don't have infrastructure, right?

We can count on if we don't have energy, if we don't have water and we don't have education.

This is really the conundrum the state is going to face in the future.

So we'll have to see how this plays out.

But I want to talk about the Democrats for a minute.

And I do this on purpose because there was a sense, like we said early on, that they were going to get a better deal from Burrows than from cook.

I don't think they did.

There's an old saying in Austin that says that either you're at the table or you're on the menu.

Well, the Democrats got eaten.

Yeah, they got totally rolled on a bunch of things, but it's not totally their fault because they weren't able to stay unified.

They had a new caucus chair, and the presumption was that he was going to be much more visible, much more vocal on these issues, presenting the democratic face.

That is the alternative to what Republicans were going to say.

They want this.

We want this.

That hasn't really happened.

I don't know that they presented a common front on this.

So to be honest, it hasn't gone that well for them in this session.

And, you know, the lots of excuses one could make.

But the fact is that any leverage that they thought that they had, they basically gave away the best was like having the ability to reduce the number to get to 100 votes, which is what you need to get your constitutional amendments on the ballot.

They were only able to do that one time, and even then it wasn't sort of chaotic.

And we'll see.

Actually, we're still, as of this recording, still like day away from that, possibly changing, but like at the end of the day, they just didn't get much done.

Oh, absolutely.

And eat.

What's going on?

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean.

I don't think they know either.

Right.

And the the thing here is we had new leadership in the Texas Democratic Party.

We have new leadership at the House, right.

And that new leadership, I think they have not find the right message.

I think that in deep inside, they know we need to have, a clear message that the problem is that they don't know what message it is.

Right.

And even if they did it, they still have trouble keeping people on that message.

Right.

This session is a tough time to kind of rally people.

It's like, well, it's like saddling a horse while you're riding it, right?

You can't determine your strategy in the moment.

You have to figure this out beforehand and then execute throughout.

And they just didn't.

I mean, the session is fast and furious.

Things are crazy.

So like it's a tough task, which is all the more reason you needed a strategy going in.

I don't know what that strategy is.

Right.

And now at the out of it that we're going to have to have elections as a result of some of this, Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott can go back and run and say, look, we deliver on yes, they deliver on tax relief, made the place safer.

Right.

Like and you know, there's a story you can tell from this for Democrats.

I'm not sure.

In some cases they back what Republicans wanted.

So that's not going to prevent the unitary party state.

Right.

You know state or unit party whatever it is that right.

Right.

Right, right.

No.

It's going to get more and more complicated.

And we are one year and change away from 2026.

But obviously that's going to be something that we're going to be keeping attention in the next couple of weeks.

But for this week, that's it.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

The party keeps up next week.

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