June 27th, 2017 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Introduction] Welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party chart. Tell people on a regular basis there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution they have become the norm. At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

[0:00:34 Jim] Hey there, everybody. Jim Henson here. Welcome back to the second reading podcast for the last week of June. I’m happy to be joined again this week by my colleague, Josh Blank. How are you, sir?

[0:00:43 Josh] Doing very well.

[0:00:44 Jim] You have enough water over there? Have just enough water. Okay. We want to keep things equal here. Are you ready for the fourth of July? Pumped? Pumped. That Because you’re a patriot?

[0:00:54 Josh] I am a patriot.

[0:00:56 Jim] I find fourth of Julys. Always an underestimated holiday In some ways. New Year’s Eve expectations always way too high. Never met Fourth of July, particularly in Texas. Excruciating. He fireworks decks.

[0:01:08 Josh] You just gorgeous girl

[0:01:10 Jim] school bunch for his

[0:01:10 Josh] ground. Hang out

[0:01:11 Jim] and gossip about politics, which will start doing today. So we want to start today with the Texas angle on a story in the national headlines. And that’s the the ongoing thrashing in the U. S. Senate over health care and a bill to do something with health care and Obama care in the Affordable Care Act and especially Senator Ted Cruz’s role in it. The senator has been getting a lot of press over a somewhat odd set of moves for him. Maybe. And you’ve been pretty interested in this, right? Josh?

[0:01:40 Josh] Well, I’m like, I’m always interested in Ted Cruz. I’m in the Ted Cruz business and so having kind of followed him from the beginning, you know, and watched his brand sort of, you know, Wasserman blossom and really, you know, take hold through the presidential run to now. It’s really interesting to see where he’s found himself in this debate, and you know, he there is or being port where he’s being portrayed as kind of the conciliator in this and this sort of that sort of odd role in that he’s both one of the people outwardly against the bill did so early with a group of three others or of conservative senators saying that they weren’t able to support it currently, but is also being portrayed is the one who’s gonna, like, get them over the finish line in some ways, and this kind of goes back like a month or so, like where this kind of start coming up? This idea that Cruz was was the guy, and it was because basically, they were holding their, apparently holding the meetings where they were hashing this out behind closed doors. Apparently those doors for his doors. It was his conference room, but what’s kind of become even more apparent is like, maybe he wasn’t actually in those conferences. They were just using his office because he didn’t seem to be any further out on the bill than anybody else

[0:02:45 Jim] were complaining about not knowing anything,

[0:02:47 Josh] right? And so he’s been out there kind of saying, you know, how do we get to? Yes has been his kind of thing. He’s got sort of four points about how he gets to yes, but what kind of really interesting to me about this is what is odd? Because his brand was actually made kind of on being, uh, one an insurgent who wasn’t gonna play, you know, by these sorts of rules and to, you know, being one of the major proponents and one of the major forces against Obama care. Right? And now you started trying to adjust. You know, Bill, the people power called Obamacare Lite or that really kind of extends or continues a lot of the Obama care provision, and he’s gonna come in and somehow save it. It’s just a very I.

[0:03:25 Jim] He’s talking like he’s a getting to yes kind of guy now, and I guess, just to provide background for people that Ted Cruz was elected in 2012. He had been solicitor general when he was kind of ah, you know, one of the intellectual political leading lights of the Republican conservative movement in Texas Tea party. You know, he rose very much as a favorite yes, of the tea party conservatives he beat, um, somebody that was not an incumbent, U. S senator, but beat somebody. That was an incumbent state holder, David Dewhurst, who at that point was lieutenant governor, had a lot of money and was seen as kind of the heir apparent toe win that Senate seat. Cruz comes not out of nowhere, but certainly out of comparative obscurity by rallying the conservative base wins in 2012 and then goes to Washington and immediately becomes one of the strongest voices of conservative opposition, not just to the Obama administration, but he runs very much on this. This argument. It’s very familiar now. I mean, I think he might even have used the drain the swamp term when he ran the idea that things were just broken in Washington, D. C. And that there was absolutely no value in getting along to go along, that he was there, shake things up. And that’s why is we talk about this heading Cruise to be the guy going well, you know, we were working to try to make something happen here

[0:04:51 Josh] outside Riyadh, outside of Texas. He’s farm or known probably for the 2013 government shutdown over obamacare and calling, You know Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a liar on the Senate floor than he has for any sort of legislative accomplishments or his ability to work with colleagues. And, if anything, his inability to work with colleagues is probably one of his most known traits national. So the idea that now all of a sudden he’s being portrayed as this conciliator. It’s an odd thing for, you know, one just having followed him this long and then also just, you know, his brand. I mean, the thing that’s interesting to me about this is to the extent that he’s obviously welcome this and invited. I mean, you know, he even had an interview, the tribute, and, I think, a couple weeks back, where he used the dreaded C word compromise right over these bell. So how much does he own the outcome, which he really has no control over? Because part of the issue here is that he sort of has been the leading voice for the conservatives who are against this bill. But the conservatives air a little bit less of a problem than the Republicans from either moderate states or states that have expanded Medicaid or even less moderate states, but serve rural, poorer states like West Virginia in Alaska that need these Medicaid dollars to make their health care systems. Ron, where those senators have also said they can’t really push word so anything that Ted Cruz really gets, that’s gonna bring him along is actually gonna drive further away from these people. And I, you know, sort of the question I pose kind of just for, you know, thought here is you know, what is this is do anything to his brand. Coming forward is this. Does this represent a permanent shift to the way that Ted Cruz sees his role as a Texas senator? Or is this just the politics of the moment and right now and taking the opportunity?

[0:06:28 Jim] I think that’s I think that’s the big question. I think, you know, as we talked about the poll in the last couple of weeks, Ted Cruz has very strong numbers among the most conservative factions of the Republican Party and is very has very negative numbers among Democrats. Writ large always has. But they got even more negative after he ran for president. For Democrats to know Cruz more was to hate him, right. I mean, that’s there’s nothing too unusual about that, But I do think, you know, you raise a good question. I mean, my my sense is my expectation would be we’ll see him play this out. It’s very unstable. Who knows how it’s gonna end. I think it’s most likely they get nothing and Cruz can point to. This is one example of when you know that he’s not completely disagreeable, but that in short order he he will find something else or another couple of sets of issues where he will try to get some visibility being some version of his old self. Um, but it does raise, you know, broader questions about public opinion in Texas and where, how Republican conservatives or conservative Republicans position themselves like, Is there a an outer bound? At which point people kind of say, Well, at some sense, I can only go so far out on this before I got it, at least backfill a little bit in amore institutionally agreeable way. Yeah, and I know that’s an open question.

[0:07:57 Josh] Yeah, And you and the answer also for his actions could be really simple, which is just, you know, it’s different being, you know, in the minority versus the majority, and you know that prevent provides opportunities and that kind of thing. I mean, the other thing is, what’s also interesting is that he’s not feeling the pressure that a lot of other Republican senators air feeling from governors and states that expanded Medicaid. One. Texas has an expanded Medicaid to, you know, there’s no statewide elected Republican official here who, you know, has really made any notable mention about what the Senate’s been up to on healthcare. As far as I have leased that I’ve read, Um, and part of that is because in a lot of ways, you know, for text I mean the real sort of big thing that has been driving This is sort of the cuts to Medicaid and how many people will lose coverage under those cuts over time and immediately. Right? And in Texas, Medicaid is just, you know, it’s a poison pill in general. I mean, it’s basically big government welfare spending, but there’s a sort of, ah, a reason for that. Which is It’s just such a huge part of the Texas budget. I’m even so far that, you know, in this legislative session, these legislature kept cuts in place that they had made in the last session, which, like lowers basically the fees paid for therapists, for Children with disabilities, Children with disabilities

[0:09:11 Jim] politically safe and cutting something like that. You know, you’re tapped into something Yeah. I mean, you know, is out there, and I and I think even the even the so called moderates in the in the Texas House, with very few exceptions, nobody really stood up, you know, and complained about that when that cut was made in the budget. She said, You know, Medicaid, federal program, you know, winds up operated by the states with some funding and an unusually complicated, complicated rules and formulas for matching funding and things like this. And, um, you know, all the Democrats complained kind of lively. There were when those cuts were made in the in the budget. That wasn’t something that the majority party really debated very much those, I think the speaker said something about hoping in the future that there would be some renegotiation. But the renegotiations with the federal government, the conservative base line here, really is a desire to minimize funding in programs, social funding

[0:10:10 Josh] from the overarching environment. Here is the fact that they didn’t face a real serious backlash over. I mean, the optics of it were terrible, right? And they kind of will, and I think they reacted to that initially, but they haven’t really faced a backlash over and also Texas historically and continues to have one of the highest uninsured rates in the country. And it’s not, you know, it’s not like anyone’s running Republicans out of office here. On account of that,

[0:10:30 Jim] no storming the ramp, the ramparts on that. Okay, so on another topic, but sort of at also in Texas now, right? Also at the intersection of of federal policy and state politics is, um, right up to this morning, they’ve been recent hearings and lawsuits against us before, which was the anti sanctuary cities law that also included this the so called Show me your papers provision, Aziz. Well, as a new set of rules that prohibited cities from limiting police departments in their enforcement of federal negate immigration. Right,

[0:11:06 Josh] Right. So, basically in particular, you know, the idea is the sanctuary sees when that won’t cooperate with immigrations and custom enforcements, immigrations and custom enforcement says, Oh, you have this person in jail. We’d like to talk them or we want to deport them. Or

[0:11:20 Jim] will you hold them?

[0:11:21 Josh] Hold them for us. We’ll be there eventually. And this really does depend. This is one of the big issues here. You know, if it’s a big city, they’re probably coming by every 48 hours. If it’s some rural county, you know

[0:11:31 Jim] you well before they get out there

[0:11:32 Josh] and pick this person up. And so some, you know, cities and sort of past, you know, it basically create policies that allowed for, you know, let’s say not 100% cooperation in Austin being the most obvious, But technically, no cities in Texas were actually sanctuary cities is not actually really a term that has a clear definition is to before the term of art, Right, So, you know, some people could leave. Texas is full of sanctuary cities. Other people’s could say they’re no sanctuary cities here. It seems that there

[0:11:59 Jim] runs on your definition.

[0:12:00 Josh] Yeah, we could get into that Bullets. Not so anyway. But the hearing started this week, and there couple interesting things about, you know, the sort of these hearings. I mean, first is ah, you know, where does the public stand on this? And it’s just just this kind of our daily work. Here’s let me just real quick, which is overall in terms of requiring local law enforcement entities to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. That’s approved by 58% of Texas voters, but by 86% of Texas Republicans, similarly, allowing police officers the right to check immigration status during any sort of basically detainment. So this could be whether someone’s arrested. It could be during a traffic stop. Basically, any time a police officer has a reasonable right for

[0:12:38 Jim] broken tail light, etcetera

[0:12:39 Josh] yeah, they can ask about. They can check on immigration’s test released. They can’t be prohibited from check on immigration status. That was supported by 53% of Texans in 87% of Republicans. Soas, faras like were you know, the state is on this slight majority favors. But of these provisions, overwhelming majorities of Republicans favor these provisions. The interesting thing that’s kind of about what has happened is this is that, you know, pretty quickly after this law was passed, the cities in Texas, all the major cities of super Fort Worth, basically started deciding whether they were going to fight the state on these laws. Now they’re their arguments could be myriad, but the main most direct one is that it serve another kind of, you know, unfunded mandate it puts them into precarious legal situations that they’re gonna have to then defend themselves against. You know, they have to hold these people for some amount of time

[0:13:23 Jim] to drain on. Resource is,

[0:13:24 Josh] it’s a drain on resources. And there’s further arguments about whether these laws air good or not, most of the police forces air against but immigration

[0:13:32 Jim] security city police chiefs, for the most part.

[0:13:36 Josh] But the interesting thing in some ways, about this and sort of bringing this into the bigger picture here is that this is sort of seems like a pretty big escalation of sort of this city versus the state dynamic, right? We’ve seen some sort of small things where you know, Austin passes a bag, plastic bag, bad Dentyne passes. Ah, ban against fracking, right? And then the Legislature comes in and says, No, you can’t do that. This one’s kind of interesting because this isn’t, you know, spill it first. Well isn’t necessarily Those called Centris isn’t necessarily directed specifically at the city’s directed at any sort of law enforcement agency in the state. But what’s interesting is that all the cities at once say Fort Worth have said, you know we’re gonna basically band together and try to fight this, And that seems like a pretty big escalate escalation on this city state dynamic. Why do you think that’s the case? Is it this issue, or is it just everything?

[0:14:22 Jim] Well, I mean, I think it’s, you know, this issue is a really convenient spot for the people that are fighting the cities in the state for, you know, I mean, the governor is leading the effort, really become right down to it to be direct, but because public opinion is so one sided, and it also has this federal piece to it, which is a little bit unusual,

[0:14:44 Josh] it is very unusual

[0:14:46 Jim] for this because it it actually involves the state government kind of siding with federal authorities and federal laws when it’s usually the other way around, right

[0:14:53 Josh] there, actually seating a certain amount discretion to the federal government.

[0:14:56 Jim] But, I mean, I think you’ve got me why this is happening in this front. It’s you know, I mean, public opinion is so Republican. Public opinion is so on the side of the people that are pushing these policies that it’s a winner. We saw this in the Legislature if you go back to when they pass this bill. This was one of the bills during the Legislature. There were all these fights between different factions. Ah, lot of them inside the Republican Party. This is a Democrat Republican fight, you know, period. And it underlines. You know, just how urban the Democratic Party is now.

[0:15:30 Josh] So so is that why Republicans don’t like the cities? Well, they’re just so democratic.

[0:15:35 Jim] Well, you know, I I think that’s a fair question. I think it’s it’s a lot of different things. I think there is this developing theory among Republicans that state government and should be the preeminent sort of arbiter of laws, rules and by extension of, you know, kind of what, that what the state is like. And, you know, the fact that the city’s air populated by Democrats is a big piece of it, You know, the flip side of that is the Republican constituencies, you know, are largely rural, largely suburban, and there’s a lot of points of friction with cities, whether it’s no financial over taxes and over costs annexation. This’d issue of annexations cities going in and, you know, without arguably without much checking or without local permission. Annexation is when the city’s going. They claim land that’s adjacent to the city’s and assert jurisdiction over people there in the tax base,

[0:16:36 Josh] only they’re providing services before

[0:16:38 Jim] that point. The point is, yeah, they’re also, you know, it’s usually are on argument about cost or some other kind of functional need of the city, right? So I think there’s, you know, there’s a there’s a there’s a natural dynamic here that is reinforced by the politics as they sorted out in the country and in Texas that that makes sense here. And we’re going to see that. And we’re going to see a lot of these issues coming up in this special session that’s going to start in a couple of weeks.

[0:17:09 Josh] Yeah. I mean, you know, setting aside the you know, let’s say people’s policy preferences or, you know, moral feelings or anything about that about this s before fight between the season state, you know, this is not a good issue for the city’s to pick to unify against state against. I mean, just, you know, just thinking about and what we said laying out those numbers. I mean, a majority of citizens of state support these provisions. I mean, you know, it was pretty clear going to the legislative session that, like a sanctuary Cities bill would be passed a lot of times. When you know, it seems like sophisticated players. Now, something’s going to happen. Then you say, Well, how can we limit the damage? And in this case, they just I mean, the city’s response was to just basically be against it. And then it got worse and worse and worse. And now they’re gonna fight it in courts. And I mean, it seems, you know, I’m only play lawyer on podcasts, but I mean, it seems like really highly unlikely that the courts are gonna overturn this. You know, I mean, on any of the grounds are kind talking. I mean, just in terms of the fact that the cities are creations of state discrimination, potential discrimination is really hard to rule on discrimination by police officers rial imagined future past extremely difficult to prove. You know, all these issues just seems, you know, the unfunded mandate, you know?

[0:18:24 Jim] Yeah, I think the discrimination grounds is probably the best bet they’re gonna have, but probably not until there’s evidence of it.

[0:18:33 Josh] So I need

[0:18:34 Jim] another was to preemptively get it thrown out before there’s evidence of things happening is gonna be difficult.

[0:18:39 Josh] Yeah, well, then the other side of it, too, is that, I mean, with with the way that you know, police can use discretion in applying laws you actually have toe usually show the intention like the out. I mean, it basically gets on the point where police officer almost has to say, I did this because this person was Hispanic, right? I mean, that’s basically what you need to prove discrimination, and that’s gonna be pretty much non existent.

[0:19:01 Jim] Yeah, it’s pretty. It’s pretty hard. Um, so I mean, I think we’ll you know, We’ll Seymour on that. Um that said, I suspect, you know, right now the status is there’s been a stay ordered by a judge in a federal court. There’s a There’s a There’s an awesome the hearing in Austin before the federal judge here has been in the middle of a ton of different things. Judge Sam Sparks. He’s been in the middle of redistricting cases

[0:19:26 Josh] playing cards because he’s like these judges come up again and again.

[0:19:29 Jim] Yeah, Judge Sparks has been the middle of a lot of stuff. So we’ll watch that and we’ll talk about that next week. I want to close with one more kind of Texas proper thing. And then Ross Ramsey has been on this podcast for the last two weeks or celebrity. He’s a local celebrity among the

[0:19:44 Josh] text of On

[0:19:45 Jim] the Geek Crash. Ah, but Ross has a piece in the Tribune that was, You know, who says when anything is Publishing appeared on the Web, I think, technically, last night. But, ah, Tuesday night or Wednesday night, Thursday morning, And it’s called the governor belatedly setting the Legislature’s agenda in which you know Ross looks at the special session. Looming up kind of makes the argument that the Greg the Greg Abbott is really trying to drive the agenda very actively. He’s finding Bill sponsors there, visiting actively with members of the legislative, even

[0:20:19 Josh] the process by what she’s going into. The You know, he has called a special session that everybody knows the first thing is gonna be the Sunset Building Agencies open and then he’s gonna trickle them out. The other sort of calls that goes along to control exactly

[0:20:31 Jim] right and Rush makes a little very inside Ary kind of mentioned that, you know, by by sequencing the bills that way or trying to it’s almost a Ziff. He passed his own rule, and by ruling means you know the way that legislation is structured in the legislative process. It was a little suggestion that the governor’s assert himself in the Legislature. We’ve talked about this a little bit here, Um, but not not to argue with wise old owl of the Texas Tribune.

[0:20:58 Josh] He knows a lot. I would be reluctant.

[0:21:00 Jim] Yeah, you know, I’m pausing. But it does seem why you know Ross is missing the institutional piece here a little bit, and he’s not the only one. I mean, I think there was, ah, discussion that went on, that we’ve talked about a lot during the Legislature, where people kept complaining that Abbott wasn’t a serve enough that he wasn’t. He wasn’t present. Um, but it does seem to me that he’s picking his spot in. Ross does make the argument that this is it’s kind of a unique play. I just think is you mentioned before? We’re talking about this and I’ll mention this is used in case Ross. Here’s this, but there is a little bit of a straw man here. The idea that that Abbott somehow was extraordinarily weak or under playing his hand in the session when, frankly, you know, he does have a lot more leverage now and he’s using it. The Constitution doesn’t give him a lot of leverage during the session, right?

[0:21:51 Josh] Right? I mean, I think that’s that’s the thing that’s been going on. I mean, throughout. You kind of mentioned it, but I’ll reiterate it is there’s been this sort of somewhat quiet, you know, moderately loud rumbling about. You know, Greg Abbott sort of ineffectiveness at the beginning of the session and sort of during the session, and and it’s sort of it’s an odd thing because, you know, the governor has just this limited set of powers ready can declare emergency items, and then people can act on them or not. I mean, at that point right, he has no power over whether bills get assigned to committees what happens to them, whether they get past whether they make it through the calendar. And so this idea that like during this period in which he has zero control over what goes on,

[0:22:34 Jim] at least formally

[0:22:35 Josh] in a co equal black branch. Right, that he’s gonna you know, that he’s somehow being ineffective by not, you know, putting himself out there more just always an odd argument. And so to say that to sort of contrast now, where he actually does have the constitutional powers to called a special session call when he wants called as often as he wants and specifically tell them the only things that they are allowed to work on our these things at this, like that in and of itself is really interesting use of the power that he has at this point in time, but in no way compares to the power that he didn’t have, you know, basically for the entire session, up until this point, right? And it’s just not the same thing. It is interesting looking ahead that I mean, Abbott was, I think, you know, in his first term during the session of the first session after the 2015 session. If he didn’t call a special session, wasn’t really there was some grumbling. So there’s always kind of some girl makes everybody everybody who doesn’t get what they want. Kind of wants a special session. He didn’t do it. I don’t think he wanted to. You want to show business is usual. You know, in that first term new lieutenant governor, new governor, it’s gonna be interesting to see one how this plays out, whether it it works in the way that he thinks it’s going to, which is in some ways, to kind of assert himself, as you know, in people’s minds at the end of the session is the one driving policy in the state in a way that the lieutenant governor trying to do the whole time. Basically, um, it would be really interesting to see if, you know, assuming his governor again, which is a safe assumption right now whether this becomes a ploy of Hiss going forward. I mean, I think the one thing the roster that I really liked was, you know, it might be addictive right now. I mean, once you realize that you get to basically control everything at this point in time,

[0:24:15 Jim] that could be a bug that becomes a feature, right? In software terms. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, part of The point, I guess, of raising this, too, is that, you know, for people that if you start following these things and you’re as a consumer of media, there’s, Ah, there’s a habit in political coverage very quickly and in the moment pick winners and losers in the moment, and then it winds up shifting really rapidly. I mean, it goes back and forth. I mean, so if in five weeks ah, they conclude this special session and of the 19 items, what’s the number at which this was a successful ploy or an unsuccessful ploy? Is it a number? Is it just if they pass? You know, a few of the things that have been gotten the most media coverage than can you declare victory and exit the field? Or do we have a whole other round of stories about how weak at ineffectual Abbott is and how this was a bad play? And I think you know, you often have to really step back and think about this is not being a game that necessarily has such a fixed set of winners and losers, and how important it is the focus on that or whether it’s more important to get a more nuanced understanding of how a bunch of different things, especially the rules and institutions, function in this play

[0:25:34 Josh] field. That’s a good point. And, you know, and that’s something, I think. I mean, it’s sort of parallels what’s going on the national level, actually, Bring it back to the beginning, right? A bunch of Republicans of the National over and senators are sort of looking at the way that Trump celebrated with a Republican House members in the Rose Garden among after passing that bill and then, you know, a few weeks later called, yeah, called the bill mean, right? And so you know, I think so. When the this week when they basically decided they weren’t gonna vote on the healthcare bill this week in the Senate. You know, Trump basically pulled all the senators, you know, l Republican senators to the White House to basically talk about it and the attitude. I mean, the you know, it is interesting reading. Sort of. The different takes on how those meetings went, but the added coming out of it was, you know, well, we can’t really trust this guy to have our back, you know, even though he’s pushing us and saying that he will. And what’s interesting is there’s artist. There isn’t talk about that with Abbott. With Republicans to in the Legislature right now, there’s some idea that, you know, he made some veiled threats in the 2015 session that he never really followed through on. I didn’t really go out and do a lot to support, you know, incumbent.

[0:26:35 Jim] He made both veiled threats and promises that in the capital community, the least the gossip sort of is. The general feeling is he didn’t go out and campaign for candidates

[0:26:44 Josh] right in the Legislature. And you’re sort of point that, you know, there’s just sort of look in the moment and say Winners, you know who’s the winner and who is the loser is kind of the wrong way to look at it. And the other way, the reason it’s kind of wrong way to look at is what we call you a repeated game, right? The House members are looking at the, you know, the House members in the Senate members, especially the Republican House. We’re looking at the governor and looking at his demands and saying, Okay, well, what happens If we do have this, you know, Does he call us back for another session? Does he calls back for three more specials that I mean, when when do we get to the end of this? But also, they’re looking ahead, a couple mont basically, you know, some number of months into campaign season and thinking, if I’m helpful, is he going to help me? If I’m not helpful? My, you know, face any sort of retribution, and everybody’s kind of doing this in this environment that’s constantly moving and evolving in a way that’s gonna be, you know, it’s gonna be interesting. I think you know, the governor’s get a lot of really a lot of credit right now for the way he’s kind taking charge of the session before it starts. I’m a little. I’m a little less clear to me how he ends this as he brought up and what that looks like both for him going forward, his relationship with these other actors and players in the process. And you know, basically how it’s all received when everything is said and done and people try to evaluate this answers. The winners and losers think, but kind of like So what does this mean, going forward?

[0:28:01 Jim] Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that notice institutionally about this is that in a way that I think is more pronounced than we’ve seen in the last decades, Certainly during the peri period. There’s a lot of you know, there’s a lot of Clear Branch Branch to branch antagonism right now. I mean, the Legislature and the executive branch are not getting along and they’re getting, and it’s much more in the open. That’s always there. But it’s much more in the open right now, with the governor having called the Legislature lazy and and the Legislature family like the governor doesn’t deliver for them. Yeah, so we’ll know a little bit more about some of these issues next week. That’s it for this week. Thanks for being here, Josh. Thanks for listening and will be back. Have a good Fourth of July. A safe Fourth of July second Reading Podcast is a production of Texas Politics Project and the Project 2021 Development Studio at the University of Texas at Austin.