July 18th, 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. 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?

[0:00:32 Josh] Hi there. Josh Blank filling in for Jim Henson this week on the second ring podcast. Filling in for me, I guess, is Ross Ramsey, executive editor of the Texas Tribune.

[0:00:43 Ross] Thanks for that. Is that how

[0:00:44 Josh] well I think you’re a much better replacement for me than I am for Jim? But I will just move forward. We do our best. Yeah, so I like to think that Ross knows everything about Texas politics because he’s done nothing over the last six years or so to assuage me of that notion. So no pressure. But I think we’ll we’ll cover a lot ground. Find out there’s not very much to know about your health. That’s good for the student in this. I guess so. Is your all probably aware at this point? The 30 day special session of the Texas Legislature called by Governor Abbott convened on Tuesday first to dress sunset legislation, which we talked about her bored you to death over last week and presumably soon They’re gonna take on the governor’s other 19 agenda items Or first things first is 28 times a lot. I mean, like, historically, pragmatically,

[0:01:29 Ross] you know, historically, it’s mixed. You know, the original special sessions back in the day when they were first starting the state, some of those had hundreds of items on, and they were, you know, writing a Constitution and basically fill in the law books the first time in modern history. Special sessions of usually in about one or two or three things. You know there’s some existential crisis going on or something that politically a governor wants to get done. And usually there’s a very sharp focus on one or two or three items.

[0:01:57 Josh] That’s interesting. I mean, I think the term use their existential crisis is interest is really interesting because sort of like, you know, what existential crisis are we are we facing right now that requires

[0:02:07 Ross] for five agencies. We actually do have an existential crisis. That’s they don’t they don’t pass the sunset bill or, you know, as I like to put it, they they’re not really doing the sunsets of the agency’s. They’re not reviewing the agency’s. They’re just changing the expiration dates on the milk cartons and keeping those agencies a lot for two years. If they don’t do that, those agencies failed to exist. So that one’s actually, you know, falls into that emergency status Greg Abbott has taken the opportunity to. Well, if we’re gonna be here anyway, let’s do some other things and added, You know, a list of things that look like they would belong on political mailers in 2018 which in fact, maybe part of the point

[0:02:45 Josh] right? Exactly. So Well, what about pragmatically? I mean, you know what kind of get into some of the details of this but 20 items? I mean, I guess, you know, historically, the taking on more items of ties with this just seems like a lot to take on in a 30 day period. Given the pace at which the Legislature generally works,

[0:03:02 Ross] there are a couple of problems here. One of them is that many of these items are large controversies that they couldn’t settle in 140 days in a regular session. An example is the bathroom bill. Another example is the property tax bill, vouchers and some other issues that they couldn’t get to resolution of in the 140 days. And I should say, at the end of 140 days, they didn’t look like they were closer to resolution. Right? And, you know, I think arguably on the property tax bill. You know, that’s negotiable. Close. It

[0:03:35 Josh] seems like

[0:03:36 Ross] that room seems to be ideologically different. The House to two votes on vouchers and very clearly said to the Senate and to the governor. No, thank you. You know, more than 100 votes in the house, so and then they’re a bunch of issues are a couple of issues that haven’t been considered yet. One that really caught my attention was that the governor put $1000 per teacher pay raise on the call for the special session. And when you crack into this a little bit and find out what they’re talking about got ahold of the governor’s Power Point presentation to legislators, and it turns out not to be exactly $1000 per teacher raise. It turns out to be $1000 on

[0:04:15 Josh] average. I read that,

[0:04:17 Ross] but it’s a merit raise. Some teachers would get a lot. Some teachers would get none at all, and it would be funded entirely by local school districts. Um, so if

[0:04:27 Josh] you was that on the governor’s original proper proposal for that? Or is that based on the lieutenant governor? Sort of.

[0:04:32 Ross] No, that’s the governor’s order. Okay, there are about 343 150,000 teachers in Texas. So you’re talking in a two year budget cycle, about $700 million give or take. And so you’re asking the local districts who say they are cash strapped and don’t have the money to pay for this? And then there’s a bunch of policy stuff. If everybody in the Legislature agreed on this, they haven’t had any hearings. They haven’t heard any testimony, and you’re giving him 30 days to take on a really, really big change and how we compensate teachers. So some items like that haven’t been heard yet and would really be a lift in 30 days.

[0:05:08 Josh] You only I mean, let me just point something, cause I hadn’t really thought about this. I haven’t asked. I have offensively. Good. Ask this question to you. So ask it to you. I mean, as a technical matter, you know, there’s a lot of I mean, you know, most of the a lot of the regular session understanding over time has to do with understanding the rules, right? Right. How many of those rules carry through to the to the special session? It seems like in the house, they pass sort of the same rules, but they’re sort of, you know, there’s there’s gotta be three readings of every bill. You were supposed to be committee hearings or public notice. That was a big deal yesterday, right basis said it right, that they weren’t gonna have you serve a public notice period of, like, 48 hours. Right? So how much do the rules hamstring some of the possibility of even getting through all this?

[0:05:45 Ross] You know, the rules are, you know, basically there to enable minorities, political minorities in the house and the senate. So you know, if you just do things by the numbers, if you’ve got half plus one you know, a majority in either place you could run ragged over this stuff. I’ve set up a series of rules and procedures where you can’t do this kind of thing very quickly. Um, you have to do this, you know, in this process. And then they have rules for how you override rules. Let’s ignore this rule for a while, and those usually require supermajorities. Um, some of them require 3/5 of the members. Some of them require 4/5 of the members. Some require 2/3 of the members. You know just how they go. For example, in the Senate yesterday, a senator can tag a bill tagging a bill basically says, I want to look at this for 48 hours before consideration. Not unreasonable. Um, depends. The lieutenant governor and the Senate wants to hurry through the sunset bill because the governor has said he will add the other 19 issues to the agenda on Lee after the Senate has passed the sunset bill

[0:06:55 Josh] only after the Senate, not

[0:06:56 Ross] only after the said okay, right? The Senate’s where the sense it Bill died in the regular session, so the governor wants to take the hostage away from Dan Patrick and Company. So the Democrats in the Senate, who would like to slow things down, tagged it. Jose Rodriguez from El Paso, a senator head of the Democratic caucus, tagged it. And in a relatively rare move, the Senate overruled his tag, which requires, as it turns out, 3/5 of the members 3/5 of the members. There’s 31 members. There’s 20 Republicans. There’s 11 Democrats. Guess how many three

[0:07:30 Josh] fifties is a 2020? Yeah,

[0:07:32 Ross] boat A 22 11. To override that veto, they sent it toe override that tag the Senate to a committee. The committee sent it back, and on the second day, they expect to do a tentative approval of that bill. And on the third day they’ll do 1/3 read. So there’s a three day layout rule just to give you another example. Here, the thing called the three day rule and it basically says a bill must be read on three several days. I didn’t write this. Yeah, basically, basically, when you say several days, you mean actual calendar days and not legislative days, right? It takes three takes 4/5 to override that. And the Republicans don’t have the Democratic support to override the three day rule. Eso the zip it through committee, they bring it back. That’s the first read. Come back the next day. That’s the second read. Come back on the third day, which will be Thursday, the third day of the session. They’ll do the third read, and then, um, Governor Abbott opens the pantry.

[0:08:28 Josh] It’s really interesting. I mean, just even even with the least controversial item on the list being the Sunset bill,

[0:08:34 Ross] it’s got 100% approval rate,

[0:08:36 Josh] right? Exactly. But even if you just kind of lay that out and just think about the rules for that, even assuming that there weren’t, you know, let’s say incentives for Democrats in particular to delay and then say, Well, now let’s repeat that process with 19 other items. It’s hard to imagine how you fit that in 30 days, right? So you know, at this point in the process, the overarching storylines heading into the special session has been this sort of increasingly public acrimony between the Lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick and the speaker of the Texas has just Strauss. I mean, I guess the question is, you know, and I promise this is the last historical precedent question I’m gonna ask you because it’s it’s rude. Is their historical president for this type of

[0:09:16 Ross] because I’m old. That’s what it is, right,

[0:09:17 Josh] that you just said that. So I didn’t say that your older than me, But you’re not old, but you’re not old. Say so. Is there historical precedent for this type of antagonism? I mean, or is this sort of unique,

[0:09:28 Ross] uh, you know, yes. To both kind of, You know, there are always antagonistic players and there are always, you know, rivalries. And, you know, people with different ambitions and different politics in these, Sometimes they don’t like each other. And Richards and Bob Bullock, you know, sort of famously didn’t get along when she was governor. Um, but they managed to work through that, and they managed to push some things through. What’s interesting about this bunch Joe Straus, Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott is that the personal animus seems to have bled into policy and into some other things. You know, one of your lead in quotes um into the podcast. Is Ann Richards saying the Republicans were all in the Democratic Party? There were always two parties here. Well, it turns out in the Republican Party, the modern majority party, there are two parties there. And Dan, Patrick and Joe Straus were pretty good avatars for those two parties and the House and the Senate, you know, viewed, you know, little loosely. But, you know, it works pretty well. You can look at them as the two versions of the Republican Party and Greg Abbot’s always tryingto straddle this. Basically, I’m with this one around with that one. I’m trying to get him together.

[0:10:41 Josh] Well, the thing is, I mean something you said there about how the personal antagonism, you know, kind of affecting the politics or the policy in this case you. In some ways, it seems silly washing this session. Part of it is that the personal on the policy really overlapped. I mean, I think from that from the outset, stress is really or not stressful. Patrick has really gone out of his way to say, you know, my priorities are the governor’s priorities of the people’s priorities and therefore anybody who doesn’t agree with me. And this, you know, is basically on the other side. And Strauss is kind of well, you know, I don’t agree with all these things. And so he’s on the other side. I mean, his style in terms of his, you know, desire to win these sort of policy goals, I think is in the personal have really mixed together in a way that has made that relations obviously super toxic, right?

[0:11:23 Ross] You know, they meet every Wednesday morning for breakfast. It’s a long tradition. The governor, the lieutenant governor and the speaker. And lately, the controller. Yeah, and it’s a long standing tradition. Let’s sit down and figure this out. Where you going? Where you going? What’s happening this week? Blah, blah, blah. It broke down. It turns out we asked for their records, their calendars toward the end of the session. You know what’s going on here? And it turned out that the breakfast broke down somewhere in April and they stopped even, you know, having eggs together. So, you know, if they’re not sitting down and talking, you know, when you get to the end of the legislative session, when you know various parties, notably the governor. We’re trying to kind of put Humpty Dumpty back together again and get the sunset bill out and get some other things done. The relationships that you would rely upon to do that weren’t there and the session fell apart.

[0:12:13 Josh] It’s pretty amazing. I mean, you kind of think I always say, you know, you sort of their two things you can’t control. You can’t pick your family and you can’t pick the people you have to work with, so you just gonna have to deal with that. And so it’s kind of amazing that you have these sort of, you know, pretty accomplished. Obviously, you know, successful politicians and they can’t just meet for breakfast.

[0:12:31 Ross] They have kind of a bullying, and this is true in on on various levels of politics. Right now, there’s sort of a bullying way about politics Right now, it’s not collaborative so much as it is. Do what I say or else X

[0:12:44 Josh] and you say that with the recent failure in the U. S. Senate of health care. That sort of a good example of that where the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said, Here’s the bill. Take it or leave it, and his caucus said, We’ll leave it.

[0:12:56 Ross] Governor Abbott is out with a statement he made on Monday, the day before the session began, to the Texas Public Policy Foundation conservative think tank here. Ah, he said, I’m going to be keeping a list, and I’m gonna be scoring the members on how they vote on this thing. And, you know, this was an obvious threat about 2018. Um, it’s the kind of thing. It’s basically a do this or else ran and, you know, without getting into, you know, all of the why he’s doing that. You kind of look at how the politics go together. If you’re trying to bring people together, you’re basically forcing them into a polarity. You know where some of them are. You’re either with me or against me, right? And he’s hoping he’s got more than half with him. I

[0:13:37 Josh] was gonna ask you about that later, but since you brought it up, I mean, what do you make of that? I mean, it seems to the you know, he’s made so I mean, the choreography of the last week has been really interesting, which is, you know, the special session was set to start Tuesday, the Friday before that government announces his reelection bid. I think on Monday was the campaign finance filings where he said I $41 million in the bank,

[0:13:57 Ross] $10 million in 12

[0:13:59 Josh] days, a 41 million total of 46 because he was at 36 then he price spent some are

[0:14:04 Ross] $1 billion

[0:14:05 Josh] a ton of It’s a point is it’s hard to put this stuff into context for people, it’s a ton of money. I mean, it’s it’s a huge, huge war chest. So you know, they release that those numbers and then there’s this sort of promise to keep the lists of who’s with him and who’s against him. What? You know, Woody, what do you make of this? And do you think the legislators air sort of taking him seriously? Consider the context for this. I think for a lot of people, sort of the last session right when a lot of when you know Abbot, the first time push sort of ah of I don’t call universal pre K but an expanded pre K program in taxes, which is not popular among the Republican base at all. You know, it’s

[0:14:40 Ross] a strange thing for a Republican governor barrio after, but he wants to be an education governor. And he said, So

[0:14:45 Josh] I think there’s I mean, I think you can come up with a reason why it makes sense for him to do it. But needless to say, a lot of House Member, a lot of members of his party had to vote for this thing that they knew was not gonna be popular back in their district. And the grumblings were, Where was the governor in my re election campaign last time? And so now he’s making. I don’t know whether this I don’t think that this really necessarily plays into this current threat per se. But I guess what I wonder is, how seriously do you feel like especially House members? Because the Senate is really kind of, I mean, for all intensive purposes is lockstep with Dan Patrick on most of these issues. You know, for how we proceed through this, but well, within the house, how seriously do you think they’re taking the governor’s threat?

[0:15:22 Ross] Well, you know, this is another relationship problem, you know, if you go back to that pre K thing in 2015. Toward the end of the session, the governor got the Republican caucus in a room at the Capitol and said, Stay with me on pre K and I will protect you and I will campaign by your side. I got your back in your elections and they said reluctantly, some of them because they were getting flak, particularly from the most conservative voters in their districts. They said okay, and they went with the governor on it, and he did not back them up in their primaries on, you know, they meant they remembered that and they came back. There were several moments during the regular session in 2017 this year where they came in. They zeroed out his pre K budget. At one point, there were a couple of things important to the governor that they, um, voted down. And in one of those sort of classic Texas House symbolic votes, there was a piece of legislation popped up on a Saturday late in the session by Lyle Larson, Republican from San Antonio, where he stood up and he said, We’ve got to stop this pay for play system, anybody who gives a Governor Mawr than $2500 in an election cycle as a campaign contribution should be prohibited from receiving a gubernatorial appointment to a border commission. Um, because it looks like Larson speaking still here. It looks like the more you give, the better appointment you get. This is a long standing commentary, but it’s odd to come from one of the governors on party and more than 100 House members voted Larson. You know which houses

[0:16:54 Josh] pretty hard for her to pass ethics legislation of any kind, let alone that universally,

[0:17:00 Ross] to a big fat, institutional middle finger, right? And that is a pretty good description of where they left the session and then in the interim. One of Abbott’s comments along the way between the regular session and the opening of the special session was we wouldn’t be here if legislators weren’t so lazy. So they I mean, the Legislature keeps their own scorecards. They’re keeping score on the governor, and they’re saying, This guy doesn’t have our back. He’s antagonistic. We’ll help him where we have to,

[0:17:28 Josh] you know, it’s a really interesting I mean, it’s really a nice connecting of some of the dots over the course of the session and that that sort of relationship, in some ways, an action makes me sort of think about the question I was gonna ask in a different way, which is, you know, I was thinking about, you know, does does Abbott, you know, So acknowledges is Abbott’s basically made a push 20 for 20 which is we’re gonna pass all 20 pieces of legislation in 20 days. Lieutenant Governor signed on. He’s 2020 for 20. Um, I kind of wondering, you know, and I’m before he said that I asked this question a couple times on this podcast in other places, you know, what’s the marker for? Success is it is a 10 items that if we get these five done and then he came out in 20 for 20 and that was not what I expected because I mean, it’s a it’s a tall order is where you discuss. But I wonder, you know, does even want or expect to pass all 20 me. There’s two things. I mean, in some ways he wins. If he wins and he wins if he loses right, because if the 20 not all 20 past, then you can kind of point to the Legislature and continue this. But I also wonder, Is this about achieving, you know, 20 policy goals that he can take in the 2018 election? Or is part of this about kind of an institutional stap back? I mean, pointing to this sort of line you’ve drawn where the house kind of said, You know, the governors, you know, not really a big player in this, and he’s kind of trying to boss around a little bit, you know, forget that. And then he said, OK, well, let’s let’s do that. Let’s have a more open conflict then. I mean, what is this? I mean, what is this about in your mind? Is this really about the policy goal in 2018? Or is this more? And it could be both, I guess, more about again, maybe snapping back this relationship and regaining some you know, at least honestly respect but credence, you know, with Legislature in terms of accounting for the governor,

[0:19:06 Ross] I think a lot of it is, you know, where do you stand and you have to view that in the context of the 2018 elections. You know, if you look at a political election or a political year or political map, it’s easy to tell a Republican from a Democrat because they have to declare it. They hang their flag. I’m under this banner. If you’re looking at a place in politics like the present, where one party is dominant and really what you’re covering is two parties within a party, just as you did, just as you know, the olders, the elders among us. Did you know when the Democrats were the majority party? You have to figure out a way to differentiate this kind of Republican from that kind of Republican right? They’re not flying a flag. They don’t have a red or a blue flag, and it’s a little more difficult to do. But if you have a governor or another leader, Patrick is who I’m thinking of putting down a marker and then saying, Are you here or are you there? That marker serves as a guide to some voters Patrick voters, the abbot voters, whoever when they go into the primaries march. So if you get a list of 20 things like this list and you say, however, these issues come out. This is how the members of the Legislature are arrayed ideologically as you go into the primaries and, you know, sort of who your targets are and who your friends are. That’s one way to look at it. There, a couple of things in here that I think the governor would really like to pass. Um,

[0:20:25 Josh] the tree ordinance. Well, he’s

[0:20:27 Ross] got this list of things. That tree ordinance is actually one of them that are limits on local control. Man, you know, Greg Abbot’s actually been pretty clear about, you know, in articulating his view of state government. The United States is a federation, and the states should take more power back from that that Congress has taken up. This is his call for a convention of states. The state should pull back some powers from the federal government in the cities and counties, are creations of in subsidiaries of the state and have taken too much power away from the state and the state auto, you know, land somewhere between local control and avoiding a patchwork of laws. So if you drive the state’s highways, maybe there should just be one texting while driving law would be an example. So he’s got this list of things that are viewed by the cities and counties, attacks on local control and by a significant number of legislators. By the way, um, but I think he would really like to pass those. And I think ideologically, philosophically, he believes those things correctly placed the cities in the counties in this lay in the state in that lane and then, eventually the federal government and the other lane.

[0:21:35 Josh] You know, it’s interesting the way the way you’ve laid that’s out is sort of. The marker in the sand thing is interesting, you know, and it’s sort of something that it’s kind of obvious. I mean, it’s unless it’s kind of obvious, but, you know, you need to be stated. I mean, I’ve been trying to sort of suss out exactly what’s going on here in some ways, and I think you know, the first place I landed was actually is a little bit different, But it’s kind of interesting to put them in contrast, this idea of drawing a line in the sand, I mean, who’s with us and who’s against from the Republican Party, one of things I was thinking about with serve. Why do 20 items Why picked the most Contra basically the most controversial items and why I say you’re gonna pass them all in 30 days. You know, um because presumably you have to back it up right? Either you know, in the primaries or by calling another special session and the you know where I came down was looking 2018 is going to be a tough year for Republicans everywhere. And it’s just its its historical. The presence party usually has a tough midterm election. Fact is, things aren’t going well for the Republican governing party in Congress. It’s unlikely that what the trajectory that we’ve seen with the Trump administration and Russian everything is gonna all of a sudden just resolved itself to

[0:22:38 Ross] mention the trajectory of all of our predictions about what would happen with Trump

[0:22:41 Josh] for the last year that I’ll say that anything could happen here, anything that happened but original thing. Well, you know, maybe it makes sense to lay out a pretty aggressive agenda, because you can say, Hey, look, you can set, you know you can quarter rise yourself in some way from the national Republican party, which Texans have been pretty good about doing. I mean, I didn’t text in public opinion itself. Actually makes this distinction pretty well between, you know, the Republicans in Congress versus the state Legislature and the people here. And so part of my thinking was, Well, maybe what they’re doing is they’re looking at the 2018 saying, Look, yeah, there’s all this dysfunction, but we’re still doing, you know, basically fine here in Texas. We’re still running and you know, in some ways that metal, that argument, a lot of sense to me, but as you the way you lay that out, it’s sort of drawing a line in saying between who’s with us and who is against us. That also makes sense. But those two goals air kind of at odds with each other.

[0:23:28 Ross] Well, so you have to look a kind of Abbotts local problem. And, you know, um, various people, different observers put different stock in this. I think the greatest threat toe Abbott in Texas politics potentially is Dan Patrick. And the question is, has been for a long time. Is Dan Patrick going to challenge Greg Abbott and Patrick’s going out of his way, sometimes even without being asked to say, I’m not running against the government. But every time he says that, it’s sort of why did you bring it up when you draw that line where the governor drew it with ease? 20 items? One of the things that did was put he and Patrick on the same side of the line and as the,

[0:24:06 Josh] uh, I like using the word neutered

[0:24:08 Ross] and well, you know, he’s tryingto element it. Any daylight between right Patrick and himself. Any

[0:24:15 Josh] processes stole his agenda, right? I mean, the agenda stolen directly from Dan Patrick Century

[0:24:20 Ross] voter looks at this and says, You know, I don’t see any difference. Let’s stay with the incumbent. That’s that’s abbots. Hope it also draws, you know, necessarily, and I dont know that its animus between the governor and the speaker so much as it is the governor is not worried about the speaker, and he is worried about the lieutenant governor. It puts the speaker on the other side of the line. So the tension in state government, you know, it’s always to tow one somehow, unless it’s working. When it’s three, you know you gotta pass all three places, right? Um, if it’s gonna be 2 to 1, you know, in Abbot’s mind or from Abbotts position, I should say it makes more sense for Abbott to be with Patrick, then for Abbott to be with strong.

[0:24:54 Josh] Let me ask you the question. I’m really I’m really interested in social from your perspective, because you just made that point where you always need, you know, at least two of the three, or you need really you need you

[0:25:02 Ross] need 3 to 3 to make law to to make politics,

[0:25:05 Josh] right Exactly. And one of things I’m thinking about is going back to the threat against House members is there’s a sort of I’m thinking, if I am, you know, the average Republican House members. So we’re not talking about it. And I guess there’s this. I’ve obviously followed us of closely, and if you sort of follow what’s been going on the house leading up to this, you can see a lot of you know, interesting quotes from speaker stress. You can see a couple interesting quotes from Some of his top lieutenants were basically people who he’s appointed to chair committees, and they’re pretty much in line with what he’s been saying, but a little, maybe a little bit, with a little more wiggle room and then, you know, you either see quotes or no, basically, what the far right kind of freedom caucus of the Texas House thinks they’re pretty much in line with the lieutenant governor on most of these issues. If you

[0:25:45 Ross] watch him, they’re actually pretty out spoken,

[0:25:47 Josh] right? So they’re they’re, you know, they think. But I think about, you know, you’re so everybody else, the average house member and I sort of him thinking about, You know, there’s sort of two things going on right on the one hand, you sort of way the governor’s threats and how seriously you take them and whether you know, you take them seriously and also whether you think there’s a negative consequence for you, right? But the other thing is, this is what we call it, and, you know, we’re telling the game theory. Talk here, right? This is a repeated game. They’re gonna come back and have another legislative session and another one and another one and another one on one of the things I wonder is, if I’m a your average Republican House member. Where

[0:26:17 Ross] do I

[0:26:17 Josh] come down? Because on the one hand, Aiken, basically either be working for the governor and the lieutenant governor and just say yeah, whatever they want is what we’re gonna dio, right? Or the other side of it is a boy. You know, we’re a coequal were a co equal branch here, you know, were unequal. Member in the legislature. You know, we just roll over on this. Is this what it’s gonna be like forever? Because we’re gonna have to do this again. Most of the people plan on coming back. I mean, the vast majority are gonna plan on coming back. So I guess what I want from your perspective, what are you hearing from, you know, the average, You know, basically Republican members in the house on this where that’s not something. You seen a lot of the papers?

[0:26:51 Ross] Well, you know, the great test case here. We actually have a bill that has tested this for months. This is the bathroom bill, and it’s a thing. If I am a member of the Legislature, I’m a Republican. And the bathroom situation is not something I’ve really thought about. Are worried about. You know, whether transgender individuals in Texas use the bathrooms that correspond to their gender preference or their biological sex. Um, and we

[0:27:14 Josh] have one of those politicians or people to They haven’t got about this much either. Well, they

[0:27:18 Ross] haven’t. And you know, when we did our first polling on this than the UT Texas Tribune poll, you

[0:27:25 Josh] plug the poll, not may waken stop now.

[0:27:28 Ross] I mean, there was, You know, you could tell that a lot of people were like, What, um, they just hadn’t thought about didn’t really have a physician on. If I’m a member of the Legislature and I really don’t have a position on this, you know, this happens on any number of issues, and sometimes on those, I’ll just say, Well, where are my voters? And this is where this gets really interesting to me. A lot of their voters are on the side of regulate this bathroom use should correspond to biological sex. A lot of their supporters and the businesses in their communities are against it as employers and as people with clients. So on behalf of their employees and their customers are against it. And if I’m a Republican member, and I don’t have a strong feeling about this that overrides everything else I would like for my constituents to be harmonized on this and because they’re not harmonised, a lot of members are in this very awkward position where they are telling Joe Strauss, for example, if this comes to the floor and I have to vote in the open where my voters are watching me, I’m gonna have to vote for this thing. But I don’t want to vote for this thing because the employers are against it. I think they’re probably right. I think it’s a bigger loss there than it would be a win for the voters. But I also want to come back in two years, and frankly, if I vote against the voters on this thing, they’ll replace me. And whoever replaces Meal come back in both the way they wanted to. So you know what you’re watching in the house? The house has always got something of a protection racket around, you know, we’re gonna elect you speaker. You’re gonna protect us from some things outside. And right now, interestingly, the thing outside is Dan Patrick and increasingly, Greg Abbott. asking them to vote on an issue where there voters were split.

[0:29:09 Josh] You know, it’s really you know, I’m a big one. Observation, then within one more. One more question for you know, which really interesting to me in all this is with all the focus on the bathroom. Bill in particular is sort of, ah, missing the forest for the, you know, trees, elements. All this, which is, you know, I could make one prediction accurately about the special session, which is a bunch of really conservative stuff is going to pass. I mean, I

[0:29:30 Ross] don’t know that. That’s right. I think you’re gonna pass a sunset, Bill.

[0:29:33 Josh] You don’t think there’s gonna be a lot?

[0:29:34 Ross] I think you’re gonna pass a sunset bill, and there are a couple of things that are easy to pass. There’s a maternal mortality, um, issue in there. There are a few things that I think the members will find noncontroversial and easy to pass. The house and the Senate don’t agree on bathrooms. They don’t agree on property taxes. They don’t agree on school vouchers And these air issues, where, with the exception of school vouchers, the governor has not planted his flag. He wants a bathroom bill, but he hasn’t said which version. He hasn’t said which version of property taxes and until they get some kind of confluence takes all three, they’re not gonna pass it.

[0:30:09 Josh] That’s interesting. I mean, in some ways, your prediction, then, would almost be like an abject failure to actually really take on this agenda. If that’s how you think this is going to go, I think

[0:30:17 Ross] the way Tibet is against all 19 issues, knowing that some of them will get through rather than to say all 19 of these should pass in a few might not surprise. Is there going to be the ones that passed?

[0:30:28 Josh] Yes, I would. I would think, you know, somewhere. And I have to look at the list really specifically. But, I mean, I sort of feel like going to the session, you know, like I knew Sanctuary Cities was gonna was gonna pass. And we’ve been talking about it for session after session after session. The bathroom bill already come up. The house had already been pretty clear they were going to do it. The voucher, I mean, the voucher issues. Another one of the house has historically been against. It continued to be against it. And you kinda knew in that context there was no way they weren’t gonna deliver on sanctuary cities. And I think if you will look at that, I have to look at 19 little more carefully. I just imagine you would be hard for me not to see them passing 45 pretty conservative legislation they can say, See, we we did it. You know, we

[0:31:04 Ross] really get past four or five things. I don’t know that they’re gonna be on the conservative in. They’re not gonna be. The controversial issues the big ticket items here. The headline items here are the hardest ones, and that’s why they’re the headlines.

[0:31:15 Josh] That’s interesting, though, because then that makes it a really tough next move, right? Does. Does the governor call another special session? Do? Does he try to proclaim that it was a success, or does he just sit back and say, Well, you know what? The Legislature is dysfunctional and Elsie later than Patrick says, Yeah, the house is dysfunctional, right? So you

[0:31:34 Ross] have gotten, you know, this is all, ah, forward to the 2018 elections and I think to a large extent. It is a forward of those elections. Yeah, and you know, any of the 19 issues that don’t pass are certainly gonna be on the plate in 2019 when the Legislature comes back regular session. So part of the question here is, how long can the governor call people back to work on issues that they could work on in 2019? How urgent of the voters about this?

[0:32:00 Josh] Yeah, on at some point on the other side of Attu is you know, it’s not a costless move on his part, right? I mean, if he calls repeated special sessions eventually, it looks like he’s doing something wrong. It’s

[0:32:09 Ross] about a $1,000,000 a pop. Every time you do it, you spend about a $1,000,000.

[0:32:13 Josh] I think we’ll I think we’ll stop there. I have. I have more questions I want to ask, but I think we’ve talked a lot. I think it’s a lot for the everyone to absorb Ross Ramsey. Thank you for joining us.

[0:32:25 Ross] Thanks for having me.

[0:32:26 Josh] Alright, and we will see you again next week. Second reading Podcast is a production of Texas Politics Project and the Project 2021 Development Studio at the University of Texas at Austin.