July 25th, 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?

[0:00:35 Jim] And welcome back to the second reading podcast, Jim Henson. Hear back from a short vacation? Now, that was a reasonable, I guess. Ah, wanna thank Ross Ramsey for visiting last week and thank Josh Blank in person. Thanks, Josh. Welcome for running the show last week. Um, Josh is back again today, so he gets thanked in person. Ross will never hear this, but maybe I’ll thank him at some point. Ah, this week we’re back on this story that is dominating state politics, the ongoing special session of the Legislature, which is more or less meeting our expectations. So far. So So where are we? In summary, the Senate has been busy, but the house less so right.

[0:01:13 Josh] That’s right. So the 20 items on this special session call, I think the Senate has you by current tallies, you know, we get into how you sent it’s

[0:01:22 Jim] moving so fast, they

[0:01:24 Josh] two things. Well, while we record so I think they’ve passed 14 of 20 is what we’ll say at this point. Ah, and basically a little bit over, you know, a week and 1/2 I guess at this point or a weak, uh, you know, this isn’t surprising. I mean, for a couple of reasons. Anyone we knew the house was less, you know, amenable to this. The Senate just generally moves faster or can move a lot faster than the house can move. You know, the difference between in terms of size, of the body?

[0:01:50 Jim] Yeah, Certainly in the modern world,

[0:01:51 Josh] certainly in the modern world, Right? Um, you know, But also, the other side of it, too, is you know, the houses is a lot more lukewarm towards a lot of these issues. So it’s not as though you would expect them to take the first step right in a lot of this stuff. So I mean, the rally is the process works is You guys were kind of becoming more and more aware of, you know, Senate passed the bill. It’ll go the house at that point, you know, a lot of things could happen, but in the way that we understand the processes like the you know, the normative way the process is supposed to work. I guess the bill get yeah, millimeters normative. Let’s see the diagram Textbook way, the processes of host to work. The bill gets referred to a committee in the House, and then the House members will debate that bill will make changes to it. And they’ll just it

[0:02:31 Jim] for those who fantasize about the Legislature, the fantasy version of how the Legislature might work or at least fantasize about the legislative process and will leave that right there. Yeah, so so process wise. What we’ve seen then is late last week, the and over the weekend, the Senate really got to it. You’ve had a lot of Senate Senate committee hearings. The Senate had committee hearings over the weekend, which is, you know, fairly unusual to the extent that you usually only see that towards the end of the regular session, you see, during a special session if they’re really trying to get something done. But the Senate was clearly trying to send a signal where the worker bees were down with the governor’s agenda. We’re going to help make this 20 for 20 thing happen if we can. And so you probably saw at least some headlines or some some news out in the in the ether about the hearing on the bathroom. Build the committee hearing in the Senate on the bathroom bill Friday, which went on for 10 hours. Lots of public testimony, lots of coverage. Ah, wound up after about 10 hours, I think, with the committee passing the bill on not quite a party line vote, because one of the Democrats, Senator Eddie Lucio, who votes with the Republicans frequently on social issues and has been with them all along on this pretty much ah, voted for the bill in committee, which moved the committee to the floor of the House. Other committee hearings happened during the weekend, probably most notably a big hearing on property taxes that took place Saturday. I think I listen to it for a while, and I couldn’t quite

[0:04:08 Josh] it’s hard to keep. I mean one thing, it’s hard to keep up. Ross mentioned this last week. They’re the rules still apply to greater or lesser extent, right? The fact is, you know the buildings to be laid out over three days, but what that is meaning in practice, in practical terms, is one. You know, committee hearings are going stacked one on top of the other or overlapping with each other. And a lot of these votes are taking place basically after 12:01 a.m. Right, right. So because it will just get to that next day. So it’s been pretty consistent so far for the Senate to be holding votes basically in the midnight hour,

[0:04:38 Jim] right? Used to fill that out. The bill layout is when the sponsor lays the bill for the Czech, lays the build for the committee, and then you’ve gotta lay the bill out. And then the rules said that there’s got to be an interval ostensibly for deliberation and public input before you can actually ah passed the bill out of committee. You know, as Josh says, that when Josh says you know what these bills pass at 12 01 it’s very often just to hit the past is just a soon as you can and move it on because of Fort courses we talked about all along. Ah, this semester, the lieutenant governor is trying to send Republican voters a signal and the governor’s signal that he is, at least in a public sense, that he is very supportive of the agenda. This was especially the case, obviously, with the bathroom bill. Now things have been moving much more slowly in the Texas House of Representatives.

[0:05:30 Josh] Right so far, it seems like the only thing the things that the house have accomplishes, they’ve moved the sunset bills to sunset bills. And they basically held hearings over, you know, the property basically the property tax reform, you know, broadly. Which involves, you know, a ton of different possible bills and you know, it orations of what that could mean. And those have been the most notable things that the house was done besides basically meeting for such a short period of time,

[0:05:55 Jim] right? And you know it. We talked about how the Lieutenant governor is sending a signal by cracking the whip on the Senate, basically, and getting all this stuff going very rapidly. The speaker has been sending a signal of its own. And I, you know, I was traveling but kind of watching this. And it was funny getting the updates, saying that the house has gaveled in at 10 and then 20 minutes later, the house is adjourned until tomorrow it middle of the day. So,

[0:06:22 Josh] yeah, I mean, it’s funny when you think about you’re just talking about how the Senate was meeting all weekend and having his back to back to back committee hearings and, you know, long hours of testimony. And on Friday, I think, you know, there was basically a news alert that said, Well, the house has met the houses of your until Monday, right? That’s basically kind of explains what it’s looked like so far,

[0:06:40 Jim] right? So So put it this way. The members of the House of Representatives had a much nicer we can of the members of the Senate. Um, you know one thing I kind of want to add to this a little bit that we hadn’t talked about before we went in, Josh. But I think is important to know because you were talking about the We’re talking about the fantasy version of how the house work. One thing you want to watch that is likely to happen. And this is the signals that are coming out of the house. And we saw it with Sunset. Bill is that if everybody was on the same page, what you’d see is the Senate sending the house bills the house than taking those up. If they really wanted to pass them debating the Senate, you know, substituting those bills and being able to pass them. And they’re not in passing or passing an identical version so that there doesn’t have to be a conference committee, right? What it looks like is gonna happen is if you think about the house. If you visualize the house on one side in the house, on the Senate, they’re gonna be sending bills over to each other and each chamber give me telling the other. OK, here’s our version is build, you know, have at it. So the Senate passes a bill over the house is now gonna is going to send its version back and say, OK, you guys, here’s the bill.

[0:07:49 Josh] And the main thing to remember about this is you know, there’s nothing crazy about that. I mean, that’s basically the way I think this works. But there’s 30 total days right now to do this. And so the idea of ironing out these differences that were, you know, again discussed last week that were pretty present during the regular session in which they have 140 days to do this have not dissipated in the meantime. So, I mean, with the theme in the practical consequence, in a lot of ways is gonna be the house is gonna move at its own pace. They’re gonna send bills back to the Senate that are probably not identical to what the sun to pass. And really, the Senate will have to decide.

[0:08:20 Jim] Do we concur and pass this bill or not?

[0:08:23 Josh] Right. And basically, and in some ways, like do we take a win even if it’s not exactly what we wanted? The wind being passing something,

[0:08:29 Jim] and with the clock ticking very loudly or do we have to not concur? Go to conference and probably

[0:08:36 Josh] not get anything

[0:08:37 Jim] and, you know, try to work it out and split the difference in conference committee something. Everything takes time, right? All right, so So that’s something else toe watches that they’re subtle ways in which the chambers are communicating their antipathy towards each other. And, you know, if you watch, they’re not They’re not so subtle. So we also want to talk a little bit. We’re gonna, you know, wouldn’t be the second reading podcast if we didn’t get into the institutional weeds a little bit. But I think it is for the

[0:09:04 Josh] first. Reading is just the newspaper said, way to go deeper,

[0:09:07 Jim] right? That’s, you know, Jonathan Tile of Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Um, well asked Risk that. And we’ll net. Now. I feel like we have to bring Jonathan in before this is over.

[0:09:17 Josh] He’s already told me he won’t do it. He can’t commit to actually being somewhere at a certain time.

[0:09:22 Jim] Well, you know, we lean on him a little more. Jonathan Tie Love is the senior political reporter for the Austin American Statesman, who we do a lot of stuff with. Um, there was an interesting point of debate on the Senate floor yesterday’s that yesterday being Tuesday, the reporting of this

[0:09:38 Josh] lean, illustrative point.

[0:09:39 Jim] Yeah, unmolested of point. I think so. As the senators and the Senate did several hours of debate on the floor yesterday on the final pawn passage of the bathroom bill on the Senate floor with all the senators there, you know, weighing in if they wanted. That bill was sponsored by state Senator Louis Lowest Coal course from Brenham, and as they were debating that bill, there was a debate happening and a couple of procedural moves that really illustrated how the separation of powers and interpretations of the separation of powers among the different branches can really play out in the legislative process and how different actors in the process have different views and different interpretations of those that that affect how things operate. So, ah, as the bill was being debated, Senator Kirk Watson from Austin Ah, Democrat raised the point of order, which is, Ah, procedural motion that try that sites something is going on that is a violation of the rules that’s related to the bill that can result in the bill being either pulled or failing in some way being ruled out of order. If that point of order is sustained by the presiding officer in this case, Lieutenant governor, typically on the advice of the parliamentarian and the parliamentarian in this case is Corinna Davis and their interview snippets with Miss Davis in the course material that you may have already gotten to. And if you haven’t you will, um, and what? Watson? The point of order that rots that watch. The Senator Watson raised said that the portion of the bathroom bill that coal course, the Senator Cole course that inserted that, said that essentially, um, the birth certificate criteria for public facilities access should also be applied to athletic activities. So, in other words, if you wanted to participate in women’s sports or men’s sports, you had that which gender of the sport you participated in would be determined by the gender of your birth certificate.

[0:11:45 Josh] I’m sure you’ve probably mean maybe you’ve seen some articles about this issue coming up. I think there was a wrestler in Texas who won, I guess the girls, you know, state. I mean, it’s actually the opposite way. In some ways, I think I don’t remember all the details of it, but essentially, you know, there’s been E.

[0:12:00 Jim] I believe that it was a transgender boy who wanted to complete compete in male athletics. They would not let him because the burst because of birth. Gender was female, and so one of competing on the women’s side and, you know, be

[0:12:16 Josh] there. I think she want to say

[0:12:16 Jim] that she wanted stage one, whatever the level of accomplishment. And I don’t follow high school wrestling very closely. So, um, I used to So Watson, you know, so so back to the point. So Watson basically said that the bill was defective and raised the point of order, saying that that provision did not fit under the call that the governor issued because the governor’s reference to a bathroom bill essentially didn’t touch on efforts,

[0:12:46 Josh] it was actually very specific. It was just about regulating policies within multi occupancy, like restrooms, changing rooms or other like facilities of undress.

[0:12:54 Jim] So what you got out of that was a very interesting debate in which which turned in many ways on whether the on how much the Legislature had to follow the letter of the governor’s order for a special session, or whether once a subject was put on the call that the Legislature how much how much latitude the Legislature had to pass to engage in laws within that area so they went to the Senate rules as part of this discussion and found a series of cases that, you know, I think it was still left it open to interpretation. But the Senate adopt, and the parliamentarian in the presiding officer adopted the position that, in fact, this provision was generally related to the call, and so was a legit exercise in this. I suspect we’re going to see this point of order again. Oh, yeah, on the house side, should the bill ever get hurt over there. But what it really brought out was that, you know, this issue of separation of powers, which we think of as a kind of broad constitutional principle, can really affect how things operate on the ground and really has meaning that can be substantively debated. I mean,

[0:14:13 Josh] if you were basically an alien who landed in Texas two weeks ago and you were really interested in the legislatively space Alien could call a space alien who landed in Texas two weeks ago. You saw the beginning of this legislative process. You might think Oh, wow. The governor is so powerful. Like I mean, he comes. I mean less than you’re interested in government. institutions and, you know, he basically, he lays out these very specific calls that now the legislature has to go and act on. And then if you landed a week later, you’d say, Oh, no, the Legislature’s where the power is because really, they only have to general basically passable, that generally relate to this. And who determines whether they generally relate to this? Well, the presiding officer of the body, with the advice of the parliamentarian, you know, that’s a lot of leeway, right? And so you’re kind of seeing that get illustrated really clearly right. And we were kind of talking about the arc of, um, Greg Abbot’s approach to the special session. And it’s interesting because we were talking last week again about how he come out kind of swinging, saying, you know, look at how much money I have. I’m running for re election. I’m gonna keep names of people you know who are with May, and I want to pass 20 of these items, right?

[0:15:18 Jim] And I’ve called the, you know, the Legislature, which a couple weeks ago I was calling a lazy, failed legislature to come back and actually do their job

[0:15:25 Josh] right and if you actually air following, I mean, it is harder to find it, even though he’s been all over media. I think he has 30 media spots scheduled over like this last week. But if you’re actually following with the governors and saying this week now it’s very praiseworthy, you know, everybody’s working and even the house that hasn’t done much so far, he said, Oh no, they’re coming along. We’re

[0:15:43 Jim] not keeping a naughty list than a nice list. We’re just keeping a nice

[0:15:46 Josh] list. It is true that just essentially, we’re just keeping a list of who’s with us at this point, you know, and part of that

[0:15:52 Jim] interesting use of negative space,

[0:15:53 Josh] right? But that change in tone is a real reflection of the fact that the ball is not in his court anymore, right? And this little rule in this sort of rules debate illustrates, you know not only how much you know, latitude the Legislature has in terms of actually fulfilling this call or not, right. I mean, that’s one aspect of it, but even within that, you know how much you know the rules can be applied sort of selectively within that either help or hinder what the majority party within that body even wants. And the example here would be that Ah, said Senator Menendez, Right, brought up that when it came to the sunset provisions, some senators wanted to add provisions to those bills that would actually affect the way the agencies operate instead of just extending basically their existence. And the rule actually went, the way they roll, it was opposite, which was, well, that’s not on the call, right? So that seems inconsistent. That’s because it probably is. But it’s also the way that the process actually work. And

[0:16:48 Jim] so it’s, you know, so is easy, I think, to break this often in tow, you know? I mean, what it raises to is, you know, the way that the institutions are organized, create lots of different axes of conflict that, you know, aren’t the ones that we always get the most public shrift. I mean, I think the things that we’ve seen nationally, the big discussion of divisions, obviously your party polarization, that differences between the parties, if you go to another, you know, level of kind of party conflict. There’s lots of discussion of the factions within the Republican party factions within the Democratic Party to too, for that matter. But here, you know, you see, that kind of not is relevant where you have basically, you know, to, you know, you could read the Watson Coal Course debate even though there was clearly a party dimension there. You know where Watson is trying to defeat this Republican initiative, but he’s actually arguing for a more powerful or more powerful executive branch Visa vee the Legislature, where you have then the Republicans embracing an interpretation that is much mawr, you know, aimed at got a kind of legislative latitude in supremacy. And so this institutional cleavages kind of Ah ah, more relevant interesting thing. And I would say this now. I mean, two things to note. On one hand, after all of that, it was basically ah, pretty straight party line vote. So for all the substance of that discussion, you know, everybody was still ultimately pretty much shaped by what the party imperatives were in the and the way that the ideological positions on that particular issue, which is heavily partisan right now. Nonetheless, I would say that I was watching that debate. It was a reasonable evidence based debate. You know, Watson made an argument based on his reading of the bill on his reading of the Constitution on a theory of separation of powers and institutions. Cole course went to the rules. She and her allies discussed the court cases they discussed issues of I mean, I think Betancourt, Senator Bettencourt from Houston area also kind of actually mentioned, you know, this is about separation of powers and what the rule of the Legislature and preserving the role of the Legislature. Whatever you thought about the issue, it was an unusually substantive debate at a time when we’ve seen not a lot of that.

[0:19:06 Josh] Yeah, but I mean, let’s lest you, you know, hold your legislators and too high esteem just to make clear. You know, it’s not as though this therefore indicates that Senator Watson and you know, Democrats writ large in the Texas Senate believe that the governor should have wide and strong powers. Right? This is an example of how you know both sides use the rules basically to their own,

[0:19:32 Jim] and that’s I guess that’s what I That’s what I was responding nicely about it. They were trying to tow work. You know to manipulate the rules. But there was also, you know, some glimmer that you should that you could bend actual ideas was so substance to it rather than a bunch of you know what What has often been the fact, particularly this bathroom debate. And, you know, I would have to argue on more on one side than the other, you know, made up fax fear, anxiety. Uh, not entirely examined predispositions, Shall we say So You’re right. I mean, I don’t want to say it was a moment of, you know, this is Lincoln and Douglas going on. Before that,

[0:20:14 Josh] I was trying to be, you know, I mean, I don’t know, I’m pretty. I’m pretty clear eyed about what’s really going on there, Obviously, but also and it doesn’t is not meant Teoh denigrate the debate. It was still an interesting debate. Whether or not tomorrow, the two sides will be in the same position because I might be on the other side of the debate. You know, making basically the other sides

[0:20:33 Jim] are That’s a pretty good point. I mean, I was I was thinking that is like I mean, will there be a point before too long where you know, Senator Watson will be just as passionate, relentless. And, you know, Watson is a pretty good debater trial lawyer, you know? Will he be, you know, as impressive arguing the other side before this is all over, right? So what? Not out of the question?

[0:20:55 Josh] So what? What do you know? I guess before we wrap up, what do you think we’re going to see in the next, You know, weaker, too. I mean, I can kind of start to imagine it’s fun to make some predictions. Now, the

[0:21:04 Jim] national actually start being in for a little bit longer.

[0:21:07 Josh] Right? Okay, well, would be hard to for

[0:21:09 Jim] longer than 20 minutes or happening, right? Um, you know, I think we’re gonna start getting down to this to the serious horse trading, and we’ll get a much clearer idea of how far the House is willing to play the string out of moves slowly and tryingto, you know, forced the Senate to compromise and whether in the end, the Senate, the Senate will compromise on on some of these things. I it doesn’t seem to me like the incentive structure that drove in the political context that drove a lot of the regular session has changed all that much. And I think it’s gonna be hard for us to know, because I think some of this is gonna happen behind the scenes. And this adds a nuance toe. This notion of kind of institutional process time in the cycle of gubernatorial influence. I mean, the governor still can. Well, I mean, it’s almost like to sort of Dama Cleese and whether the governor, you know, cuts that drops it on the Legislature or not, and that is two things. If they do pass things that are compromises that you know he thinks don’t aren’t up to muster, will he beat of them? I think he’s unlikely to veto things. It actually make it out. I think he’s unlikely to veto things, but you know, that is something that writ large they can wield. It’s just not as useful weapon, given the configuration of politics and where he and Patrick are right or more likely, you know, more, more relevant. Will he say I met 20 for 20 and if they pass some compromises, he signs them, but if it’s not enough, he can call them back for another special session, which certainly the House doesn’t want. And while the Senate, the senators in public have to act like good troopers because lieutenant governor says is well will come back as long as it takes, it’s not what any of the legislators themselves want,

[0:23:02 Josh] right? I mean, I think the only person who loves it in most cases, like the one person who loves to be here in July as Dan Patrick, pretty much, yeah, I’m kind of interested to watch how much of the next week, once the Senate basically finishes its, you know its first round of work. I’m really interested to see how much of you know the major players here. Patrick and Strauss. Ah, an Abbott. You know how much of their the way they proceed is sort of an inside game versus, You know, he asked, How much of this is gonna be public, you know, schooling?

[0:23:31 Jim] Or do they get a little more diplomatic in order to try to get some stuff?

[0:23:34 Josh] Yeah, that’s that’s kind of next thing. I’m really intrigued to see

[0:23:37 Jim] what I mean. I think in terms of like the micro level things that you’ll see, I mean? I think, you know, we’ve seen, you know, some level of debate. You see this level of debate in the Senate? I think what we probably will start to see maybe early next week to peg in. And it depends on what? The pace of the houses eventually. You know, one of the questions is gonna is gonna be once debate opens up in the house, you know? How much do the dissident kind of more ideologically conservative anti Strauss forces in the house make noise in the process? Right. These Air Republicans and their report there, Republicans essentially allied with the lieutenant governor, broadly speaking least ideologically. They’re at least fellow travelers. Not you. No explicit allies. So those are some things to watch. That’s the second reading podcast for this week. I think we’ll both be back next week. I plan on being anywhere to go. All right. And who knows? Maybe love Jonathan Tile of in tow, but probably

[0:24:32 Josh] should invite him for the rest. And hopefully looking to wind

[0:24:35 Jim] will come toe one. So thanks a lot. Have a good week and you’ll hear from us again for too much longer. Second reading podcast is a production of Texas Politics Project and the Project 2021 Development Studio at the University of Texas at Austin.