August 1st, 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 on?

[0:00:34 Jim] And welcome back to the second reading podcast. Jim Henson here. Uh, we are here to talk a little bit about politics in Texas. Things going on this week. I’m joined by Josh Blank again. How are we this morning, Josh?

[0:00:47 Josh] We are excellent.

[0:00:48 Jim] I’m wondering right now and maybe we wondered this last week, but I don’t think so. If the warm up to the podcast of all the quotes get the audience is ready is I think it gets us

[0:00:58 Josh] gets me pumped.

[0:00:59 Jim] We’ve heard it now a 1,000,000 times, and I think we both still sit here and laugh and cringe at different parts.

[0:01:06 Josh] Yeah, we wont tell you which ones.

[0:01:07 Jim] No, no, no. That’d be too much of a giveaway. Um, we’ve been following the special session, which is the main Texas story line this summer. As we come as we record this on Wednesday, we’re just at the halfway mark. I guess that makes this day 16 of the special session eso that’s been acknowledged by all by and all the inside stories about where we are. And so that means we should. We should look at the score card on the 20 items. So where are we? Just

[0:01:34 Josh] so so far, the Senate had passed 20 items or 20 bills on 18 of the governor’s 20 items. Okay, And the House has passed eight bills on four of his items

[0:01:46 Jim] and those of the items on the governor’s two calls from special session call. So how do we think the 20 for 20 strategy looks now? That’s been the subject of a lot of debate. I mean, we talked about that. I think in the very first podcast

[0:02:00 Josh] this Ross I talked about it a little bit. I mean, sort of been thank

[0:02:03 Jim] you and Ross talked about anything a little bit. You talked about everything a lot.

[0:02:05 Josh] Ross talked about a lot of things. I talked about a little bit of things, but anyway, he was a guess, and he’s very knowledgeable. So we should talk about a lot of things. But the theme kind of, you know, at least going through so far, at least for us on the politics side of this sort of, there’s all the policy stuff and not, you know, short change that. But there’s the politics of this and sort of the notion of, you know, Abbot’s push for 20 for 20. And as you know, if you’ve been listening to this regularly, you see, we’ve been trying to kind of assess that strategy. Is it a good idea? Is that a bad idea? Before he came out, 20 for 20 were kind of wondered what were the measure for success. And then he was very clear. 20 for 20. But as time has moved on, I think you know, we sort of evolved, and how we’ve been thinking about it is the context has changed and has serve actions of maybe revealed some of the underlying preferences a little bit better

[0:02:54 Jim] dinner line, preferences of the legislators,

[0:02:56 Josh] well, interline preferences of all the balls Yeah. You know, of abbot of Patrick, you know, stress. And then of of the body at least searching the house. Right? I think

[0:03:04 Jim] we might have thought about this a little bit differently. And I we I may have been reading you wrong in our discussions on this, but, you know, I never thought the 20 for 20 strategy was all that bad because I never really thought that the governor himself would be held accountable to it, you know? I mean, it seemed to set the bar high, knowing full well that the Legislature probably wasn’t Perry likely to pass all 20 of the a measure of the measures. But for me, I think what we’ll see is that the governor, they won’t get 20. Um, and the governor will take credit for the success is and blame the Legislature for the absences. I think that’s and it’s certainly looking more and more like that.

[0:03:41 Josh] Yeah, I think that’s right. I think you know, uh, I think you know you’re right. We probably give you a little bit differently. Part of it is I think I would come out it inside

[0:03:48 Jim] thinking that I was writing. You were wrong?

[0:03:50 Josh] Well, sure, Of course. Yes, boss. Of course. Let me let me talk about how I’m wrong. Ah, you know, the I think coming into a part of my thinking is is that part of it is the expectations versus reality for the public. I mean, for us to have sitting here in Austin who? The people who follow this really closely. It’s really easy to kind of game this out in a way where, you know, not achieving 20 items is fine, and I think that in the end, it’s probably gonna work out fine for him. Having said that, you know, most, most people you know, most American citizens who have, you know, some sort of faint understanding of government or, you know, at least a limited understanding tend to look at the executives, is all powerful, right they look at the president, is sort of being responsible for the success and failure of the economy, which is clearly not really true. Most of the time, right, And they look at the governor’s in a similar way. And even in Texas, where the governor is, you know, particularly weak in terms of the powers he’s actually constant constitutionally given There’s still a sense to say, You know, the governor is the one leading leading the government. Now you have the whole spot. You know, the whole regular session with Governor is very little powers and was very quiet. But the special session, you know, the Governor Adami to really, you know, a compelling case for this being his special session.

[0:05:00 Jim] Well, you made it well, you made a bold play anyway.

[0:05:03 Josh] He made a bold play anyway. I mean, but that’s the point, though. I mean, part of this is not about, you know, whether you, you know, I mean, isn’t who decides who wins or loses that kind of I mean, you know, that’s kind of just there’s no way to really say with any certainty who is the winner and who is the loser of. I think we’ll do it soon, actually, will write something, but anyway, we get to do that. But the thing is, is that I think part of the thing that I was thinking was, you know, making such a bold play early, saying 20 for 20 that, combined with people’s expectations about you know what they think of governor can Dio and then not achieving it, I think does have some costs. I think what’s becoming clear is it’s gonna have a lot less cost to him. That may be one might have initially thought, but that’s partially because I think we sort of have a more nuanced understanding of what the strategy was behind that now.

[0:05:49 Jim] I mean, I think the point here and that enables me to joke about you, No one of us being right in one of us being wrong in the in the real in the more serious point here is these political gestures take place in conditions of limited information and a lot of uncertainty. Right, Thesis A very, very human process with a lot of contingent parts and good political actors are actually very good at adjusting to changing circumstances or successful political actors. And we’ve seen a lot of that here, And I think that, you know, one of the things that I think has been a bit consistent here and that did, you know, lead me to think early on that that the governor had a lot of wiggle room here is in part what you’re talking about. This idea that the governor is that for your head of state government has a lot of symbolic association Greg Abbott himself in his specific circumstances that he is, as we’ve said here, very popular among his base and among Republicans. And there’s

[0:06:50 Josh] me and even reasonably popular among some Democrats.

[0:06:52 Jim] And then and then there’s going. There’s conflict between the branches here and in that conflict between the governor with all with all of his assets and the Legislature was which is divided against itself in terms of the friction between the House and the Senate and the cross currents in the Republic. Among the Republican caucuses was in a less you know, a less powerful position in terms of how the public digest solve

[0:07:21 Josh] I think what I probably underestimated was the degree to which the acrimony that was going on during the regular session would carry over and maybe increase going into the special session in the degree to which that becomes the ready made sort of, you know, cause for the dysfunction. It’s not the fact that the governor isn’t able to pass his agenda. It’s that you know the legislature is being dysfunctional and they’re continuing to be dysfunctional

[0:07:46 Jim] and there and there and, you know, thanks. I think, in large part to the public poses of the leadership in each of in each of the chambers. Lieutenant Governor Patrick and Speaker Straus that acrimony remains a consistent theme. Now each of them projects that acrimony in different ways. Strauss is in a much quieter more. You know, some people have said passive aggressive. I don’t think that’s quite right way. Um, and and Lieutenant Governor Patrick, obviously much more public is statewide official. We talked about that here. You know, Lieutenant Governor Patrick has a statewide audience electoral audience at all time because he’s elected statewide. The speaker is not. The house is different. It’s made up of much smaller, more specific constituencies. It’s managed in a different way, so we step back. What does all that mean? It means that, you know, the Senate, predictably, has passed many more bills than the House. Given their positions and their positions. Visa view the governor, the houses, that they will have a lot of committee hearings. They’ll beam or happening in the house. But our our expectation is that the house will be much less accommodating to the governor’s agenda then then was the Senate

[0:08:56 Josh] right? And just to put a fine point on the end of this, I mean, you know, part of the reason that the Senate has passed so many bills is because the agenda that you know Greg Abbott and this is sort of going back to the 21st round 20 strategy. The agenda that Abbott laid out for the special session was basically Dan Patrick’s agenda for the regular session. I mean, to some degree, or at least a lot of those trees, the trees. That’s his own thing. But but most of the most of the priority bills for Patrick that did not pass where Bills that Abbott took up for the special session and what he wasn’t doing it in a way that said, Hey, you know, the lieutenant governor had a bunch of great ideas, and I think we should do that. He said, No, this is my agenda for the special session.

[0:09:31 Jim] This is the conservative agenda, which I am promoting

[0:09:33 Josh] right and then breathing that you should understand why this is important is because really given you know how much money Greg Habit has in the Bank. His popularity with Republicans Really, the Onley person conceivable who could be a threat to Greg Abbott is Dan Patrick. And this makes it very hard for Dan Patrick to be a threat. And so, in the end of you say, you know, what is Greg Abbott achieve out of this? He basically neutralizes the only threat you know that he faces, you know, in any sort of reasonable time proximity and Dan Patrick Because Dan Patrick can’t say the only reason you’ve made this argument before, at least to me and I laid out here. Which is it? The only argument for Dan Patrick running for governor, which he said over and over again that he won’t and Ross rambles? He would say, Well, he said he wasn’t gonna run for the Senate. He said he wasn’t gonna run for lieutenant governors. That’s what we don’t take that fully at face value. But the only argument he could make for running would be to say, Well, you know, the governor has abandoned us something conservative principles. Well, now that’s impossible to say. And so, you know, basically, then away, you know, abot it by going 20 by laying out the serve ambitious agenda, which was Patrick’s by saying 20 for 20 and then kind of letting the chips fall where they may, which increasingly seems like he’s going Teoh. He’s been a little bit more, you know, I think probably positive towards what the House is done. Even though they haven’t done much. Adam, it seems like there’s a pretty good chance that we leave at the end of the 30 day. That we don’t have another special session, no matter how many bills are passed for aren’t But he basically was able to both pull Dan Patrick closer to him and also discard him at the same time and say, Well, that’s just the Legislature being dysfunctional,

[0:10:58 Jim] right? And it was It was it was a You know, I thought at the time was a pretty It was a pretty political, shrewd, true, shrewd move, and I don’t you know, and I think it it cut off a lot of negative thing, a lot of negative discussion toward the governor in the press, pretty effectively, unless we unless we do all too much on on Patrick and and the governor or the separation of powers. We also want him notice, at least briefly, the latest episode in the Dan Patrick Joe Strauss. Ah, contention. And that is Dan. Patrick went on, Ah ah, podcast That only goes to the group to the members, or at least ostensibly to the members of A or is focused on the members of a conservative kind of dissident group that has been very anti Strauss,

[0:11:42 Josh] very active

[0:11:43 Jim] and very active. And it’s helped support, not with only mixed success candidates that are opposed to Strauss. And basically. So. Dan Patrick went on this podcast, which course got covered by every political reporter in town and complained about how, you know, he sort of sort of talked. We shouldn’t sit Pie won’t put it that way. But you know, took two different tax one saying that he was more than willing to work with the House and the, you know, trying to soft sell some of his earlier criticism, but also said he’s as before that he just wishes the speaker would talk to him. That speaker won’t meet with them. The speaker isn’t communicating. It seems to him that the leadership should always be cooperating on the agenda and why aren’t they? There’s a certain amount of, uh, you know, I’m shocked, shocked that gambling is going on here in terms of the classic Casablanca reference that, you know, the lieutenant governor would be complaining about sectarian politics because pretty clearly is you and I were talking before this. The speaker himself has said If we’re gonna talk and really talk about things and try to figure out a way to toe work together, that would be great. But he doesn’t expect that that’s gonna happen. And he’s not gonna meet and have the message delivered in person that the bathroom bill is the most important thing that they should be doing. Because Strauss has been clear, he doesn’t believe that

[0:13:05 Josh] right? And he’s also been clear that he’s just not going to go to a meeting where that’s what the agenda is,

[0:13:09 Jim] right, So So you may guys may hear something about that, but that that is still going on a couple of ah, at least one more sort of substantive policy thing to touch on the House voted yesterday to on the floor and past ah funding bill for the Texas retirement system. Now, during the regular session, teacher retirements or I’m sorry. Yes, the Teacher Retirement System, thanks

[0:13:31 Josh] to the Teacher Retirement System, actually covers like a lot of state employees, not just

[0:13:34 Jim] mainly retired teachers and educational

[0:13:37 Josh] with a lot

[0:13:37 Jim] of strangers, and it’s very big. They voted, and they voted to change the rules during the regular session in ways that would have vastly increased premiums and deductibles. Now let’s have you probably have to mess with this very much, but you know, premiums or what? You what you pay to buy the insurance on a monthly basis, usually deductibles or what you pay out of pocket when you go to get a service. These were the two measures because they’re what come out of people’s paychecks and and out of their bank accounts. So by raising the premiums and the deductibles, they really significantly increase the costs for a lot of these retirees. Would these rules changes? There were discussions about putting more money to help offset some of these during the regular session. That really didn’t work. So both chambers are revisiting this. It’s it’s on the call. It’s on the governor’s call. This is one of those more policy oriented things on the call rather than something that’s ideological. To be fair to the governor, this is something that was left, but it also plays into This is something the Legislature shouldn’t have done. But did the House passed a bill yesterday that would have tapped what we cloak will call cloak Italy called the Rainy Day Fund. Formally, it’s the economic stable. Is the Emergency Stabilization Fund or Economic Stabilization Fund? The SF

[0:14:50 Josh] thanks? Still, is that Yeah,

[0:14:52 Jim] this is a fun that is basically fed by Roy it by revenues from oil and gas taxes. In this state, by statute, a certain amount of money goes into it. You know, depending on the level of income, there’s, um there’s a formula that

[0:15:08 Josh] there’s a maximum the fund should get to, but it’s usually it’s usually floating around 10 to 12 billion on.

[0:15:12 Jim] Right now, it’s in about 11 11 and point to, I think, $1,000,000,000. Um, they want to tap that fund in the house to pay for a payment to kind of offset this retirement system. Ah, the Senate has been reluctant to do that, and they they passed the bill in the same amount that would have done some accounting work with Medicaid insurance funds. Um, so this is kind of this has been one of these differences between the House and the Senate that is really out there in the weeds, which you must be thinking right now but really kind of underlines one of these fundamental points of friction in which the Senate does not want to tap this rainy day fund unless they say it’s a real emergency and it’s a one time expenditure. The House has been much more willing, I would say to define the nature of one time an emergency a little more broadly, This is an example of that.

[0:16:11 Josh] Yeah, this has been I mean, this is so I mean, you may say, as you said, you know, this this may feel really in the weeds, but this has actually been a consistent point of contention during a regular session during the regular session in which, which is continuing, which funds were tight, right, the budget was, you know, the amount of money available this session was less than last session. So the fact is there going to be cuts that were going to be hard choices to make and then the question becomes okay, well, if there’s something that we can’t cut, but we need to find money for how do we find it in the House? Basically has said, Well, the rainy day fund is there for economic stabilization, and the Senate is basically taking the approach to conservatives in the Senate. Not, you know, has basically taken the approach of the biggest. You said the range. If it is only for one time expenses. So most of the way that they’ve managed to try to fund things this could go from school finance fixes Ah, you know, to again Teacher Retirement System has basically been to either do one of two things in the case of school financing this special session basically move money around within education. So not actually, my new money or the other sort of most popular way to do this is to basically adjust the funding formulas for Medicaid in one way or another, or basically, either like you or delay payment, which is common. I mean, just so you guys all know and basically the first thing that Legislature does when it comes back to town for a legislative session, it’s figure out how much it does to Medicaid and pay that back in a supplemental budget because they’re always delaying payments to Medicaid to pay for something else. And

[0:17:31 Jim] it’s usually in the in the nature of, you know, at least a $1,000,000,000. Sometimes it’s been closer to two,

[0:17:36 Josh] right, And so you know, it’s hard. You know, if you’re looking at this, you know, with a with an objective eye, it’s hard to say, you know exactly which is the more conservative approach, you know? I mean, I think the Senate is very clear about saying the tapping there any day fund for what is, you know, Sina’s continuing expenses, not conservative. It’s kind of like dipping into your savings account to pay for cable is what they would argue, right, And

[0:17:59 Jim] this And this was a big fight during the regular session and, as you know, it seemed to me was predictable. They basically split the difference. The Senate went in, saying they didn’t want to touch the rainy day fund at all. Then they kind of slowly lead in a little bit of light that for one time expenses it would be OK. Um, the house wanted to tap it, you know, various times anywhere between two and $4 billion. They went up settling on, tapping it for about a 1,000,000,000 in the final settlement. So the way to look at this is two things. One teacher. Retirement is something that the legislators are very careful with because it does hit on teachers. Even though they have cut, they are, they’re still gonna have some cuts in the benefits. Um, but the second thing is that the house doing this is definitely, you know, a shot fired across the bow of the senate. Ah, that they wanted that they want to go back to the rainy day

[0:18:56 Josh] fund. What? What? I mean, what’s like, I guess, is kind of nice is the right word. What’s nice about this sort of this thing is it does illustrate the fact that, you know, this isn’t the tensions is going on between the House and Senate aren’t just about ends. There also about means it’s more. It’s more complicated than just about. You know, what they are aren’t gonna pass on sort of social issues is actually about you know, how they’re gonna do things that they actually agree on so I mean, these these disagreements run pretty deep.

[0:19:20 Jim] Yeah, And this is, you know, and these kinds of financial disagreements are fed by, ah, baseline consensus in the majority party in both houses that they’re not going to raise taxes, and they’re not going to go and do anything that create other sources of new revenue for government. So there have been caught every session in the last decade, if not a little bit Mawr trying to figure out how they’re going to make ends me without using the main tools that government has, which which are various forms of taxation. Um, well, close to they have one mawr. Ah, kind of interesting bit of politics that goes to that. The topic that I guess we can’t nobody talks about Texas politics right now can do anything without mentioning bathroom legislation. Transgender people access the bathrooms and how that’s playing out this center. It’s a been a this session. It’s been a ah, a matter of statewide attention and focus, obviously, and it’s getting lots of national attention. The latest episode, and that was was fairly interesting in the ah letter was issued that was signed by numerous members of the oil and gas industry came in Houston. Include came out of Houston, but including the heads of some of the biggest oil companies that operate in the state. Exxon, Mobil, Shell, British Petroleum. Bp, Um, in which they urged the governor and the Legislature

[0:20:50 Josh] a tank of anything. The letters to the governor and lieutenant

[0:20:52 Jim] to not pass a. You noted to be wary of passing any bills that are seen as discriminatory be. That’s not good for the business climate in this state.

[0:21:02 Josh] It makes it hard to recruit. Talent was the main argument that

[0:21:04 Jim] and so this moves the ball forward in an interesting way, I mean, and there’s been an extended discussion in Texas and and in the national press about the degree to which the business interest that live primarily in the Republican Party in the state are aligned with the Republican Party in the state. We’re willing to expend some of their political capital to oppose, you know, quote unquote bathroom legislation. There have been some hope, high profile opposition from some of the sports organizations, I guess notably the NFL in the N. B. A. Thean was involved in terms of location of the tournament, particularly when this kind of legislation came up in North Carolina. Their participation been a little bit more muted in Texas, Right? Um, one of the big but not the only kind of umbrella organization business organizations in the state. The Texas Association of Business had kind of taken the point on opposing SB six and bathroom legislation during the regular session and had kind of a rocky time of it. They promoted a report that had been done at another by some students. Is a class project at another university whose name we won’t mention with State adds, um, and got basically in trouble because the much of the data in that report was out of day. Some of it was inaccurate, but a lot of it was simply out of date, and they had promoted this this anyway. But overall there, a lot of people, including the speaker of the House, had been noticing that while there had been some proclamations that really hadn’t been a lot of money spent and a lot of effort made to really go to the wall on this, high tech companies had been pretty involved in the opposition. Ah, again is Josh was saying, you know, on the basis of recruitment and to some degree, their image with consumer markets. But by and buys,

[0:23:05 Josh] Hargett was there to me. I mean, yeah. I mean, the business opposition was really, you know, in a lot of ways, minimized to the Texas Association of Business and a lot, you know, and then additionally sort of target and some high tech brands. Which is why star the introduction of you know, more of a pillar of the Texas economy and business community. Stepping in was sort of big scene is a big deal,

[0:23:25 Jim] right? The oil, I mean, the oil and gas industry and heavy. And the more you know that we call that, you know, the heavy industrials thing. People like the text association of manufacturers have been much more muted on this. And, you know, it’s led to a discussion of why this was so some misguided discussion. I think, you know, does this didn’t mean that the business community had lost power in the Republican Party because Dan Patrick was pursuing this overall, it was pursuing was leading the fight on this in spite of business. A lot a lot of people behind the scenes saying, You know, this isn’t important us. And in fact we don’t think it’s a very good idea. So oil and gas coming out really a signaled a lot more willingness on, you know, one of these stalwarts of Republican business interests in the state coming out publicly against the bill. And it is also re raised these questions with role in business, role of business,

[0:24:19 Josh] right? And then they think, you know, yesterday this was kind of a big deal. And if you were, if you go Google it today, you’ll see you know, articles in The Washington Post and there’s an A P article will be something on, you know, sort of CNN and all the various national outlets as well as the local Ah, press about this. And I mean, the initial reaction has been a little too simplistic. Which is to say, you know, basically well, oil and gas, you know, equals, you know, basically the main Republican funding mechanism. So therefore, now they’re in trouble. You know, that’s that’s one way to look at it. But it would be it would be wrong, you know? First of all, you know. I mean, the question is this Does this change everything for for Republican? That’s the question people are asking this change the calculation. And the answer is, you know, not really. I mean, the fact is, everybody who was aligned up against this before oil and gas go involved is still lined up against everybody. Who’s for it is most likely going to still before it. The only thing that this really probably does is, you know, maybe reinforce some of the resistance in the house. Right? So the members there were special Republican members in the House who are not interested in this legislation and gives them a little more cover to say, You know, now you know, if Exxon and Shell are against this, too. I mean, you know, this is getting to be ridiculous. You can’t You can’t point to this and say, Well, it’s really just this narrow slice of the business community,

[0:25:30 Jim] a bunch of pointy headed, high tech people that came from California. Quote unquote is one thing. When you’re looking at the opposition of you know Apple and and the high tech companies, it’s another thing, you know. I mean, I still think it’s probably it changes the quick. I think it changes the equation a little bit. Mawr in the sense that yes, it gives the people that not only were opposed to it, but the people that don’t want to vote on it and want the economic argument to be taken more seriously. You know, a bit mawr to stand on

[0:26:05 Josh] you, and that’s what I mean, that I mean, it’s a good point of the key. There is the people who don’t want to vote on it because the thing that you know, I think is important understand about interest group politics, right? I mean, it’s very, you know, I think when people think about the role of business and government, they imagine some guy walking up to a legislator with a briefcase full of, you know, cash and saying, You know, vote this way, do this thing for May And you know, and here you go and really, you know, first of all, one that’s illegal to you know, there’s that, but to you know, a lot of the time the influence that goes on between their powerful actors and politicians and you know where the political process is one you know, extremely multifaceted and complex and has a lot of entry points. And two is usually a lot more subtle. And a lot of the times you know you can be. You could be a legislator taking the position of, you know, let’s say agreeing with, you know, the CEOs of Exxon Mobil, Andi and Shell, etcetera. And all you really want to do is just not have a vote

[0:27:01 Jim] because you want to get re elected

[0:27:02 Josh] because you wanna get reelected. You support the idea of like, let’s just take let’s just table. This use is this issue, and this is why it’s sort of hard to actually sort of suss out. The relationship between interest groups and government has got a lot of times. What’s successful is was are the things that don’t happen. Well, there’s

[0:27:17 Jim] and there’s a lot of you know, and there’s a lot of conflict between different interest groups, and I think that that was really and and interest groups in the big business interest groups. They have multifaceted agendas, many of which are directly related to their bottom line. And, you know, to my mind is, you know, I mean that that was kind of driving some of the business reticence during the regular session during the regular session where you have an open agenda. You know, if you’re you know, even the high tech companies which were a little more raised their head above the hedge a little more on this issue than a lot of the can. A lot of other issues that they were interested in and they couldn’t, you know, investment. Knowing full well that the lieutenant this was very important to the lieutenant governor and lieutenant governor has a lot of influence over what moves in.

[0:28:03 Josh] The distinction is again, you know? So the first distinction is the fact that Exxon and these, you know, sort of get more pillars of the Texas economy, came out during the special session, but not the regular.

[0:28:14 Jim] That’s right. That’s right. But

[0:28:14 Josh] the other piece of that, too, is the fact that people been highlighting during the regular session when business opposition was registered, it was usually registered under the names of the businesses and not into the names of the CEOs of these businesses and specific individuals who are actually sort of, you know, the ones you know Mawr active. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I think it is different. I mean, does point out, you know, sort of the difference between saying, you know, this is something that my shareholders, you know, feel is important. And but, you know, we’re okay versus say, No, I actually, Personally, I’m putting my name on this being a problem, you know? You mean

[0:28:46 Jim] well, I think we should go back to this special session point, cause that’s what that’s what we kind of you know. So, basically, you know, these guys have a lot on the table during the unrestricted agenda struggle for a did you know to shape the agenda and for legislation in the regular session

[0:28:59 Josh] regulator regulatory policy, tax policy, etcetera

[0:29:02 Jim] in a special session where, you know, there are only a certain number of things and you’re not having to balance trying to move other legislation. At least in the short term, you have a bit more leeway, Teoh. You know, perhaps, at least in the short term, do something that that the leadership of one of one or both of the chambers parties don’t like. And I think that’s probably affecting the timing of the oil and gas because clearly oil and gas, you know, we want to go into a had other stuff on the agenda. Last time they had a couple of of big items that they were interested in. So, you know, the oil and gas coming out, I think makes it that much. You know, it s so if we then take that and look at where the bathroom bill or bathroom legislation is right now. It’s been passed out of the Senate. It doesn’t even have a committee hearing yet in the house

[0:29:55 Josh] if it doesn’t very late.

[0:29:56 Jim] So I think all things being equal, if you have to look at the this signaling that is sending a clear message from the oil and gas industry, um, on where they are on this and ask, very simply, does that make it more likely or less likely, that the bill moves more rapidly in the house? You can’t guarantee less, but it certainly doesn’t mean mawr.

[0:30:21 Josh] Yeah, I mean, the only reason, you know. Yeah, right. And the only reason you might not be sure that it was less would be because it wasn’t gonna move it all to begin with

[0:30:28 Jim] right? Exactly. So it may not be decisive, but it But it certainly adds to, you know, the, you know, the the unwillingness of Chairman Byron Cook, who has lots of reasons to not move that bill. And Byron Cook is the chair of the State Affairs Committee in the House that that bill has been referred to. Um, so it’s interesting to watch that, though, and there’s a good reason that that got a lot of national attention. I think I think we’re gonna call it. Ah, we’re gonna call it a week, covered a lot of ground, and we’ll be back next week. Followed the news and keep hitting those deadlines in the class. Second Reading Podcast is a production of Texas Politics Project and the Project 2021 Development Studio at the University of Texas at Austin.