A chat with Greg Cox about producing a daily Texas politics newsletter, and the state of play on the big issues in the state legislature

00;00;00;09 – 00;00;05;25
Jim Henson
Welcome to the second Reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

00;00;05;28 – 00;00;16;15
Speaker 2
The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America.

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Speaker 3
It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution, they have become the norm.

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Speaker 2
At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

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Jim Henson
And welcome back to the Second Reading Podcast. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. On campus today. Very pleased to be joined by a guest, Greg Cox. Thanks for coming down today, Greg.

00;00;47;16 – 00;00;49;15
Greg Cox
Yeah, thanks for having really appreciate it.

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Jim Henson
So so Greg served as special assistant to AG and then Governor Abbott took some time to go back to law school and a law degree from Baylor University. What is the Baylor thing system? Okay. Yeah.

00;01;03;06 – 00;01;06;27
Greg Cox
So it’s an open hand, you know. It’s simple.

00;01;06;28 – 00;01;26;14
Jim Henson
Okay. It’s simple. You don’t have to know none of that other nonsense. He came back to Austin, where he served as chief of staff, then attorney general, then associate general counsel for the Lower Colorado River authority, better known to those of you hang out in parks and stuff is the Lcra. Also serve as interim chief of staff, at the Health and Human Services Commission.

00;01;26;14 – 00;01;42;29
Jim Henson
And. Timing is everything, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. As part of that gig, he helped coordinate the agency’s role in the state’s response to the Covid 19 pandemic. I kind of want to touch on that a little bit. So, Welcome. It’s really it’s really nice to have you here. And congratulations on the newsletter. Yeah.

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Greg Cox
Thanks so much.

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Jim Henson
Let’s start with the newsletter. One of the reasons that it really occurred to me to invite you here is feels like you’re getting pretty good uptake, and not because I’m tracking your traffic or anything, but people are mentioning it, you know, is I in the capital circles here in Austin? It’s coming up. You know, I’ve done I’ve been doing the moderating panels for Pat.

00;02;06;12 – 00;02;36;28
Jim Henson
You got a fan in Brad Johnson at The Texan who has mentioned you on the last two of those things that we’ve done. It seems like in a pretty short amount of time because you just launched in January in this instantiation, you made a pretty good splash. So, you know, we were talking before we came on the the media shift to newsletters, podcasts, other targeted media has been going on for a while, but it’s it’s a thing and I’m curious about a few things.

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Jim Henson
First of all, how you decided to commit to this after a career doing other things?

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Greg Cox
Yeah, I mean I, I don’t think of myself as a media guy more. I kind of made a commitment at the beginning of this year to just to write more. And so as we were talking before I was writing a kind of a weekly thing maybe 18 months ago, and I gave it up because it was just kind of taking a lot of time and stuff to do that stuff and practice law full time and, and when I gave it up, I got a lot of responses like, hey, why did you do this?

00;03;09;00 – 00;03;27;15
Greg Cox
And so I kind of thought, oh, well, maybe, maybe I shouldn’t give that up. So yeah, at the beginning of this year, after, you know, talking to a few people, and I just felt like there was maybe some room for me to write, and I just like to write, and it’s a habit I wanted to form. And so I’m not very smart about anything else.

00;03;27;15 – 00;03;35;21
Greg Cox
So, I figured, All right, I’m just going to write about the things I know. And if people read it, great. And yeah, it’s it’s gotten a good response.

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Jim Henson
So, so so tell us a little bit about and work you know, the plug part. Tell us where they can find the newsletter and sign up for it.

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Greg Cox
Yeah. Greg Cox dot law Greg Scott love you.

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Jim Henson
So tell us a little bit about what you’re trying to bring to this. As we were saying beforehand, it is it’s not a, you know, look, Texas politics believe me, I think I think it’s a it’s a niche.

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Speaker 3
Yeah. Right. Yes.

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Jim Henson
You know, you go in and out of people’s minds in the bigger picture, but it’s it’s a niche. I’m wondering that in the space that we’re in, what you’re trying to bring to your readers.

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Greg Cox
I first and foremost, my goal is to just be helpful. I think there’s a lot of information out there. There’s a lot of things happening, especially during a session. There’s a lot of people saying a lot of things. I mean, you have testimony, fluid debates, social media, news reports. And so, I mean, it takes a lot of time if you’re doing this professionally, if you if you pay attention to this stuff, eventually you just don’t have time to consume all the information you need to consume or you would like to consume.

00;04;41;23 – 00;05;03;07
Greg Cox
And so my goal is to just be helpful and kind of synthesize some things, capture some general themes, some quotes, some some mechanics like hey, here’s what’s moving now. Things like that. And also try to connect it, you know, try to apply it to the broader Texas ecosystem in terms of courts. You know, I call it the policy life cycle.

00;05;03;08 – 00;05;31;09
Greg Cox
You know, you have your campaigns, your legislative sessions, your agency action, your lawsuits. And so everything kind of is always at some stage in that flow. And so I try to capture all that and put it in its rightful place and just be helpful and that way. And, and really it’s creating something that I would use myself if that I thought, man, if I woke up and I just have this type of information at my fingertips, that’d be really helpful for my, my day to day living.

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Jim Henson
But then you’ve been I mean, this is like the evolution of clips, right?

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Speaker 3
Right. Yeah. I mean.

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Jim Henson
The whole newsletter thing is very much.

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Greg Cox
You know.

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Jim Henson
Yeah. And for the, you know, for the youngins out there, you know, I mean, if you worked in the legislature not that long ago, you know, you get up in the morning at a at a pile of actual clips, right? We’re photocopies and things like this. So, you know, I, I’m personally interested in we were talking about this again before we came on.

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Jim Henson
You know, what’s your workflow like? I mean, even if you we were again we were talking before this. Even if you write reasonably quickly from the research and the information gathering to the checking, all the primary sources to getting the final product out, this can be pretty time consuming, even if you write reasonably quickly.

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Greg Cox
It is very time consuming and if you know anybody that writes or likes to write, is usually a stickler and pretty detail oriented, and you don’t want to push publish until it’s perfect. The same way. And I feel like every day there’s a new idea of, like, I could add this and I get, you know, and it’s it’s a little bit of trying to just keep it simple, which is very hard to do.

00;06;35;29 – 00;06;56;19
Greg Cox
But my workflow is, you know, I do my I practice my law during the day. And then usually about 330 or 4 in the afternoon, I’ll, I’ll try to shift and just get kind of up to speed on things that are going on and get kind of a rough draft together. And then, you know, I’m going to make myself sound like a psycho.

00;06;56;21 – 00;07;05;24
Greg Cox
But I wake up at about 415, 430, and I put it all together and I write it and and then I try to get up by seven.

00;07;06;00 – 00;07;28;01
Jim Henson
Well, you may you may be self-conscious about being a psycho, but that was my big question because I was, you know, when I was doing this more regularly. And, you know, I’m constantly aspiring to relaunch our newsletter a little more frequently. I’ll never I’ll never do it daily. I’d be a triumph to do it once a week. I, you know, I was noting, you know, you must either write very early in the morning or late at night.

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Greg Cox
Sometimes both.

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Jim Henson
Yeah. Because you go out because you go out pretty early and your stuff is usually pretty current. I mean, you’re clearly checking to yell at, you know, checking whatever you’re using to track stuff early in the morning, right?

00;07;39;06 – 00;07;40;09
Greg Cox
Yeah.

00;07;40;11 – 00;07;56;06
Jim Henson
All right. So I, I’ve indulged my puck of the ringer. Media commentary. Jones. Enough. Well, let’s talk a little bit about politics and policy, which is what people are tracking in your newsletter. And we’ll probably come back to how you position yourself and all this. I think it’s bound to come up. But let’s start with school choice and.

00;07;56;06 – 00;08;29;04
Jim Henson
Yes. Right. So, you know, this has been in the arc of your career as I read it, based on your bio. You know, this has been a pretty present issue for a long time, recurring in this morning’s mailer, you note that there are now 75 bill authors on HB three, the House vehicle, the House USA bill. And you know, I, I’m picking this up from a lot of people, but it was very funny the way you said, you know, it’s a little anticlimactic now that, you know, we know that they’ve got you know, it’s probably going to pass to me.

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Jim Henson
This is all seemed a little overdetermined since the elections, but we’ve all been hedging. You know, because it’s we do we have seen what’s happened before even if what the numbers look like. But I’m wondering how hard you think based on your read of all this, to get the final product to the governor’s desk in terms of, you know, how conflicting the conference committee will be, it opens up a lot of other questions.

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Jim Henson
State of play between the House of Senate, House and Senate on this and more generally, it does feel like it’s the details are let are yet to be determined, but it’s kind of a done deal.

00;09;06;06 – 00;09;21;25
Greg Cox
That’s my read of it. You know, I think I’ve heard some people say you can’t count your chickens before they hatch. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that, you know, be careful. But when you have 75 people sign on as a coauthor to a bill, you know, how often do you see somebody pull their name off as a coauthor?

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Greg Cox
And as I said this morning, I think it’ll probably end up being over 80. That’s my guess. I think it’s a done deal. I think, you know, at the high level, the legislature, both chambers have decided that this is we’re going to pass this. And yeah, it’s just a matter of hammer out the details. And there really there are some details to hammer out.

00;09;40;01 – 00;09;59;18
Greg Cox
I think the the bills are more similar than they are different. And, you know, none of this stuff happens in a vacuum. So it depends on what else is going on that, you know, are they going to hold this up or what’s going to happen in conference committee or property taxes come into play. And so, you know, it’s it’s a it’s a, it’s a Tetris game.

00;09;59;18 – 00;10;13;02
Greg Cox
And, you know, how does this hp3 fit into the larger dynamic between the House and the Senate? And so, I think a lot of, a lot of that is yet to be determined. But I’d put my money on, on I get through some in some form or fashion.

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Jim Henson
As you’re down here stirring around in terms of the tea leaves we read that are related to this, you know, not happening in a vacuum. And, you know, you worked in the executive branch for a while. What’s your read of how the relationships are right now among the big three? I mean, obviously better for now, it seems.

00;10;31;23 – 00;10;51;29
Greg Cox
Yeah, I’ve said and I’ve, I’ve since I’ve said this in my newsletter, I’ve, I’ve heard other people kind of clue into this, but it seems like there’s some sort of either explicit or unspoken agreement to just get some things done. You know, obviously they’re having breakfast again. Everybody knows that, which is a big it’s.

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Jim Henson
Funny just how freighted that breakfast has become. Yeah. You know, all I took for them would not have it for a few years. And I was like, oh, they’re going to breakfast now.

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Greg Cox
It’s great. Yeah. I’m a big breakfast guy, so I’m happy for. Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, and I think it goes back to a larger vibe. And if I could use a young phrase at the Capitol, which is I think everybody’s tired. It was a long slog of an election season in 24. It was a long slog of a session season to 23.

00;11;20;20 – 00;11;39;20
Greg Cox
You know, there’s a statewide cycle coming up in 26. And I think I mean, I think everybody’s tired and maybe just wants to have their summer vacation. And I mean, you know, there’s other factors at play, obviously, but there’s been a lot of fighting and it seems like now is a moment for let’s let’s do some let’s do something.

00;11;39;23 – 00;12;12;03
Jim Henson
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I’ve been talking to reporters about there are a couple of reporters the last few days, and it came up in a panel I did earlier this week. But I mean, I think there is this sense that when you see the governor being so aggressive towards Democrats, setting aside the degree of aggressiveness and how people read that on social media in the last couple of weeks, but the fact of that kind of refocusing the political fire on Democrats seems to speak to some of that a little more resumption to or an attempt to get back to a normal pattern.

00;12;12;09 – 00;12;40;10
Greg Cox
Yeah, absolutely. And I can certainly see I don’t have any I don’t have any insight to this, but I can certainly see kind of maybe some of the agreement between Speaker Burrows and the governor is perhaps something along the lines of, hey, you take care of the Democrats. Let me let me work the Republican votes. And, you know, because, you know, there’s been a lot of I mean, he he unseated 11 of 15 targeted House members, Republicans last campaign cycle.

00;12;40;10 – 00;12;55;19
Greg Cox
And I think, you know, the speaker’s job is to kind of smooth some of that over. And so, you know, he I can see him kind of standing in the gap between his Republican House colleagues and, and the governor. So maybe that’s maybe that’s a factor, maybe that’s at play.

00;12;55;23 – 00;12;59;11
Jim Henson
Well, which in and of itself is kind of a return to a more normal pattern.

00;12;59;11 – 00;13;00;25
Greg Cox
Yeah, right. I mean, I’m saying.

00;13;00;27 – 00;13;21;09
Jim Henson
Yeah, you know, the desire for the speaker to protect their members despite whatever else is, is yeah, sure is going on there. You know, and it also just seems that the, the other piece of that and we can do this as a transition. And you’ve written about this in this letter to Lieutenant Governor Patrick. Seems like he’s pivoted a bit, at least from the public attacks on House Republicans.

00;13;21;09 – 00;13;40;22
Jim Henson
And that have varied, I think, from direct attacks to warning shots to indirect bank shots, etc., to the cause of the moment for him, which seems to be the lottery commission. Talk about what you make of this lottery committee. You know, you’ve worked in agencies before. You, you know, tell me what you make of this lottery commission issue and what’s going on there.

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Greg Cox
Oh man.

00;13;41;26 – 00;13;43;26
Jim Henson
Maybe there’s a lot I think there’s a lot to unpack.

00;13;43;26 – 00;14;09;15
Greg Cox
There’s a lot to unpack. I think, you know, the most logical, simple explanation is it’s just good governance right now. I mean, so there’s something maybe nefarious going on. And so state leaders are going, hey, we need to investigate this. I mean, at a baseline, that’s the minimum thing that’s going on. Now, you could start to kind of game theory, you know, connecting the gambling issue and all this stuff.

00;14;09;15 – 00;14;32;12
Greg Cox
But I would just start with, you know, there are some seemingly out of state actors or groups that are whether legally or illegally, we don’t perhaps quite, you know, attempting to game the Texas Lottery. And so I think state leaders are going, hey, let’s think about this. But yeah, you know, it’s I’m going to here’s my devil’s advocate position on the politics of it.

00;14;32;14 – 00;14;43;08
Greg Cox
Yeah. A lot of people view this as the lieutenant governor, perhaps putting a final death nail and casino gambling or sports betting or, you know, right.

00;14;43;08 – 00;14;46;09
Jim Henson
Expanded gambling in some. Yeah. Of which there are many proposals.

00;14;46;09 – 00;15;10;28
Greg Cox
Exactly. Yeah. I don’t know, maybe it could be the latest theory I’m toying with is it could be kind of opening the door to it. And what I mean by that is look how good we regulate gambling. Now, you know, and I think if you’re going to allow gambling into the state, you have to first prove and neutralize the argument that the lottery commission is nefarious.

00;15;10;28 – 00;15;14;29
Greg Cox
Why would we let more gaming? Why would we let gambling in even more.

00;15;15;01 – 00;15;16;05
Jim Henson
If we’re watching? What if we.

00;15;16;05 – 00;15;39;02
Greg Cox
Botching what we have? So, you know, perhaps it’s it’s just a way to neutralize that argument and to, you know, show that we can regulate it. We we’re keeping a close eye on it, you know, communicate to your primary voters and to the, the potential casino operators that we may toy with this idea. I may we may get a bill in committee or a hearing.

00;15;39;05 – 00;15;47;00
Greg Cox
But we’re going to be this is kind of the this is the ethos of the gaming right issue right now. So.

00;15;47;02 – 00;15;59;04
Jim Henson
Yeah, I, I mean, I’ve, I’ve read that argument and there’s, I mean, I think some of that is just if you’re open to gaming, that makes a lot of sense. But I mean, I don’t think the lieutenant governor is particularly open to it.

00;15;59;04 – 00;16;03;23
Speaker 3
No, I mean that that’s yeah, that’s that’s kind of the problem to me.

00;16;03;24 – 00;16;12;28
Jim Henson
Yeah. Because that was the you know, maybe I think about this into rushing away after all the years of watching it. But I, the first thing I thought was like, well, yeah, this is a pretty good bank shot.

00;16;13;00 – 00;16;13;17
Greg Cox
Yeah.

00;16;13;19 – 00;16;36;25
Jim Henson
For to in a sense contaminate the whole discussion and divert energy around it. And I, we, you know, almost the opposite. You say, well, maybe, but until we get this squared away, you know, we can’t really be talking about other stuff, right? I mean, basically thinking I think, you know, as with politics, some of these multifaceted issues like this, I think it could be a little of both, right?

00;16;36;25 – 00;17;05;19
Jim Henson
I mean, the lieutenant governor can be approaching in a certain way on a certain time horizon, you know, without presupposing what the lieutenant governor is going to do in the next cycle. There is a certain amount of, you know, not on my watch here. And this pretty much guarantees, I think probably not on his watch, certainly not this session, I think I, I don’t see how I mean, it would it would be an incredible feat of political jujitsu to turn this into a good thing for the pro gaming interest, I think.

00;17;05;19 – 00;17;13;26
Jim Henson
Yeah. I mean, I mean, not discounting kind of what you’re saying about the, the housecleaning thing, but in the short term, it’s got to make it harder. This session does. Yeah.

00;17;13;26 – 00;17;34;15
Greg Cox
Oh yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. But if you’re going to eventually have gaming or casinos in the way the House bill is written right now and it’s, it’s, it’s heavily regulated. And so I mean, obviously one of the arguments against it has been, well, you can’t even regulate the lottery very well or, you know, it’s it’s, you know, there’s issues there.

00;17;34;15 – 00;17;43;06
Greg Cox
Yeah. And so and and I could see two. Well I mean there’s a lot of you can spend a lot of time game. Yeah.

00;17;43;06 – 00;18;06;05
Jim Henson
You could have a lot of rabbit holes and it’s, it’s still pretty underdetermined. But I guess the, the political part of this, you know, I also it was hard for me not to think about the current governor making such a big play on this. I mean, because, you know, and it was effective. I mean, the video reminded everybody, I think that the tenant governor has a media background and an extensive one.

00;18;06;07 – 00;18;18;02
Jim Henson
I mean, the whole approach of him of that video and going to the local person and ambushing is a little bit of a strong word, but they’re going in and talking to the manager of the game store and the guy looking a little deer in the headlights.

00;18;18;02 – 00;18;18;17
Greg Cox
And yeah.

00;18;18;22 – 00;18;45;14
Jim Henson
You know suggesting they talk to his lawyer or whatever that was straight out of local TV, TV news service journalism, you know, investigators and defenders and, you know, all of these brands that the the locals have. And, you know, not very long after Governor Abbott kind of signaled an openness to sports betting. It’s hard not to think through the bad old days when we thought about everybody in constant state of contention.

00;18;45;16 – 00;19;07;19
Jim Henson
And I think, you know, to me it was a little bit of a corrective as everybody’s going, hey they’re having breakfast. You know the underlying currency are still there. And I you know, I think to me I always kind of keep in mind that’s always a little that the relationships among the, the big three leaders are inherently caused by constitutional design.

00;19;07;22 – 00;19;12;22
Jim Henson
A little unstable, the unstable triangle, you know, in that sense, yeah.

00;19;12;24 – 00;19;35;17
Greg Cox
You could speak a lot to that. I think one of the things that I don’t hear people comment on very much is the relationship between the governor and the lieutenant governor for so long. I mean, they’ve they’ve kind of been and, and if you really wanted to start to read some of the tea leaves or, or play this out, there’s been a long dance between the lieutenant governor and the governor.

00;19;35;17 – 00;19;52;23
Greg Cox
And I was always wondering, is Dan Patrick ever going to primary have it and never has and never has really indicated. And you and you kind of wonder, I think, in the back of everybody’s mind, like, this may be the last chance if he if he was thinking about that or if he wants to, this may be the last chance.

00;19;52;23 – 00;20;12;23
Greg Cox
So what other issue is there to kind of create separation between the two and maybe a room for a primary? Although that wouldn’t be my guess. I don’t I don’t think that’s there, but you know, there’s always every session, there’s always that discussion of, you know, is the lieutenant going to run again? If he does, is he going to run against Abbott?

00;20;12;25 – 00;20;36;28
Jim Henson
You know, I you know, and this just speaks to you too. Your your time in the business, I’m often struck by how powerful those pretty speculative notions become in the way that people actually strategize and behave. I mean, I was I remember being in an event during, oh, I guess it would have been the 20. Maybe it was even then.

00;20;36;28 – 00;20;57;01
Jim Henson
That would have been the 2019 session, probably. And sitting at a table full of lobbyists and to a person. And there was a certain self-selection there that I will give up. But there was a sense that, oh, absolutely. You know, we are handicapping what the governor’s doing based on what we read is his intention to run for president.

00;20;57;03 – 00;20;58;02
Speaker 3

00;20;58;05 – 00;21;05;06
Jim Henson
You know, and I and at the time, I felt like there’s really other than the fact that the governor was not ruling it out.

00;21;05;08 – 00;21;05;28
Greg Cox

00;21;06;00 – 00;21;29;17
Jim Henson
Which I you know, it was not nothing, but it still seemed, you know, a little a little presumptuous and kind of odd to me that you would actually integrate, you know, be people would be so sure about that and that it was affecting how they did their job in the advocacy realm and how they strategized, because it always felt to me like that was not the most likely thing to happen.

00;21;29;20 – 00;21;36;27
Greg Cox
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s amazing sometimes how, the silliest sounding things kind of come, come to be. Yeah.

00;21;36;27 – 00;21;46;23
Jim Henson
And maybe that’s the other side of that, I guess. But I mean, and. Yeah, but thing I was, I don’t want to say it was silly to think that. Yeah, but it was the sense of sureness that I saw in people that didn’t make a ton of sense to me.

00;21;47;00 – 00;21;47;21
Greg Cox
Yeah.

00;21;47;24 – 00;22;08;25
Jim Henson
And I sometimes wonder about that in terms of the I’ve thought that before about the lieutenant governor being kind of dead set on, on taking Abbott’s job. Now, he he may have been very interested in doing that. And the fact that the governor did exactly what we were talking about and fairly effectively made it more difficult for him to do that.

00;22;08;28 – 00;22;16;08
Jim Henson
You know, sort of the maybe the other kind of case example that, you know, if you plan for contingencies and incorporate it, well, then it works.

00;22;16;10 – 00;22;17;12
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00;22;17;14 – 00;22;37;10
Jim Henson
Right. Yeah. But that didn’t seem to be the case with the Abbott in the presidency thing. So do you see a similar path right now as you’re watching the property tax debate to the choice debate in terms of the ability of the House and the Senate to reconcile different approaches to this, because that really was one of the things that blew up last time.

00;22;37;12 – 00;22;42;10
Jim Henson
But whether it blew up because of that or because of some of these other factors we’re talking about, I think open question.

00;22;42;12 – 00;23;05;13
Greg Cox
Yeah. I mean, you know, all signs point to right now, everybody getting along. And so, I mean, maybe not, you know, getting along in the, in the Sesame Street term, you know, that you would think about that. But there’s there’s going to be some conference committee, there’s going to be a little fireworks. But I mean, ultimately when the, when the, when both budgets came out, they were pretty pretty similar I mean, almost identical.

00;23;05;13 – 00;23;26;07
Greg Cox
Yeah. There just aren’t that many huge details like, like the 23 session and that slog that are, are misaligned. How we get to those. You know, I think right now it’s just the house is pro-business and the Senate wants to wants to do the property tax relief for the homeowners. And that’s kind of the the difference in a lot.

00;23;26;07 – 00;23;32;01
Greg Cox
I mean, that’s the ideological difference. And I think they find probably ultimately find a way to to meet in the middle.

00;23;32;08 – 00;23;35;24
Jim Henson
Well, we although we kind of thought that last time it took a while to do it. Right.

00;23;35;26 – 00;23;45;00
Greg Cox
Yeah. That’s true. I know, you know, yeah. We’re sitting here still somewhat well-rested in late February. So, as people get more tired and.

00;23;45;02 – 00;23;45;17
Jim Henson
Cranky.

00;23;45;17 – 00;23;49;12
Greg Cox
Cranky and more easily able to fight. Yeah, that may not.

00;23;49;15 – 00;24;07;13
Jim Henson
Be indulging the not the best versions of themselves. Yes. Surely a good way of putting that. I guess I want to close with kind of one. I kind of an open ended, you know, dealer’s choice question. We’re we’ve talked about a lot of the obvious things. What are you watching that’s kind of lurking out there? You think.

00;24;07;15 – 00;24;40;08
Greg Cox
Oh, that’s a good question. You know, one thing I always look for is the things that are being said and the things that are not being said. And so politics to me, being a lawyer and a a litigator is kind of just like fun litigation. And so, you know, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about and talking with folks about a lot is and I don’t know if this is an issue or answer your question, but, you know, term limits is kind of comes it comes in a big way, and then it goes away and it comes in big wave and it goes away.

00;24;40;11 – 00;25;07;10
Greg Cox
And you know, there’s there’s a big term limits push at the federal level. And we don’t hear much about it at the state level. And I think, you know, the, the lack of term limits, you know, when you have, you know, Texas is a state with just people hold office for a long time. And that, you know, to maintain office, to maintain political office, you kind of gotta have something to fight with.

00;25;07;13 – 00;25;33;29
Greg Cox
And so I think that creates a lot of the dynamics at the legislature where after a while, you know, it’s it’s tough to fight with the other side. So you fight with the opposite chamber or the other branch of the government. And so, you know, I think there’s a lot of lurking kind of inner branch issues a little bit, even even with the courts, you know, I think the, you know, Chief Justice black box address yesterday was, was pretty interesting.

00;25;33;29 – 00;25;34;15
Greg Cox
We had to talk.

00;25;34;15 – 00;25;37;10
Jim Henson
A little bit about that. You wrote interestingly about that in the newsletter.

00;25;37;10 – 00;25;55;17
Greg Cox
Yeah, I think we have a new we have a very young chief justice of the Supreme Court who has made it his top priority in his first, you know, 50 summer days on the job of increasing judicial pay. I think something that, you know, I see it as a lawyer. So maybe I have some, you know, recency bias or something.

00;25;55;17 – 00;26;27;04
Greg Cox
But, there is a frustration with courts. You can hear it in the governor how he talks about bail reform. You know, lieutenant governor talks about bail reform. There’s a lot of frustration with judges, especially on the criminal side. And, you know, I think, I think it is tied to judicial pay and the quality of, you know, I just had a conversation with a friend yesterday who there was an open judge seat, coming up in Tarrant County, and people were trying to get him to do it.

00;26;27;04 – 00;26;49;07
Greg Cox
And he’s just like, I just can’t justify that. I can’t make that move right now. So I think courts, there’s been a maybe a lack of focus on courts. You know, you hear a lot of this tcpa litigation issue. I think there’s there’s going to be more of a focus on courts. And we’ve seen the business courts and the new 15th Court of Appeals.

00;26;49;10 – 00;27;02;22
Greg Cox
And so I, I think that’s a real licensing paralegals access to justice. I mean, if Texas wants to, you know, keep doing what they’re doing, I think we got a you can hear a lot of court murmurs.

00;27;02;25 – 00;27;11;01
Jim Henson
You know, Chief Justice Jefferson kind of beat that drum or not all of those drums, but some of them for quite a while and kind of didn’t get anywhere.

00;27;11;04 – 00;27;12;12
Greg Cox
Yeah. I mean it’s yeah.

00;27;12;12 – 00;27;33;07
Jim Henson
He, you know he was vocal and dedicated. It seemed to me a lot of time to it and just didn’t really take I mean part of that was probably the timing. It was probably the wrong time for that. In terms of what was going on politically in the state. It was in your newsletter you mentioned something about a you made sort of an aside about a constitutional convention.

00;27;33;10 – 00;27;34;01
Speaker 3
Yes.

00;27;34;03 – 00;27;34;16
Greg Cox
Yes.

00;27;34;16 – 00;27;38;18
Jim Henson
I thought that was you. I mean, because that seems to be lurking in here. Yeah.

00;27;38;18 – 00;27;42;14
Greg Cox
But, yeah, I would, I would argue the Texas Constitution is really messy.

00;27;42;19 – 00;27;43;16
Jim Henson
And you wouldn’t be alone.

00;27;43;16 – 00;28;06;25
Greg Cox
Yes. It’s, you know, the second longest in the country. You know, if you want to get really lawyerly about it, it’s, I think the way it’s structured right now, it kind of it infringes on the legislative function. So I think a lot of people don’t know why they vote on constitutional amendments. You know, they don’t understand the why are we voting on, you know, 14, 15 amendments?

00;28;06;27 – 00;28;29;04
Greg Cox
Do you guys pass law? It’s a very convoluted process that I think is lost on voters. Sometimes it makes for a very long policy process where the legislature has to have a session, pass a bill, put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. It’s it’s a long legal time to, yeah, put a policy in place. The politics around that are interesting.

00;28;29;06 – 00;28;41;12
Greg Cox
You know, getting everybody to agree that we’re going to go sit down and write a new constitution. It’s scary to even think about that, is it? They’ve tried to do it in the 70s and it didn’t work. I think there were 1 or 2 votes shy.

00;28;41;15 – 00;28;47;20
Jim Henson
Yeah, they fell short and then they wound up breaking it up and putting a different version before the voters.

00;28;47;20 – 00;28;48;22
Greg Cox
And yeah.

00;28;48;24 – 00;28;50;17
Jim Henson
Most of them failed. Right.

00;28;50;20 – 00;29;12;01
Greg Cox
And so, you know, it’s I just I think it’s an issue out there. I don’t know if it’ll get serious consideration. You hear people talk about it every now and then. But yeah, the cons is the Texas Constitution is a very interesting document, especially as it relates to the legislative process. I mean, it seems like almost every major piece of legislation has to have a constitutional amendment accompanying it.

00;29;12;04 – 00;29;15;17
Greg Cox
Which is it? Which is interesting when you look at how legislation is.

00;29;15;20 – 00;29;47;15
Jim Henson
And those like, you know, they put them for the voters, the turnout is chronically low, etc. it’s a, you know, it’s a strange system. As I was saying before you went in the internets on the blog, the internet’s a little broken at UT today, and my my notes are a little out of order. But I also, before we go, wanted to ask you, because of your time at HHS during the pandemic, I’m wondering if your spider senses tingling at all about the measles outbreak, about bird flu, about, I mean, the seems, you know, the measles outbreak in particular.

00;29;47;17 – 00;30;02;08
Jim Henson
I think it’s a little bit of a raw shock right now, I think how seriously you’re taking it. And I’m just wondering, given your closeness to that response, how you responding to all this? Are you in Fort Worth? And there was a measles case in Dallas reported yesterday.

00;30;02;14 – 00;30;23;23
Greg Cox
Yeah. It’s interesting I don’t you don’t really hear a lot of chatter about it. So I think people are kind of going, all right, what do we do? I mean, obviously there’s there’s a vaccine. You know, unlike the Covid situation where there was it was a new vaccine. You know, I can’t imagine the vaccine conversation is a nonstarter politically.

00;30;23;25 – 00;30;25;03
Jim Henson
You think because of.

00;30;25;03 – 00;30;27;20
Greg Cox
Because of Covid and just the the the.

00;30;27;21 – 00;30;29;19
Jim Henson
A little more truck in vaccines kept you know.

00;30;29;22 – 00;30;52;03
Greg Cox
Good vaccine. Yeah absolutely. You know all the bills that have passed you know, no no vaccine mandates. You know, no employer mandates, things like that. And so I think it seems like I don’t have any line into this, but it seems like the political strategy is it’s kind of a local strategy. It’s it’s the the state I think will be slower to respond if ever.

00;30;52;03 – 00;31;11;27
Greg Cox
I mean, I know that, you know, I know they’re monitoring it, you know, dishes and but we’ve, we’ve been down this road. We kind of have seen the response. We know what to do, what not to do. It’s not a new I mean, it’s a new outbreak, but it’s not a new disease. And so you know, I don’t know politically what could be done.

00;31;11;29 – 00;31;27;03
Greg Cox
You know, they’re not going to mandate vaccines. Right. So, you know, it’s kind of I don’t know if the thought is like, why say anything? Why does this up again? Why like, do I want to step into this. So you can probably sense some of those conversations and strategies are going on.

00;31;27;10 – 00;31;51;19
Jim Henson
Yeah. I mean that’s that’s an interesting read because it does seem like people are. And you know, without being panicky about it or trying to, you know, I mean, we’ve learned about that too, I think. But, you know, clearly something kind of going on. And it does strike me that we’ve not, as you say, we’ve not heard a lot about it from elected officials or, or state authorities thus far at least that I, that I picked up.

00;31;51;20 – 00;31;52;20
Jim Henson

00;31;52;22 – 00;31;58;25
Greg Cox
Yeah. I, I, I think there’s a lot of probably PTSD from, well that’s.

00;31;58;27 – 00;32;04;05
Jim Henson
That’s how I wanted to ask you that question. Are you hearing the helicopters coming over the trees kind of thing.

00;32;04;09 – 00;32;21;17
Greg Cox
Yeah I think it’s like oh man you got to be kidding me. I we, you know, like taking the issue very seriously, but also, you know, taking the lessons learned from Covid and, you know, it’s it’s it’s measles. I mean, this is the MMR vaccine. This has been around for a long time. This isn’t a a new thing.

00;32;21;17 – 00;32;46;04
Greg Cox
How does this is it the same thing is Covid. Is it different than Covid. Is it what was the cause where it come from. And so I think the lesson from Covid was probably be be slow to speak, be cautious, tread lightly. This is extremely sensitive. This could politically, you know, become a major thing with one, you know, with one step or one comment or something like that.

00;32;46;04 – 00;32;49;10
Greg Cox
So yeah, you can imagine this is,

00;32;49;13 – 00;33;12;29
Jim Henson
Do you think there’s a public health that I mean, this is, you know, asking you you, you know, you’re not Peter Hotez or anything, but, you know, I mean, do you think that there is a little bit of, or all of the is all of the political caution that you’re talking about, that you’re referring to? Does that I mean, in the end, is that going to have a big impact on the public health response, or do you think it’s just going to be more calibrated?

00;33;12;29 – 00;33;21;00
Jim Henson
Or in other words, having gone through all that, are we a little less prepared? Does that make us less prepared?

00;33;21;02 – 00;33;39;03
Greg Cox
I, I think we’re I guess if I’m writing the statement, like if I’m sitting in the governor’s office or HHC, yeah, I guess I’d be asked myself, what do I say? This is not a, you know, hey, we’re going to look into this, try to figure out what this disease is, and we’re going to research it and study it.

00;33;39;09 – 00;33;53;24
Greg Cox
You know what I mean? I mean, obviously you can you can track cases. You can look at the patterns and do all that kind of stuff. But I think, you know, the question is, what what do I have to say on this? That right, isn’t just.

00;33;53;26 – 00;33;54;24
Jim Henson
What they do kind.

00;33;54;24 – 00;33;55;06
Greg Cox
Of, you know.

00;33;55;06 – 00;33;56;05
Jim Henson
This at this stage.

00;33;56;05 – 00;34;04;08
Greg Cox
Right? Hey, you know, keep an eye out, be on alert, wash your hands, keep your kids home if you need to. You know that kind of.

00;34;04;11 – 00;34;05;17
Jim Henson
Know basic stuff, right?

00;34;05;18 – 00;34;31;19
Greg Cox
And you could see maybe, you know, maybe a local declaration for gains county or if needed, you know, if, if some tool needed to be activated or something like that. But yeah, I think the question is, you know, speak slowly. Let’s not, you know, let’s not get everybody riled up like last time. And yeah, maybe a little PTSD is, you know, just from I guess it was five years ago now.

00;34;31;20 – 00;34;58;26
Jim Henson
Yeah. From all that. Yeah. All the political pain that it can be now. You know, there was I mean, I guess what I was getting at it that did turn out to be a public health. Yeah. The big public health issue in a way that, you know, I’m just kind of wondering how how we how we incorporate what I think are very reasonable, practical kind of communications and political strategizing that we’ve learned from that without going too far the other direction.

00;34;58;26 – 00;35;19;23
Jim Henson
Right, right. And it it doesn’t. I’m not you know, I don’t want to be cryptic. I mean, it it feels to me like we’re still in a pretty early stage and that seems like a reasonable response. But to me it does. It does raise the question of, well, when, when is the time to be a little more communicative and a little more proactive, even if there’s some political risk in it.

00;35;19;26 – 00;35;40;21
Greg Cox
Yeah. I think that’s, that’s the question is what when’s where’s the line. At what point do you become hey like do you realize this is going on. Do is anybody going to say anything. And you know there’s stuff happening right now. I mean they’re they’re chatting and talking. I mean, there’s before you ever see a statement on anything, there’s there’s conversations and activity beneath the surface.

00;35;40;24 – 00;35;53;08
Jim Henson
This when there’s a reasonable caution, then turn into the, you know, trying to avoid the risk of unintended consequences. Right. Become complacency. And you’re going to look back. And I wish I’d done that earlier.

00;35;53;11 – 00;35;53;26
Greg Cox
Well and you know.

00;35;53;26 – 00;35;54;14
Jim Henson
You never know.

00;35;54;14 – 00;36;16;18
Greg Cox
Yeah I mean every session there’s there’s an issue that nobody sees coming. In 21 it was, winter storm, you know, and, and I, you know, maybe, maybe this is it, maybe it’s not. But some of the thinking probably is. Okay, we’re on a good path, or we, you know, we’re going down this road. At what point if we if we make measles a statewide issue at the legislature?

00;36;16;18 – 00;36;21;28
Greg Cox
Does it does it derail stuff or, you know, not that that’s the priority. I mean, you know, obviously.

00;36;22;04 – 00;36;24;22
Jim Henson
But but people think about people think about those things and.

00;36;24;24 – 00;36;41;06
Greg Cox
Adults. So what’s the timing of this? And, you know, is this is this the issue that nobody saw coming this session? You know, because every issue there’s every session, there’s that one thing that it’s like, oh, no, we didn’t we didn’t see this coming. So, yeah, we’ll see.

00;36;41;09 – 00;36;44;24
Jim Henson
All right. Greg, thanks for coming down. This has been really I hope you’ll come back sometime. Yeah.

00;36;44;25 – 00;36;46;06
Greg Cox
Thanks for having me. It’s fun. All right.

00;36;46;06 – 00;37;07;14
Jim Henson
Good. We’ll do it again sometime. So thanks to Greg Cox for being here. You can find his his newsletter at Greg Cox dot law. As always, thanks to our excellent audio production team in the dev studio, the College Liberal Arts here at UT Austin, helping us out on a busy and hectic day. And of course, thanks to our listeners for tuning in.

00;37;07;17 – 00;37;27;22
Jim Henson
And if all goes according to plan and you’ve made it this far, we’ll be back next week with another second reading podcast featuring new polling data from the Texas Politics Project. So keep an eye out for that. Talk to you next week. The Second Reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.