ESAs Finally Triumph in the Texas House

[00:00:32] Jim Henson: And welcome back to the second reading podcast on Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Uh, back again with Josh Blank. Welcome back again.

[00:00:44] Jim Henson: Two weeks in a row. It’s a little streak.

[00:00:46] Josh Blank: Yeah. I’m excited. Maybe we’ll keep it going. I don’t know. It’s a

[00:00:48] Jim Henson: little

[00:00:48] Josh Blank: streak. I like when you have guests though, because I don’t have to do it.

[00:00:51] Jim Henson: Well, you know, everybody wins no matter what. Yeah, that’s a good way to, okay. This is not a zero sum game that we’re playing here.

[00:00:57] Josh Blank: Win, win, win.

[00:00:58] Jim Henson: Um,

[00:00:59] Josh Blank: I’m, I’m almost sick of winning.

[00:01:01] Jim Henson: So are you? I was gonna say, are you sick of winning yet? Not yet. Yeah. Yeah, you have. It’s gonna depend on how we Yeah, I was gonna say that retirement question we were discussing earlier, um. So, you know, we’re here the morning after.

[00:01:12] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:13] Jim Henson: Uh, it’s uh, Thursday morning.

[00:01:16] Jim Henson: Last week we were recording as the house was considering the budget, uh, that day. The, they went till about 3:00 AM next morning, passed the budget. Um. Today we record in the aftermath of the house debate and passage of HB two and SB two, the school finance and school choice ESA Bills respectively. Uh, both bills passed.

[00:01:39] Jim Henson: Second reading in the house of the house, passing the ESA bill after a very extended debate. Um. You know, one for the books in the history of Chubb. Uh, so SB SB two passed at about 2:00 AM right? With no democratic amendments, with no democratic amendments and no democratic votes. Right? Interestingly enough, um.

[00:02:04] Jim Henson: You know, let’s talk a little bit about what these bills do. I mean, people kind of know what’s going on here. Yeah. But just highlights. Yeah. Some highlights. Some highlights. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Some highlights.

[00:02:13] Josh Blank: So, HB two, uh, you know, it’s the, it’s the big school finance bill. Out of the house is $7.7 billion, passed 144 to four.

[00:02:22] Josh Blank: Uh, the, I think the main thing that people are gonna take from this is, is it increases what’s called the basic allotment, which is sort of the, the floor amount of money that is given to each school district. Per student, uh, in that school. And again, when I say per student in that school, that’s a little complicated.

[00:02:36] Josh Blank: But let’s just say that this is the base law. It’s

[00:02:38] Jim Henson: about eight aste. An asterisk. A little cross. Yeah. A couple of foot, no numbers.

[00:02:42] Josh Blank: Yeah. I don’t know.

[00:02:43] Jim Henson: Yeah,

[00:02:44] Josh Blank: there’s a lot, there’s a lot of wing dings that come after that. A lot

[00:02:46] Jim Henson: of wing dings. Good.

[00:02:47] Josh Blank: Uh, good reference for the, some people have to look that up maybe.

[00:02:50] Josh Blank: But anyway. No, nobody’s that young who listens to this. And just to be clear, that’s. You know, so it goes from 6,160 to 6,555. That’s a $395 increase. Now to be clear, the actual money that school districts receive per student is higher than that because they’re federal funds. This is the base allotment. So if a student has, uh, like if they’re low income, if they have extra, you know, special education use, which is a separate part, actually there’s more funding that goes

[00:03:14] Jim Henson: into it.

[00:03:14] Jim Henson: Some of those dials got tweak. Yeah, tweak tweaked around Bill as well without getting lost in the weeds. But this is

[00:03:19] Josh Blank: one of those things I think that, you know, if you don’t follow this debate. Closely can seem a little bit confusing. Which was it $10,000? Is it $6,000? Well, it’s when you take everything, you take all the federal dollars.

[00:03:28] Josh Blank: When you take the average, it’s probably closer to about 10. Is what we say, you know, per student. We set, set aside sort of the big spending, you know, groups there. Um, you know, also some other highlights, uh, well, I guess I should say most of that money because it’s in the basic allotment, has to go to teacher salaries.

[00:03:44] Josh Blank: And that’s important here. Yeah. Because one of the things that they did early in the day yesterday was they flipped the order in which they were gonna debate these bills. And we were talking about the time, and part of this is there’s a lot of grumbling after the end of last session that the house didn’t at least vote.

[00:03:56] Josh Blank: On a school finance bill, so they could have increased teacher pay or say they had voted to increase teacher pay before the death of the voucher bill and the death of all of it, essentially.

[00:04:06] Jim Henson: Right. And the politics around that were very fraught. And you know, that’s one of the things that Dave Feland then Speaker Dave Feland took some heat on.

[00:04:12] Josh Blank: Yeah, he took a lot, I’d say a lot of heat on. I mean, you know,

[00:04:15] Jim Henson: not, I mean, not just the failure of the voucher bill. Yeah. Which you took aate on. But also the fact that Right, they would not move the teacher pay bill and the read was that That was, yeah. Inc. Sense to protect Governor Abbott.

[00:04:26] Josh Blank: Yeah. Even, even people, even people in the chamber who, Republicans in the chamber who did not necessarily care for or care much about the voucher, bill would’ve preferred to have had the vote on the public ed funding last time before them.

[00:04:38] Josh Blank: Yes. They didn’t have it. Now it’s important to note, again, because it’s the basic allotment, because of the way law works, 40% of that allotment has to go to non administrative staff salaries, which. Higher, you know, pay increases, reserve for teachers with more classroom experience, high rated teachers, et cetera.

[00:04:53] Josh Blank: There’s gonna be a lot of negotiations around this. The senate approach to this is, is pretty different. I would say at this point. It’s really concentrating those, uh, salary increases solely in these sort of high performing teachers, long experienced teachers. The basic allotment gives the school districts a lot more flexibility.

[00:05:09] Josh Blank: And if you were to go right now and Google search Texas. ISD budget and shortfall, you’ll find lots of articles of lots of places in the state. Yes. You know, where you can see that this is an issue. And so I think the, the main thing about the house version approach to this was they wanted to try to give the school districts a little bit more flexibility with the funds that they were gonna inject.

[00:05:28] Jim Henson: And, and from a public opinion perspective, you know, we’ve talked about it in here and we don’t have to roll out tons of data, but I, you know, we know that. Increasing teacher pay pulls well.

[00:05:38] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:38] Jim Henson: You know, and it pulls well on a pretty bipartisan basis with, you know, yeah. There’s less, the expected difference.

[00:05:45] Josh Blank: Yeah. There’s less priority among Republicans, uh, you know, for teacher pay. And I think, you know, that tracks essentially, you know, lower evaluations of public schools in general, uh, among Republicans. Uh, but at the same time. It’s pretty hard to find people who have negative views of teachers. It’s pretty hard to find people who think teachers are getting paid too much.

[00:06:04] Josh Blank: Uh, and so it’s just one of those things that, and I also too, and this is sort of speaks to the state’s politics and a lot of, you know, elected officials in the last few sessions have expressed a certain degree of concern about the attitudes of teachers, especially the notion that teachers, district, administrators, where would mobilize in some sort of uniform way.

[00:06:21] Josh Blank: And so, and not to say that this is just, you know. You know, whatever rent seeking or whatever fancy terms you want to use, distributed politics, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there is a fact to this, which is just like they kind of need to address this. Right. The other issue that is also attached to this, and this bill was limiting the use of educators who lack, you know, formal classroom changing sort of.

[00:06:40] Josh Blank: There’s a huge increase in the number of uncertified teachers in Texas as the state has sort of loosened those laws to be able to deal with teacher shortages, right? But then the unintended consequences has been, well, not the un no, I would say the unintended consequences, leaving those laws in place or that sort of lessening of the, let’s say loosening of the re of the requirements has led to a lot of uncertified teachers.

[00:06:59] Josh Blank: Right. And so trying to claw that back.

[00:07:00] Jim Henson: And so, you know, stepping back on the politics of this, just in a very general sense, I mean, you know, in terms of doing the bill first yesterday mm-hmm. And all of that. I mean, there’s a, there’s a sense here that this was, this was gonna be part of. The ensemble all along.

[00:07:18] Jim Henson: Yeah. Right. That there was gonna be some more, you know, some more money for teachers. Mm-hmm. More money for public ed. It was not gonna be as much as Democrats wanted. Yep. Or the school advocates wanted, but it was enough that people were not gonna say no to this. Yeah. And we saw that in the vote.

[00:07:36] Josh Blank: Yeah. And we’re not, and like I’ll just say, you know, we’re just gonna set aside, you know?

[00:07:39] Josh Blank: Is that $395? A lot? A little. I mean, there’s a whole, right. Very interesting. I think just a policy kind of. Timeline to all of this. If people, you know, wanna look into around, you know, what the state’s been spending on public ed, what the localities have been spending on public ed, how it looks when you, you know, account for inflation.

[00:07:56] Josh Blank: All these sorts of factors that are very interesting or are part of the debates around these bills. But this is where we ended up, and they go back to

[00:08:01] Jim Henson: politics that stretch back a decade and a half at least. Exactly. At least, I mean, in some ways you could say it’s perpetual, but just the, the, the funding question.

[00:08:10] Jim Henson: Yeah. So it goes back to the cuts that were made in 2011. Mm-hmm. You know, the first year, you know, ironically, you know, that Texas had to do a budget after the great recession without federal support making up shortfall. Right. Just pause there for a moment. Yeah. Um, and then the 2019 addition to the allotment, but that, you know.

[00:08:38] Jim Henson: Uh, cause a lot of argument as you say. You know, what, what is the baseline for what the student funding should per pupil funding should look like?

[00:08:45] Josh Blank: Well, right. And also a lot of the 20 19 7 and not, and again, I just to sort of, we’re paying with a broad brush from 50,000 feet, but a lot of the 2019 efforts are really around property tax reduction.

[00:08:53] Josh Blank: Right. So, I mean, it’s within, you get to say, Hey, we put money to public ed. It’s like, to do what? To lower people’s property taxes. Right? So there’s that.

[00:09:03] Jim Henson: So. That passes and that was, that passed, you know, with some debate. But yeah, comparatively easy. And then SB two came up. That took much longer. Um, in the end, I’m not sure how many of the amendments they actually heard, but you know, I was in the building for a while yesterday.

[00:09:20] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. You know what was going around as you were walking around, as you were in the gallery, or you were in the. Walking the halls or going, you know, talking to people was like, Hey, how many amendments are there now? ’cause you, there wasn’t pre-filing,

[00:09:31] Josh Blank: right? It

[00:09:31] Jim Henson: wasn’t a pre-filing.

[00:09:33] Josh Blank: Yeah, you were looking yesterday in a rule.

[00:09:35] Jim Henson: Right? And so the amendments were just sort of popping up and people were going from office, office saying, well, you know, I hear there’s 40 something. Well, we’re up to 50 now there, you know, last I heard there was more than 60. I don’t know how many got pulled in the end. I haven’t, my bad. I haven’t gone and looked, but.

[00:09:50] Jim Henson: You know, it, it lasted a while in there and as we’ve seen a lot of long pauses

[00:09:54] Josh Blank: mm-hmm.

[00:09:55] Jim Henson: Pauses, negotiate, pauses for points of order. Mm-hmm. Um, et cetera, et cetera. But in the end, what do we get? We got a billion dollars to create education savings accounts. Um. You know, in the form of vouchers that families can use to pay for private school tuition, other school related, uh, expenses, um, you know, the bill is gonna tie the voucher programs per student dollars to public education funding.

[00:10:22] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. Tricky. Yeah. And you know, a lot of attempts to tweak that in amendments that failed. Um, but in the long term, the amount available, what is critical to each participating student is gonna increase if public schools receive more funding and they’ll dip when public school funding declines, which I, I say theoretically

[00:10:43] Josh Blank: doesn’t, I mean, you know, it doesn’t really happen in real dollars very often, right.

[00:10:49] Josh Blank: Just to sort of throw that out there. But, you know, interesting. I mean that’s, I’m just gonna say that I thought, I thought that was one of the more interesting things that kind of came out of the, the house bill. ’cause really a lot of the, I mean I, we, maybe I should wait in terms of talking about some of the comparisons to the Senate bill, unless you wanna talk about that.

[00:11:02] Josh Blank: No, I think

[00:11:03] Jim Henson: that’s okay. Why don’t you just jump into that? I think that’s okay.

[00:11:05] Josh Blank: I thought that was one of the more kind of interesting decisions, I think, uh, to make about it. Because what you’re essentially doing, I mean, I was wondering when they did that, whether it was an attempt to try to. I, I don’t wanna use bias’s not the right word, but to try to garner more democratic support.

[00:11:23] Josh Blank: ’cause ultimately what you’re essentially saying is, is that you know, if anybody down the line wants to increase the value of the voucher, right? You’re gonna actually have to increase the allotment to all public school students and all public schools. So now, look, this doesn’t mean that the program costs aren’t gonna grow.

[00:11:38] Josh Blank: Dramatically because you can have more students getting the same voucher, or, sorry, educational savings account. Yes, whatever. Excuse me. We’re all adults here. Excuse me. I’ve just been hearing anyway, but it does make it so that like if, if you know in a. Five years, they say, well, it would be really great if the voucher was $12,000, or What is the average cost of a private school in Texas?

[00:11:58] Josh Blank: Most likely it’s gonna go up over time. If that’s the case and they want to move this up, then we say, well, okay, we really have to spend a lot of money on public education.

[00:12:06] Jim Henson: And the, and the LB and the LBB projections were that it would be very expensive. It, it could, this could get very expensive. You know, the interest of fairness, you know, everybody kind of poo-pooed those projections.

[00:12:17] Jim Henson: Not everybody but the, the governor did. Well,

[00:12:19] Josh Blank: and, and I’m just gonna, I mean, well I’m gonna use a different word now that you’ve said that I think that that is, um, unwise only because, not just because I think, you know, the LBB generally, you know, I mean like they’re not right on everything. Nobody is. The economy is the economies, a bunch of inputs here that are clearly, uh, in flux.

[00:12:34] Josh Blank: The problem is we can look at other states. We can look at other states have done this and in general, like we do know what happens with programs, with these kinds of provisions and the way that it’s set up, it should cost the state more over time. Like that’s the goal. I mean, and that’s the other thing sort of lot about like, why even lie?

[00:12:49] Josh Blank: I mean, that’s the goal. The goal is to grow it. The goal is to get people in it. Like it’s not to make it this tiny thing. I mean, I think, you know, so it’s like, why not? Yeah. The

[00:12:55] Jim Henson: days where the, you know, this is, this is. This is not a pilot program.

[00:13:00] Josh Blank: It’s not even close. And that’s the, and then that’s, and then the other difference is I thought were a little bit more window dressing, you know, and to some extent to my, you know, to my read in terms of sort of, you know, there’s a lot of effort in the house to, to put more meat around the prioritizations, right?

[00:13:12] Josh Blank: Who is going to get access to the money first, second, third, and so on. The issue of course, is that, you know, essentially if the group that you prioritize doesn’t fill up all the available slots, then their slots go to the next group, their slots go to the next group. And I think what a lot of people have raised is like, well, yeah, but if, if essentially, you know, only let’s say half the available slots to sort of these lower income groups, uh, special ed groups, so and so forth get used, well, then they’re just gonna get used by hiring.

[00:13:37] Josh Blank: Right? Because at the

[00:13:38] Jim Henson: $10,000, al, you know, the basic, you know. Between 10, $10,000 allocation doesn’t cover enough of the tuition costs. And you know, the number being bandied around is like the average private school tuition is, you know, closer to 12.

[00:13:53] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:54] Jim Henson: You know, and I don’t, I don’t vouch for that number.

[00:13:56] Jim Henson: Yeah. But it’s the one that was floating around, but. You know, that it makes it more likely that the, that the lower income, Harold Dutton and early on in the debate

[00:14:06] Josh Blank: mm-hmm.

[00:14:06] Jim Henson: Had a line that got quote picked up in a couple of the stores. As soon as I heard it, I figured it would, it would.

[00:14:11] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:12] Jim Henson: Uh, which is, you know, if you’re in a, if you’re in, if you’re in a 12 foot, you, you’ve fallen into a 12 foot well, and somebody has only a 10 foot rope.

[00:14:21] Jim Henson: Yeah,

[00:14:23] Josh Blank: it’s an okay one. We could work on that, but I like it. It should be probably 10 and

[00:14:27] Jim Henson: 15 or something. I’m a tall guy. I could reach. Yeah, you could just jump if I throwing a wall, but you know, they’d have to pull my big ass. Honestly, I don’t wanna see you fall anywhere. It scares me. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

[00:14:34] Jim Henson: I appreciate that.

[00:14:35] Josh Blank: Now, I will say they did do something. I mean, there was an amendment right that that would cap, uh. Essentially people without disabilities and family of four, uh, you know, sort of, and a family of four making more than $156,000, which essentially become the, the, the cutoff line for higher income and not right.

[00:14:52] Josh Blank: Uh, it’s only 20% of the, uh, of the program’s total budget. Uh, and the 20% of cap was only supposed to apply through 26, 27. Now it’s supposed to apply through each year of the votes for, I don’t know if that escapes conference committee. And that’s kind of, I think maybe where we, maybe where we should, right?

[00:15:06] Josh Blank: Like kind of, I mean, there’s some other requirements in the bill. I mean, I’ll just throw these out, but we’ll come to the conference committee next. So the bill would require private schools to have existed for at least two years. I think that’s this notion that there’s gonna be fly by night schools that open up to grab a voucher.

[00:15:18] Josh Blank: Uh, so at least, at

[00:15:19] Jim Henson: least not in the beginning,

[00:15:20] Josh Blank: not immediately. They have to at least a couple students for years. Um, you know, I’m gonna, I think one of the things that was a big piece of, of this that was really resisted last time in the house and sort of an. I don’t even, I mean, I do, I have a thought why, but it sort of almost seems crazy, is requiring the data, the program to collect information on dropout, expulsion, graduation data, and also have it broken down by grade, age, sex, and race or ethnicity.

[00:15:47] Josh Blank: And there’s a lot of resistance to that last time, which I guess they didn’t look good. Yeah. You know, in terms of the politics of it, and I think, you know, if you wanna say, you know, does this process, yeah, I mean, like I, it’s funny and you watch all this and you know, people wanna complain about the process.

[00:15:59] Josh Blank: Like, this is actually some way a process working. I mean, in some ways it’s not, but in terms of the legislative process, iterating and like, you know, kind of moving towards something, I mean, it’s,

[00:16:07] Jim Henson: it’s the process working the way that one, you know, more or less according to design. Yeah. Whether that’s the process.

[00:16:15] Jim Henson: Working well or not? I didn’t say that. I’m just saying it’s worth Yeah, no, I’m just, I’m elaborating here. You know?

[00:16:20] Josh Blank: Yeah, no, I’m just saying it’s notable that this was a big issue last time and they said, no, we’re, we’ll put this in now again. There’s a conference committee. We’ll see. And, and I mean, the extent to which people were resistant to collecting data on the program last time was like weird.

[00:16:31] Josh Blank: I mean, it’s almost like Yeah. Problematic.

[00:16:34] Jim Henson: Yeah. It was a little ugly. Yes. You know, to my mind,

[00:16:38] Josh Blank: uh, obviously the program’s gonna bar undocumented Texans from participating. Yeah. As in. Any bill you can come up with this session and, you know,

[00:16:45] Jim Henson: I, I would, I think, you know, a little to add some color to that in a way.

[00:16:49] Jim Henson: Um, you know, I watched a lot of this yesterday, you know, intermittently as I was trying to do the day job and other stuff, you know, um, but I. You know, we’ve talked a lot about, you know, we had the piece that we put together a couple weeks ago about the, the slight adjustment in the temperature on immigration and border issues.

[00:17:11] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:12] Jim Henson: The degree to which there was just an unending, uh, it ended a a, an ample supply of amendments proposed. You know, it’s many of which passed that were aimed at ringing the immigration, you know, poking at the immigration bear.

[00:17:35] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:17:36] Jim Henson: You know, there was no opportunity left, you know, untried to try to limit a, you know, to, to flag that.

[00:17:44] Jim Henson: We don’t want, we don’t want immigrants involved in any of this at all. In both bills.

[00:17:48] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:17:48] Jim Henson: Right. And I, but it came up a lot in, in actually in the HB two debate.

[00:17:52] Josh Blank: Well, I mean, and that’s the thing, I mean, part of it is that it’s really. It just become kind of like, I think, was it Dere Gore or something? Is that what it’s So just basically add Yeah.

[00:18:01] Josh Blank: A, a provision to anything that says, and these services will not be given to undocumented. Right. Even though though there’s might be no. Like evidence that it is, or it’s not even a program that undocumented immigrants would,

[00:18:10] Jim Henson: it doesn’t make any, yeah, it’s something that’s already, it’s just illegal. I mean, federal law or,

[00:18:15] Josh Blank: I mean, look, we’ll just, you know, like pulling back the curb saying this is a bill or this is an amendment, or whatever that you, that a member puts up so they can go back to their primary audience.

[00:18:22] Josh Blank: And I made sure Right, that when it comes to, you know, gas subsidies for, you know, farm equipment. You can’t be undocumented, you can’t hire undocumented. Right. It’s like, or whatever.

[00:18:33] Jim Henson: And there was a lot of that and I, you know, it’s kind of a side observation. Yeah. Vibe, observation that, but it did remind me of that gap we were talking about between, you know, the continued, you know, high level of agitation, activation over illegal immigration.

[00:18:53] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. Quote unquote. Although some of this was also about legal migrants. But, um. Despite the fact that we see some attenuation in, you know, or the ongoing limited limits on support for some of the specific things that the Trump administration is now doing in the presence of less traffic on the border.

[00:19:13] Jim Henson: Well, in

[00:19:13] Josh Blank: some ways this is, this is what, you know, to the, to the question of, you know, how would the legislature pivot with a, you know, very, very. Anti-immigration Republican president in the White House, and the answer is, well, you know, we’re not setting up, you know, a new military force. We’re not opening a bunch of new prisons for undocumented, we’re just making sure that the state is not providing any services to anybody who might be, you know, unqualified in some way.

[00:19:39] Josh Blank: Yeah. Okay.

[00:19:41] Jim Henson: So unqualified in terms of national identities. That’s what I meant. That’s,

[00:19:45] Josh Blank: I said, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah,

[00:19:46] Jim Henson: no, I get it.

[00:19:47] Josh Blank: So, you know, I think this kind of speaks to this whole thing. So we just kind of already mentioned this, but it’s, it’s this sort of the interesting thing now, and we’ve talked about this a lot sort.

[00:19:54] Josh Blank: I probably on the podcast certainly personally, but it’s like, okay, so the house has passed a bill differs from the Senate version and now it’s gonna go to conference committee. Now I think, you know, we’ve kind of said all along, it seems like, you know, betting odds are once a, if a bill could escape the house floor.

[00:20:09] Josh Blank: Get to conference committee. The conference committee can send something back. It’s probably gonna, I mean, the chances of it failing are slim to none. Yeah.

[00:20:17] Jim Henson: I think, I think at this point,

[00:20:19] Josh Blank: I think there’s, you know, there’s questions about, and this is where I think to my mind, in my mind, this is where I go, which is, you know, how serious is the Senate’s proposal?

[00:20:26] Josh Blank: And I think that’s a, and I mean that in a very serious way. I don’t mean to say like question it seriousness, but. Because they were so quick to get it out. And it’s not to say that they weren’t working on the interim, like they’ve been working on this issue for years, so it’s not like they, you know, whatever.

[00:20:39] Josh Blank: But they were quick to get it out, put a big dollar number on it, didn’t put many restrictions. Got it. To the house. And the question is, is that a statement of their preferred program? Or was that just to get something to them in a starting point of the negotiation? Well,

[00:20:51] Jim Henson: you know, I think yes, they’re preferred Per how preferred.

[00:20:56] Jim Henson: Yeah. How strong is the preference? Well, yeah, yeah.

[00:20:59] Josh Blank: Maybe so

[00:20:59] Jim Henson: is is, you know, I mean. I, I think. But

[00:21:02] Josh Blank: I mean, is there any way that a bill could come back that looks more like the Senate bill or on certain lines along the Senate bill that the House says, you know, I don’t think so.

[00:21:10] Jim Henson: Yeah. And I, and I think when, you know, when you look at that vote mm-hmm.

[00:21:13] Jim Henson: And you look at the, the post talk, um, only two Republicans voted against the bill.

[00:21:19] Intro/Outro: Right.

[00:21:20] Jim Henson: You know, and that would be, and they’re both interesting cases. Mm-hmm. Uh, uh, representative Van Dever. Okay. Already no vote. Um, and Representative Phelan,

[00:21:30] Josh Blank: right, who did vote for the Democrats amendment or or effort to create a constitutional amendment.

[00:21:37] Josh Blank: Yes. And

[00:21:37] Jim Henson: he was, I think, I think he’s the only Republican voter, I think the only Republican vote on that. So let’s talk a little bit about that, you know, as a way of kind of transferring into like the big read of this and the politics. So, yeah. Because it takes us out of it and so the big story going into, you know, yesterday.

[00:21:50] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. Was the fact that Democrats were floating a proposal which was ultimately, uh, put before the chamber in an amendment by James Tall Rico, early in the debate. I think it was amendment three or four or something like that. Um, that would have. I used a rarely used mechanism in the Texas constitution, but one that is available and has been used before.

[00:22:18] Jim Henson: And all this is, you know, for those of you that follow, this is, you know, a lot of coverage of this in mm-hmm. The last 72 hours that would’ve required voter approval, but not as a constitutional amendment.

[00:22:28] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:30] Jim Henson: Um, and the. The argument circulating was that this was, you know, Democrats were gonna use this as a way of, you know, providing an alternative.

[00:22:42] Jim Henson: And that the threat was that the Democrats will not support other cons, other constitutional amendments. Right. Proposed that require a super majority that require a hundred votes. Yeah. That the Republicans don’t have enough votes on their own to pass those Now that has failed. So that, um, it was, you know, and it was probably the, you know, the most.

[00:23:05] Jim Henson: The highest joint level of substantive debate and heat.

[00:23:09] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:23:10] Jim Henson: In the debate that I, at least that I saw, and I think this, the post hoc seems to agree with this, other than, you know, the occasional personal spat was over that.

[00:23:18] Josh Blank: Yeah. And I think the logic there is pretty clear for those who haven’t like, thought about it a ton, which is that, you know, if you, if you put this out to a vote, one thing you’re gonna do is you’re gonna extend it, you’re gonna extend the debate.

[00:23:28] Josh Blank: I mean, this is actually a grabbing like. You know, this is a great Sha Snider moment, and I love Sha Snider. It’s an author. You can look it up, you can’t spell it, but good luck, semi sovereign people. But this is a, this is an expansion of the conflict, right? In the chamber. The vote was what the vote was. It was kind of what people expected.

[00:23:42] Josh Blank: But if you go and you may say, well, what if we expand this discussion to like, you know, anybody who might show up in a, in a special election. Right. Different thing. Then you say, well, who shows up in special elections? Well, the issue is, and in a lot of ways, Democrats have been turning out better in these random elections, number one.

[00:23:55] Josh Blank: Number two, you know, who would be mobilized to vote an election like that? Teachers,

[00:23:59] Jim Henson: and there’s a lot of them.

[00:24:00] Josh Blank: There is a lot of them. And those are low turnout elections. So you would’ve really forced the voucher proponents to spend tons and tons of money. And I’m not sure that there would’ve been anything comparable on the other side, but this has been what’s going on along.

[00:24:11] Josh Blank: But the other side might have the numbers.

[00:24:13] Jim Henson: Yeah.

[00:24:14] Josh Blank: I’m not saying they do, they might’ve. And I think that was sort of the, but when

[00:24:18] Jim Henson: you’re this close to passing the bill, there’s no, you know. Yeah. Well this, this was definitely a hail Mary.

[00:24:24] Josh Blank: Well, and so now, but now the Hail Mary is done, and so I think about, you know,

[00:24:27] Jim Henson: bounced outta the end zone.

[00:24:29] Josh Blank: Right. And, and so, you know, it was funny caught. So this is actually connects to the voucher thing, which is to say, you know, in a weird way, which I thinking, you know, one of the things that Abbott did. Obviously at the end of the last session was, he said, look, if you’re not gonna support my voucher, bill, I’m coming after you.

[00:24:42] Josh Blank: And then he made good. And I mean, I talked to a lot of reporters and said, look, if he didn’t do that, what good is his threat? Right? He has to follow through. There has to be a cost. Otherwise, you know, every time he tries to go to negotiate, then they’ll say yes. So what? Right. Well now the Democrats have made a threat.

[00:24:57] Josh Blank: Do you think they’re gonna follow through on it now that it has not worked?

[00:25:00] Jim Henson: Yeah, I, I have a hard time seeing enough Democrat, you know, they could surprise me.

[00:25:05] Josh Blank: Because they have to hold. I mean, you don’t need all the Democrats. And you know, we’re not

[00:25:08] Jim Henson: talking about, you know, I mean, look, some of these constitutional amendments that are proposed, you know, maybe you can obstruct that.

[00:25:16] Jim Henson: But you know, are Democrats really gonna hold up water? I.

[00:25:20] Josh Blank: Uh, increase times, increase in the home. I mean, to me, the one thing like increase in the homestead exemption right there, so you guys, in a year like this, you, I mean, honestly, like do you really wanna have a vote not to not raise the homestead exemption if that’s what comes up?

[00:25:33] Josh Blank: I mean, I

[00:25:34] Jim Henson: mean, I, it’s, it’s a very, it’s gonna be a very hard threat to deliver on and. In the end, you know, may wind up just looking like a bluff and, you know,

[00:25:44] Josh Blank: yeah. I mean luckily for them it matters less because it’s diffuse, you know, in the sense like, whereas, whereas Abbott like it really, he would be the one person who would, who would bear the cost of not following through.

[00:25:52] Josh Blank: Right. Here it’s kind of like, well, yeah, the Democrats didn’t hold together. What else is new? Right. You know, and, and

[00:25:57] Jim Henson: it, yeah, diffuse is a good way of putting that. Um, so yeah, I mean, where does this leave the Democrats on this? I mean, I will, I will tell you this, you know, the mood. The mood in the place, you know, is a vibe check, you know, and, and this includes, you know, I mean, I talked to Republicans and Democrats yesterday including, you know, members, staff advocates, you know, obviously very unscientific sample, but you know, pretty sour.

[00:26:26] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:26:27] Jim Henson: You know, pretty sour mood about where the whole. Enterprises and, and what and

[00:26:32] Josh Blank: what and like, you know, what do you, what is that being at? What do would you attribute that? I mean, lemme see, what did they attribute that to? Or are you attributing it to, I mean, what do you, you know, I,

[00:26:39] Jim Henson: I, I think it’s different things for different people.

[00:26:41] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. I mean, I think for, you know, for Democrats it was a bad day yesterday. Yeah. Something they’ve been, you know, obviously, you know, that doesn’t even require a lot of explication. Yeah. Right. Both in terms of the substance of the issue itself, in the sense of, you know, going through a lot of effort and a lot of trouble.

[00:27:00] Jim Henson: Knowing, being pretty sure, you know, it’s gonna be a losing effort. Yeah. You can throw some points of order out there. You can

[00:27:06] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:27:06] Jim Henson: Try this. Uh, it’s gonna be a

[00:27:07] Josh Blank: long day for a crappy ending.

[00:27:09] Jim Henson: Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, I’m not surprised by that.

[00:27:12] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:27:12] Jim Henson: And and

[00:27:14] Josh Blank: that’s true. So it’s not even, in that case, it might not be the sample, but the the timing of the sample.

[00:27:18] Josh Blank: Yeah. And,

[00:27:18] Jim Henson: and you know, I mean, I, you know, I don’t think, I don’t think other days are particularly better Yeah. For most of them, frankly. And, and you know, so you can understand that. But I mean, I think, you know, there’s still some. You know, procedural discontent.

[00:27:33] Josh Blank: Mm.

[00:27:34] Jim Henson: I think brewing out there about the process.

[00:27:37] Jim Henson: Okay. You know, that you pick up on, you know, so, you know, and this is on video. I’m not speaking outta school here, I don’t think, I mean, at one point as they were closing the debate on the tall RICO amendment for the referendum

[00:27:52] Josh Blank: mm-hmm.

[00:27:54] Jim Henson: Uh, representative Ka got very upset. He was sort of up there, looked like he was getting ready to speak, and there are different contending interpretations of this,

[00:28:05] Intro/Outro: right.

[00:28:06] Jim Henson: But he got very upset, kind of threw his binder in his pen and stomped in a very angry way and angry invisible way, and stomped away from the front mic. And, and you know, one. And so the reason I raise that now is not just that, you know, just for color. Representative Kane is the, you know, Rosetta Stone of the mood of the Republican caucus.

[00:28:33] Jim Henson: I don’t think, which, don’t think he is. No. But the contending explanations for that, which are, well, he wasn’t recognized and he was mad ’cause he wasn’t recognized. Mm-hmm. But it also looks like he might have been a little. Sort of elbowed aside in the speaking order and in and in addressing the merits, the lack of merits, in this case of as they saw it, of the referendum bill that seemed to be a little bit more about intra coalitional tension.

[00:29:08] Jim Henson: Yeah. Shall we say?

[00:29:09] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:29:10] Jim Henson: You know. You know, he wanted to speak. The bill sponsor just kind of stepped up while he was queued up there and said, you know, move the table Very summarily to kind of, you know,

[00:29:20] Josh Blank: which not, I mean, just say which not unusual bill, author, committee, chair. And so, you know, and look,

[00:29:25] Jim Henson: it could be both, right, right.

[00:29:26] Jim Henson: It could be some combination of both that, you know. But anyway. Well, you know, to remind the reason, the reason I raised all that is just to close the point is that, you know, when you talk to people about what happened there. I think the preferred interpretation among some people is, yeah. You know, just more of this procedural stuff where, you know, he should have been recognized than he wasn’t.

[00:29:47] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:29:48] Jim Henson: That’s a much more palatable explanation than, well, you know, sometimes our guys just don’t get along. Yeah. And they could, and again, they could both be going on, but I mean, I think, you know, there is still. The point being there are my sourness, there’s still some kind of lingering discontent over how the house is operating and look, it’s coming from, you know, a lot of Republicans who didn’t vote for this particular speaker.

[00:30:15] Jim Henson: Yeah. You know, went in skeptical of the regime.

[00:30:17] Josh Blank: You know, it reminds me of, you know, we, we sort of mentioned this last week, but you know, you did that pat panel.

[00:30:22] Jim Henson: Yeah.

[00:30:22] Josh Blank: Uh, and I think it was, it was either Harvey Kronberg or Brad Johnson who made the point that, uh, sort of the Harrison, you know, privileged speech, kind of, you know, or the motion to vacate the chair.

[00:30:32] Josh Blank: He said, you know, look, that was reflecting some, you know, some reasonable issues that people are having about the pace in the house, and that’s about management. But because of. Who did it, how he did it, all that it really honestly, you know, probably, you know, was a net benefit to the leadership. Yes. But nonetheless, this is a

[00:30:48] Jim Henson: good follow up on that point.

[00:30:50] Josh Blank: Yeah. But nonetheless, it does raise the, the idea that like he wa, I mean like, this is sort of like a lot of things, you know, even if you don’t agree with the methods, even if you think the messaging is crazy, it doesn’t mean there’s not a kernel of truth lying out there somewhere. Right. And so that’s, that’s sort of another point, you know, in sort of we’re looking at the scoreboard for the instances where that’s out there.

[00:31:06] Josh Blank: Right. That’s out there. I’d also say, you know, it’s interesting to me, I guess, and that, you know, you think about, you know, buroughs is the nature of the coalition that got ’em there and all that stuff, but I also think about the, the timeline. And on the one hand, you know, there’s always. People who are discontented with, with, you know, the process or always people who are discontented with, you know, how, how much play they have in the process and all that.

[00:31:28] Josh Blank: Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. And that’s normal. But then if you think about it over the arc, I think, you know, I’m just thinking about it from the leadership position here too. It’s like, you know, the house can’t really. It doesn’t have a lot of elite latitude like I think this session in particular.

[00:31:41] Josh Blank: Yeah. Right. Yeah. The last couple sessions have been tough, you know, to the extent that like, you know, if you want to be a super and say, Hey, let’s, let’s, let’s take the pressure off this a little bit, let out some of the steam so people can kind of have their moments and whatever. It’s like, is this the session for that?

[00:31:53] Josh Blank: Well, you know, I think maybe once they get some more of this stuff done, maybe

[00:31:57] Jim Henson: Yeah.

[00:31:57] Josh Blank: But I can see why they’d want to keep it a little bit tighter than it’s been.

[00:32:00] Jim Henson: Yeah. And, and I think, um. And, and you know, there even then, you know, to that, but continue,

[00:32:06] Josh Blank: continue it.

[00:32:06] Jim Henson: Some of, yeah. Some of, you know, some of the, you know, people that were former would say Yeah.

[00:32:10] Jim Henson: And they’re not even doing a good job of that.

[00:32:11] Josh Blank: Yeah, sure. Right.

[00:32:13] Jim Henson: So, you know, I mean, given how long it took Yes. You know, I mean, here’s a bill that everybody knew was gonna pass. It took ’em all. I mean, and again, in retrospect, yeah. But yeah, I mean I think that’s, it’s, you know, it’s good to connect that. I mean, I think, look, if you step back however much.

[00:32:30] Jim Henson: Some of this discontent is still out there simmering, perhaps having been reduced by the way things have gone. Yeah, I mean, I think what you have to step back to be fair is say, look, this is a, this is a big win for Governor Abbott for Lieutenant Governor, and it’s a big win for, in political terms, for the big three, just generally when you com, you know, because it.

[00:32:54] Jim Henson: Benefits, whatever you think of the policy. It certainly benefits from comparison for how this all went last time. Yeah. With how all this went last time. And that’s an obvious point, but I think it’s easy to get kind of caught up in the Yeah. In the minutiae, the check and the minutiae, you know, step back and go look, everyone is exiting the field for Easter weekend.

[00:33:13] Jim Henson: Declaring victory.

[00:33:14] Josh Blank: Yeah. Lemme take a step back even further. In the last two weeks, the house has voted to instruct the budget EE to pay back Ken Pax and his back pay for the Impeachments and pass a school voucher bill. Yeah. You know, whether or not you voted for burrows, whether or not you like the way that he’s running the house as a Republican right now, those were, you know, those, those were, that those albatrosses, I guess you can put it, are gone.

[00:33:34] Josh Blank: Right? Yeah. For most people. And so that means you can move forward and like, and I said, you know, everybody’s talking about the timing and how long it takes. Like, well look, you know, we’re sitting here right now. That’s pretty good, just from the political standpoint. I

[00:33:44] Jim Henson: mean, the clock’s not ticking on Sign Die.

[00:33:47] Josh Blank: Right,

[00:33:47] Jim Henson: right. Yeah. Um, so it’s a, you know, so I think you have to do, I think you have to. You know, you have to recognize that I don’t wanna sort of be talking about this and not recognize that that’s the case. Right. So, you know, and then from a big policy perspective in the national politics, um, you know, Texas now is, becomes the largest test state.

[00:34:09] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. At least by population, not by the amount of money being thrown at it at this point currently. Yeah. But. You know, the largest test is to see who benefits from what is fairly understood, I think is a new entitlement program. Yeah. And again, you know, one of the themes that keeps emerging, um, yeah. In line with what is going on in national politics.

[00:34:33] Jim Henson: You know, Donald Trump called and gave a rambl, made a rambling call, which is out there on social media. Mm-hmm. I think, uh, Brad, I think Scott Braddock first broke it. Yeah. But it’s obviously somebody in the meeting was just taping it and shared to the

[00:34:46] Josh Blank: GOP House Caucus. Yeah,

[00:34:47] Jim Henson: the house caucus meeting before all this is Dan there, in which, yeah, Trump called in and gave a very Trumpy kind of thing and you can go listen to yourself.

[00:34:55] Jim Henson: Yeah. Um.

[00:34:56] Josh Blank: A lot of reminders about how, how well he does in Texas. Yeah. He’s won. He’s won a lot.

[00:35:00] Jim Henson: He’s won a lot here. Um,

[00:35:02] Josh Blank: hey, it’s true. Yeah. Okay.

[00:35:04] Jim Henson: Um. Now I, this came up during the debate, the timing and the context of this are not exactly fortuitous.

[00:35:11] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:12] Jim Henson: Given all the uncertainty and the fiscal outlook.

[00:35:15] Jim Henson: Not surprisingly, mostly Democrats tried to raise this, there were a couple amendments about, you know, contingencies for reductions in revenue or mm-hmm. Or economic difficulties. Of course, none of that passed. Um, you know, it, it, it is interesting, I think. You know, to again, to step back and look at what now feels like the almost inevitable income given the meltdown of 2023.

[00:35:42] Jim Henson: Yeah. The counter reaction from donors, from the governor, from the lieutenant governor.

[00:35:47] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:48] Jim Henson: During the 24 cycle.

[00:35:49] Josh Blank: Yep.

[00:35:50] Jim Henson: You know, and I think last week, or you know, maybe it was last week, you know, we were talking about the degree to which there was always like, everybody was kind of hedging. Yeah. Like, yeah, this is gonna happen, but you know, it might not, might not, you know, and that’s fair.

[00:36:04] Jim Henson: Yeah. You know, nothing is a hundred percent and certainly in the process and, um. I think, you know, the fact, you know, we kind of started on this and then went to something else, but to go back to it be, you know, the fact that only two Republicans voted against this, uh, is a pretty, seems to me to be the completion mm-hmm.

[00:36:22] Jim Henson: Of the day long cycle.

[00:36:23] Josh Blank: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking, you know, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re thinking a lot about, uh, our educational responsibilities. Right. There’s a really good example in there, you know, the arc of this. Yeah. That’s how and how it played out in sort of policy and politics. Right. Uh. You feel like I just snapped my fingers and all just happened, but it’s been a long time.

[00:36:41] Jim Henson: No, I mean, I think, you know, that said, I mean it’s been a, you know, it’s been a long first movie in the trilogy.

[00:36:47] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:36:48] Jim Henson: But you know, in terms of thinking about where we are all physically, I would remind everybody that in those trilogies, it’s almost. You know, boilerplate that the middle movie of the trilogy is a bummer.

[00:36:59] Jim Henson: Yeah, yeah. You know, the two towers was pretty bad. Was pretty grim. Yeah. The empire strikes back pretty grim.

[00:37:09] Josh Blank: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting because I think it’s, I can’t, I mean, just, I haven’t thought about this a lot, but it does sort, and you’d already brought up 2011 and I mean, it’s sort of sitting out there kind of thinking about it, but.

[00:37:18] Josh Blank: You know, it’s around when I started sort of working with you, like full time. Yeah. In that, in that range and stuff, and working on the pollings of it. And man, the extent to which those budget cuts to public ed dominated, you know, a lot of conversation for years. Yeah. Years. And I mean. Like, I mean, at least, at least two to three sessions we’re talking about the cuts they made the cuts, they made the 5 billion right?

[00:37:42] Josh Blank: Over and over and over again. And it’s like you just looking ahead thinking, is that what we’re looking for in 2027? You know? I mean, I just like,

[00:37:51] Jim Henson: yeah, no, I, I, I think I. You know, as I said, another winter is coming.

[00:37:56] Josh Blank: Yeah,

[00:37:57] Jim Henson: yeah. You know, we’ll see. We’ll see if it’s a, you know, a lot of pop culture

[00:38:00] Josh Blank: references.

[00:38:01] Jim Henson: Yeah. I was gonna dirty pop culture references today if it’s a two year or a 12 year winner. Um, well, all

[00:38:07] Josh Blank: I was gonna say, all the schools there were private.

[00:38:09] Jim Henson: Yeah. I You go. Um, yeah. A lot of homeschooling going on. A lot of homeschooling in Game of Thrones. Um, I think what, other than the Citadel anyway, but we digress.

[00:38:21] Jim Henson: Um. I wanna check in on politics, but I think the, you know, a little bit on electoral politics before we get outta here. But I do think that the good transition for that is to pause for a moment on what this means for Governor Abbott.

[00:38:32] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:33] Jim Henson: Obviously a pretty big win for Governor Abbott. Yeah. All of a sudden I’ve been having these conversations.

[00:38:40] Jim Henson: Oh man. I know, I know what

[00:38:41] Josh Blank: you’re gonna say. We have again, about,

[00:38:43] Jim Henson: you know, whether Greg Abbott has national political ambitions or not, and it’s hard not to look at this and think and wonder if in the mind of Governor Abbott and his supporters and advisors you had, you know, obviously the win that we’ve talked about in the podcast a lot for in various ways.

[00:39:02] Jim Henson: And recently with. Abbott’s standing in the National Republican arena as a result of Operation Lone Star and the busing. Mm-hmm. You know, his work? Yeah. On the immigration area. His profile is much higher nationally than it was during, during the Trump in Oreg. If you will. Um, so does vouchers become his no Child left Behind?

[00:39:27] Josh Blank: Oh God.

[00:39:28] Jim Henson: You know, I’m gonna regret saying that. I’m sure.

[00:39:30] Josh Blank: Yeah. I already regret you saying it. Um,

[00:39:33] Jim Henson: but I, you know, that’s, that’s, I, I mean that’s how people are gonna be thinking. No, and it’s because Donald Trump calling in and saying, Hey, I’m really behind this. Well, look,

[00:39:40] Josh Blank: I’ll say this. You know, you be out upfront here.

[00:39:43] Josh Blank: I mean, I think you and I have generally been pretty, uh, negative. Yes. In terms of. The reality of the reality of, yeah. Of of, of Governor Abbott running for president. Um, you know, we’ve made this point many times that no politician will ever. Bad away speculation like that. There’s just no point. There’s no, there’s just no good reason.

[00:40:05] Josh Blank: And especially for a fundraiser like Abbott and especially in a state where you can fundraise pretty much in an unlimited way. If people think this guy might be running for president and he might, you know, be one of the early potential front runners, there’s just even more money for his state campaigns or whatever.

[00:40:19] Josh Blank: I will say, I mean, the way you, you lay that out, it does probably increase, you know, my probability meter a little bit on that one. Like my, my priors are updated as we would say a little bit.

[00:40:28] Jim Henson: I’ll tell you what it really updates my meter on though, is people talking about it.

[00:40:32] Josh Blank: Yeah. Well, but I mean, I think what it, but what it does raise, you know, something I said, you know, to you.

[00:40:37] Josh Blank: About, you know, sort of the tariff stuff and some of this other stuff going on is, you know, Trump is not gonna have to face the voters for any of this, but Republican members, Republican senators, you know, will, and maybe it’ll work out for them, maybe it won’t, but ultimately they’re, they’re gonna own this.

[00:40:51] Josh Blank: The other piece of that though also is that, you know, assuming normal constitutional order and elections and all that kind of stuff, which I do, there’s gonna be a gap. I mean, there’s gonna be a huge gap at the top of sort of the Republic Party. People say, well, it’s JD Vance. Well, maybe. You know, I mean, I don’t know.

[00:41:07] Josh Blank: How’s that worked out for other former vice presidents so far? You know, I mean it depends. And we’ll see if he’s the guy, we’ll see if he comes out of this in that kind of position, you know, mean they tried to hang the last guy. So there, it just depends. And so, I mean, when you think about it that way and say, well, well who, and you say they being their own voters.

[00:41:23] Josh Blank: Yes. Um, well that’s exactly, but I mean, I’d also say this, you know, sitting from where I am in Texas, you know, if I were gonna say. Somebody from Texas is most likely to who from Texas is most likely to be The next Republican nominee for president is Ted Cruz, not Greg Abbott.

[00:41:39] Jim Henson: Right.

[00:41:40] Josh Blank: And I think Ted Cruz is definitely still

[00:41:42] Jim Henson: interested.

[00:41:43] Jim Henson: Well, I mean in terms of, you know, thinking about. Some of the leading indicators on, I mean, he’s already, yes. Carefully hedged a little bit on the tariffs for Trump.

[00:41:53] Josh Blank: Yeah. He’s positioning himself. I mean, I’ll just say, you know, we’ve already talked about this, but he’s, I think, in a position to sort of be the return to the traditional Republican category or the real conservative or whatever we’ve gotten away from our, our, you know, our foundations or whatever, if that’s where it goes.

[00:42:07] Jim Henson: Well, what’s interesting about that is that it’s kind of a return to. Because you know, I mean, you say that and I’m thinking, well that doesn’t quite work for Ted Cruz. I mean, it’d be more like if all of a sudden John Cornyn had a renaissance.

[00:42:19] Josh Blank: No, no, no. It’s not a, no, it’s not a renaissance for Cruz. He’s saying it’s time for the party to come back.

[00:42:23] Josh Blank: Yeah,

[00:42:23] Jim Henson: but I mean, but come, but I mean, the coming back, I mean what, at what beginning point? And this is, you know, well,

[00:42:28] Josh Blank: yeah.

[00:42:29] Jim Henson: You know, right. I mean, oh sure. You know, ’cause this isn’t head Cruz going up. Look, you know, these tariffs are bad. What we need is a return to Bush Republicanism.

[00:42:37] Josh Blank: No, I think it’s more No, it’s so that’s

[00:42:38] Jim Henson: all I’m kind of responding to, but No, no, no.

[00:42:40] Jim Henson: It’s, it’s post tea

[00:42:41] Josh Blank: party. I mean, like it’s That’s exactly right. It’s post tea party Republicanism. Right. It’s when Ted Cruz came in. But the thing, weren’t you

[00:42:46] Jim Henson: happier in 2013?

[00:42:47] Josh Blank: Yeah. Life was so much better. But the thing is, Ted Cruz, but Ted Cruz of 20 13, 20 14, Ted Cruz of the Tea Party, that guy still came through like Federalist Society channels.

[00:42:57] Josh Blank: That guy was still we, and it was like, yeah, he went to Harvard Law School guys, like, I mean, you know, he’s still part of that. Uh, ecosystem that has existed for a long time in conservative circles. And so, yeah. He’s not John Cornyn by any stretch. They’re very different politicians. Right. Different eras, all that kind of stuff.

[00:43:11] Josh Blank: But it is like, it’s not a return to 1980, it’s a return to 2013. Right. Or

[00:43:15] Jim Henson: whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So, so speaking of John Cornyn, yes. So lots of other things have been happening since we left in terms of electoral.

[00:43:22] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:24] Jim Henson: So, you know, I, I. Paxton had just gotten in last week or you know, had announced he was gonna get in last week.

[00:43:30] Jim Henson: Yeah, I think we talked about that a little bit. Yeah. And we did. So you know, that race is very active, obviously, and gonna take a lot more shape. Uh, you know, interestingly, and this brings us back to Donald Trump again, to some of, yeah. The lieutenant governor decided to announce that he intended to run for reelection.

[00:43:46] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. Or reiterate that, and to also announce at the same moment that he had the endorsement of, of President Trump.

[00:43:55] Josh Blank: Yeah. And I mean, this is like, I mean, man, you know, this is where political science is kind of useful in some cases. Just like, look, you know. One of the things about Patrick is that he has ruled the Senate with an iron fist.

[00:44:07] Josh Blank: They’ve given him a lot of, uh, power. And you know, I think what most senators know is that if they oppose him on a priority, or even if they really deviate from the form of, you know, the method that he would prefer for that priority, they might be punished, they’re at risk, they’re at risk of punishment.

[00:44:24] Josh Blank: And what does punishment look like just for those union? Bad committee assignments. Your bills don’t get referred. You essentially are in the penalty box and there’s not much for you to do besides vote yes on the things that the lieutenant governor wants you to vote yes on until you get moved back into good graces.

[00:44:35] Josh Blank: Right? Well, what if he’s not running next time? The threat doesn’t, I mean, there’s actually a good theme for this Popul, the threat, you know, doesn’t hold the same water. If he can’t punish you next time with committee assignments, ’cause he’s not gonna be here, well then maybe you don’t need to do this. So that’s why, I mean, to me, like there was something very just, you know, I don’t know, it’s just sort of, it’s like the universe working as it should.

[00:44:53] Josh Blank: It’s like, yes. So he’s announcing reelection that he’s gonna run for reelection. I’m gonna say he could change his mind. Right. But for right now, and he made it, it was very clear in the press release too. He is like, look, I’m gonna have a formal announcement. A big thing. The deadline for

[00:45:03] Jim Henson: the paperwork is December.

[00:45:04] Jim Henson: It’s what?

[00:45:04] Josh Blank: Yeah, it’s December. We’re gonna have, we’re gonna have a formal announcement. After the session, but you know what? There’s still a bunch of time left and I just wanna make sure everybody knows. Yes. And now that I wanna make sure everybody knows, I wanna make sure, you know, I’ve got a great endorsement just to kick it off.

[00:45:16] Josh Blank: You know him, I know him. Donald Trump, everybody. Right. And I would say, you know, that’s also smart from Patrick’s part because I’m gonna say right now, just looking at what we’re looking at, I think the value of Donald Trump’s endorsement is probably gonna decline a little bit. But for Patrick, you know, you get to, if there’s any field that would potentially emerge, ’cause a lot of people looking around right now, you clear it.

[00:45:34] Josh Blank: You say, look, I’m running again. I’ve got Trump’s endorsement, I’ve got the money, I’ve got the position. And I don’t think anybody, I mean, there’ll be a challenger, like some names, right? But is somebody gonna spend a bunch of money trying to knock off Dan Patrick from that seat? No. The other thing that came to my mind was with all the movement that’s going on now, right?

[00:45:49] Josh Blank: And we’ll jump to the Attorney General’s race in a second. But with Paxton moving outta the ags office with Hagar, moving on to tech, uh, Texas a m, you know, one of the things, it’s gonna be a pretty active primary season, and at the top of the ticket. In Texas, we know that Cornin is planning to go pretty negative on Paxton.

[00:46:06] Josh Blank: I assume Paxton will do the same. And if that sets the tone and you’re gonna have that going through all racist. I was just thinking to myself, you know, Patrick really has a commitment to like the Republican party, all this. You know, like within the state, you know, there is a service aspect to the party to just stay in.

[00:46:19] Josh Blank: So is not to make it even more of a mess. Because look, it’s gonna be a tougher year. You got a Republican in the White House, and then you’re gonna have a bunch of Republican candidates for the statewide offices who’ve just eviscerated each other, right? Which then Democrats, they can put in their own ads.

[00:46:32] Josh Blank: So I, you know, I think there’s a lot of reasons that this makes sense at this point in time right now.

[00:46:37] Jim Henson: Well, and I would also, you know, yes. And I think that, I think, I think it’s a really astute point that, you know, it’s gonna be an ugly primary season. We know it’s gonna be an ugly primary season. ’cause the tone is gonna be set at the top and, you know, with, uh, you know, with these other openings mm-hmm.

[00:46:55] Jim Henson: Ag and Controller, of course there’s gonna be some pretty, some. Pretty bloody primaries. And remember something, you know, to go back to the, to the voucher bill for the ESA voucher bill for a beat. The thing that makes it not a voucher in the ESA is that it’s going to be administered, operated by Wait for it, the controller’s office.

[00:47:16] Jim Henson: Yep. But we’re not gonna have Glenn Hagar in charge anymore. We, that’s a big unknown quantity. Mm-hmm. So in terms of all this election stuff, yeah, I mean, I, I think that’s exactly right. It makes sense for Patrick to do this, whatever his plans are, and then you start getting into all these like, okay, so he runs.

[00:47:34] Jim Henson: Yep, he gets reelected. Then he gets to do what we’ve always assumed he wanted to do, which is put his thumb more heavily on the scale of who runs for his repla to replace him and gets to play that. Engage in those maneuvers of favoritism among the senators. Yep. Right. And some of the senators that I think would, at least one or two that would be in the running for, that are gonna be interested in that seat are up this time.

[00:48:09] Josh Blank: Hmm. Yeah. That’s interesting.

[00:48:10] Jim Henson: Right. I mean, one of the people that will be on the ballot, for example, is Brian Hughes. So with Middleton in the race for Ag. Mm-hmm. Or a lot of speculation around Brian, who Hughes gets much more interesting. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And what he is gonna do, um. And also would also note that, you know, Middleton was up this year.

[00:48:29] Jim Henson: So yeah, that’s gonna be another,

[00:48:31] Josh Blank: just to make this clear, I mean, everybody who’s listening to this should know this, but the way this works is that in, in Texas, if you’re not up for election as like a, as a legislator, uh, you can run for another office without giving up your seats. Hang onto your seat. So that’s why it’s a freebie.

[00:48:43] Josh Blank: You can, as we say, you get to run. If you lose, you just go back to, just go back to being a state senator.

[00:48:48] Jim Henson: Um. So, you know, with Middleton in the race, uh, I, I think it’s going to be very interesting, tons of speculation about who else is interested in that race. Yeah. And we will, you know, and there is another

[00:48:59] Josh Blank: person in the race, John Bash, who was a Oh, right, he was

[00:49:02] Jim Henson: also very in, yeah.

[00:49:03] Jim Henson: He was the first person

[00:49:04] Josh Blank: to announce he was a dis, I think he was a US district attorney. He was, I think Elon Musk’s personal lawyer at a certain point. Yeah. He was federal attorney. Yeah, federal, yeah. Federal attorney. Uh, so he, he entered the race, worked

[00:49:14] Jim Henson: for us. He’s done, you know, so a lot of,

[00:49:16] Josh Blank: he entered the race first.

[00:49:17] Josh Blank: I, you know, I mean, I don’t wanna say. I, you know, Middleton is gonna be tough ’cause he can spend a lot of money. Right.

[00:49:23] Jim Henson: I mean, just, but if this guy, you know, but if this guy gets, you know, if the other John Bash Yeah. Bash can get endorsed by Trump.

[00:49:31] Josh Blank: Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see it happens. And Middleton, whether

[00:49:33] Jim Henson: that happens or not,

[00:49:34] Josh Blank: Milton’s rise has been, you know, expensive in Bic.

[00:49:37] Josh Blank: Uh, and so, you know, it’s, it’s, it sort of seems un. I wouldn’t be surprised, but we have to see who else jumps in, I guess. And he has a lot

[00:49:44] Jim Henson: of resources. He has a lot of resources, a lot of resources to bring to the table. So, so, you know, I mean, I, I think, you know, what do we do? We, you know, all of that is gonna continue to develop.

[00:49:54] Jim Henson: We’re gonna keep an eye on that. But I think as we see what the legislature is doing, kind of shape up and what people are gonna be able to run on.

[00:50:03] Josh Blank: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:04] Jim Henson: Um. It’s gonna make the last couple of months of this very interesting. Particularly with Middleton now explicitly in the race. Yeah. Still in the Senate.

[00:50:13] Jim Henson: Other people kind of eyeballing that seat. I mean, there are other people in the Senate that have been thought about as interested in that seat. And In the house you mean? Or, and some of them are not on the ballot. I. Ah, do you mean in the ag? Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah. For the ag rules. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:50:27] Jim Henson: Yeah. So, uh, on that, anything, any final thoughts?

[00:50:31] Josh Blank: You know, I’ll just add we, you know, before the debate this week, we wrote a, we, we wrote up a blog post. Again, just sort of trying to put, uh, all the sort of public education, ESA voucher attitudes into some sort of context. Not a lot of, you know, we’ve gone over this.

[00:50:43] Josh Blank: Stuff a lot in the podcast, in other posts, but we wanted to put the most recent data in one place. That’s on our front page, that’s on the polling page. We’ll link to it in the blog post, uh, for this podcast. But if you want go and like look at some of that data again, you know, we sort of really try to summarize real quick what are the main points and takeaways for public.

[00:50:59] Josh Blank: Yeah, there’s a lot, you know, there’s

[00:51:00] Jim Henson: not a lot of pondering of it, but you know, it, it’s, there’s a lot of context for that and we will, we’ll, repromote that again when the. After the conference committee is meeting right when this comes back, but that’s again Texas politics dot u texas.edu and as Josh says right on the front page, Josh, thanks.

[00:51:18] Jim Henson: Yeah, it was a good

[00:51:18] Josh Blank: time

[00:51:19] Jim Henson: as always.

[00:51:20] Josh Blank: I. I’ll, I’ll come back. If you invite me next week, I’ll come back for three in a row, but if you don’t, that’s okay.

[00:51:24] Jim Henson: Okay. Well, you know, we’ll, we’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll

[00:51:27] Josh Blank: see how, we’ll see what, well, I’ve

[00:51:28] Jim Henson: got a couple of invitations out there hanging that I don’t wanna mention in case, you know, I

[00:51:32] Josh Blank: appreciate, I thought you were gonna say, we’ll see what the listening stats are like.

[00:51:35] Josh Blank: Yeah. I’m not, I’m

[00:51:35] Jim Henson: not just saying I’m gonna a better deal you, but you know, we, there are some other commitments that are out floating around out there. No, I like, I like it. Uh. So thanks to Josh. Thanks to our excellent audio production team in the dev studio, the College of Liberal Arts here at UT Austin.

[00:51:50] Jim Henson: And of course, thanks to you for listening. Stay well out there, get some sleep, and we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast from the Texas Politics Project.