February 14th, 2023 – Gov. Abbott’ position going into the State of the State

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. Sir, I tell people on a regular basis there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution, they have become the norm. At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be re. Over the male colleagues in the room

[00:00:36] 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. Join again this week by Joshua Blank, research director of the same project. How are you? This beautiful February morning in

[00:00:52] Josh Blank: Valentine’s Day. I’m just, uh, I’m just basking in the love all around me, you know.

[00:00:57] Josh Blank: I’m trying to at least, well, you

[00:00:58] Jim Henson: know Yeah, I was gonna say, trying my best. I, I know better than that, but, okay. , um, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll leave that be these midweek Valentine’s Day. Yeah, they’re, they’re difficult. Yeah, especially if you’re an underperforming husband.

[00:01:12] Josh Blank: Well, I’m just saying everything. Aren’t they all

[00:01:13] Jim Henson: in some way

[00:01:13] Jim Henson: Yeah. Right. No, I hear you. Okay. All right. So of that malarkey, I say that was the personal portion of the podcast. . Yeah, the personal portion of the podcast, you know. Oh, the podcast also gives lessons, which is plan better for Valentine’s Day kids. Yeah. So, So the big public event in Texas politics this week is Governor Abbott’s state of the state speech, which he’ll be delivering this Thursday, February 16th.

[00:01:38] Jim Henson: And we’re recording this Tuesday, mid-morning, uh, I guess, is that all implied? So this Thursday, February 16th at 7:00 PM Central broadcast, uh, or offered for free broadcast and webcast by your friends at next. And for the second year in a, or the second address in a row, I should say second session in a row, gonna give his state of the state address, not at the Capitol, but from another location.

[00:02:04] Jim Henson: This time it’ll be the, this is being hosted by the Greater San Marcos partnership in the San Marcos area Chamber of Commerce. Uh, he did it from a little factory space in lock art two years ago. And you know, I, I, I think. This feels very modern and, and very stage managed, I think to the people for old timers.

[00:02:25] Jim Henson: It’s a little bit of a, of a thing that he’s not doing it at at the Capitol. But yes, be that as it may, I think we’ll probably come back to that in, in a way. Well, I

[00:02:34] Josh Blank: was just say like it’s not at the capitol, but it’s also like, Not that far. No, but I, it’s not, it’s not like he’s going to like, you know, some other part of the state to kinda give an address from, you

[00:02:42] Jim Henson: know, wherever.

[00:02:43] Jim Henson: No, it’s a, you know, it’s a decent commute from, it’s a comfort, it’s a comfortable commute from the mansion. Right. And, and, but you know, not in front of a legislative audience. And I say, I

[00:02:52] Josh Blank: guess what I’m saying is, you know, I hadn’t really thought about the fact of the close proximity of the two to the Capitol in the sense that, you know, the speech is kind of notable for not being at the capitol more so than being from out in the state.

[00:03:03] Josh Blank: Right. If you. anyway. Just opt and,

[00:03:05] Jim Henson: you know, and, and in both. Well anyway, yeah. So we come back there, you know, we could parse this, you know, as almost anything we could parse it to an infinite, if you listened before to the degree of, you know, vastly diminishing returns, all that be, be all that. As it may, we thought it’d be a good time to look at Governor Abbott’s position vis-a-vis the legislature, vis-a-vis the public in the wake of his decisive win over Beto O’Rourke in 2022.

[00:03:31] Jim Henson: And we’ve made a lot. Of how the interpretation of election results affects the behavior of incumbents and how it’s had a material effect in Texas in the last few years. So, you know, we’ll get to that. But, uh, let’s, let’s start with where the governor’s poll numbers are, which are pretty good, right? Yeah,

[00:03:48] Josh Blank: so I mean, if we look, we’ve been, uh, pulling job approval numbers on Governor Abbott since 2015.

[00:03:54] Josh Blank: Uh, and between March, between November of 2015 and March of 2021, over 19 surveys, more Texas voters approved of the job that Abbott was doing than disapproved. Now, when we look at the nine surveys that we’ve conducted since March of 2021, Foresaw more voters disapproving than approving foresaw. More voters approving than disapproving.

[00:04:14] Josh Blank: So the inverse and one was even so same number share voters approved and disapproved. And so this is, you know, we talked about this a couple times on the podcast. Yeah. You know, obviously if you think been a, been a tough time to govern. Yeah. And ultimately, not only has it been a tough time to govern, but obviously over that time, you know, Abbott I think is obviously extended himself further and further out, kind of into, I would say, you know, the Republican primary.

[00:04:35] Josh Blank: In a way that’s, I think made a lot of Democrats aware of who he is. And when we look at the change in his numbers, I wanna be clear, a lot of that change is gonna be driven by Democrats becoming more familiar with Abbott Independents. You know, let’s say to some extent turning off and then turning back on over the course of the pandemic.

[00:04:48] Josh Blank: And then we get to Republicans. It’s a little bit. more of a, a simpler story. I think we

[00:04:53] Jim Henson: should also say, well go ahead with that, then I’ll, I’ll jump in. Okay.

[00:04:56] Josh Blank: So over the lifetime, you know of this poll, no fewer than 70% of Republicans have expressed approval for Abbott. That’s across 28 surveys. Uh, you know, since his election, his numbers have been improving slightly among Republicans, he had 78% approval before the election, June, 80% in August, 86% in October, and 87% in December.

[00:05:14] Josh Blank: You know, this. , this approval’s been split basically between those who approve strongly and approve somewhat. Right. And that’s been, that’s been pretty consistent, right? Did you wanna jump

[00:05:23] Jim Henson: in here and, well, no, I mean, well, yeah, I mean, I think I was just, you know, uh, what was occurring to me is one of the things that’s interesting in retrospect, and it’s the kind of thing I, you know, I think we’ve seen before, but it’s worth remembering going forward.

[00:05:35] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. , but in the longer term, you know, is that he did lose a little bit of momentum and a little bit of stature with Republicans in that period, mid pandemic that we’ve talked about. Yeah. . But I think that also, you know, sent signals to people that turned out to be a little misleading in terms of both Republicans feeling like he might be more vulnerable.

[00:05:59] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. in a primary that turned out to not be the case. Yeah. And Democrats thinking he might be more vulnerable in the general. That also turned out to not be the case. I love that. But it’s interesting that, you know, to also see that part of that flip was a little bit. , you know, and I, I think, you know, he dropped what, like 10 or 12 points or something among Republicans in mid to late 2021 even Really?

[00:06:20] Jim Henson: Just in that, yeah. Kind of summer and, and when he basically, and as you said, that was a tough time to govern. Well, basically,

[00:06:26] Josh Blank: I mean, two things. It’s interesting. Yeah. I mean, that was when he was taking the pandemic. More seriously than was, you know, let’s say the president. And really, when the president kind of said, okay, states, do what you’re gonna do, and Abbott kind of was actually kind of pretty serious at that point.

[00:06:38] Josh Blank: And let, and then before kind of, he got into conflict with the locals about how far to go and kind of went down that direction

[00:06:44] Jim Henson: for a while. Well, and, and, and, you know, I, you know, to be, that happened and also, you know, I mean, I think he, yeah, he, as you imply, you know, he, you know, He and his team put their fingers to the wind and saw which way the wind was blowing in the Republican party.

[00:06:55] Jim Henson: Well, and then, you know, just to,

[00:06:56] Josh Blank: and then to back, you know, to, just to go back to what you just said there about, you know, kind the elite interpretation of that, and I was thinking actually about kind of the, the, the public opinion swing there. And I think one of the things that people sort of assume is that like, these changes are gonna be durable.

[00:07:08] Josh Blank: I think, you know, when you’re in, in this space and you watch it closely, There’s this idea, and I feel like I hear it all the time where it’s like, you know, something happens, whatever it might be, you know, and it could be like, well, you know, Abbott goes out too far on, you know, or not far enough on covid restrictions.

[00:07:20] Josh Blank: Or, you know, say like the DO decision comes down and there’s this expectation that one, there’s gonna be this dramatic shift. And it’s like, well look, first of all, People kind of know what they think generally about these things. So the, the, the amount of, of, of swing is gonna be limited. And then to the extent that like, you know, someone like Abbott sees like a decline.

[00:07:35] Josh Blank: I mean, his job approval among Republicans of like 10 points, most of it going to kinda like, yeah, I’m not sure. Not disapproval. Yeah. Well, you know, look, he’s still a Republican. He still has a very, very effective political operation. He still is, you know, probably the most powerful elected official in the stem.

[00:07:52] Josh Blank: I mean, that’s debatable, right? We’ll get to that in a second. He’s one of the most powerful elected officials in the state. It doesn’t take a lot of work to get that. Those 10, uh, 10% back into your column. Right. And I think that’s kinda what people Yeah. And

[00:08:02] Jim Henson: if, if you’re very del, I mean, you know, look, I mean the events can overtake you Sure.

[00:08:06] Jim Henson: The nature of things, but if you’re politically skilled and you’ve got the resources and the tools and the institutional positioning, each of your disposal, and you’re very attentive to these things. Mm-hmm. , which, you know, whatever you wanna say about Governor Abbott and his team, they’re very attentive to his positioning with the public.

[00:08:23] Jim Henson: Right.

[00:08:24] Josh Blank: So, You know, other things that we found you in polling that I think, you know, sets his kind of context in place. You know, looking at policy, uh, positions. We asked in October of last year, uh, whether voters approved or disapprove of the job Abbott was doing across 11 different issue areas and among Republicans, no fewer than 57% of the job of approved of the job he was doing across all 11 ar uh, issue areas.

[00:08:44] Josh Blank: And that 57% was for climate change. You know, if we take climate change out, The floor for Abbo among Republicans was 67% approval across, uh, everything, and that the lowest one was for his handling of abortion access. We could parse that on its own, his strongest areas among Republicans, immigration of the border, he had 88% of approval, crime and public safety, 84% in the economy, 82%.

[00:09:06] Jim Henson: Roughly speaking, the issues most salient to Republicans in polling during that same period.

[00:09:11] Josh Blank: Absolutely. And so you. . Not surprising then, you know, no more than 50% approval on any of these issues. Uh, you know, once we conclude Democrats and Independence into the mix, right, climate change becomes one of the lowest issuers, abortion access and the electric grid, which I’ll receive less than 40% approval.

[00:09:26] Josh Blank: But I think the, the broader point here is that among the majority of the voters, In the party that is electing all of the seat, the elected late seats. Right. He’s, he’s sitting pretty, you know, he’s sitting pretty among the issues that matter.

[00:09:38] Jim Henson: Yeah. And, and on the other bookend of those areas where his approval numbers are the lowest, those are the areas that A, were by and large pretty sci to Democrats where they have intensely formed and, you know, heavily cud attitudes.

[00:09:52] Jim Henson: Right. And

[00:09:52] Josh Blank: that’s a trade. I mean, the reality is Adam can be a little bit, maybe, Let’s just say a little farther to the right of the median Republican on a couple of those issues, and he’s still in a pretty sweet. You know, relative to the, the electorate overall. Well, and

[00:10:04] Jim Henson: speaking of, you know, your relative positioning, he’s, you know, we can also talk about how he looks compared to other actors.

[00:10:10] Jim Henson: And, you know, anybody, again, one of those moments where if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably don’t need an explanation of how contentious, well, contentious is actually not the right word about, uh, how heavily freighted the relationship with. The other key figure in the state. Dan Patrick has been Yes.

[00:10:31] Jim Henson: From the governor.

[00:10:32] Josh Blank: I was thinking maybe strategic the relationship.

[00:10:34] Jim Henson: Yeah. I, I was, you know, strategic pass in my mind I thought, but that’s also, it’s not quite, no, it needs a little more, you know, and I need a little, yeah. I, I, you know, openly contentious is not quite right. I, I think it is often actually contentious behind the scenes, but to be fair to what the public sees, That contention, you have to be paying attention.

[00:10:51] Jim Henson: You either paying a lot of attention, you know, there’s a, it’s a, it’s a semio. The semiotics of that are complicated and require the right filter, but nonetheless, you know, we should, we can look at his standing relative to other actors, particularly the lieutenant governor and it does tell us something kind

[00:11:04] Josh Blank: of interesting.

[00:11:05] Josh Blank: Yeah, I mean, for much of Abbott’s tenure, I mean, he’s obviously maintained a significantly higher profile than the lieutenant governor being that, that he’s the governor. But, you know, after three elections in the beginning of. Fifth session in the executive branch. You know, the gap is really narrowed between these two.

[00:11:19] Josh Blank: So first to say, you know, the share voters with, with no opinion. I just sort of picked kind of three time points just to kind of illustrate the point. Sure. So in October of 20 16, 20 5% of Texas voters had no opinion of abt. They couldn’t register a positive or negative view, 38% for Patrick, jump ahead two years to October, 2018.

[00:11:36] Josh Blank: Abbott goes down to 17%. So one in four voters, you know, in 2016 couldn’t, basically didn’t have an opinion about Abbott and went down to 17%. In 2018, Patrick strapped to 25%, so from 38 to 25 we jumped to December, 2022. Only 10% of voters don’t have a view of Abbott. 21% don’t have a view of Patrick, so one in 10 versus, uh, one in five.

[00:11:54] Josh Blank: But what you can see is there’s a consistent pattern going on, which is, there’s been about a 10 point gap throughout in terms of the fact that as we’ve gone along, you know, not surprisingly Abbott’s name ID has gone up. A lot of that has been because Democrats have independence, have served, developed negative views.

[00:12:06] Josh Blank: This is also true of Patrick. Right? And so what you end up seeing is, you know, they, they, they’re not as far apart really as they used to be, and I, it’s not even that, they’re not as far apart as easily. They’re as far apart as they used to be. But the share of people not holding an opinion anymore is becoming, yeah, I wouldn’t say I’ll.

[00:12:20] Josh Blank: Potentially structurally insignificant in the sense that if you don’t really have a view of the governor, you don’t really have a view of Lev, of Lieutenant Governor. Are you like a registered voter who turns out in midterm election. Yeah. Do you show up in Republican primaries?

[00:12:32] Jim Henson: No. Well, and one thing, you know, another way to kind of look at that is, well, actually you’re gonna do Republican approval.

[00:12:37] Jim Henson: Yeah. Let me

[00:12:38] Josh Blank: just, I’ll just do the Republican approval. We’ll get out of this data for a second. So anyway, we look same, same time period. You know, we look at Abbott’s, uh, approval among Republicans. In October, 2016, he had 75% approval, 42% strong. 2018, it was 89%, 69% strong. And again, after sort of some, some waves and some peaks and valleys, December 22, he’s still at 89% job approval, but here only 48% strong.

[00:13:00] Josh Blank: So in October, 2018, 69% strong approval. December, 2022. 48% strong approval. So that’s sort of the, you know, the intensity and again, governing makes you make decisions and, and ultimately, you know, Republicans can still be approving but not as strongly. So at this point, for Patrick, it’s about, you know, started about 20 point gap.

[00:13:19] Josh Blank: Abbott, again, 75% approval in 2016, Patrick was at 56% in 2018. Again, Abbott was at 89. Patrick got up to 77%. So big jump. And again, December 22, Abbots at 89, Patrick’s at 77. So Patrick, again, still, I mean if you kind of. Right outside of Donald Trump , you’re not gonna get much higher name ID and positive name id, and really not even much higher among Republican voters for.

[00:13:45] Josh Blank: anybody. And Patrick’s not far off the pace at this point. I mean, to be honest. Yeah. I mean, and you

[00:13:50] Jim Henson: know, I mean, it, it’s not a great comparison, but I mean, if you did want it, we don’t have, I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but if you wanted to compare that in the broader universe in the way that you’re employing, right.

[00:14:00] Jim Henson: Look at John corn’s numbers. Right. You know, John Corn in a lot of ways. I mean, he doesn’t need to. No, but you know, Push come to shove, he would, he wouldn’t kill for these numbers. Cause I think corn is comfortable where he is. But there have been times when, you know, corn would probably appreciate Patrick like numbers.

[00:14:16] Josh Blank: Yeah. Corn. I think corn would trade numbers

[00:14:18] Jim Henson: to Patrick. Right. So, you know, and then the other, you know, something I would add to that after we talked about this before he came up here, I went and looked at a couple other things and um, you know, one of the. subterranean issues here, or it’s just not even that subterranean, just bar, you know, barely subsurface issues.

[00:14:33] Jim Henson: Here has been the contention over how each is viewed by Republican primary voters, right? And most specifically, within those primary voters, the most conservative voters in the state. Mm-hmm. . Right. So I was looking at, you know, just our most recent December 22 numbers broken down by intensity of conservatism.

[00:14:55] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. , you know, and it’s interesting. And in December, in, in that December poll, just among those who identified as extremely conservative, so the most conservative in our measure. Right. Which is a relatively small three point, I mean it’s pocket Yeah. Of the party and of, out of the populace, but not insignificant.

[00:15:12] Jim Henson: Obviously the target audience for these guys, right? A lot of time. I mean, I think you have to assume that if what we think the dynamic here a lot of the time is that both the governor and the lieutenant governor, governor wanting to make sure that the other doesn’t get too far to the right. Yeah. Which gets you kind of stutter, stepping over time pretty far to the right, as we’ve seen.

[00:15:36] Jim Henson: And still, you know, I mean, and, and the wrap on, on, on Governor Abbott during the 2022 primary was that he wasn’t conservative enough. Right. But as of December, among these extreme conservatives, his approval rating was 90%, 60% strong approval. Mm-hmm. Patrick was comparable. 50, but a little lower, 52%, 30.

[00:15:57] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. . And so I think, you know, one might expect, given the way each projects Yeah. And given how they’re positioned institutionally that Patrick would have, if there was gonna be an area where Patrick would have an advantage, yeah. It might be here and it’s not. Yeah. They’re just closer to parody. Yeah.

[00:16:17] Josh Blank: I was gonna say, it’s cl, I mean, it’s interesting to say, I mean, the thing that I think, the story that I take away from this and sort of preparing for this discussion and kind of think about is you.

[00:16:23] Josh Blank: Is is you know, say, okay, what do you take away from this? Like one, okay, first and foremost, yeah. You know, Abbott’s numbers aren’t as strong as they were before, but that’s among mostly people that he’s not trying to get who, whose votes he’s not competing for. Right. Number one, he stands in a very strong position of rep among Republicans.

[00:16:38] Josh Blank: I could say, as you know, as strongly as you know, Trump ever probably stood and in terms of, you know, the relative approval ratings, I think, you know, they look pretty good. Yeah. I mean, generally speaking, he’s got more strong approval than somewhat approval for most of this among Republicans. The interesting thing in this and about this dynamic we’re talking about is the,

[00:16:53] Josh Blank: Patrick has been slowly catching up, right? He’s not there, but to the extent that he’s used his position and used his tenure in office and used, you know, I think his skillset, well, you know, you’re seeing him, you know, at this point now, this idea of, you know, well these two guys are kind of in competition with each other, which I think can be overblown.

[00:17:11] Josh Blank: I mean like a lot, but to the extent that they’re over, you know, in a competition over agendas control, uh, credit claiming that piece of it. Yeah. You know. Whereas before you’d say, you know, I would, I would give Patrick the edge on like raw political skills. Cause he came up through the Senate and the legislative process a little bit, talk and talk radio, you know, and Abbott certainly had sort of the resource skill and the position, right.

[00:17:33] Josh Blank: And the name ID and that kind of the bully pulpit piece of it. But now, you know, it’s like that those. Those distinctions a little bit less Pat, you know, Abbott’s better politically, and Patrick is a little bit more well known and has figured out how to use, you know, his office to at least, you know, get his profile in a similar space.

[00:17:48] Josh Blank: Right. And so it’s sort of, it’s making, you know, again, I don’t necessarily think they’re in competition as much or in the way that people say they are, but it sort of looks like more of a fair fight now. . Yeah. You

[00:17:55] Jim Henson: know, in some ways, yes. I mean, I think the competition between them is, I, I probably have a stronger sense of that, or put a little more into that than you do.

[00:18:03] Jim Henson: Yeah. But I, you know, but I, but I think that point in terms of where they are right now is, mm-hmm. is interesting. You know, we’ll talk a little bit about their political future maybe before we get outta here, each of theirs, but, , you know, going back to the state of the state. So, you know, I, I think you’ve done a good job of kind of posing where Abbott stands, which is in pretty good shape, right.

[00:18:20] Jim Henson: Going into the state of the state. Um, so what is the institutional setup? I think it’s in terms of the way that we look at the different domains and try to, you know, at least reflect a little bit of political science here and there. You know, this is a, a, a period where the governor has some public leverage to inflect the agenda.

[00:18:40] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. and, you know, Talk to this, you know, talk to students about this. It’s in the textbook. It’s some, you know, all of these different things. But it’s worth recapping that, you know, going into the state of the state, you know, the governor will, has the option. And I think everybody expects that he will declare some emergency items.

[00:18:55] Jim Henson: And as we’ve explained before, the notion of emergency items comes out of the constitution. , if the governor declares certain areas of legislation, emergency items, they are exempted from some aspects of the constitutional order and, and it enables the legislature to consider these bills sooner, right?

[00:19:15] Jim Henson: Right. Simply put, and so this is an area where the governor does have potential influence. Now, there are times when the governor’s, governors in the past, including Governor Abbot, have declared things, emergency items, and the legislature has more or less. Yeah. You know, kind of depends on what the flow of politics is at the time.

[00:19:32] Jim Henson: That’s what people will be watching for in the process. Mm-hmm. , I mean, I, you know, they’ll watch it in terms of the rhetoric, et cetera, but what, what people will start taking notes on is when he starts elaborating emergency items. Yeah. Um, yeah. You know, and that doesn’t mean, again, I don’t want to, you know, and, and then the governor, then, you know, his position to some degree recedes.

[00:19:51] Jim Henson: Now obviously institutionally, his ability to veto legislation, which are pretty extensive, including line item vetos. Mm-hmm. hovers over the, the pro the process and the governor and his staff. And, and, and it, particularly this governor play, you know, a pretty prominent role that’s not very public. Yeah. In terms of people proposing legislation and people taking the, the temperature of the governor with his legislative staff in terms of, you know, how the governor views what they’re doing and what the governor’s priorities are and what his.

[00:20:24] Jim Henson: And, and what he will not consider. Right. There’s no

[00:20:27] Josh Blank: advantage to any of the governing coalition to have the legislature look seeming to be seriously considered a bill from the, you know, majority Republican party, to have the governor publicly issue a veto threat. Right. I mean, that doesn’t, that doesn’t do anything for anybody.

[00:20:39] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:20:39] Jim Henson: And it, you know, and look, I mean, I, I think if that happens, it’s usually, you know, you know, there’s something going on. Well,

[00:20:45] Josh Blank: right. If it is, it’s, it’s a very clear decision to do that. And of

[00:20:48] Jim Henson: course the other, you know, the other, you know, the other power the governor has here that. , it doesn’t make manifest, you know, isn’t making manifest now and is really, you know, if, if you’ve got the emergency items as kind.

[00:21:00] Jim Henson: A high point of agenda inflection at the beginning of the process. Mm-hmm. or near mm-hmm. near the beginning of the process. At the end it becomes a threat of a special session. Yeah. Right.

[00:21:09] Josh Blank: Um, and I think, and I mean all of this in my mind is like, you know, this is sort of the opening chapter and we’re gonna move on in a, in a, in a little bit to sort of, to Patrick’s priorities, which is the other part of this, which is, you know, going back to where we were starting on this a little bit, I mean, this is kind of the beginning really.

[00:21:23] Josh Blank: I mean, to me this is like the opening salvo in sort of this question of, you know, who is going to get responsibility for the successes and blame for the failures of the session, right? And this is where Abbott gets to make, you know, his first big, you know, his first big statement of the session saying, these are my priorities and he can now say for the next, you know, couple months, this is, these were my priorities for the legislature, right?

[00:21:42] Josh Blank: And either they followed through on what I told them to.

[00:21:45] Jim Henson: Right. Or the end. And, and this will and, and this, you know, should the, should the governor want it to, this will come back at the end when we start talking about bargaining over a special session and things like this. So, right. So let’s you know, I mean, a little bit so, uh, you know, What is the substance of what the governor seems to want and why?

[00:22:06] Jim Henson: Right now, you know, we’ve talked a lot about here about his campaign themes and I think pretty straightforwardly. You know, the, the governor’s been very vocal about wanting, like everyone else, at least in the leadership of the Republican party, about wanting some kind of property tax relief. Right. Um, You know, he, he’s, you know, been very direct.

[00:22:27] Jim Henson: I’ll be shocked if border security is not seen as an emergency item. Now that’s front loaded since there’s been no pushback on more border security spending in the preliminary budgets. So, you know, hard to imagine. We’re not gonna see that. Um, you know, and then I think, you know, there’s the question of, you know, where does he pick and choose in the mixture of things that we’ve been talking about a lot.

[00:22:53] Jim Henson: The election, but certainly since the election was over, right between the kind of broad, very broadly speaking governance. Eco Divo economic development bucket and you know, the red meat locker, .

[00:23:09] Josh Blank: Yeah, it’s, that’s great. I love that because I’m sitting here, like, I’m kind of writing my, as you’re talking about, I’m saying, and the first thing I wrote was, all right, property taxes.

[00:23:15] Josh Blank: Okay, next one is like border, right? And then I have like, kind of this, I’m like, well, you could, you know, on, on one side you could imagine, you know, the electric grid, you could imagine, you know, broader discussions about infrastructure that people are talking about with Right. With the surplus. And you know, given that, and then there’s another bucket, which I said like, Talk about something having to do with education, right.

[00:23:33] Josh Blank: And when I say something like, and what, I’m not sure, right? It could be about, it could be about, you know, kids who are transgender. It could be about vouchers, it could be about parental rights, it could be about all of those things. It

[00:23:43] Jim Henson: could also be school safety.

[00:23:44] Josh Blank: It, then that would almost fall more. Yeah.

[00:23:46] Josh Blank: I mean that’s an interesting inner sort in

[00:23:47] Jim Henson: between. It’s, yeah, I mean, I guess what I’m realizing is I should have had a, an intermediate bucket

[00:23:52] Josh Blank: there, probably. Well, and the truth is nothing stops him from doing all these things. Really. I mean, but, but, but I think, you know, what’s interesting is, and you know, given the fact that, I mean, to your point, this largely reflects the themes of the campaign.

[00:24:02] Josh Blank: It reflects the priorities of Republican voters and especially Republican primary voters. And I think we’ll get a sense even more when we see what the list is, is. Where the relative weight of this stuff is. I mean, we, you know, we wrote a, we had a podcast, let’s, we wrote a piece about sort of the relationship of the business community to the Republican party.

[00:24:19] Josh Blank: And it’s interesting, I mean, we know property taxes in the border are, those are in there in some way, shape or form. You know, whether they’re an emergency item or not, they’re. They have pride of place, but then it’s like, you know, you start to think about like, okay, , you know, what, what is, what is next right now, you know, are we going after woke businesses?

[00:24:35] Josh Blank: Are we trying to like elevate these issues that are very, very mobilized and in and around the suburbs and like sort of school board elections and things like that? Or is this a time to talk about broadband expansion and infrastructure and three 13 and, you know, incentive these, like what, what’s the direction,

[00:24:51] Jim Henson: you know?

[00:24:52] Jim Henson: Yeah. And I think. Uh, you know, we’ve been talking again, we’ve been talking the last few weeks that about all of these things that are sort of appearing on the table Yeah. To set the stage for. The bargaining to come. Right. And this is gonna be an interesting, you know, this is gonna be a big part of the table setting, you know, which, which, which of those things appear.

[00:25:12] Jim Henson: And so you, you know, we might as well like, crank out what’s going on. So, you know, the other, you know, uh, uh, more inside baseball event this week, although, you know, the media’s picking it up. They’ve been waiting. Um, wa and, and you know, certainly inside the. Inside the, inside the, the beltway right. In Austin.

[00:25:30] Jim Henson: Anyway, people have been waiting to see, you know, how the, how the Lieutenant Governor was gonna fill out the first 30 bills that were reserved for priority bills on, in, on the Senate side. and you know, through, I, I’m, you know, as we were talking before the podcast, no accident of timing. Yeah. Uh, the Lieutenant Governor has released his list of priorities and, you know, a little bit of context here before we talk about, you know, this list, which is kind of a, you know, in terms of the buckets we were just talking about, it’s kind of a kitchen sink list.

[00:26:00] Jim Henson: Um, Yeah. You know, within the universe that we’re talking about. But it is interesting, you know, we’ve talked about the governor’s positioning, you know, as, as Lieutenant Governor said in some of the, the verbiage accompanying the release of these, of these 30 bills of these that are, that are really just subject lines at this point.

[00:26:18] Jim Henson: Yeah. Um, . You know, it used to be like they’d relayed reserve 20. Yeah. Couple sessions ago, Lieutenant Governor thought it was appropriate to start reserving 30. Yeah. This is released right as the governor is going to declare, you know, I think last time there were a half dozen emergency items. Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

[00:26:38] Jim Henson: Um, so there’s 30 things you can knock a couple of these out. You know, SB one is the budget, cuz the budget’s this year, the budget’s originating on the Senate side. You can group some of these together. Yeah, there’s, you can group some of these. SB 30 is the supplemental. That’s just a function of, again, it being a year where the, the budget process is starting on the Senate side.

[00:26:57] Jim Henson: Um, but in between you’ve got a, a, a lot of options. That, you know, will, will absolutely be compared to the governor’s emergency items the moment we know what those

[00:27:09] Josh Blank: are. Yeah, and I mean that’s, that’s exactly why. Patrick released them , you know? Yeah. As he did. And it’s interesting, I mean, going back to how we were talking about, looking at the views of Republicans, I mean with, uh, the release of these, uh, of these priorities, the statement said, you know, from Patrick, so that these proposals, you know, are gonna be supported by Texans.

[00:27:27] Josh Blank: And he said quote, because they largely reflect the policy supported by the conservative majority of taxes. Right. Which, which I love because I mean, to some extent as a public opinion guy, it’s like, this is what we’ve been talking about. It’s like, look, you just have to look at Republican version. He said, and even so, you should really look.

[00:27:41] Josh Blank: The most conservative Republican voters, right? And here it’s just like, , these are the priorities of, you know, are going to be supported because the majority, you know, a majority of the voters and the majority coalition right, are going to support these

[00:27:53] Jim Henson: policies. And you know, look, when you have 28 bills to play with, you get a lot of breath

[00:27:57] Jim Henson: Yes, you do a lot of room to run. So like on one hand you’ve got, you know, around the middle of the list, Senate Bill nine and Senate Bill 10, you know, empowering teacher rights, a teacher pay raise, adding a 13th check for retired teachers, right? You know, it keeps going through the edu. You know, we were talking about education, and this really does underline what you were talking about.

[00:28:17] Jim Henson: What will the education items and whether they’re emergency items or not, what will the education portion of Governor Abbott’s speech look like? And if you look at, you know, for those of you following along at home, if you look at the list of items, you know, Senate Bill eight through, you know, roughly 15 inter actually roughly, 17 or 18.

[00:28:44] Jim Henson: Encompass education. If you go K through 12 and higher ed, and they range from these teacher pay issues, but through things like protecting children from obscene books and libraries, you know, ending child gender modification, protecting women college sports, banning critical race theory in higher education, and a favorite of many of my colleagues here.

[00:29:05] Jim Henson: Eliminating tenure at general academic institutions among other things, right? Well, that really gives you a sense of even within education, there’s a lot of room to roam here. You

[00:29:15] Josh Blank: know, I think you know this, and I think you’ll back me on this. I don’t usually like point out when I was right about things.

[00:29:22] Josh Blank: But I’m pretty good. I mean, like I, you know, partially because we work in a probabilistic business, so I generally just am like, you know, I’m reaching into one of those urns and pulling out a ball, so I’m kind of like, yeah, sure. I have to be reasonable about this. But I’ve been kind of talking about the, the, you know, how crowded the education space is.

[00:29:36] Josh Blank: Yeah. And if you do it, you just did, and you say, okay, there’s 30 bills here. And if I go here, I go from eight to 19. Yeah. Involve education. Now, some of those are higher ed, some of those are public ed, but a almost a third of these, actually, a third of these, our education related bills. Right. That’s a lot.

[00:29:54] Josh Blank: You know, I mean that’s like, this is, you know, I mean it’s really, this does kind of lay out and the fact that they’re all priorities is like, well, they can’t all be priorities. Priorities is actually a singular word anyway. So gonna sign. And there’s an

[00:30:03] Jim Henson: interesting, you know, I mean there’s an interesting dynamic house senate dynamic here.

[00:30:07] Jim Henson: Well, that’s to digress slightly on, you know. No, this is, let’s talk about that in that we have, you know, an experienced ally of the Lieutenant Governor. Mm-hmm. allies. Not quite the right word, probably, but in the education chair and, and a unified education chair that has authority over education and higher ed in the Senate.

[00:30:29] Jim Henson: Right. Uh, Senator Brandon Creighton. And you’re gonna have a first time education chair, higher ed chair, uh, in the house. Yep. And so, you know, the dynamic there is going to be interesting. I, I think a lot of these are gonna, Gonna have very tough sledding in the house. Right.

[00:30:47] Well,

[00:30:48] Josh Blank: and this, and this is what’s gonna be interesting.

[00:30:49] Josh Blank: We were talking about this earlier, you know, and, and we sort of, I mean, to, to be sort of social sciences, you’d already raised it. You know, there’s something sort of, we think about game, I think about game theory in the sense, you know, we call this a repeated game, right? All the. Players go in, they know what’s gonna happen.

[00:31:01] Josh Blank: But the thing is, if you play a game over and over again, you gotta adjust your strategies, right? Because, and you have to adjust your strategies, not only because you learn, but because you’re assuming the other side is adjusting their strategies. Right? And I’ve already talked about kind of like, you know, my take of like Abbott’s dynamic a little bit.

[00:31:15] Josh Blank: And you know, we’re gonna see the beginning of this this week where he gets to say, okay, go do these things. He can take an extreme position. He says, let’s, hey, let’s. Let’s, let’s cut property taxes by 70 billion. Yeah. It doesn’t, you know, and ultimately he could say any number he wants because the legislature will get wherever they’re gonna get and he can say, look what I got for you.

[00:31:30] Josh Blank: Right. But the thing is, Patrick knows this now, and the thing is, when Patrick had his big, big priority list back with the bathroom, bill Abbott came in and in the special session, he basically scooped up that list. Made it the special session agenda. Yeah. And they took credit for what they were able to pass and then

[00:31:44] Jim Henson: blame them for what they.

[00:31:46] Jim Henson: Right

[00:31:46] Josh Blank: able to pass. So one of the things that I think people have been pointing out is an interesting thing to watch in this sort of very inner dynamic is like, okay, so is is the pacing right? I mean, Patrick obviously has the ability to make this legislation move basically. And again, this legislation doesn’t even exist yet, but to the extent that it will exist very soon, he can make it move pretty much as fast as he wants it to within the constitution.

[00:32:04] Jim Henson: They move his priorities very rapidly and very purposefully

[00:32:07] Josh Blank: lost. Right. Within constitutional limits. Yeah. Okay. But then the question becomes, you know, but remember

[00:32:13] Jim Henson: we are talking about the.

[00:32:15] Josh Blank: Well, right. Okay. Okay. Haha. So they go and let’s say, let’s say they just run through in the first, you know, Hundred days.

[00:32:23] Josh Blank: They knock out all 30 of these and they send ’em all to the house. Now, first of all, as you point out, the house may have just a functional problem processing all this stuff with the committee makeup and ideological, whatever, right? But I guess what I’m starting to think about is like what’s better or worse for Patrick?

[00:32:35] Josh Blank: Is it better to send all this stuff to the house, right and have them screw it up? Or to try to like maybe even prioritize within this list to try to try to. Try to get as much as you can out of this, because one of the things, knowing that Abbott’s sitting there on the side and he’s gonna take credit for stuff, but he’s also gonna point to the things you didn’t do right.

[00:32:53] Josh Blank: Is it worth it to you to send a bunch of stuff to the house to then have them not pass some of it out of backlash? Which I mean, honestly, like that’s kind of what, what has been happening lately to then basically end up being the foil that Abbot’s waiting for. Yeah. And so kind of, you know, it’s what’s the next stage of

[00:33:08] Jim Henson: this is sort of the, well, and I also, you know, I, as part of that equation, , you know, I’d be remiss, particularly with our, with our listeners that are, you know, creatures of the legislature.

[00:33:18] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. , um, you know, you can’t also underestimate the degree to which, you know, the games are linked. But this is also an iterative game with a speaker. Right. You know, and a speaker in which there is, you know, clearly. Uh, uh, a level of antagonism between the speaker and the Lieutenant Governor right now that goes beyond the pre-programmed, you know, institutional.

[00:33:45] Jim Henson: So it doesn’t see, it’s not tension between the House and the Senate. So, no,

[00:33:47] Josh Blank: Indi I mean, this is a joke I should say in front. So no indication from you that the speaker and, and, and the lieutenant governor are banding up so that they can, you know, be a better counterweight to the governor and the agenda space.

[00:33:57] Josh Blank: Well, you

[00:33:57] Jim Henson: know, I was in an off the record event, so I can’t share details Last night at the. The tea lip roast of, uh, state Representative Syfron Thompson, in which the last, all of the last six speakers, including the current speaker spoke, you know, got up and roast roasted each other and Ms. Thompson. You know, I would say that there was, you know, a lot of stray fire also aimed at the, at the lieutenant Governor.

[00:34:28] Jim Henson: We’ll leave it at that. So I, I, yeah, I don’t think that there, the, there’s been any repair. Yeah. And you know, look, I don’t think you’re one of them. Is, is. Worked at all to hide that? Yeah. I mean, you know, we’ve talked on the podcast before about, you know, at an on the record event. Speaker Felan, you know, when, when asked by, by Evan Smith, the, the interview at the Tribune Festival in the fall, you know, Whether, you know, he thought that they would be resuming the breakfast between the big three.

[00:34:55] Jim Henson: And I think a lot of those, the comptroller was at and he, you know, if they’d been doing that and he was like, you know, the speaker just kind of pretty good stage paused and said, I, I don’t really, I’m not a big breakfast

[00:35:06] Josh Blank: eater. I think he said something else and that was like, our staffs talk regularly.

[00:35:09] Josh Blank: Yeah,

[00:35:09] Jim Henson: right. You know, stuff like that. So. All right. So, you know, to, to wind this up. So what are we looking for? You know, you know what, before we wind this up, I do wanna flag something just as continuity with some previous things we talked. You know, I think it is also interesting and it is something that I’ll be watching for pretty closely in the state of the state because, you know, it seems like it’s something that has been bubbling up and that is, you know, Senate Bill 28 is addressing Texas’s future water needs.

[00:35:37] Jim Henson: Yeah. You know, you mentioned infrastructure going through Right. And I, you know, it’s hard not to wonder whether there’s gonna be follow through on that in terms of, you know, this discussion of water. You know, that started to appear, I think, you know, I at a very low profile on the elec in the electoral season.

[00:35:57] Jim Henson: But pretty quickly afterwards, uh, you know, you started seeing this discussion of water kind of popping up and I’m gonna, I’m gonna be interested to see if that’s a point of, if there’s, if that’s a shared point and, and. I, you know, I, I’m sure given what we’ve seen that the governor will mention it. I’ll be interested to see if, if water is an emergency item, you know,

[00:36:15] Josh Blank: as long as we’re doing a little thing, I’ll add to that and just say, you know, I’m curious, given term, you know, the continuity of the discussion we’ve been having.

[00:36:21] Josh Blank: You know, when they dis. What the vehicle for? Uh, I’m, I’m curious what the vehicle for increasing the reliability of the electric grid looks like. Yeah. Given the set of attitudes that we’ve been talking about towards business generally, right. Because ultimately, you know, yes, the oil and gas industry has a certain, you know, has a certain pride of place and is, is lionized in Texas in a certain way.

[00:36:41] Josh Blank: However, I gotta say. . You know, sitting here and looking at the data that we collected in December towards businesses generally, I know what Democrats are gonna say about the oil and gas industry. No problem. I pretty much have a, you know, a sense of what independents are gonna be leaning. They’re probably gonna lean in the democratic direction.

[00:36:55] Josh Blank: I think in most cases. You know, what is, what do, what do Republican attitudes towards the oil and gas industry in Texas right now, and to the extent that we come out of this session. You know, what kind of resources do the oil and gas industry get out of this and what kind of reaction do we see from that?

[00:37:09] Josh Blank: Yeah, I mean, cause there’s

[00:37:10] Jim Henson: a lot of room for that. And this is where we, you know, we should plug the piece that we did last week, or I think we rolled it out Friday. So we’re gonna call it, it’s a piece for this week. Yeah, sure. In which we went through a lot of that data, um, on attitudes towards business.

[00:37:23] Jim Henson: And you know, to your point, remember, You know, what we did is we asked, we asked, you know, we asked the, the poll respondents, do you think you know bus, you know, business and corporations are doing too much or too much too littler about the right amount? In response to the following, the top, too much response among Republicans was climate change and LGBTQ rights, right, and LGBTQ rights.

[00:37:50] Jim Henson: You know that both of those things are, but in terms of what we’re talking about, very

[00:37:54] Josh Blank: interesting. It’s, it’s a, it’s a very, uns at this point, to me, seems a kind of an unsettled space. Well, I mean,

[00:37:59] Jim Henson: I, I guess what I would say, you know, I, and I think again, God, a lot of social science in this podcast. Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on here.

[00:38:05] Jim Henson: Take a shower. But I mean, I, I think part of that is that that reflects. one, the com, you know, the, you know, the massive complexity mm-hmm. of a problem that people experienced in a non-complex way. In other words, this is on people’s radar because a bunch of people huddled in the dark with the lights out when it was very cold a couple of years ago and have not, and are still and recently have seen some lights.

[00:38:31] Josh Blank: Well, and every, and every time the lights go out, now they’re

[00:38:32] Jim Henson: reminded of us. Right. And so there’s that.

[00:38:37] Jim Henson: The area, you know, within the policy area, like a lot of big complex areas like this that include these big, multiple big sectors with a lot of influence in the system, there’s not elite consensus right now on what to do about this. In fact, there is a big, you know, ongoing policy fight in which, you know, essentially.

[00:38:57] Jim Henson: the first effort to solve this or to, not to solve it, but to address it in the process? Mm-hmm. has not really worked out. In other words, you know, PUC came up, PUC came up with a proposal using some consultants, and that proposal is not really. Being accepted as is. Right. Right. And so I think that is exacerbating this, you know, in terms of, you know, the, the classic model of complex policy issue public, you know?

[00:39:26] Jim Henson: Yeah. It reaches a degree of Sal East with the public. They look to elites for clear guidance, for partisan cues. And Republicans are actually fighting among themselves. I mean, there’s, there’s no consensus among Republicans including, To date among the big three. And so, well, and I’m sitting

[00:39:42] Josh Blank: here thinking to myself, you know, as a, as someone who sits on the public opinion side, knowing that people’s, you know, opinions about this are relatively, you know, pretty constrained and pretty limited.

[00:39:51] Josh Blank: But if I think, you know, if we get to the back end of this and we’re, you know, polling in late, you know, let’s say in April or March, you know, uh, and we’re asking about, you know, some kind of multi-billion dollar seed money for infrastructure bank, for the oil and gas industry. I don’t know if that’s gonna get a good reception

[00:40:06] Jim Henson: among the public.

[00:40:07] Jim Henson: Well, you know, I mean in our polling it, you know it, you know, that is one of those things, whereas people always say to say to us, Well, you could have asked that differently. Absolutely. Totally. I, and I think that’s an artifact of what I’m talking about. Yeah. No,

[00:40:20] Josh Blank: right. Well, but I mean, but to, but to your point, I think the thing is, is what’s interesting about that, it is definitely a, a reflection of, of, you know, how you ask it.

[00:40:28] Josh Blank: And, but I mean, to make the point that the, the sort of other considerations that one might bring to bear on this, that may or may not influence the question at this point. They’re all pretty heavy, right? Yeah. So it’s like, it’s these sort of orientations towards business orientation, towards state supportiveness.

[00:40:41] Josh Blank: It’s also climate change, and so there’s a lot of things that can kind of get into that space that can kind of, I think you normally, I would

[00:40:47] Jim Henson: say yes, a lot of competing frames that aren’t gonna, aren’t gonna, aren’t gonna relate directly to whatever the, the policy proposal on the table is, which is gonna be.

[00:40:56] Jim Henson: Massively complex, no matter, right? I mean, you know, there’s gonna be a couple hundred people in the state that fully understand mm-hmm. , yeah.

[00:41:02] Josh Blank: What is going on there? But that’s actually what creates the, what creates all the space. Right, exactly. For to shape opinion, you know, in a way that I think in this case, normally say yes, the question matters.

[00:41:12] Josh Blank: Maybe it shifts things a couple points here or there, but when you start thinking about like, well, will what el you know, we started thinking about the ways people are gonna message test this Yeah. And work with it. I could see, you know, there’s gonna be a lot of flux in this.

[00:41:23] Jim Henson: Yeah. So, we’ll, so we’ll almost certainly spend at least part of the next week podcast.

[00:41:27] Jim Henson: You know, as long as every, you know, we’re all, you know, we all survive the next week, um, parsing this. So to round up, you know, a few things to kind of, you know, like questions going into this, and maybe we’ll come back to these, you know. Clearly, as we’ve said in terms of the state level politics and the legislative process, you know, what are those emergency items gonna be?

[00:41:49] Jim Henson: What gets, you know, relative pride of place? How much, how much real estate do different topics get in the, get in the speech? Um, and then on to, you know, a matter of speculation that we really talked about a lot. We don’t have to come back to this, you know, we’re gonna wind up having to talk about it next week.

[00:42:03] Jim Henson: So there’s no. . Yeah. Getting into it too much right now, but, you know, how much do the themes that the governor articulates and how, and, and how much of the style in which he articulates them, you know, tap into very familiar, prominent national political discussions right now, you know, how does ba, how does Abbott balance these traditional economic development kind of themes?

[00:42:27] Jim Henson: And we’ve hit on this already, but with the. You know, provocative. And I would say, you know, to some degree, and it’s fair, I think even some of the more reactionary themes that are really front and central, front and center. Front and center for so many Texas and National Republicans right now, and our front and center on, on Lieutenant Governor Patrick’s list, how does that all shake out and, and so, And then, and then how do we, how does this feed the speculation about what the governor’s plans are for the future?

[00:42:56] Jim Henson: Yeah. And uh, uh, and by extension, you know, kind of every other statewide official and republican political entrepreneur in the place. So it’s gonna be a, it’s gonna be a very loaded kind of moment. I think now we’re dorking out on this. Most Texans will not pay very much attention, but you know, that’s what we do.

[00:43:12] Jim Henson: Yep. That’s what you’re here for, . All right. So, Thanks for being here, Josh. Uh, fun conversation, at least for us. We’ll see how the listeners respond, if at all. Uh, thanks again as always, to our excellent production team in the dev studio in the College of Liberal Arts here at UT Austin. Uh, we’ll post some of the, the polling that we’ve talked about in a blog post at our website, Texas politics dot u texas.edu.

[00:43:37] Jim Henson: Uh, thanks for listening and we’ll be back next week with another second reading podcast.

[00:43:46] Jim Henson: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.