Mar 7th, 2024 – Unpacking the 2024 Texas Primary Results

[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.

[00:00:24] Intro: At what point? Must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room.

[00:00:34] Jim: Welcome back to the Second Reading Podcast. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Happy to be joined this post primary election day by Josh Blank. The research director for the Texas Politics Project. I was going to characterize that as a quasi hysterical chuckle.

[00:00:56] Josh: I’m a little tired. It’s Friday, [00:01:00] right? Oh, no, it’s Thursday.

[00:01:01] Jim: Physically and mentally tired. Yeah, a little bit. But, you know, but excited and as ever enthusiastic.

[00:01:08] Josh: Oh, for sure. Hey, we have more, we have more information. More

[00:01:11] Jim: information, generally better. Right. So, you know, we’ve been anticipating, uh, Tuesday’s Texas primary election for months now.

[00:01:21] Jim: Um, or at least many of us have. And, and the results, you know, to some degree lived up to the anticipation. I mean, I think we sometimes dine out. I’m going, oh, you know, let’s not overdramatize. But, you know, interesting things have happened. Yeah, I mean

[00:01:36] Josh: for sure a bunch of incumbents got knocked off. I mean, you know, we’ll get to the details But you know the speakers in a runoff, you know, everybody who you know Spent money and endorsed is crowing about how powerful they are or how powerful somebody else is in some cases, right?

[00:01:49] Josh: So yeah, I mean, you know at least for a time of the year that can often be turn out to actually like pretty quiet It’s it’s It’s pretty engaging, at least for, you know, sort of people like us, right?

[00:01:59] Jim: So [00:02:00] if you’re listening to this, as we often say, you know, your email inbox and text messages are already filled up to the brim with summaries and revised summaries and reactions.

[00:02:11] Jim: So, you know, we’re not going to dig too deep into that. We’ll start with a few of the By the numbers, looks at the out, look at the, uh, looks at the outcomes. Um, but mostly we want to talk about impressions of implications, what it all means, doesn’t mean, you know, and these are, these are not hot takes.

[00:02:30] Jim: They’re, they’re still kind of warm. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think flagging our, you know, sense of fatigue, you know, I probably need to not think about this for a while and then think about it again some more. Yeah, I think that’s right. Um, you know, and of course we’ll throw in a little bit where we can about, you know, what, what polling has told us about, told us or didn’t tell us about what happened.

[00:02:52] Jim: So few top lines, uh, nine GOP incumbents were defeated outright, um, gone. In addition to the, [00:03:00] the several that had chosen not to run again, uh, there’s going to, by current count, and there are a couple that, you know, may be challenged here or so, but broadly speaking, 18 legislative runoffs by most counts, 16 in the House, two in the Senate, um, most notably, and, and the biggest headline for the hashtag text ledge crowd, Speaker of the House, Dade Phelan faces a runoff After finishing about three points behind challenger, David Covey, um, uh, backed, of course, by Attorney General Paxton, by Dan Pat, by Lieutenant Governor Patrick, and, you know, a host of the sort of far right slash insurgent Republican crowd, um, You know, I think something got, you know, attention in the political press, but probably, you know, kind of a sleeper in this in some ways, just by the nature of it.

[00:03:53] Jim: Challengers to three incumbent judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals, all of whom were supported by [00:04:00] Paxton and his allies, were defeated, um, and, and defeated outright. Um, you know, in the only real marquee race on the Democratic side, Colin Allred won a ticket to challenge Ted Cruz by easily passing the 50 percent threshold in a crowded field.

[00:04:19] Jim: State Senator Gutierrez finished second last I saw with just under 17%. Um, you know, a little better than he was polling. You know, I think, uh, not, not, you know, not a winning and not, you know, not to be giving trophies to all the kids. You know, kind of a decent showing. Yeah, I would say, given what

[00:04:36] Josh: he had to work with.

[00:04:37] Josh: Yeah. I mean, you know, I think ultimately, you know, there were a lot of things working against, uh, Senator Gutierrez. I mean, mainly in particular, honestly, being in the legislature, the entirety of last year and not running, not, you know, raising money in the same way. I mean, he was, he was limited in what he could do and to really get close to, you know, one in five voters or so in the primary, even if it’s a very low turnout primary, not a bad showing.

[00:04:59] Jim: Yeah. And, and, [00:05:00] and we should know, you know, that was a, you know, I mean, free ride is a little too flip, but I mean, but yeah, the point being, you know, Senator Gutierrez will return to the Senate as he wasn’t up for reelection this cycle. Um, Donald Trump, unsurprisingly, sails to a clear victory with a little more than 1.

[00:05:19] Jim: 8 million votes, which was 78 percent of the. of the vote in that, in that particular race. Um, and again, I, you know, we’ve talked about how to talk about the Nikki Haley candidacy, but I, you know, I don’t think you’re being particularly anti Trump or pesky or overestimating or overplaying Nikki Haley’s position to note that, you know, she got more than 400, 000 votes.

[00:05:44] Jim: Right. About 17 percent when she was, you know, clearly not going to win. Right. Right. And so, you know, we talked about this, I think a little bit last week in terms of. or maybe the week before, thinking about how, what Nikki Haley is up to, what it’s significant, it says, [00:06:00] and put a pin in that for later, but I think it’s worth noting.

[00:06:03] Jim: Um, you know, so we should add here based on the, on the list of Trump endorsements while we’re on the subject of Trump, just in case we don’t get back to it. Um, and the list I had came from Lieutenant Governor Patrick, I think the via social media the day before. the election. Trump endorsed 16 House candidates, including three incumbents, all three of whom won.

[00:06:25] Jim: Overall, 11 of the Trump endorsees in House races won, two lost, three are in a runoff, and that includes, of course, David Covey in the Phelan race. Joe Biden was even less opposed in his race, though with anemic Democratic turnout, he won close to 85 percent of the Democratic vote, but that was only about.

[00:06:48] Jim: It’s added up to a little more than 826, 000. I think it’s 826, 400 and something votes. So, you know, oof. You know. Not a great place to be starting. In terms of, you know, democratic turnout in the [00:07:00] state, um, which was very low. So you know, let, let’s, let’s talk about a few things and, you know, for our crowd, you know, let’s talk, let’s start with the speakers race, which is what.

[00:07:10] Jim: Uh, or the, you know, did feelings race in his district, um, to distinguish between two possible subjects.

[00:07:19] Josh: But you know what? I actually will come back to that. I think that’s actually an interesting part of this. I’m just trying to be,

[00:07:23] Jim: yeah, sure. A little precise, a little precise, kind of precise

[00:07:27] Josh: podcast to point out

[00:07:30] Jim: kind of precise.

[00:07:31] Jim: Um, so you know, a lot of questions here. What is feelings? Failure to win outright mean for him, right? What does it mean for the House? And, you know, broadly, relations between the two chambers and the legislature going forward. I mean, you know, to just start with the obvious, I mean, you know, no matter how you spin it, I mean, I think if you’re, you know, in the kind of paid advocacy [00:08:00] position, you might say, well, you know, he made a runoff, you know, this is, you know, not very many people are saying this, but one might, look, at least he made it to the runoff given the millions arrayed against him and, and the four, the great forces and.

[00:08:12] Jim: the meddling of other statewide officials, quote unquote, et cetera. But look, this has to be interpreted as a sign of weakness. And I think the general sense is that, you know, not only is his seat in danger because he’s an incumbent going into a runoff, which is not a good position to be in by the numbers historically.

[00:08:32] Jim: Um, but even if he prevails. His speakership is certainly in

[00:08:36] Josh: jeopardy. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the few instances in this podcast where it is worthwhile to sort of bring in some of what political science says about these kinds of things, which is, you know, when you look at the people who are in, in the leadership positions, in legislators, whether you’re talking about the Congress or you’re talking about state legislators, you’re usually talking about people who are.

[00:08:53] Josh: You know, unequivocally safe positions in their districts. They’re so safe that they can spend time raising money for other people, [00:09:00] uh, helping other candidates fend off challenges. And the thing about, you know, and this speaks to his overall weakness here. One, he couldn’t defend himself regardless of the forces arrayed against him.

[00:09:08] Josh: But two, he wasn’t very successful in defending. Many of the House members who were, you know, basically out on a limb on a couple of things. And so not to say that, you know, feelings, you know, feeling could have made a difference necessarily in some of the voucher can’t, you know, voucher holdout districts.

[00:09:23] Josh: But, you know, when you’re looking ahead to thinking about, you know, the calculation of your modal Republican House member right now, you know, feeling might look like more of a liability than a shield to you at this point.

[00:09:33] Jim: Yeah. And, and, you know, inevitably, you know, in the, you know, whatever the, you know, the old cliched saying about.

[00:09:43] Jim: You know, success has a million parents and failure has none or something. Right. Oh, yeah. Um, I’m not going to feel bad about not being able to remember that old saw, but, you know, it’s going to raise definite questions about how[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] Jim: the speaker and his team handled the politics of the last couple of sessions. And I, you know, I think that’s fair, right? I mean, you know, particularly the matters that were the fulcrum. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll come in if you want to, you’re, for those of you, for those of you at home, there’s a certain amount of maybe I kind of agree with that, but let me, you know, so, you know, particularly on the fulcrum.

[00:10:23] Jim: You know, of the political mobilization against incumbents, you know, the, the issues that were the fulcrum of the mobilization, you know, education issues were at large, specifically ESA vouchers, et cetera, and the Paxton impeachment. I mean, there was a headline this morning, I think it was in the Texas Tribune, but I’m not sure if it wasn’t, I apologize to the dailies or whoever else that wrote it, but it’s probably more than one.

[00:10:46] Jim: You know, to the effect of, um, and I paraphrase, this is not in headline form, but you know, uh, you know, Phelan made the gamble of his career on the Paxton impeachment and seems to have not paid off. Um, but you know, look, you know, [00:11:00] this is about, and to be clear, I’m talking about the politics, not the policy and how the politics were handled.

[00:11:05] Jim: Right. And that’s going on. So.

[00:11:07] Josh: Yeah, no, I mean, I, it’s tough because on the one hand. You know, I do think you look feeling is by no means from conversations. I had like a perfect speaker in terms of the way he’s handled the politics of the chamber or even these two particular matters. Having said that, you know, it’s tough when you look at his record, right?

[00:11:25] Josh: And you look at how much conservative legislation the House has accomplished over the last few sessions under, you know, his speakership. You know, it is, and we’ll get to sort of institutional ramifications here, but like, it is sort of interesting that really you can kind of point to these two things and say, well, he messed these up.

[00:11:44] Josh: And, you know, if he’d probably not messed up one of them, he might’ve been safe. I mean, he was close. He’s very close. I’m not saying.

[00:11:50] Jim: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I mean, I think for, I don’t want

[00:11:53] Josh: to say messed up,

[00:11:53] Jim: but I mean, I was doing my

[00:11:55] Josh: head. I mean, I mean, I mean, you know, he messed up the politics

[00:11:59] Jim: of a [00:12:00] Monday morning.

[00:12:01] Josh: Yeah, I mean, managing the politics of it, and I’m not saying that, you know, voters came out and, you know, turned him out because, you know, he oversaw, you know, the impeachment of Ken Paxton, but it, you know, it, It added fuel to the fire that was already there and it’s always there to

[00:12:18] Jim: remove. Well, you know, and let’s tease that out and I think we talked about this, we’ve talked about this a little bit in the run up and it’s good to kind of reiterate this point afterwards because I think it’s important, you know, and it’s one of the reasons I said, you know, handling the politics, you know, one of the things that came out of our February polling and, and was consistent with what we had gotten in the run up to, you know, election season, quote unquote.

[00:12:44] Jim: Was that you had to consider the fallout on these two issues and these two, you know, strategic decisions. Um, you know, uh, you know, in a more holistic way rather than, you know, trying to find [00:13:00] a direct correlate in public opinion because, you know, we know that, you know, in, in numerous items, you know, when we ask people in the, in the last poll, you know, are you looking at Ken Paxton’s endorsement, you know, for guidance, almost literally nobody said that.

[00:13:16] Jim: Right.

[00:13:17] Josh: And people weren’t paying attention to the, I mean, barely heard anything about the endorsements

[00:13:20] Jim: period. Yeah. People had not heard a lot about the endorsements. Now, primary voters did likely primary voters, in the sense of the most conservative and the most Republican, did tend to report that they, you know, they were more likely to have paid attention.

[00:13:36] Jim: So we should say that. But even among those primary voters, we also know that when we asked about issues, very few. People said, Oh, you know what? I’m going to vote on vouchers or I’m going to vote on the Paxton impeachment. So that gets to the point. I’m just kind of fleshing out that point that I think is important is that, you know, it’s not that this didn’t have an impact because we saw elite [00:14:00] and interest group mobilization around these issues, but those were not, you know, hopefully there’ll be somebody, you know.

[00:14:08] Jim: if we had infinite resources, we would do this. I would, I would love for somebody to gather all the political advertising content, analyze it and see what was in the forefront of the, of that advertising. Cause I got the impression from what I saw. I was in North Texas the weekend before the election, you know, saw a handful of ads and people were not playing either the Paxton impeachment or, or vouchers.

[00:14:30] Jim: person per se. In a very direct way. But that’s impressionistic based on what I’ve seen. And what we’ve seen, what I’ve seen in social media, etc.

[00:14:39] Josh: Yeah. And I think this is like, this is something that, you know, I got asked. We’ve been doing a lot of media interviews in the last few days, and, and, you know, it’s been very interesting to see some of the questions get asked.

[00:14:47] Josh: But one of the questions that I think has sort of been asked, you know, me at one point It was, well, you know, I know that your polling has shown that vouchers is not. A high priority issue for a lot of Republican voters, a lot of people didn’t mention it as an issue that they cared about [00:15:00] in the primaries, you know, what happened, what happened when it was sort of what happened was almost the question was almost to the effect of did more voucher voters show up and sort of this, there’s this way you sort of turn it around or something, or, or, you know, has Ken Paxton been vindicated by this and, um, And I think, you know, to meld these points together is important here, which is to say, you know, voters didn’t talk about this as much.

[00:15:18] Josh: They were much more focused on other issues on the border. The candidates in those districts, in most cases, were much, much more focused on the border and on other sets of issues. And it’s not to say that those issues, and just to lump them together, didn’t impact these races. They clearly impacted these races, but they impacted these races in both, I think, generating challengers.

[00:15:39] Josh: Right. Creating distinctions, which is really important and hard to do when, you know, again, most of these House Republicans are, have voted lockstep, I mean, really on all of the key issues in the last couple of years. Um, and so this was, you know, this created the conditions and it created, I think, you know, uh, I would say coalitional elements that were then aligned against some [00:16:00] incumbents, including the speaker.

[00:16:01] Josh: Right. Right. But in and of themselves, would you say, is this what voters? Like reacted to and I would say no, I don’t think so both because of what the candidates are talking about as you point out Is maybe who’s looks at the ads points out and also what they told us well, you know Find distinction, but it’s important.

[00:16:17] Josh: Well,

[00:16:17] Jim: you know, we’ll come back with with speaker feel and talk at least about some data for a minute but one last impressionistic piece about that also is that you know, I think my impression and and if folks want to Send me an email or whatever, you know, I’d be interested if others share this impression.

[00:16:36] Jim: But it feels to me that during the campaign and especially now in the in the day after where people are angry, you know, and and, you know, outright pissed off and kind of speaking their minds. Yeah. And we have social media now and, you know, a lot more people saying, you know, people are, you know, You know, calling, you know, high level elected officials in the state liars very directly.

[00:16:59] Jim: Yeah, I’ve seen [00:17:00] that. You know, a lot of like, they lied. Right. Right. And I think, you know, you saw that. And I think that, that speaks to this and some of the ads that we’ve seen have been accusing incumbents of being soft on border security, for

[00:17:12] Josh: example. Which I’ll just say. I

[00:17:15] Jim: mean, I, yeah, well, well, yeah, does not stand up to the record.

[00:17:19] Jim: Well, all right. If you want to put it that

[00:17:20] Josh: way. I’ll just say crazy. Right.

[00:17:22] Jim: And, and so, you know, that’s another element here that is kind of, you know, and I, and I think is going to have to be, would also be an interesting thing in, in terms of some kind of a comprehensive roundup or content analysis, you know, how frequently do we see people say, you know, This person, you know, abandoned X or, you know, particularly, and look, border security is the big question.

[00:17:46] Jim: Right. I mean, when I see ads saying that this incumbent was Republican incumbent, was soft on border security, you know, to, to use the phrase, you know, popularized in the last election cycle by Amy [00:18:00] Klobuchar, I, you know, I’m pretty interested in seeing the receipts on that because, you know, I don’t think they’re going to have them.

[00:18:06] Jim: Right. I think they’re, oh wait, I. I must have thrown it away. Yeah.

[00:18:09] Josh: So I’ll get those

[00:18:10] Jim: to you on Wednesday. And so going back on the, um, you know, going back to, to, to date feeling for a minute, you know, we, you know, we’ve talked in here a lot and it, you know, it’s a indication of, you know, certainly, you know, my general, you know, you’re younger than I am.

[00:18:25] Jim: Certainly my generational socialization. But, you know, the, the feeling position, and I don’t want to overgeneralize this, does kind of raise the issue, you know, what I think of is like the Laney rule about, you know, the, and it, and it is a saw, so it’s, I, whether it originated with Speaker Laney or not, I, I will.

[00:18:44] Jim: Leave it to my betters to adjudicate that, but, you know, that, you know, once you’re above 50 percent of people knowing your name as a speaker of the house, you’re probably in trouble because, you know, you’re not, to academicize it, you know, you’re not [00:19:00] leveraging the benefits of the office given that in some case, this is where anonymity is actually your, your friend in a lot of ways, and we’ve talked in here a lot without, you know, rehashing it, that, that has gotten harder and harder, I think, starting probably With the Strauss speakership.

[00:19:16] Jim: Yeah. Which happened at a point of, you know, the rise of social media. Yeah, exactly. Solidification of one party rule and imparting on the Republican party and fighting in the Republican party to, you know, all these other things that probably changed the context and made that rule if not obsolete, but but harder to respect.

[00:19:35] Jim: Right? And our numbers show that Uh, you know, that feeling had crossed that had crossed that threshold.

[00:19:41] Josh: Yeah. I mean, it makes that rule harder to respect, but it’s not even in that person. I mean, in some ways, look how many speakers we’ve seen since then. Yeah. Right. I mean, I mean, one of the questions kind of going forward, I mean, I was sort of joking with a friend, you know, after on Wednesday morning and sort of saying to myself, you know, given all that feeling actually delivered on and, you know, his sort of likely demise, at least a speaker, if not in the [00:20:00] house, uh, you know, it’s sort of like I was kind of, you know, offhandedly.

[00:20:05] Josh: Who, who would want this job? And he quickly, everybody wants this job, which is right. But it’s also like, you know, but it shows how hard it is. Right. I mean, because it’s one thing to say, well, Democrats are criticizing the Republican speaker. Yeah, boohoo. Of course, it’s easy to ignore that. And especially if you’re a Republican voter, super easy to ignore that.

[00:20:21] Josh: What if it’s the lieutenant governor? What if it’s sort of backhandedly the governor? What if it’s the former president of the United States? And what’s weird, and you can almost see, you know, both how the 50 percent rule is probably true, but also this other feature of this, you know, which is that we always sort of talk about, you know, state elections getting nationalized, right?

[00:20:37] Josh: Right. And when this happens, you know, how it’s sort of like, you know, all the sort of things that we know about the state politics kind of, they don’t necessarily go out the window, but they sort of take a back seat to whatever the broader dynamics are. And it’s not, it’s hard not to think about Phelan’s race.

[00:20:49] Josh: It’s taking on state level overtones in some ways, right? You know, it wasn’t really about, you know, Phelan’s representation of the district. I think that’s the only way to understand it. Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t about Phelan’s representation of [00:21:00] the district. You know, this was about, you know, these sort of state level conflicts, these conflicts between these actors.

[00:21:05] Josh: And now, I mean, what’s sort of crazy, and I’m just like trying to wrap my mind around is, you’ve got 33, 000 voters who voted in his Republican primary who are now eligible to vote in the runoff. Which is pretty high. Yeah, very high. Very high. You know, I mean, that’s the whole thing about turnout. That’s also another interesting discussion.

[00:21:19] Josh: We probably won’t have today, but you know, 33, 000 Republican voters. And for those who don’t know, you should know on this podcast, probably you have to have voted in the Republican primary to be eligible to vote in the Republican runoff. So 33, 000 votes are about to be bombarded with what I think tens of millions of dollars to basically try to get them to come back out.

[00:21:35] Josh: And I mean, that’s a. I mean, that’s just really, I mean, talk about like, you know, the nationalization of state policy. But this is like talking about essentially what is a small statewide campaign taking place in a district for 33, 000

[00:21:46] Jim: votes, right? And there’s, and there’s a, yeah, I mean, as we’re talking about this and I don’t want to go for too far down this rabbit hole, but there is an interesting thing that’s going on with.

[00:21:57] Jim: You know, a lot of different causes as [00:22:00] we’re kind of getting here about, you know, how hard it is to head The Republican coalition as a presiding officer in a legislative chamber. Yeah, for those of you that do comparative state work, you know Yeah. None of whom are probably listening, but, you know, but please, I, you know, it’s an interesting question, right?

[00:22:15] Jim: I mean, uh, in terms of, so, you know, as long as we’re talking about, about people and then there’s a follow up here, really, you know, I mean, and, and, you know, bringing up the Trump endorsement, you know, what is there to say about Attorney General Ken Paxton’s night? I mean, clearly a, you know, a, a good night for him, a victory for him, you know.

[00:22:37] Jim: Again, there’s gonna be a lot of credit claiming that’s inflationary here from, you know, candidates to political consultants up to the leading officers of the state, leading statewide officials in the state. Um, you know, given how many people he endorsed, et cetera, et cetera, you know, as you were saying, you know, we were discussing [00:23:00] beforehand, you know, a lot of these victories come in races that were a little over determined, or, you know.

[00:23:06] Jim: Some of these members that were defeated were, you know, on the vulnerable side, right, or the less strong side, shall we say, and with a lot of money that was spent that none of which was the attorney, most of them, most of which was not the attorney generals,

[00:23:20] Josh: right? Yeah. I mean, we already talked about, you know, so I think we can’t, we’re not going to sit here and say that his impeachment didn’t play a role in these primaries and both creating the rationale for challengers to emerge and, but also this potential sort of differentiator.

[00:23:31] Josh: But, you know, when you think about, you know, looking now that we get to the end of the cycle, we see where the money was spent and you think about, you know, what was Paxton’s direct involvement in this? And it seemed like his direct involvement was, was relatively limited in the legislative space. I mean, it’s not that he wasn’t campaigning for some people, but I mean, I think one of the things I kind of noted was, you know, the Collin County delegation did pretty okay.

[00:23:51] Josh: Yeah. I mean, you know, of the Republicans, that delegation, only one went to a runoff. Leach and Shaheen are still there. Kanye Noble’s still there, escaped. So I mean, not, you know, he [00:24:00] didn’t have a, a clear and obvious impact, especially even in the area where he was expected to maybe have the biggest in terms of sort of the conventional wisdom about their power in

[00:24:08] Jim: that county.

[00:24:08] Jim: And I don’t have it all in front of me. And a lot of the A lot of those Conn County races were not particularly close. I mean, a couple of them were, but I think a couple, you know, they were,

[00:24:16] Josh: they were, you know, they were on, they were close. They were as close as they were like last time. I mean, it was, you know, you’re in about two thirds of the vote.

[00:24:22] Josh: You know what I mean? They were competitive. They were, they were competitive, but they weren’t close. Right. Um, you know, and I think, you know, to the extent where you look at where Paxson was sort of most directly involved and had the most, the clearest impact it was in those judicial races, but even that, I mean, that was a shift in strategy kind of late that in some ways, you know, at least to my read and I’m putting my hands up and saying, you know, to my read was an indication of the fact that I think there was a recognition that Paxson wasn’t going to play a big role in these legislative races, not necessarily because he couldn’t have played a role in some of those races.

[00:24:48] Josh: I mean, they were already being overdetermined just because there was Donald Trump’s endorsement. There was, you know, Greg Abbott’s money. It’s a bunch of other stuff going on. Yeah. Yeah. But in these races where you’ve got, you know, down ballot races, low [00:25:00] knowledge about who the candidates are and the attorney general making a recommendation about what judges you should elect, which is pretty, you know, pretty tight, reasonable thing to consider.

[00:25:10] Josh: This is where he was most effective, but it also seems like telling if the goal is to make it seem like you’re effective to say, okay, let’s go focus on this. Well, I remember,

[00:25:18] Jim: I mean, you know, he’s, you know, in both personal and. at least potentially on personal issues and on policy issues, the Attorney General has been at odds with, with the Criminal Court of Appeals.

[00:25:30] Jim: And so there was some incentive there in addition to the, you know, kind of the cherry picking that you’re implying there. And I, you know, my question is, and this is another thing I’ve got to look more into because like most people, I’m not, you know, I pay a lot more attention to legislative races than judicial races.

[00:25:44] Jim: But for those of the, that follow these races, I mean, look, there are people that. mobilize, you know, that are closer to the judicial system in these races. Yeah. Interest groups in that, in that space, et cetera. I am wondering if this is going to have a little bit of a demonstration effect. [00:26:00] Yeah, I don’t know, but you know, I mean, if I was a political entrepreneur and I, you know, I’d be kind of, Hey, look, it seems like those races are a little right for, you know, you get a lot of bang for your buck, if you will.

[00:26:11] Jim: Yeah, that’s for

[00:26:12] Josh: sure. And I mean, it’ll be interesting to see whether this sort of change in, I mean, it’s not, it’s not gonna be a change in the partisan composition of the court, most likely, but this change in the makeup of the court, if not, it’s partisanship is going to lead them to, you know, essentially flip on some recent decisions that they very clearly made about his office’s ability to unilaterally prosecute voter fraud cases, which.

[00:26:30] Josh: It’s not the only thing that this was about, but it’s a big part of what this

[00:26:34] Jim: was about. Well, what it is is, what it is, is a good transition because, um, I also want to talk, you know, you know, in a lot of ways, I think the stuff I’ve been thinking about most and need to clear my head and rethink, but think about more, but you know, what the institutional kind of bigger picture takeaways are.

[00:26:50] Jim: I mean, you know, and, and, and key in my mind, You know, is another demonstration of how, you know, Governor Abbott’s [00:27:00] strengthening of the governor’s office and the executive branch, which I’m, you know, beating on in the podcast and it’s stuff we write all the time, you know, both in absolute terms, in terms of just increasing the centrality of the, of the executive branch of the governor’s office and vis a vis the legislature, you know, is aligned here with a, you know, an exercise Um, or, you know, an exercise is of increased political power that goes with that.

[00:27:29] Jim: And look, you know, Greg Abbott is no stranger to, you know, intervening in legislative races. It’s been a source of irritation for a while with some people, um, and it certainly was some legislators. But I mean, you know, as we noted going in and as we look at now, you know, the scope of that intervention and the focus of it and, you know, it’s or, you know, it’s orientation.

[00:27:55] Jim: Yeah. Really, to me, becomes a part of that story, [00:28:00] and the story being, you know, the augmentation of the role of the governor’s office, the role of the governor in the political system, the role of the governor vis a vis the legislature, you know, even amidst this, you know, uptick in, you know, this exercise of power by the lieutenant governor.

[00:28:15] Jim: And if you look at, you know, just looking at the win loss thing, you know, you know, I think the general sense here is at least explicitly, you know, Abbott endorsed 14 Republican House challengers. Right. We’re setting aside all the incumbents, which as you say, you know, sort of lower hanging fruit. Yeah. You know, of, of those, of the 14 he endorsed at last count, seven won outright, five drove the, drove the race into a runoff.

[00:28:43] Jim: Only two of them lost, smaller group than what, you know, some others were involved in, but a pretty good batting

[00:28:51] Josh: average. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I, when the money numbers came out last week or two weeks ago, I guess, and you saw how much money Abbott was pouring [00:29:00] into some of these races at that point in time, you know, my feeling and kind of what I said was, It doesn’t really matter.

[00:29:06] Josh: I mean, you know, whether, whether he, you know, whether he has a great batting average or he doesn’t have that great of a day, ultimately, he’s made it incredibly costly, financially, time wise, to oppose him on anything, whether or not you were even in his crosshairs, he’s made it very, very clear. But when you take his win rate, Even if, you know, some of those were already vulnerable incumbents, whatever the situation is, it doesn’t really matter.

[00:29:30] Josh: It really multiplies the impact of that on the legislature. To your point about the sort of Abbott strengthening of the branch, you know, and the sort of talk about the institutional implications or amifications, it is really getting hard to think. Strangely, I mean, almost overnight, you’d say, So who are the, what are the counterweights to Abbott?

[00:29:47] Josh: At this point, I mean, is it Dan Patrick? Is that, is that where we are now, where Dan Patrick is the major counterweight to the governor in terms of sort of the policy direction of the state? Yeah, I think the answer to that is yes. Yeah, and I mean, one, the only, and the only way that [00:30:00] that’s, you know, anything but true is if the House comes back, you know, at the beginning of the next session, picks a speaker.

[00:30:06] Josh: Throws

[00:30:07] Jim: in with, with the lieutenant

[00:30:08] Josh: governor. Well, no, there’s gonna be two pot. Well, that’s another way. Actually, I was gonna say two pot. I mean, that’s, I think that’s, that’s a possibility.

[00:30:14] Jim: I think it’s not a very close possibility, but it’s not

[00:30:16] Josh: zero. Well, the thing, there’s sort of two possibilities that are not very close, but not zero.

[00:30:20] Josh: And one is, you know, they, they nominate someone else again, who’s going to, you know, quote unquote, stand up for the house. Right kind of the sort of Pete someone who’s come from the house is sort of the way people talk about it Respects the institution. I’m putting this in quotes that kind of thing They could throw in with someone who’s closer to the governor I guess in which case, you know, that’s so be an interesting session as you said they could point you know thrown with somebody who is closer to Patrick, but I mean that’s pretty hard to imagine, you know in a lot of ways Nonetheless, I mean we’ll talk about you know, how that yeah, I mean the question

[00:30:52] Jim: is, you know, I mean I mean, yeah, I think on that, I mean, to pose it in an oversimplified way, you know, does a certain amount of [00:31:00] fatigue with constantly fighting the Senate and Patrick outweigh the kind of institutional imperatives and the culture of the House, which is, you know, has always been, you know, disposed to not be pushed around by the Senate.

[00:31:16] Josh: Now we’ll say though, I mean, I like, you know, I don’t, I don’t love. You know, I don’t love talking about like the culture of the house in the sense of like the social scientists and me is like, Oh God, what are we talking about? Yeah, but you know when you do think about the idea of like like the house’s identity and not being pushed around Well, you know, you just replaced a lot of people Yeah and so a lot of that sort of Institutional sort of whatever you want to call it in most cases You know that leaves with that and you bring in new people with different ideas about what this look like why they’re there Well, they owe that to

[00:31:45] Jim: to defend this, you know, to slightly defend the academic, you know, notion, you know, of intellectually, it’s just me.

[00:31:51] Jim: It’s more about the house is that, you know, there are means of institutional socialization, right? You know, how durable are those in the face of [00:32:00] powerful counterpressures? I think that’s how I would

[00:32:01] Josh: pose and powerful shifts in the makeup of that

[00:32:04] Jim: house as a slight, well, as you know, but, but that, but that’s the thing.

[00:32:08] Jim: That’s the question. I guess that’s the question, right? Right. Does this do the forces of socialization? How do they meet, you know, the changing orientation of infusions of new members? And I think, look, historically, I think what we’ve seen is the last time there was a big test of that. I think the socialization of the house one, right.

[00:32:27] Jim: That is when we got the big infusion of, you know, when we saw the big shift that accompanied the tea party movement. Election of Obama, Tea Party movement, elevation of, of Dan Patrick and allied forces. Yeah. You know, we still saw, you know, a house that was seen just predisposed to fight the Senate and, and some of the, you know, and some of the Tea Party members becoming socialized into the

[00:32:51] Josh: house.

[00:32:51] Josh: Right.

[00:32:53] Jim: Yeah. So, you know, but this will be another test

[00:32:56] Josh: of that. Yeah, exactly. I think it’s gonna be the toughest test of that at all, [00:33:00] because I think to your point, you know, there is a lot of fatigue in the house. I mean, it would be, I’m sure it would be nice. to have a speaker who had a better relationship with the Lieutenant Governor.

[00:33:07] Josh: However, it’s hard having watched Lieutenant Governor interact with the House in the last few sessions to say that his orientation towards the House and let’s just say his animosity or acrimony or whatever kind of negative word you want to attach to it towards the House was solely a product of Dade Phelan.

[00:33:22] Jim: Well, I, I think, I think that’s right, but I also think he, you know, being the skilled politician the Lieutenant Governor is. He didn’t express it that way. I mean, he made, I mean, he did sometimes. I think when he was not being careful, there was a little bit of, you know, guys at the house. And look, I can tell you from knowing people in the Senate, there is that attitude over there.

[00:33:43] Jim: Just like there is the other attitude in the house. Right. But that said, what I would say is that Lieutenant Governor Patrick has done a strategically good job of cultivating some house allies and building a pool of allies that are more disposed to him [00:34:00] ideologically and therefore in some cases institutionally and Singling out the speaker and a couple of people around him as the problem, right?

[00:34:10] Jim: And you know as we parse this out on the other side, you know, there is the other center of gravity Which is the governor who is just coming off having, you know, defeated several house incumbents, right, and made it clear that, you know, he was, you know, he also wanted to, um, as somebody I was talking to you about this recently, so, you know, kind of put a collar on the house, a collar and a dog chain on the house, right, which is not Also not appealing.

[00:34:39] Jim: Yeah. So, you know, does the house, you know, what is the will of the house, I guess, and all of this is, is a way of thinking about it. And, you know, in terms of thinking about. What this then looks like going in, we should kind of notice in the, you know, the how, you know, the house and Abbott and the governor’s motivation apparently in getting involved in this, which [00:35:00] partially still a mystery, although it’s worked out for him.

[00:35:03] Jim: If you look at the no votes um, on vouchers last time and the, and who was on the ballot of the people that had not retired, um, six of them won outright. Six of them lost outright and at last count with, you know, allowing for the fact that a couple of these may be recounted, et cetera. And four are in runoffs and that’s added to the five no votes on vouchers that retired or, you know, chose not to run again, technically speaking.

[00:35:38] Jim: Um, so in terms of thinking about what that struggle is going to look like, where Abbott is going to be positioned, what the composition of the houses look like, you know, Abbott got very. Close is very close to turning the votes, all things being equal, assuming things about the challengers, but most of the challengers, um, [00:36:00] in the open seats that are either in runoffs or one all appear to be either neutral, an unknown quantity or inclined towards vouchers.

[00:36:11] Jim: The way I look, looking at, but as we were talking yesterday or the day before, I guess it was yesterday. Interestingly, some of these contestants for open seats, their position on vouchers, particularly in these rural areas, Pretty hard to find. Is a little understated, shall we say. Yeah. I mean, we went to one, you know, one of the candidates websites, and I’d looked at every page on that website and could not see any indication of where this person was on vouchers.

[00:36:34] Jim: It may

[00:36:34] Josh: have been updated yesterday. Yes, it is. We’ll

[00:36:37] Jim: see. So. You know, so there’s all that going on, right? Um, you know, what else to say? Um, you know, what are the, you know, we’ve kind of talked about the implications for the Patrick Abbott house dynamic and all this. I mean, I guess that’s kind of what we were just talking about.

[00:36:55] Jim: And I, I think, you know, that is a very interesting question and look. [00:37:00] Step back. This goes for the speaker thing. We’re not going to know too much definitively about this, not only until after the primary or after, after the runoffs at the end of May, but really until after the general election. And we don’t expect the composition to change a lot.

[00:37:13] Jim: There’s going to be a lot going on in the, in the general election that we’re going to be watching. I

[00:37:17] Josh: think, you know, the one thing you can say, setting aside, you know, Policy goals or anything like that is, you know, the house is an independent institution is a big loser in all this. I mean both through replacement and You know positioning vis a vis the other actors,

[00:37:29] Jim: right?

[00:37:29] Jim: Yeah, that’s a good way of summarizing that discussion I think that you know, this really you know Look, I mean in the longer run if we look back to you know The short lived the short lived bond and speakership the demise of that how the demise came about right? You know the two That’s what I [00:38:00] always thought.

[00:38:07] Jim: I know one, you know, as, as we’ve raised already, one could question some of the decisions that were made in terms of political strategy for the institution, but you question them in a context that was, you know, it was a difficult context. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I don’t want to feel like we’re just kicking somebody who’s down, but I think that’s a Fair read.

[00:38:26] Jim: Yeah. I mean,

[00:38:27] Josh: look, it was a, it was a historical year in the legislature for a lot of reasons, right? Right. So, you know, hard to lead under any circumstances to be fair.

[00:38:35] Jim: And, you know, to go back to your earlier point and one of the things we, you know, we started with, you know, and to the degree that politics.

[00:38:45] Jim: In the legislature and in the state are increasingly, you know, subject to national pressures and national influences a pretty difficult Environment in the Republican Party right now Yeah Difficult for Democrats for that matter, but certainly difficult for the Republican Party right [00:39:00] now with you know Donald Trump is a frankly is a very powerful free radical out

[00:39:04] Josh: there Yeah I mean it’s funny when you look out into the sort of atmosphere and say yourself which you know Republican leader has it easiest and it’s kind of like I think Dan Patrick, right?

[00:39:13] Josh: Well, yeah, I mean, he’s developed, you know, a Senate that basically, you know, will follow his lead as he as he sees it, you know, as he sees the politics of it unfold. And that’s, you know, a lot more latitude and freedom than you can really put on a lot of people. Yeah.

[00:39:26] Jim: And I think it’s worth going back to what we were talking about.

[00:39:31] Jim: in October and when we saw that the internal politics in the Senate around whether to convict Paxton or not. Yeah. And the strong suggestions of the degree, you know, and, and, and look, the indication from Lieutenant Governor herself of where he stood on that. Yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, a pivotal moment in this, in this, you know, trajectory is that speech.

[00:39:59] Jim: I [00:40:00] think about it. Is that speech that the Lieutenant Governor gave after they, you know, immediately after the acquittal and, you know, in the process of sort of, you know, adjourning the court such as it was, uh, in which Abbott came out and, and attacked the, I’m sorry, Patrick came out. Attacked Phelan, attacked the House leadership.

[00:40:22] Jim: Right. That pretty much sort of set the stage for where we were going. Yeah. In terms of both the acquittal and both the approach and the, and then, and again, we commented, everybody commented on at the time that follows these things, the directness of the attack on the Speaker. Right. Yeah. Um, which of course leads us to where we should, you know, probably close it out.

[00:40:42] Jim: You know, what does this tell us about the Texas Republican Party, the Republican Party of Texas at this moment? Um, you know, Headlines screamed in several places about the moderates losing. You know, we’ve talked a lot about the fractal sense of this. And, you know, [00:41:00] but I, you know, there are indications that we have to say that, you know, it makes sense, at least in terms of literally in terms of the candidates.

[00:41:09] Jim: Who won and who lost

[00:41:10] Josh: yesterday. Yeah, right. I mean, look, you know, describing what is so are so clearly otherwise extremely conservative members as moderates because of their opposition to vouchers or their vote to impeach compacts in which almost every Republican in the house cast, you know, it’s best either oversimplified or worse, just a mirroring of the campaign rhetoric that was designed to discredit them.

[00:41:30] Josh: Right. But at the same time, you know, you look this. I was great. You know, if you look at the ideological placement of house members that, uh, Yeah. Our colleague Mark Jones does using DW nominated scores, which is a way to sort of map ideology into legislatures, which again, very, you know, very controversial, at least within this community sometimes because people tend to think of it like if you’re not the most conservative, well then you get criticized for being, you know, when look at

[00:41:52] Jim: stipulating that that members.

[00:41:54] Jim: On the, you know, less conservative end of this, [00:42:00] they’d even hate that I can say that. Right, even,

[00:42:02] Josh: right, exactly. You know, really just hate this. Yeah, because, you know, because language gives no better way to describe the fact that these are still very, very conservative. And

[00:42:10] Jim: it’s complicated. And again, to give our, you know, our colleague Mark Jones a little bit, you know, he, you know, every time he publishes one of these things, you know, there’s all the boilerplate caveat language that’s been on there, you know.

[00:42:20] Jim: this is relative. The spectrum, if you look at it, there’s not much spread here, but it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t matter. And that, and that’s, you know, and it’s a fair objection. Sure. You know, that it requires a lot of explaining. Nonetheless, it doesn’t make it invalid. And yeah, well, and

[00:42:35] Josh: nonetheless, to the point, most of the members who either didn’t run for reelection are in runoffs right now or loss are in the.

[00:42:41] Josh: The two thirds or so of the relatively less conservative part of that distribution. Another way to put it is, if you were in the most conservative part of that distribution, the most conservative third, you’re fine. By and large, you didn’t have much problem. You didn’t have much problem, exactly.

[00:42:54] Jim: Right. And I, you know, either, either, you know, I suspect Mark will do this, but, you know, maybe we’ll try to get it together in the next couple [00:43:00] weeks.

[00:43:00] Jim: I mean, it’s just clear as rain. If you go and you Print a copy of of the graphic for that distribution from the DW nominate run, you know There’s nothing going on at the top, you know for the most third of the graphic Which is the more conserved relatively conservative and who’s the anchor? It’s and then all of the anchor at the top is Steve toes.

[00:43:22] Jim: Yeah, and then the anchor at the bottom is Guillen. Yeah Um, you know, there’s just no action until you get about a third of the way down. And then all of a sudden you start noticing, Oh, there’s somebody who lost, there’s somebody who’s in a runoff, right? There’s somebody, you know, there’s some, you know, they decided not to run again to spare themselves the pain and discomfort and inconvenience and irritation.

[00:43:44] Jim: And it’s just really, it’s, it’s very

[00:43:46] Josh: clear. Yeah. And I’d also add in another dimension to that. It’s clear in the sense that it’s not, there’s no activity in the. third most conservative, but it’s also really spread out among the bottom two thirds. So it’s not as though, you know, you go from the quote unquote least conservative members and just start counting off [00:44:00] from the bottom up or something like that.

[00:44:01] Josh: That’s not what was going

[00:44:02] Jim: on either. No, I think that’s a good point. It’s not like you get, you know, as I got it in front of me, it’s not like you get more instances, the closer you get to the quote unquote middle, it’s spread out

[00:44:11] Josh: among that whole, which is a reflection of actually, in a lot of ways, the geographic components

[00:44:14] Jim: in this.

[00:44:15] Jim: Another way of thinking about that is, you know, there’s at least several that are. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, you know, that said, I still think that that dynamic was, you know, I mean, this dynamic has been going on for a while. Mm hmm. I still think that, you know, the extent of it is amplified by these personal and institutional conflicts, not just, you know, stick to the original position, no matter what.

[00:44:46] Jim: But I think if you’re going to understand the, you know, the intensity of the conflict, I think this is pretty consistent with. The way we were talking about it running into this that, you know, I mean, the backbone of this [00:45:00] conflict probably still is ideological conflict and the fallout of the opening up of, you know, the party in a further

[00:45:10] Josh: right direction.

[00:45:11] Josh: Yeah, I want to say, I just want to be clear because the way we talk about this. You know, ideological conflict in, uh, the service of agenda control, right?

[00:45:18] Jim: Right. And, and, and, you know, and agenda and personal, personal and institutional interests.

[00:45:26] Josh: Yeah. I mean,

[00:45:28] Jim: you know, I mean, I mean, look, I mean, I think people, you can disagree about the degree of that, but you know, if, you know, I mean, think about the fact what this would have looked like if there had not been a Paxton impeachment.

[00:45:43] Jim: Or think about what this would look like if the voucher bill had passed, right? You know, there would just not be this much action. No, absolutely not. That’s right, right? And those are or you know, if what would have this look like, you know, and the and this is all now, you know Interrelated. Yeah, [00:46:00]

[00:46:00] Josh: if endogenous

[00:46:01] Jim: if you will endogenous if you should avoid that but well, but I actually there’s a lot of indigeneity You’re right or You know, there’s covariance here if you want, I think, but, you know, if these guys had all been, you know, to use one of the favorite, you know, touch points of, you know, the old hands here, well, this would look like this if everybody had been kept going to breakfast for the whole session or at all, right?

[00:46:24] Jim: I don’t

[00:46:26] Josh: think so. No, I mean, and I think, you know, one of the questions that falls out of this is like, you know, assuming, you know,

[00:46:31] Jim: And that’s not, and that’s not just, you know, they were not, they did not stop going to breakfast, the big three, because that, oh, you know, I just can’t stand with being a hanging out with a squish moderate, or I can’t stand hanging out with somebody who’s, you know, such a right winger.

[00:46:45] Jim: That’s not what was going on. No,

[00:46:46] Josh: that’s right. I mean, And this is sort of what’s interesting about, you know, the consequence when you think about this, right? I mean, let’s, let’s, let’s just assume for the sake of this discussion that, you know, Phelan is not the speaker next time after all of this, whether he doesn’t, whether he wins, you know, runoff or not.

[00:46:58] Josh: Hypothetical. [00:47:00] Hypothetical. But, you know, you ask yourself, you know, do you expect the next speaker to be more or less conservative than Phelan was? Phelan, who again, oversaw a lot of conservative legislation. But if I’m thinking to myself, you know, who is the next speaker candidate who can get First, the majority of the Republican conference.

[00:47:13] Josh: And then the question becomes how much, how much of a majority does he get to make it hard for people to sort of hold back, let’s say. Right. Which I think is a dynamic we’re watching. You think that speaker candidate is probably going to do a couple things, right? Probably going to fund the Paxson settlements, get it out of there, be done with it, I would think.

[00:47:28] Josh: Probably I’m just throwing it out there, I mean, you kind of just have to fund it and move on. You’re going to be, you know, supporting a voucher program, right? I mean, if you want to maintain some kind of, you know, good relationship with the governor and not make this, you know, the center Touched on a lot of conflict again.

[00:47:42] Josh: I mean, this assumes a certain amount of just fatigue in the house, right? In terms of dealing with these things.

[00:47:47] Jim: I think that’s a big assumption. I mean, that’s not, I mean, it’s not a terrible assumption, but you know, we’ll see. We’ll see. I mean,

[00:47:53] Josh: again, I look, I’m going to, you know, See what

[00:47:55] Jim: the mood, see what the mood is.

[00:47:57] Josh: When I was in this, you know, and I don’t, I wouldn’t, I mean, like, I’m trying not to [00:48:00] make hot takes, but we’re just thinking right now, I’m just going to throw stuff out there and just, you know, forgive it, but it’s like, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a much, you know, more divided vote than we have in the past on who the speaker is going to be, because I also don’t think that speaker candidate is going to be supporting putting Democratic committee chairs anymore.

[00:48:15] Josh: I think that’s going to be a hard sell with how many new members have come in. Basically that this is kind of a big litmus test issue, at least among those groups. And then the only other thing I can think of, you know, just speaking of the fact of how much conservative legislation they pass, you know, how much further can the house move to the right?

[00:48:29] Josh: I would say, you know, how a taxpayer funded lobbying, you know, you think about what are the things that could like necessarily be sort of the necessary conditions.

[00:48:35] Jim: What’s the next set of unifying issues?

[00:48:38] Josh: And that might be, you know, what we would call like an established, you know, an establishment Republican in the House who has ties to the, to the far right.

[00:48:46] Josh: But I mean, it seems to me, those are the sorts of things you’d almost have to say. Yeah, I’m willing to, you know, entertain a voucher bill. I’m willing to entertain, you know, no Democrat committee chairs. I’m willing to entertain killing, you know, taxpayer funded lobbying.

[00:48:59] Jim: [00:49:00] While we’re talking about internal things, I think there will also be a discussion again of You know, procedure and the degree of centralization of powers and authority of committee chairs as part of that discussion, you know, uh, I want to wind up, but let’s, you know, I will also add, I was talking to some people about this.

[00:49:20] Jim: I think, you know, you know, I, I’m not sure what I think about this, but to the point of the nationalization of politics, I think what the climate looks like, Depending on who wins the presidential election is also going to be a pretty big factor. And I think, I think in the past, we’ve kind of underestimated that to our disadvantage.

[00:49:41] Jim: Yeah. You know, in that, you know, for example, as you’re thinking about what the issues are going to be there and what’s going to bind people together. Look, if Donald Trump wins, you’re not border security becomes a different kind of issue. If, if Biden or the Democrats win the White House, border security, you know, I mean, we’re going to see yet more spending on border [00:50:00] security and that’s, I think, I think

[00:50:01] Josh: we’re going to see, I disagree.

[00:50:02] Josh: I think we’re going to see either way, because one of the things, you know, someone was pointing out is, you know, Trump, you know, unusually was giving Abbott a ton of credit for the work he’s been doing on the border. And I mean, obviously, I mean, I would say, obviously he doesn’t see a rival in Abbott because Abbott’s made very clear that he’s not trying to be his rival or, you know, get on the national stage anytime soon, at least.

[00:50:19] Josh: in a, in a contrary position to him. But if you think about it, I mean, Texas has been so much more, you know, quote unquote, effective in its, uh, attempts to address border issues than the Congress is likely to be any time in the near future. Effective in the eyes of Well, I put it in quotes. Effective in

[00:50:36] Jim: the eyes of actually Of the constituencies A certain constituency.

[00:50:39] Jim: Yeah. Well, obviously even passing legislation. Right. And I might’ve been a little too specific in saying we’re gonna see more spending, but I mean, in other words, but the, the valence of that issue is going to, uh, to my, I expect to shift at least a little, depending on who’s in the White House.

[00:50:53] Josh: I see a, I see a partnership between, you know, the federal government in Texas that, you know, has Trump doing things outside of Congress [00:51:00] because Congress isn’t gonna act and using Texas as the lever.

[00:51:03] Jim: But that, but that is, but that’s a lot different than if it’s a right. If it’s a Democrat and you’re just going, you know, sticking the middle finger at those guys and saying, well, I guess we got to just keep going on unless Biden and the Democrats and this is where, this is where the national outcome matters.

[00:51:17] Jim: We can, without parsing it to death here, you know, what is Congress, you know, who’s in control of what house of Congress, who’s in the white house. All of that is, you know. I’m going to seep into this as a logical consequence of this nationalization that we’re talking about,

[00:51:33] Josh: right? But I mean, I was just adding that because I mean, you made a good point there.

[00:51:36] Josh: I want to say, you know, in addition to these other things that I think may be sort of table stakes conditions for whoever the next speaker is, you know, he’s like, what else are they going to do? Well. There’s plenty to do. Right.

[00:51:46] Jim: And it, you know, yes. And so I think I’m gonna wind it up there. We’ll come back.

[00:51:51] Jim: We will probably take next week off for spring break unless something really that we have to talk about happens. It would have to be pretty big at this point. Yeah. So, [00:52:00] um, Thank you all for listening. Thanks again to our excellent production team in the dev studio in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin.

[00:52:08] Jim: Uh, thanks to Josh as always for being here. As always, you can find results, interpretations, data of the things that we discussed in the podcast today at texaspolitics. utexas. edu. Thank you all for listening again, and we’ll be back soon, but not that soon, with another Second Reading podcast.

[00:52:34] Outro: The Second Reading Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.