May 16, 2023 – Vouchers, property taxes, and other sources of disunity among Texas Republicans

[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

[00:00:27] Intro: her voice to be

[00:00:28] Intro: recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

[00:00:34] 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. Happy to be joined by Josh Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project. Are you feeling summary yet,

[00:00:46] Josh Blank: Josh? I feel very summer. I’m wearing, you know, I’m not, I don’t wanna like reveal too much, but I am wearing sandals.

[00:00:52] Josh Blank: Yes. I mean, it’s, it’s

[00:00:53] Jim Henson: summer. I’m gonna copy, but your legs are still fully covered. Well, yeah,

[00:00:55] Josh Blank: I’m not a, I mean, you know, I’m, I’m not trashing, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not gonna like a, I’m not like a lifeguard, you know?

[00:01:02] Jim Henson: Well, you know. Well anyway, I’m not gonna pursue that. Um, So, you know, today, I, what else could we look at really for, you know, in terms of our focus, but the mounting pressure in the legislature to move the major pieces of legislation that are as yet, uh, you know, have not reached a, a final draft status by any means, uh, in the legislature.

[00:01:30] Jim Henson: Um, and, and to look a little bit, I think, to try to scratch at that sum and then think about some of the problems that we’re seeing with unified Republican, you know, government in air governance in, in Texas, and, you know, does it make sense? How do we make sense of it? You know, I. In the notes here I’m looking at, you know?

[00:01:50] Jim Henson: Yeah. But it seems counterintuitive and I it’s counterintuitive from some perspectives and not from others. I guess the point would be that it’s a little counterintuitive probably to the layperson.

[00:02:02] Josh Blank: Yeah. You know, I was gonna say is, you know, we, we have a, a former colleague who would, who would make a pretty big distinction between problems and challenges.

[00:02:07] Josh Blank: Yeah. And it’s not necessarily a problem, but it’s surprising the level of challenge. Maybe the challenge is counterintuitive. Cause I think to a lot of people, the idea would be, you know, unified Republican controlled government. Why are we seeing so many, so much challenge and seemingly doing what they.

[00:02:24] Josh Blank: All agree on more or less Right. Or at least, you know, in broad strokes.

[00:02:28] Jim Henson: Right. But I guess that’s where the, you know, I, there’s the rub. Yeah. Right, right. So, you know, there’s a lot of different places that we could look at. I mean, uh, Karen Brooks had a story in the tri in the Texas Tribune, you know, Karen Brooks, Harper mm-hmm.

[00:02:41] Jim Henson: Uh, in the Texas Tribune yesterday or the day before, I think, um, about the budget and, and, and pointing out that, While the conference committee is meeting on the budget and they’ve announced a few things, uh, in the last day or so, You know, the biggest issues and the biggest points of disagreement are still unresolved.

[00:03:04] Jim Henson: And she had a handy, a handy list. I mean, I think we could probably add another thing or two to this maybe, but she got the big ones, right? Which is, you know, still no consensus bills on or consensus on spending on property tax cuts. Mm-hmm. Stabilizing the grid, broadband expansion, water infrastructure projects, school funding, and you know, whether and how much to pay for a voucher program.

[00:03:28] Jim Henson: Right now.

[00:03:30] Josh Blank: Those are some big, those are some big holes in the budget. Right. And

[00:03:33] Jim Henson: then, you know, and these are things we’ve been been talking about from another perspective in the sense that, you know, these are the things by and large on, you know, that list includes the top four responses, uh, that we got in our April poll on.

[00:03:49] Jim Henson: Voters’ views of what it was important, most important for the, for the legislature

[00:03:53] Josh Blank: to address. Right. And broadband expansion would probably be higher, but for the fact that most of the state’s population lives in areas with broadband, so. Right. I think that’s right. You know, so anyway, that’s just sort of, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a, a regional concern, but an important regional concern.

[00:04:05] Jim Henson: Yeah. And it hasn’t, you know, it hasn’t, yeah. I mean, people haven’t, it hasn’t quite risen to the level I think in. The general populace, you know? Yeah. Well of, of water and, and Right. Uh, other infrastructure projects like the grid especially mm-hmm. Be the biggest contrast. Um, Now. So there are a lot of examples in there that we could go in.

[00:04:25] Jim Henson: I, you know, we talked about this. I think a good place to start is where there’s been a lot of, uh, um, a lot of hijinks lately, uh, among, uh, the executive branch and the two houses, and that would be of course, vouchers, school choice, educational savings account, the dedication of, of. Public funds to channel kids to private institutions, so what, whatever you want to call it.

[00:04:51] Jim Henson: Right. Uh, you know, which I, you know, which in and of itself is, is kind of a problem I think, for them. Policy and, and comms wise, right? Sure. Um, You know, I mean I, the language battle there was, you know, a, a few years ago it became seen as Dick lase. They just call them vouchers or, or inherently hostile.

[00:05:11] Jim Henson: Yeah. And so we’ve gone to education savings accounts, but I don’t think education savings accounts quite caught on in the way that vouchers did. Setting that aside. So, you know, what have we seen? Well, you know, it was a, It was a big interior moment, shall we say, for the community last Wednesday night.

[00:05:29] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. When legislature was running late, uh, the house was late, was, you know, running into the evening and words started circulating capital circles that there was, uh, a substitute bill for S sba, the, the voucher vehicle and SBA eight, of course the c Creighton bill from, from the Senate. Um, That the, the house education chair Brad Buckley was, was circulating.

[00:05:57] Jim Henson: And then a funny thing happened because he went to the floor to do something that is usually routine as chairman and, uh, wa you know, made a motion to suspend the rules so that the education committee in the house could meet that evening and basically, you know, spit this, this revised committee substitute out that nobody had seen or very, we, we assume very few people had seen.

[00:06:20] Jim Henson: And that seems to have been what that was about. Certainly that was, The assumption that was, yeah. How the body deployed in the ensuing discussion. And, and Chair Buckley didn’t do anything to dissuade anybody from thinking that, to my knowledge. And, and so when he made this motion, it was voted down in the house, and I think it was, as it was widely noted, state rep in SPS who was not a chair, uh, made a very forceful speech against the motion to suspend, and the motion failed.

[00:06:49] Jim Henson: Right now, this was seen, I think, fairly as a pretty. Good moment for Ernest Bales and suggested a certain amount of, you know, stature in the house despite not being often thought of as part of the, you know, quote unquote the leadership team. Cause he’s not a chair. Um, and not so good for Chair Buckley.

[00:07:11] Jim Henson: Yeah. Um. And the follow up to that then has been even more interesting than that. So people were very buzzed

[00:07:19] Josh Blank: about that. Just, I mean, just to reiterate your point here, I just wanna be clear. I mean, usually these are, you know, sort of. I mean, almost nobody pays attention to these kinds of motions. Yeah. So, you know, if a chair wants to go and have the, the, the committee meet, convene, whatever, I mean, these are usually, you know, you’re suspending

[00:07:32] Jim Henson: the rules for the, you know, the, these are essentially the public announcement of a hearing, et cetera, et

[00:07:35] Josh Blank: cetera.

[00:07:35] Josh Blank: Right. These are usually things that aren’t even voted on. They just listen to see if there’s any, you know, dissent from that. And usually there’s none.

[00:07:41] Jim Henson: Yeah. And it’s something that happens. Very, you know these usually Yes. A very. This is usually a five short interval between the announcement and the gavel of, you know, hearing

[00:07:48] Josh Blank: none.

[00:07:48] Josh Blank: It’s like a five to ten second process. Hearing

[00:07:50] no,

[00:07:50] Jim Henson: yeah, hearing no objections. So, yeah, so this is, you know,

[00:07:53] Josh Blank: pretty unusual. Pretty big brush back also of a chair. I mean, that’s another thing too. The chairs are given a fair, the chairs that do the, yeah, yeah. Given a fair amount of latitude here. So,

[00:08:02] Jim Henson: Then the follow up, then it continued to, you know, and then this continued to percolate.

[00:08:06] Jim Henson: And by Sunday evening, uh, uh, the Chairman Buckley was circulating another version of SBA and another committee substitute that was much less ambitious. I mean, and we can unpack this, but basically it, it rolled back eligibility for any kind of vouchers. Yeah. Um, the students, uh, with learning disability, with, with disabilities, which has been.

[00:08:31] Jim Henson: You know, special education has been one of the. You know, the themes of this discussion all along. Mm-hmm. Uh, going back, even going, yeah. Going back, yeah. Going back years. Right. Um, but or to those who were attending an f rated campus mm-hmm. In the public school system, you know, the, the upshot of this was that the number of students as that would be eligible for this fell below a million students.

[00:08:54] Josh Blank: Like it was in the 800. And, I mean, and just to, you know, pause for that. I mean, this really is the crux around a lot of what the arguments around the voucher. Bills have been about, I mean, you know, again, this is for the people who wanna pass a voucher bill out, right? I mean, there are a lot of people who don’t wanna pass a voucher

[00:09:08] Jim Henson: bill.

[00:09:08] Jim Henson: Yeah. How broadly applicable will it be and how much money are you gonna put into it to make this

[00:09:12] Josh Blank: work? And, and, and now, and also, yeah. And, and, and who within that broad swath of people gets basically swept in too, is the other piece Well,

[00:09:19] Jim Henson: that’s Yeah, that’s, yeah. The, yeah, the, the how broad and the who.

[00:09:22] Jim Henson: Right, because even

[00:09:23] Josh Blank: within that there’s been, you know, in the Senate bill there were something about, you know, the mixture of the ratings of the campuses and then the balance of students who could come from A and B and C campuses versus D and e and F and

[00:09:32] Jim Henson: that and I, and I think the previous, you know, his previous revision had been D or low.

[00:09:36] Jim Henson: Yeah. I think

[00:09:36] Josh Blank: his, his previous version have endeared loader, but then that’s also an issue because of the fact that one, most, most schools in. Texas do pass the rating system that the Texas has created for its own schools.

[00:09:45] Jim Henson: Yeah. Ironically, a little bit of great

[00:09:46] Josh Blank: inflation. Well, no, I know. In part of me reading that, I was like, boy, perhaps this gets a little weird.

[00:09:50] Josh Blank: I don’t wanna get in trouble here. Yeah. I mean there are, there are workarounds, right? Yeah. You know, but also a bunch of schools didn’t go through the rating systems over the course of the pandemic. So there’s a bunch of schools that actually aren’t even falling into the denominator. So a bunch of weird stuff about this.

[00:10:02] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:10:02] Jim Henson: I mean, like so many, yes. So many things about the public education and the data around it. Right. As my. Students doing research projects on public education inevitably find out, right? Um, so this bill floats Sunday evening. And the response is relatively negative. Quick too, uh, quick and negative. So, you know, uh, Senator Creighton has not liked these compromised and mean he really didn’t like this one.

[00:10:32] Jim Henson: Um, but. Telling league, governor Abbott responded saying that he would veto this bill. It was not, you know, it did not reach, it, did not serve enough, mm-hmm. Enough students and or, and their parents and, and announced that he would call them back in a special session. Mm-hmm. To consider special education, to, to consider vouchers.

[00:10:53] Jim Henson: Now, you know, this has been something we’ve talked about in here and Yeah. You know, I mean, again, a broken record, I keep saying what’s the min, what’s the minimum viable product? Well, I think we found out, yeah. What is

[00:11:05] Josh Blank: below that threshold now. Right. At least, least that we know. Right.

[00:11:08] Jim Henson: So we found, we got some interesting information on that over the last few days.

[00:11:13] Jim Henson: Uh, and then I think yesterday, Uh, the, you know, the gossip that had been circulating for a couple of weeks, or at least a week, you know, it was sort of dutifully reported by Quorum Report with anonymous sourcing that, you know, Abbott was, you know, that the, you know, the talk was that Abbott would call the special session in September to avoid having teachers basically able to flood the capitol as was anticipated in the scenario of a, of a summer special session.

[00:11:44] Jim Henson: Right? So all of that seemed to. Align with what a lot of the speculation that people had been discussing that, you know, that also a, you know, that the governor had some personal scheduling considerations that were in play here, um, that are unconfirmed to me, although I, I’ve looked around a little bit trying to, yeah, it

[00:12:01] Josh Blank: certainly, and it certainly signaled, you know, his.

[00:12:04] Josh Blank: You know, the extent of his commitment to the issue, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, he certainly, I mean, like it’s not, it is no news if you’ve been following this, that he’s been going around the state somewhat on a tour, mostly in rural Republican districts. Yeah. Essentially trying to sell, you know, I’m not really sure to whom I.

[00:12:19] Josh Blank: But man, I mean that not in a, not in a, well,

[00:12:21] Jim Henson: you know, I mean, I, I think that, you know, these appearances have had different characters at different times. I mean, there was the, the part of the tour that was all happening at private, at private religious schools. Yeah. There are others that I think have been a little less calibrated that stage.

[00:12:34] Jim Henson: The

[00:12:34] Josh Blank: little less, I mean, just to be clear what I’m saying, I mean, I, I just want, you know, I’m not saying like, you know, to whom is, isn’t like some sort of a criticism. I just mean that exactly your point. It kind of depends on how you think about it. And the, the, the. The broader sense is that, you know, these, these events taking place in rural Republican districts has been in some ways in effort to convince those rural Republican legislators that they should get on board with this.

[00:12:56] Josh Blank: Right? Because they haven’t been, which is sort of, you know, it’s, it’s an interesting political dynamic that we can kind of, again, we’ll come back to, yeah. Probably here. But in this case, you know, as opposed to being at, you know, small private schools. Out in kind of, you know, sparsely populated parts of the state to essentially go on an inside game to sell this to those people’s representative.

[00:13:14] Josh Blank: Yeah. You know, uh, this was very much putting your head up over and saying, Hey, no, I’m drawing a line here and really putting himself in this debate. I’m,

[00:13:22] Jim Henson: well, I mean, I think, I think if you looked at the map of where those appearances were and kind of looked at whose districts it was, I mean, these were, it was strategically applied pressure and there was, you know, I mean, I, I think in.

[00:13:34] Jim Henson: I hate calling it the community, but in, you know, in professional circles that are engaged. Yeah. In the stakeholder circles, shall we call it? I mean, there was a lot of discussion and, and debate over what the likely response to this strategy was. Mm-hmm. In other words, will members look at this and see it as well?

[00:13:53] Jim Henson: This is politics as usual, the governor’s right. Putting a little pressure on me. You know, it’s, uh, uh, I, I, in a way you’re sort of dangling both the carrot and the stick. Yeah. It’s a little, you know, it’s a little bit of both. Now, I think the key question is if you’re one of those members, you know, do you see the yummy, do you see more clearly the yummy carrot, or do you see the stick?

[00:14:16] Jim Henson: Yeah, and I, and I think there’s probably not a general answer to that. Yeah. I think some members. Probably responded to this in different ways, would

[00:14:22] Josh Blank: be my guess. Yeah. And I think the only point, you know, I just wanna draw out here is that, you know, if someone were to say, well, you know, Abbott’s been pretty public about his supportive vouchers, I would say Yeah.

[00:14:30] Josh Blank: I mean, sort of, yes, I’ll say. I mean, yes. Full stop. Yes. However, this is clearly a major escalation in terms of his public strategy, cuz even his public strategy earlier in the session was really focused on pretty narrow audiences. Right. Whereas this is now saying, no, I’m telling you how the, basically how governance is gonna go.

[00:14:49] Josh Blank: One way or another. Yeah. And he’s ma and he’s making a commitment really to a special session, honestly.

[00:14:54] Jim Henson: Yeah. No, I mean, I think you have to, I think you ha given what things look like now, I think that’s kind of implicit in this signaling. Yeah. Right. Um, but you know, it depends on how, how good they are at count, at vote.

[00:15:09] Jim Henson: Right. Yeah. Um, you know, I mean, I think the other thing that’s interesting to step back on this before you move on to the other thing we wanna talk about in this, in this context, is, You know, it’s good to do a little bit of analysis check here. Yeah. Right. Or, you know, for continuity. If you go back to us talking about this, you know, two to six months ago in that window, I mean, one of the arguments, and I think we did a piece on this, or maybe we just a podcast, but not just a podcast.

[00:15:40] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. Don’t take it. Take me wrong. Get me wrong. Podcast is prime content. Um, you know, the idea that. Vouchers were being nestled in this larger argument about uhhuh parental rights and content. Right. And what’s actually happening inside public schools, right. In terms of teaching content, de you know, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:16:05] Jim Henson: Right. Right now, and I’m, I’m ju I was just sitting here as we were doing this and I, you know, I’ve not thought about this. So, you know, lucky podcast listener, you get to hear us. Yeah. Thinking in real time. Um, but. You know, this is a little bit of an interesting test of that concept, right? Mm-hmm. Because in a way, I still think that’s what they were doing.

[00:16:25] Jim Henson: I think that the argument particularly, or this combination of mm-hmm. Reconfiguration of the public education issue for. Republicans and again, that that structure is still, and even in these substitute bills in which these are bills about parental rights and a key parental, right, is parental is school choice.

[00:16:42] Josh Blank: Yeah. It’s getting, is pulling your

[00:16:43] Jim Henson: kids out of those schools. Right. Be and you know, and then, you know, and then the predicate is because those schools are either, you know, I. Failing, quote unquote, right. Or you know, their sub, their indoctrination, et cetera, et

[00:16:56] Josh Blank: cetera. Right? Well, it’s like, or, or they’re unable to provide specific, necessary resources for specific needful

[00:17:01] Jim Henson: populations of students.

[00:17:02] Jim Henson: Yeah. So the special needs kids, et cetera. So, you know, but I think what’s interesting about where this moment right now is push comes to the shove. The public arguments for this still seem like they’re hinging on school choice, quote unquote, or some notion of that. Now, if you look at, I mean, I mean this came to me as you were talking about Yeah.

[00:17:30] Jim Henson: Abbot traveling around the state, I mean mm-hmm. Abbott is criticizing the public schools and the wokeness and blah, blah, blah. You know, in a lot of these speeches. Yeah,

[00:17:41] Josh Blank: right. The Texas public schools. Right.

[00:17:43] Jim Henson: But. You know, it, it, it’s almost as if at this point when push comes to shove, you have to kind of, they’re kind of stuck calling it what it is.

[00:17:53] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And certainly internally, and it looks like that strategy has worked to some degree. Yeah. Because the vote margins do seem to be narrowing in the house over time. But they haven’t quite made the sale. Yeah. Right. In other words, now, again, as we talk about it here all the time, this could be another one of those things where, you know, they come, you know, this is, they’re closer now than they’ve been probably in a while.

[00:18:26] Jim Henson: Yeah. If, if not ever, and you know, they go see, okay, you know what? Go out. Win a few more seats or, you know. Mm-hmm. Put a few, a little more elect, direct electoral pressure on people in the subsequent election.

[00:18:41] Josh Blank: Right. Possibly or negatively. Yeah.

[00:18:43] Jim Henson: And either, you know, we’ll, you know, we’ll move some people, or some people will change their minds in terms of that pressure.

[00:18:51] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. And then, we’ll, we’ll be closer next time now. So I, you know, I mean, I think that that, you know, that muddled thinking captures the muddled moment, I think, or matches the muddled moment. Yeah. But it is interesting to think about, you know, has this bid for, you know, think about the terms we were talking about six months ago.

[00:19:10] Jim Henson: Yeah. Has this bid for issue ownership worked now there’s not gonna be a yes or no. How much has it worked? Where has it falling short and why? And it’s still probably too soon to answer that. Yeah. But I mean, it’s, it is interesting to go back and think about, All of that. And, and particularly if you look at the, you know, the overall, you know, situation around, you know, what it, you know where there’s friction between the house and the Senate right now.

[00:19:35] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, two reactions to what you were saying there. I mean, I think one, it depends on what success looks like. Yeah, right? I mean, that’s a big part of the argument

[00:19:40] Jim Henson: right now. Well, that’s the point about, you know, that that kind of speaks, that that’s where the, you know, if you make incremental progress, is that enough

[00:19:46] Josh Blank: success.

[00:19:47] Josh Blank: But it’s interesting, you know, I mean, I guess what’s interesting to me, I think, you know, we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna go, we’re gonna get together issue, we promise. Right. Just one second. But I mean, it, it is interesting in the sense, I mean, what you’re describing is, is sort of in some ways the nor, I mean, what you were describing there was in some ways the normal operation of business, right?

[00:20:00] Josh Blank: I mean, yeah. This is essentially, you know, if you’re describing right now, We could just scrape out a lot us and say, we’re talking about gambling, right? Because say, okay, you know, you know, didn’t even get a committee hearing, gets committee hearing, doesn’t go into calendars, you know, gets the committee hearing, gets the calendars.

[00:20:14] Josh Blank: Gets to the floor, doesn’t get enough votes. Right. Next time you get a couple more votes, you’re like, oh, we’re closer than we’ve ever been next time. Right. But the thing that is, is like, and I think that’s,

[00:20:22] Jim Henson: and I can tell you some people that are absolutely making that argument right now, and that would be the million lobbyists working for

[00:20:27] Josh Blank: them.

[00:20:27] Josh Blank: Oh yeah. Keep for the gambling costs. Extend those contracts now. I’m just kidding. I mean, you should, I guess. I don’t know. Anyway. But this whole thing, I mean, you know, and on some ways like, I agree except for the fact that because Abbot has inserted himself so publicly into it now, and again, I think he’s, and we’ll come back to this probably, but he’s been very, he’s been so careful and all, all of the, I mean, they’ve all kind of learned from each other cuz I mean, in some ways, you know, In a weird way, you know, totally different experiences, but Patrick and Abbott have come up together, right?

[00:20:53] Josh Blank: Yeah. In, in, in this government piece of this. And you know, Felan has certainly been a pretty keen observer, and I think we’ll get to this, has been kind of using some of the same tools both of them have, which is to sort of stake out a position that then puts, you know, failure essentially somewhere else.

[00:21:07] Josh Blank: Yes. And we’ll come back to this. But the interesting thing about Abbott, you know, really getting behind this in the way that he has, and even going to the point of saying like, no, I’m gonna call him back to do this one thing, is it raises the relationship well, what if they don’t do it? Yeah. It’s not a good luck.

[00:21:23] Josh Blank: Now, again, if you’re a house member, the question becomes like, you know, is, is the, is the cost of inaction becomes so high for you that you just say, okay, even though I, I, we don’t wanna do this, or the majority of us don’t wanna do this, enough members say, Hey, you know what, this is just not. Right. This is not worth it for me to be here either personally, professionally, politically, whatever.

[00:21:41] Josh Blank: And then maybe you see a shift. But the thing is, if you don’t, then, you know, it’s hard to say, you know, an Abbott can go and say, well, you know, the, the legislature failed. But the other side of it is say, I try, you know, I tried to deliver this thing, but I couldn’t do it. Right. And so it’s, you know, it’s, and you’re kind of seeing this sort of this dynamic play out, and you can see this playing out in other areas, right.

[00:22:03] Josh Blank: Yeah. O open transition.

[00:22:05] Jim Henson: Right? And so, and so what we’re seeing really, I mean, so, so let’s like, look, we’ll turn briefly to another issue. Yeah. Another minor issue here. Yeah. The other issue of, you know, intense maneuvering along these lines at this moment is the property, the, the issue of how to deliver property tax reduction.

[00:22:21] Jim Henson: Right. Which, Interestingly, as we talk about how much they need to do vouchers, they really need to do property tax reduction.

[00:22:28] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, they’ve told voters very clearly. There’s one thing they’re definitely

[00:22:33] Jim Henson: doing. Yeah. I mean like if they, you know, if, if, I don’t think this is gonna happen, but were the property tax reduction discussion to collapse.

[00:22:40] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. Or reach an impasse in the way that it appears, the voucher discussion has reached an impasse. They will not wait till September. No, they’re not going anywhere, it seems to me. So, no, absolutely not. Um, So, you know, the, the Senate has been steadfast in its commitment to using an increase in the homestead exemption.

[00:22:58] Jim Henson: Right? Right. I mean, and, and an additional add-on to the homestead exemption for, for seniors as the heart of achieving property tax reduction. But the house and, and until Saturday, the house had had a very Yes. Clearly different approach that had been the matter of dueling op-eds and memes and.

[00:23:18] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:23:18] Josh Blank: Whose experts name calling, whose experts were more right

[00:23:21] Jim Henson: about Yeah. Well, yeah. Yes. You know, at the higher level. Yes. I was thinking more about that Name calling. Oh, the name

[00:23:27] Josh Blank: calling. Sure. I

[00:23:28] Jim Henson: love the name calling. The name calling in the, in the memes. I guess the most well known at this point being, I think the

[00:23:33] Josh Blank: speaker enjoyed showing off his abs.

[00:23:35] Josh Blank: I think he did too. So, like, I, Liz, I’ll just say I, I told, I showed it to my wife and I said, you know what? I would too, Good for him. He’s

[00:23:41] Jim Henson: young, he’s fit. Yeah, it’s good. Good for him. You know, way to go, way to go. Speaker feeling. Um, so the house has had a different

[00:23:49] Josh Blank: approach, right? Yeah. The house is really focused primarily on lowering the appraisal cap, which is basically the, uh, home’s.

[00:23:55] Josh Blank: Taxable value can increase year over year. We already have an appraisal cap, so I mean, if anybody, you know, who listens to this owns a home, they know that the value, the taxable value of their home can’t go up. More than 10% per year. And now, look, I should say right now, we are not tax experts. We are not policy guys.

[00:24:08] Josh Blank: We are, we’re, you know, giving certainly not tax experts. We are giving you a general sense here, right? Uh, and so that had been their primary means. You know, the argument, you know, in a lot of ways being they could extend this to, to more properties. You know, the homestead exemption only applies to a person’s primary residence and only residences.

[00:24:24] Josh Blank: So no businesses fall under homestead. That exemptions. Right? Uh, and the idea was this would be more broadly applicable and in some ways I think, you know, from a policy standpoint, the argument is it more directly a attacks the thing that people are concerned about, which is that, you know, or that they, that they see as the problem, which is dramatically rising home values.

[00:24:40] Josh Blank: So if term values are rising dramatically in some ways, Yeah, I mean, just as an example, if the homestead exemption goes up, you know, $50,000 from what it was now, which is not a proposal, I’m just throwing a number out there. Yeah. And your home goes up $50,000 in value and let’s just say there’s no appraisal capital.

[00:24:54] Josh Blank: That would be the end of that. Yeah, it’s a wash right now. Again, this is overly simplified and ultimately none of this actually connects to the fact that, you know, the local entities actually set the rates at which they tax the amount of right. Taxable values, right? And so all this other stuff goes in, but,

[00:25:10] Jim Henson: but the legislature last session put, you know, more constraints

[00:25:13] Josh Blank: on that.

[00:25:13] Josh Blank: Well, and that’s the thing, you know, that’s actually one of the things, I mean, just as an aside for people who are following this closely, you know, that’s one of the things that I think the coverage has really, you know, failed to. Address really comprehensively, which is in laying out the, the dueling arguments, you know, for and against focusing monthly on, uh, homestead exemption increases versus focusing primarily on appraisal, uh, cap lowering is, is it the focus, you know, when they, when.

[00:25:37] Josh Blank: People have written about the appraisal cap lowering, they kind of say kind of blithely. Well, yeah, but of course the local entity then goes and sets three. Yes. But yeah, the better coverage has had

[00:25:45] Jim Henson: that in there.

[00:25:46] Josh Blank: But, but, but the legislature passed the law. Yeah. That, that limits the extent to which that revenue, that, that, that, that money can grow year over year on the taxable values or taxable properties.

[00:25:55] Josh Blank: And so like there are, there actually is a cap on the other side of that that would, does still actually constrain local entities from just, they can’t just set the rate at anything. Right. Right. And that’s very,

[00:26:03] Jim Henson: very clear. So the current moment is a very interesting. Political one because of what the house is now offered.

[00:26:10] Jim Henson: Yeah, so the house,

[00:26:11] Josh Blank: the counter, counter, counter offered, so the house comes back this weekend, kind of, I mean, you know, and again, maybe I’m not listening to the right people kind of outta nowhere and says, well, you know, let’s still do, let’s still lower the appraisal cap to 5%, but you know what, let’s just raise the homestead exemption to a hundred grand.

[00:26:23] Josh Blank: And I think the most, the last time we went from 25 to 40, I think the, the Senate is, goes from 40 to. 75, I believe. Yeah, I think that’s right. And now the house is coming back and saying 70 or 75. Yeah. Yeah. And now the house is coming back and saying, well, let’s just raise it into a hundred. Which is funny.

[00:26:38] Josh Blank: So on the one hand, you know, it’s a little bit of

[00:26:39] Jim Henson: a middle finger. It is. Because

[00:26:41] on

[00:26:41] Josh Blank: the one hand you can kinda look at it and say, well, you know, I mean, if you were just sitting there, you know, you’re

[00:26:44] Jim Henson: right. Lieutenant Governor, that is the way to go. So let’s just raise it to a hundred.

[00:26:48] Josh Blank: Well, and that’s the funny thing, right?

[00:26:49] Josh Blank: I mean, you know, if you, again, from a, from a, an out, you know, I have an outsider, but just from a, just like a, if you’re just looking at the facts, you say, oh, so they must be closer to an agreement now. And it’s like, No, this is a great example of, of this sort of dynamic. We’re gonna, where now you know, the house is passed.

[00:27:03] Josh Blank: Let’s say, let’s say the house actually moves this bill, right, like full of process and just sends it to the Senate and they have to hash this out. Well, ultimately now the House has actually passed the most aggressive property tax reduction measure of the two chambers. But the reality is, I think now, again, I wanna say real quick, I think, I don’t know, but my guess would be that the budget is not allowed for an increase of the homestead exemption to a hundred thousand dollars.

[00:27:29] Josh Blank: I doubt it. Right. Maybe.

[00:27:31] Jim Henson: Devils in the details. Devils and details. I know there’s at least a couple people that tend to listen to this, that can send us an email, please. Yeah. I’m correct us extensively on this discussion,

[00:27:39] Josh Blank: but it sounds, it sounds, it sounds pretty. Or, or, or hone our expectations. It sounds pretty expensive, but the point is here, I don’t think, you know, this is not really about the policy at this point.

[00:27:48] Josh Blank: I mean, this is about if they do get to a negotiation space, now all of a sudden, again, the house can say without unequivocally, if they do this, Listen, we passed the most aggressive property tax reduction. The Senate watered it down. That’s the the term that’s being flown around a lot about who’s watering down what.

[00:28:03] Josh Blank: So this is weird, right? I mean this, well, I

[00:28:06] Jim Henson: mean, look, I, you know, we were talking about this before and I think, you know, I don’t wanna oversimplify this because there’s so much complexity in there, but when you step back, there is a part of this that looks to me like this is like, And, and I think you’re right.

[00:28:25] Jim Henson: I mean there is the jab at which, mm-hmm. Okay. You guys reduced the property tax proposal then, right? Um, it is the setup for the endgame negotiation on this. Yes. Because this puts so much on the table. Mm-hmm. Does so in a way that I suspect fairly aggravating to some people in the Senate, including. The master of the Senate.

[00:28:48] Josh Blank: Yeah. Funny to me, just watching.

[00:28:49] Jim Henson: Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s hard not to have that kind of reaction to this, but it does create now an enormous amount of negotiating space. Yeah. And you know, look, I think we even talked about this a few weeks ago. I mean, that look at some level. Despite the fact that, you know, when you model it out and do revenue projections and have to figure out, you know, what the adjustments are for the, you know, for the school districts Yeah.

[00:29:17] Jim Henson: And all that local, you know, all the things that are complex about this. Right. It did seem to me that at some point we were gonna come to a MO in a moment where we looked at two adjustable numbers, right. An appraisal cap where you’ve got a negotiating space between five and five and 10%. Right. And an appraisal cap, uh, homestead.

[00:29:39] Jim Henson: Oh, I’m sorry. The, the, the exemption increase, right. The homestead exemption increase where you initially had a negotiating space to, you know, 70 or 75, and now you’ve got negotiating space to a hundred. Right. And so in that case, and you know, if you look at it in that just. Again, admittedly oversimplified way, but that does seem to be like, okay, here’s the basics.

[00:30:03] Jim Henson: Here’s the negotiating frame. Mm-hmm. Let’s start moving this. There are only two weeks left. Mm-hmm. And, you know, figure out what we’re gonna do. Well, and the funny thing about all this, and yes, I’m gonna do this in a way that’s a little bit of a middle finger to you, uh, Lieutenant Governor and in terms of the negotiating space, but, you know, it all seems, you know, to, to quote, you know, various moments of pop culture, you know, You know, it’s the game.

[00:30:26] Josh Blank: Well, I was gonna say, I mean, is there any more of a middle finger in Republican politics in Texas than to put California before someone’s name? Yeah. Right. I mean, like, it’s not, I mean, you

[00:30:34] Jim Henson: know, not the first middle. Not to imply in any way the first middle finger. No. Right. Um, You know, it is funny, I, there is this notion where I’m thinking of, this is not exactly in your pop culture wheelhouse, but I’m thinking of the, the meme of the three spidermans pointing each other.

[00:30:51] Jim Henson: Yeah. And that’s kind of like, you know, you’re, you were talking about casting blame. The ability to blame others. Mm-hmm. Is part of the, the key currency of the ever unstable relationship among the big three? Yeah. You know, and always has been really, and it’s when the moments that are, you know, ensconced in, in.

[00:31:16] Jim Henson: Often, I think distorted ways in the collective memory of the political class are moments when the big three were able to overcome that. Well, it, it’s, it, they’re pretty rare

[00:31:26] Josh Blank: in my view. Well, and this is the thing I think that, you know, and this is good to kind of move on to the end of this. I mean, this is sort of the f what makes this situation, I mean, I’ll just say funny, for lack of a better word, right?

[00:31:35] Josh Blank: Yeah. Because I think, you know, this is something that’s like, it’s not really entirely comprehensible. Either, you know, certain, you know, even to experience capital watchers, but especially to sort of, you know, just citizens out there who might expect that, you know, with unified one party rule of government right.

[00:31:51] Josh Blank: Of all of, you know, majorities in the house, you know, iron fisted majority right in the Senate, control the legislative man branch that there are. There’s so much friction here. Yeah. And that we even are describing this, you know, the Spider-Man situation. We pointing at each other even before, you know, even before the end.

[00:32:06] Josh Blank: Yeah. Right. So, so what is that? What is, what is, I mean, I think, you know, this is something that, you know, we’re trying, I, we’ve been trying to kind of get at a little bit. Yeah. I think there’s an more explicable p version of this where you’d say like, well, you know, You’ve got the, the moderate wing of the Republican party and you’ve got the far right wing or something and like, and I think in some ways these becomes more explicable.

[00:32:24] Josh Blank: You know, I think a couple sessions ago when, you know when constitutional carry was, was just not. You know, it was just not gonna be passed. And there was a feeling that it wasn’t, you know, something that the body wanted to vote for, the Senate wouldn’t wanna vote for it. But there was a lot of pressure from the far right to basically, you know, try to, you know, the Freedom Caucus members to really try to push this constitutional Yeah.

[00:32:43] Josh Blank: Okay. Like, and that’s sort of something I think traditional’s like, oh, okay. That, that feels right. You know, there’s sort of this group of Republicans and this group of Republicans and they’re more extreme. And so, but then like we’re talking about tax cuts. And you’re still seeing it, which should be, you know, in some eyes you think an area of general consensus, right?

[00:32:58] Josh Blank: So what, what is that? I mean,

[00:32:59] Jim Henson: what do you think that is? Yeah, well, I mean, look, I, there’s a lot of different pieces to this. I mean, I think, you know, a big part of this is obviously institutional, and we’ve talked about this in here, that, you know, we tend to, I mean, look, there’s two things going on among, among the, you know, the general population.

[00:33:18] Jim Henson: I think it’s reasonable, particularly given. Where our national politics are right now. Mm-hmm. Now that people think of the parties as very distinct now. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Right. You know, sorting and, you know, it’s kind of, I, I mean, I hate it. It’s sort of the explanation for everything, but it’s a part of an explanation for a lot.

[00:33:36] Jim Henson: Is it the combination of ideological sorting in the parties and the fact that the parties are pretty far apart and, and, and polarized in a lot of these issues does lead people to have. An almost parliamentary style kind of expectation, I think. Mm-hmm. Some of that is at the national leveling, some of the, that’s one of the reasons that congressional approval ratings are just so dismal and locked in this dismal pattern.

[00:33:59] Jim Henson: Right. Um, but I think it’s especially true to the extent that people pay attention to state politics. It’s like, these guys are all on the same team. Why are they not just all moving towards the goal line? Right. And it’s. Not really the way the institutions are designed. That’s it. And so what you’re getting is like friction between the shifted the shift in this general kind of ideological climate and in the party system.

[00:34:23] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. For lack of a better term. And you know, institutions that were designed to kind of. Retired, those, those developments, and it’s not worked that way. Right? Yeah. So now we’ve got these polarized parties in a very divided government. So you’ve got parliament expectations in a system that is designed to not.

[00:34:44] Jim Henson: To actually prevent parliamentary parties from developing and, and acting.

[00:34:50] Josh Blank: Yeah, that’s interesting. As you talk about, uh, I think about this idea of like easy versus hard issues in some ways too. Yeah. And, and, and like maybe if there’s another dimension related to it, you know, which is I think a little bit more artistic, you know, and, and placing issue.

[00:35:01] Josh Blank: But like, you know, issues that probably skew more political versus issues that skew more real. And when I say that, what do I mean? I think, and I’m making this definition as I go along, but what I would say is, you know, Is this a real problem facing the state, or is this a problem that, you know, one party has found an advantage over the other in terms of the politics of it and look in a, in a democratic controlled state, You know, you’re gonna expect democratic legislatures to, to put forward bills that are gonna turn the screws on, you know, Republican minorities.

[00:35:27] Josh Blank: And, and it’s the same thing here. That’s just part of the mix, right. Of, of what we would expect. But it seems like in the issues that we’re talking about where there’s a lot of friction, we’re talking about issues that are both very real. You know, property taxes in a state that like largely relies on property taxes for a lot of its revenue, where property taxes are to some degree, you know, Impacted at the base level by property values, which are totally uncontrollable.

[00:35:52] Josh Blank: Right. Just, you know, full stop vouchers. Right. Which basically takes, you know, one of the, the biggest spending items in our state public education and, and basically tries to amend the system in a way that I think has, you know, a lot of people, especially again, rural legislators for reasons that we’ve talked about many times, you’re concerned.

[00:36:11] Josh Blank: Yeah.

[00:36:12] Jim Henson: Gross educational

[00:36:13] Josh Blank: stakeholders, you know, school safety, which again, you know, regardless of whether you think it’s all guns or all mental health or whatever, it’s a lot of things that are not gonna be easily Right, you know, dealt with. And the grid is, we’ve talked about multiple times and it just, any infrastructure thing is immensely complicated.

[00:36:28] Josh Blank: I mean, so complicated that, you know, you can watch these hearings and see the experts talk and watch the legislators essentially. Try to deal with the information they’re being provided. Not because they’re dumb people, but because this is so complicated, right? And so if you take that and you say, well these are, you know, these iss, but these issues are still, in some ways they’re real issues.

[00:36:45] Josh Blank: They do have political consequences, but they’re also really hard. And you know, it seems like this model of government is not. Necessarily, I don’t know. It’s not necessarily producing a lot of cream at the end of all this, you know,

[00:36:57] Jim Henson: friction, right? Yeah, no, I think that’s right. And I think that, you know, uh, and it’s, it’s a kind of mundane explanation in some ways, but I mean, I think it’s, you know, you’re not really, you’re not really considering the institutional, does institutional design is a variable.

[00:37:16] Jim Henson: Sorry. You know? Well, you know, I, I mean, I mean, if you’re not quite seen. You know, in terms of the context of, well look, you know, you guys are in charge. What the hell? I mean, yeah. You know, the complexity, you know, it is the complexity of those issues that drives that. But I mean, in some ways, I, you know, it’s too late to be surprised.

[00:37:36] Jim Henson: Yeah. I think that, Hey, Lieutenant Governor has a very inde, you know, and I don’t mean this Lieutenant Governor. The Lieutenant Governor has a very independent, you know, field of operation. Mm-hmm. And, and, and authority and domain that is just not. That’s susceptible to influence by others. Yeah. The governor in his own way also has that kind of latitude.

[00:38:02] Jim Henson: And for that matter, the speaker of the house has a whole different, as we’ve said, you know, Texas Government 1 0 1, right? Speaker is elected by the, by the members, not the state. Puts the speaker in a completely different right position than the other two who are in a completely, each of them in a slightly different, so you know, what we’re seeing is things working.

[00:38:21] Jim Henson: Kind of the way we ought to expect them. And it just, it’s a pretty great illustration. It’s like, Hey, you know what? Let’s control for party and even more so let’s control for parties that are. Historically. Yeah. Speaking relatively homogenous. Yeah, right. I mean, we can look at all these divisions in the Republican party right now, tell you right now, it’s nothing compared to what the Democrats were experiencing say, you know, in about 1970.

[00:38:48] Jim Henson: Let alone even 1975.

[00:38:50] Josh Blank: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting, you know, talking about this way, you know, there’s an argument to be made in some ways that, you know, the lack of consensus over these major issues and consensus here doesn’t even just mean like, okay, we agree on the ideas, but it’s like we’ve, we’ve, we’ve hashed this out.

[00:39:02] Jim Henson: Yeah. Look on vouchers, it’s, it’s a, it’s a do we do it or we. Don’t do it. Yeah,

[00:39:07] Josh Blank: yeah. And it’s, and it’s, you know, but it’s also about the extent of these programs and all these other little pieces that honestly, you know, in some ways, you know, if the, if the process is not producing an outcome, even given unified control, that might be because they haven’t come up with the right solution yet.

[00:39:20] Josh Blank: You know, I mean, broadly speaking, now the difficult part, I mean, one thing, I mean, I think institutionally and all this, it makes a big difference is the fact that, you know, the power of the Lieutenant Governor in this kind of looms large. I mean, it’s hard not to imagine that, you know, I mean, it’s hard for me not to imagine.

[00:39:32] Josh Blank: This may be just, again, I’m just speculating, but if. The senators were left to their own device. I’m just talking about the Republican majority Senators, right? Yeah, sure. Were left to their own devices to negotiate, you know, essentially with the house over really a range of these issues. I think they could probably all come up with something that they would, you know, be able to move.

[00:39:48] Josh Blank: Right. But, and I’m not saying that that’s, I’m not saying that’s blanket true. I’m not saying that’s true for every issue, but I think on a number of these issues, if there was more latitude for the senators, yeah. Because ultimately most legislation is compromised, even within the majority party. I think there’d be a little bit more.

[00:40:02] Josh Blank: Ability for the or, I think they would’ve moved some of these issues forward a little bit more than they have at this point. Yeah. But the reality is that the house is automatically negotiating against Lieutenant Governor who basically says, the solution is my solution. Yeah. That you guys are wasting your time.

[00:40:15] Josh Blank: Which, you know, right. I mean, just imagine guys like, you know.

[00:40:18] Jim Henson: Well, and I don’t, you know, I mean, it’s an interesting question. I mean, because I mean, I, I agree with that broadly, but it also brings up the degree to which. Lieutenant Governor Patrick has crafted the Senate that he wants, particularly the Republican in caucus that he wants.

[00:40:39] Jim Henson: If you look at the, at the people that have left in the last few sessions, even in the last one or two. Yeah, right. That probably would’ve made me more likely to. To agree more quickly with that proposition that, you know, yeah, look, if it was up to the senators, they’d probably, but you know, there’s a kind of Stockholm syndrome going on here.

[00:41:00] Jim Henson: Sorry, senators. But you know that, I mean, you know, the, I mean, we can name, name, look, the, you know, the departure of Taylor, Jane Nelson. Sigur, of course. Yeah. You know, we could add a couple more if we went back a little further. Mm-hmm. But even those which are fairly recent.

[00:41:16] Josh Blank: Yeah. Well, I mean, when you, when you need, you know, all the Republicans to move stuff the way you have designed the institution to work, you can’t, you can’t lose three, you know, or have three, you know, potential defectors.

[00:41:25] Josh Blank: Right. And

[00:41:26] Jim Henson: so, you know what, you know, it’s an, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting notion that that

[00:41:30] Josh Blank: Well, but what layers over this, to me, in some hot experiment, it’s hard for me not to consider in all of this in the back and forth, you know? Patrick’s own tr political trajectory looking into the future.

[00:41:40] Josh Blank: Yeah. But he said now that he, first he said he wasn’t gonna run again. Now he’s basically said that he is now. Look, I, I wanna wait and see on that one because I think just generally speaking, you know, people talk about lame duck stuff, look it up if you haven’t. Yeah, right. I mean, ultimately you don’t wanna say, you’re not gonna be there next time when you’re trying to tell everybody what to do.

[00:41:55] Josh Blank: So I think, you know, I still wouldn’t take that as a hundred percent, but I think he’s gonna run again. And I think it is interesting when you, when you look at. Some of the stuff, I mean, the extent to which he clearly wants to deliver the victories, he wants to deliver and he wants to deliver them in a way that I think is, you know, I mean, honestly, and I don’t think, I don’t say this as a negative way or with a negative condition, but in a way that’s gonna be politically translatable.

[00:42:15] Josh Blank: Yeah. You know, and I think, you know, the thing about like a homestead exemption increase is that, you know, it will happen right now. Yeah. Whereas, you know, basically capping appraisal increases is going to presumably, and again, there’s argument about this. I’m not trying to get the deal. Yeah. But the idea behind it would be, it will, it will slow down the growth of your property.

[00:42:33] Josh Blank: Taxes not going to that, it’s gonna give you this big cut immediately. Right, right. I think he wants to be able to give the cut immediately. He’s wanted the vouchers since he was a state senator. Like this is, I mean that’s, I mean, I think that’s a pinnacle career defining thing for him. But ultimately that doesn’t, you know, I mean like I think anybody who’s been in negotiation like.

[00:42:50] Josh Blank: If one side is that committed to, you know, this thing, one, I think it makes it harder. But two, the other piece of this, and I think, you know, kind of going forward is like, you know, essentially you have to make your interests, the interests of other people. Yeah. And I mean, I, and I think, you know, as, as, as adept as Lieutenant Governor has been at his politics and as successful as he’s been in the state, and I don’t think you can deny that in any way.

[00:43:11] Josh Blank: He’s never been one to go and say, let me, let me show you how our interests are aligned on this. It’s been, do this at least not

[00:43:19] Jim Henson: cer certainly not his public posture.

[00:43:21] Josh Blank: Certainly not his public posture. And, but that’s the thing though. I mean, ultimately that’s even worse, right? I mean, if his public posture were more conciliatory and privately said, no, you have to do this.

[00:43:29] Josh Blank: I mean, there’s, that’s another model, right? Yeah. But you know, you have a bunch of other actors who also have their own districts, have their own reelection, and the thing is, is like, you know, The thing about, I mean, this whole thing, and I’ll, and I’ll stop here. You know, that’s sort of interesting to me is this idea that like if Patrick goes and craps on the house and Abbott goes and starts saying, you know, well this needs to happen, visiting house members, district, visiting house.

[00:43:55] Josh Blank: I mean, do these house members, I mean, like us is, you know, is is the, is the layman the average voter? And then there’s a separate question. The Republican primary voter are gonna go and say, you know what? Representative fill in Theb Blank was not sufficiently committed to the Lieutenant Governor’s agenda, and now I’m upset.

[00:44:12] Josh Blank: Yeah. And that’s a lot to

[00:44:15] Jim Henson: ask. It’s a little more diffuse than that, I think for a

[00:44:17] Josh Blank: lot of voters. Right. It’s, it’s a lot more diffuse and I mean, I’m not saying that that’s not gonna be part of the dynamic in some primaries or, or whatever. Yeah. It’s not gonna exactly be in those terms. But you know, this idea that like, you know, in some ways there’s a little bit of a, an overestimation of one’s own importance in voter’s minds.

[00:44:33] Josh Blank: If they think that, you know, somehow defying, you know, the Lieutenant Governor’s wishes or not following through on, or the governor’s for that. One thing that Abbott’s asking for is gonna somehow doom. Uh, you know, a member who’s, you know, again, especially a house member who’s usually pretty close to the district.

[00:44:46] Josh Blank: Yeah, it’s like, yeah, I mean, maybe around the edges, but it’s not gonna be like all of a sudden, you know, a bunch of house members get swept out on mass and they get replaced by empowered Texans

[00:44:55] Jim Henson: back to Republicans. Right. I mean, I, you know, that’s the disaster fantasy that they all try to avoid. But I mean, on some of these closer cut issues, I mean it’s, you know, it, the calculation is different for a lot of them.

[00:45:06] Jim Henson: And I think, look, I think we saw that and

[00:45:07] Josh Blank: recent history is, Has not shown that to be what happens.

[00:45:10] Jim Henson: Right. And, and, and, and we saw that. I mean, the thing about that, and this is a whole, I mean this is a whole other discussion, but same for next week. I think that it’s one thing to look at the empirical record and kind of say, you know, look, these primary challenges, they’re not as successful as frequently as they used to be.

[00:45:26] Jim Henson: Right. But it’s another thing in the personal calculus of a member. Yeah. Who even if they think their odds are good, There’s an efficiency transactions cost kind of consideration that just says, you know what, I really hate, I really hate to even have to make an effort in a contested primary.

[00:45:46] Josh Blank: Yes, absolutely.

[00:45:48] Jim Henson: Right. And I think it’s, it’s kind of hard to convey that, but I’m pretty convinced that, you know, that’s part of what’s going on out there. Even if people are going well, it’s not as, you know. Yeah, it’s, you know, I won fairly easily last time, but there’s nothing really better. Than an uncontested primary. I mean, when you go around election registration time and you talk to members, you know there is a marked mood difference between the people you know.

[00:46:17] Jim Henson: Think of three general buckets who have a primary challenger, but they’re not that worried about Yeah. A serious primary challenger and no primary. And I should have done that in a more spectrum kind of way. Yeah. But you know, those buckets are pretty distinct. Yeah. Right. So, but it’s interesting in terms of how that, how that mechanism works.

[00:46:34] Jim Henson: Well, and then the question, because there’s a lag, you know what it means practically is there’s a lag. There’s

[00:46:38] Josh Blank: a lag and, but then also, you know, we talk about this all the time, you know, the effect that this is a multi-stage game. And so the other piece of that I would say too is like, well, you know, does, does the Republican primary, I mean, does the Republican Party of Texas censor some of these members who don’t follow through on the strict line by line Yeah.

[00:46:55] Josh Blank: Interpretation of their agenda, thus opening up funding for, for primary challengers. Does the governor go and start spending his, some of his significant resources, you know, helping primary challengers and Republican primaries to sitting incumbents and look, right, that’s a or,

[00:47:08] Jim Henson: or not? Withholding more likely withholding from sitting Congress.

[00:47:12] Josh Blank: Yeah. And I mean, and that’s, and that, and even the effect of, of that is I think, you know, debatable, but ultimately, you know, that would be a major escalation. Yeah. That honestly, you know, you think of mul multi-stage, you know, if you say like, well, should those members next time be more accommodating to the governor or less accommodating and.

[00:47:26] Josh Blank: You know, I don’t, I don’t know how that plays out, but my guess would be less accommodating. Right. So it’s, you know, there’s a little bit of a, there’s a little bit of chicken going on

[00:47:34] Jim Henson: here too. Yeah. And I think that internal game one can, you know, it’s out there. It applies unevenly among members. Yeah. I mean, I think there are some people who are active in the media space that social media especially who.

[00:47:49] Jim Henson: Social and non-traditional media who really want to, you know, say, look, this is all about, you know, Abbott’s broken promises to house members. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, maybe, yeah. Uhhuh. So I, you know, I mean, I don’t think it’s irrelevant, but I, I, I think one can be a little reductive on that. Um, for sure. And, and, You know, people are members, you know, make more fluid decisions.

[00:48:12] Jim Henson: I mean, some people hold grudges or you know, I’ll never forget that he said he’d helped me and he didn’t. Right. But a lot of people, you know, what have you done for me lately? Yeah. What will you do for me tomorrow? Heals a lot of

[00:48:22] Josh Blank: wounds. I was gonna say, most good politicians don’t hold grudges for that long.

[00:48:26] Josh Blank: Right. It’s a much more fluid space. Yeah. Cuz grudges

[00:48:29] Jim Henson: be, you know, ultimately grudges become, Potential vulnerabilities in my mind, but, you know mm-hmm. That’s maybe just a Jim Henson life lesson.

[00:48:36] Josh Blank: Um, that’s actually a, I mean, that might be a good place to end this podcast as you know, again, as the governor makes a threat, you know?

[00:48:42] Josh Blank: Right. Yeah.

[00:48:43] Jim Henson: Let’s, you know, chill out and see what happens. So, um, I, I think with that, we had some other things we were kind of thinking about, but I. You know, I think at the most general level, you know, we are watching people, things get slowed down right now. Mm-hmm. And it’s, it is interesting to sit here and try to sort out some of the stuff that is just has this like real sharp personal dimension we keep talking about.

[00:49:09] Jim Henson: You know, the speaker and the lieutenant governor. Mm-hmm. And I think it’s pretty clear there’s no love loss there. Yeah. Um, and then there’s this kind of, this factional, ideological, positional interest mm-hmm. Piece, you know, and all that is taking place. Then finally, in this institutional setting, and I guess that’s kind of the point I was trying to make earlier that I want to close with, is that Yeah, that’s good.

[00:49:32] Jim Henson: You know, those institutional rules when all you know, When all that other stuff is floating out there, and even if it is kind of at a low temperature, these institutional things that we’re talking about, very basic things. Mm-hmm. Right. A bicameral legislature. Mm-hmm. Separation of powers, checks and balances, you know, they fill that gap.

[00:49:55] Jim Henson: Right. In other words, they, and they’re designed to do that. They inject conflict where one might expect compromise and even consensus. And they’re supposed to do that. Yeah. That’s the point. And you know, that’s what we’re, you know, and we’re seeing that in spades right now. Mm-hmm. And so with that, we will continue to watch things.

[00:50:13] Jim Henson: Thanks to Josh for being here for a fun conversation. Thanks again to our excellent production team in the Deb studio in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. Uh, we didn’t talk about much polling data today, which was kind of, Probably a relief to everybody. Me, me included. But if you want to look at podcasts, uh, see these podcasts, look at our data, look at blog posts.

[00:50:35] Jim Henson: The website is Texas politics.tex.edu. Thank you for listening, and we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast.

[00:50:48] Jim Henson: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.