May 18th, 2021 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Introduction] 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. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the constitution, they have become the norm at what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room. 

[0:00:34 Jim] Welcome back to the second reading podcast for the week of May 18th 2021. I’m Jim Henson, director of the texas politics project at the University of Texas at Austin. This week, I’m happy to be joined by James Barragán. James is a politics reporter. Recently arrived at the texas tribune prior to joining the tribune. He worked as a statehouse reporter for the Dallas Morning News, among other beats and has previously reported for the Austin, American statesman and the hometown paper Los Angeles Times James, thanks for being here. How are you settling in at the tribune?

[0:01:09 James] Thanks Jim, I’m happy to be here settling in well to the texas tribune. I came in at a weird time so I’m just trying to get my feet set as we finished the session and I’m excited to be here with you on the other side of the interviewing relations

[0:01:21 Jim] James and I have talked too many times over the years and it’s one of the reasons, one of the many reasons I’m happy to have him here. So you know, let’s start with a little bit of color commentary before you know, we get into the politics and, and politics nitty gritty, you know, you’ve been on-site at the capitol this session, we were talking before we started, you know, give us a little sense of the, you know, the mise en scene, the talk about the mood in the building in a very unusual session that started under, you know, uneven, however unevenly applied pandemic conditions. You know, then hit by the, the blackouts after the winter storm. Talk a little bit about the feel in the building.

[0:02:05 James] Yeah, it’s definitely been a strange session. Um, a lot less people obviously because of the pandemic, a lot of, a lot less people willing to go to the building to testify and say their piece on a story, which I think has affected legislation. I think it has affected the outcome. You and I talked for a story that I was doing on this. But I mean, there’s there’s a certain there’s a certain part of the polar specter, the political spectrum that’s more likely to go to the capital. Um, and one that isn’t under uh, concerns over Covid. So in that respect, in terms of public engagement, in terms of, you know, people coming into the building, there’s certainly less people, uh, there’s certainly, you know, less resolutions, less fourth grade classes getting shout outs from the house or Senate floors. Um, There’s just less engagement with the public. Um, I think in terms of how it’s affected lawmakers, that’s also different because they are much more free. You can see them there are a lot more, you know, open to being themselves and doing really what they want to do when people are not really watching. Um, I think on the house floor, particularly, you know, the house speaker day feeling has had to call order much more than the last session because it is sort of like a frat house, not to uh, offend frat houses, but I mean, it’s just, it’s just, it’s so loud in there because they’re just being, you know, they’re being themselves, they’re, you know, they have the run of the mill there and they’re doing the things that they want to do without much oversight really. The press has been pretty restricted. Now, there are a lot of back on the house floor, but um it has been a bit of a

[0:03:44 Jim] do you think that that free for all this and that mood has also kind of fed into, you know, to let the process itself, particularly in the House? I mean, I think it’s probably, you know, less so in the Senate, but you were talking about the House, I mean, the House has been sure, you know, the House has put out a high volume of very conservative, you know, legislation this time to kind of edge into the substance of this. It sounds like, I mean, you think those things are related.

[0:04:12 James] Yeah, I think you do um there is something to that idea, I think it’s a mixture of that the sort of free for all this um with with not much oversight because the press hasn’t been there in the public, frankly hasn’t been there. Um You know something that happens all the time or those like public protest, somebody unveils a sign or you know they have to be removed by DPS troopers and that hasn’t so much happened this session which you know who knows how much that actually affects, but at least people do know that are the lawmakers know that people are watching and so are a little bit more cognizant of that as they go about the sausage making process. Um So I think there is something to it, the other thing that there is that we’ve got a new House speaker day feeling um and he has applied a much more Laissez-faire um sort of approach to um to how he runs the house. He hasn’t really gotten involved and said, here are my priorities. Even, you know, those low bill priorities, you know, HB one through 20 or

[0:05:08 Jim] sure

[0:05:09 James] whatever they may be and prior sessions, the speakers have said, these are my priorities. He said that to some extent, but not really. And he it’s just kind of they’re throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. And that is definitely the approach that we are seeing on the house floor. And it’s also the approach we’re seeing in, in committees. I know we’re gonna talk a little bit about elections I think, but the way that elections committee has been run has certainly been um you know, less than I think by the book, it’s just kind of been surprise after surprise, roller coaster after roller coaster for people following that.

[0:05:42 Jim] That’s a pretty diplomatic way of putting that. I want to get to the election stuff, congratulations on that. You know, I want to go back to the movie the House just for one more beat and particularly the the style of the speaker. And you know, I’m wondering if you think that’s I mean, you didn’t say this so I don’t want to put words in your mouth that I mean, strike put it this way, it strikes me that that’s partially style, but it’s also partially a new speaker trying to maintain his position to some extent. And I say that, you know, hearing scuttlebutt that, you know, there’s a there’s a lot of sense I’m hearing in the House that things that sometimes look strange, don’t look quite as strange if you look at it kind of sideways from the perspective of the speaker trying to keep his coalition, the coalition that put him in the chair together.

[0:06:39 James] Yeah, sure, it’s kinda hard to say because that’s something I’ve wrestled with all session to, I’m not sure who um House Speaker Day feeling is or what he is like as a speaker because I haven’t really seen him uh particularly be forceful about anything. It is kind of the will of the House thing, which some people enjoy it. Certainly uh conservative republicans are definitely enjoying it right now, a lot of their priorities are getting kicked out. Um And so to your point or to your question about whether this is about a speaker who is concerned about making sure he has a gavel next session, there might be something to that, I would say that given you know where we are at this point in the session, there’s not a whole lot of fighting going on. Um, and that’s particularly that’s that’s because they passed a lot of those red meat items. So I mean what is there left to fight about? You know, so if you’re very socially conservative Republican, I think you’re looking at the speaker and saying, well, he pushed through a lot of our stuff and he wasn’t particularly involved. You know, he just kind of let let the will of the house role and and so that’s led to that. But to your other question about like, you know, new speaker, you know, um how has that been? I do think in the beginning you could see even when he was talking at the diet, so it was it was a little bit nervous, he wasn’t, he wasn’t, you know, fully used to it. I think now he’s a lot more used to it, but I still, you know, the same question for me, who is speaker date feeling, what does he particularly stand for? I’m not sure. And before, you know, there used to be in the house, there used to be that sort of more moderate approach under joe straus, even under Dennis Bond. And I think moderate republicans would have said that, you know, that was the chamber or the place in texas government where they could see some of that moderation happening still very republican policies, but not to the far right wing of the party this session, it’s gone pretty far right wing and it’s been in line I think um in times with the governor, Greg Abbott and with Lieutenant Governor Patrick and even has outflanked dan Patrick in some situations like on permit let’s carry, which was something interesting to see. And so I’m not really sure you know what his style is yet or who he is. I think that’s still um to be determined. Um if he if he comes back for another session as speaker and maybe we’ll see him impose himself more right now, it certainly was like let’s let them run with it and and the House certainly ran with it, you know, republicans have a majority and they have certainly gotten a lot of their priorities

[0:09:24 Jim] through that chamber. I think in fact a lot of things, the way you were describing uh bonnet and you know, certainly stressed that was part of the it was part of the complaints of the people on the farther right wing of the party that you know, there is now making them a little more content is too strong work because I I think part of the position is to not be satisfied. Um,

[0:09:49 James] you know, but

[0:09:50 Jim] um yeah, I mean, I think that’s an interesting read on that. Um, you know, I want to talk about elections, but since you mentioned guns and let’s let’s knock that out while we’re there. So, you know, you mentioned, you know, the maneuvering by Dave feeling on guns, talk about that a little bit. What did you see happening there?

[0:10:11 James] I don’t know that there was a whole lot of money. I think he was pretty straightforward, he’s pushed he’s pushed for permit let’s carry before. So I don’t think it was that much of a surprise, but I think even, you know, senators, even some lawmakers and some activists who are, you know, guns rights activists who advocate for permit let’s carry. Um at the beginning of the session, they were like, well, maybe this is in the session for it, but it quickly became a thing where not only was Representative Schaefer’s bill moving through, which is the one that eventually uh moved through and the one that they’re negotiating right now, um whether they’re going to get a deal on. Uh but Representative James White, who has also filed a permit list carry bill and has done so in the past has has made his position clear on that, but he was he was named as the chairman of the Public Safety Committee which would deal with those with those issues. So I think that became pretty clear right away that that was going to get a favorable hearing. Um And maybe behind the scenes, there were more questions about, you know what exactly that should look like, but multiple bills regarding that topic we’re moving. And so I think there wasn’t a whole lot of maneuvering for speaker feeling on that. He was pretty straightforward about that. Um, and to be fair, I mean, I mean, not to be fair, but let me just, it’s easy for him to do it right. His his district in Beaumont is a pretty conservative district. His voters, I think are in favor of that. I don’t want to speak for for him or his voters, but I think generally that’s a district that’s pretty conservative, right, pretty conservative. And and they are okay with that kind of thing where he may be ran into some issues. Was on the other side, you know, talking about el paso and and and midland Odessa and those west texas shootings in 2019 that had a lot of traction in 2019 and have lost it. And so he had responsibilities particularly to the el paso delegation who are his close allies, um, to try to get something done on those issues. Um, and I think they have moved out the SP 162, the Lion Tribe bill. And it remains to be seen whether the governor will sign that. But I think that’s the only major, uh, gun control or gun violence bill that I’ve seen really move other than brooks land graphs, you know, statewide active shooter alert system, which is more a precaution, I think sort of guessing that there’s not gonna be a whole lot of like,

[0:12:32 Jim] yeah, more literally a gun safety measure. I mean, you know, when I said maneuvering, I guess I was thinking I was picking up on something you said before, um, vis a vis the Senate because it did seem to put dan patrick on the spot. And that felt to me like a maneuver. I think it certainly felt the lieutenant governor like it was maneuver

[0:12:54 James] and I think that goes back to yeah, so great point. So I think that goes back to, you know, there’s been this intra fighting between the GOP right going back to when speaker feeling was first chosen by the GOP caucus or I guess he was chosen in a quote, unquote bipartisan way, but when he announced that he had the votes allien west, the GOP chairman called him a traitor and said this guy is not conservative enough. So I think, you know, looking at this session, they feel him particularly with hp 1927 the permits carry bill. He’s saying basically he and his team um, is basically saying you think we’re not conservative enough, we’ll

[0:13:33 Jim] have a full of this, Yeah,

[0:13:36 James] and put the ball in dan Patrick’s court and then dan Patrick, he had to really maneuver and say, oh here’s, here’s where I am on permit list carry because he had not really spoken on the issue. And I think his preference was to not not have that conversation. But eventually, you know, the political forces are gonna uh impose themselves upon you. And so he was put in a tight spot and that’s basically where we are now, where the two chambers are sort of trying to figure out what that final bill is going to look like. But certainly I think that shows the intra party fighting in the GOP and really the House has put down its marker and really I think made good on Dennis bonbons promise the former speaker that if you stay out of our way, if you let us choose more republicans and more conservatives, then we’re going to get these priorities done. Of course, as you pointed out earlier, there are those folks are never going to be satisfied, right? No matter how conservative your session is, you can always be more conservative. So that’s a little bit of the trap that you’ve fallen. But we’ve certainly seen those dynamics playing

[0:14:38 Jim] well. And I think the measure of that is as josh and I have written and some other places, the measure of that, he’s in the republican primaries. And I think that’s where a lot of the emphasis is here, you know, along those lines then. So, you know, you’ve written a lot about election security, election integrity, voter suppression, you know, pick your label or, or try to avoid all of them. Um, you know, if you can’t, although it’s hard when you’re actually writing. Um, so let’s let’s let’s talk about that. I mean, kind of, what’s your what’s your sense of what the arc of that has been this session?

[0:15:13 James] Well, I just I just read a story in the Texas monthly yesterday about how the democrats, you know, did some backroom deals there

[0:15:19 Jim] with

[0:15:21 James] that was

[0:15:22 Jim] that was pretty nicely

[0:15:23 James] done right, about how they tried to sort of soften the version of the bill that they got from the Senate. And so I think similarly to the permit list carry bill, they’re going to try to hash it out in the back and in the back rooms, um, and try to come up with something that works. Um, it’s certainly, I think is going to be less strict than the original version. That seems to be the indication from the House, but they’re sort of an ops, you know, in the, on the gun bill, the House wants to be stricter, right? And on the elections bill, the House,

[0:15:54 Jim] it makes for interesting book ends those two issues that way, I think

[0:15:58 James] definitely so, um, but no doubt that issue, um, on voting rights is uh, is a priority for the Republican Party, particularly for the right wing of the party, which, as you say, is the important piece for them in many ways, because that’s how you win the primary and a lot of these districts, you win the primary and you’ve won the election. Um, I think just outside of politics, if you look at just realistic terms, and how much actual impact this will have on people, how much this is a necessity for the state. The reality is that this isn’t really a necessity for the state, um, election integrity, whatever you want to call it. You know, voter fraud happens. I think that we in the press sometimes do a poor job of talking about it, um, uh, and and it makes us easy targets, but voter fraud happens, but it happens on such minuscule scales that it can’t really affect. Um, big national races, like the presidential race, which is what former president donald trump, was claiming that it had affected, it affects local races. The big one that, you know, attorney General paxton, and was this little race in east texas that I think total had like 2000 books. Um, and I think recently they found another one in Denton where a mayoral candidate was trying to stuff ballots into

[0:17:21 Jim] grossly unsuccessfully.

[0:17:24 James] The whole

[0:17:25 Jim] point if

[0:17:26 James] you’re being caught red handed, if you’re being caught red handed, and that’s all, it just shows you how small scale and how difficult to do. So I realistically, I don’t think it what impact a whole lot of racist here, but there’s no doubt that it’s a it’s a red meat political issue that a lot of the base for one reason or another, I would say for nefarious reasons is fired up about. And they’ve certainly dedicated a lot of time. And

[0:17:53 Jim] when you say for nefarious reasons, you mean basically are you referring to like the trump influence?

[0:17:58 James] Sure, yeah, the trump influence the whole idea that you know, the previous presidential election was, you know, was not decided or the counting was off, which I don’t think there’s evidence of,

[0:18:10 Jim] you know, I was interested in the way that you kind of lead in that in this discussion with you know, look, you know, with the point that sometimes in the press you don’t get the kind of, you know, acknowledgement of the minuscule incidents however they are, but that there is voter fraud. You know, I’m wondering like how how you how hard it is you how hard do you find it to manage staying even handed in this? I mean, you know, we talked about it a lot in the shop josh and I think talked about the podcast this podcast a couple weeks ago that, you know, I think it’s difficult to maintain the point that both republicans and democrats approached this issue from a mixture of principled and self interested positions, and that doesn’t make them equivalent. Okay, for the kind of reasons you’re talking about that, you know, the empirical argument for voter fraud is just not there at the national or you know, even in terms of outcomes at the state level. Yeah. You know, both both sides have a dog in this fight it and and use different kind of ethical arguments to kind of promote their position, right? Right.

[0:19:27 James] For me, it was interesting on the voter fraud stuff. I wrote a whole story about it, how it’s difficult to even really have the discussion, right, because one of things about covering SB seven and the Senate was any time a democrat would bring up, you know, how often is this happening? Do we have any specific cases here in texas? And uh, brian Hughes the bills out there would say, well, you know, senator, how, how much voter fraud is enough? You know, how much, how much voter fraud is enough, basically saying like, 11 case of voter fraud is one too many, um, which is the same argument that ken paxton has made, the reality is sure you can be such a purist about it that way. Um, but we don’t live in a perfect world. And even if there was an election of 100 people, I bet you one person would mess up and then do it the wrong way or there would be another person who tried to cheat or something. You know, that’s just the way, you know, we live in a human world, it’s not a perfect world and there are going to be instances. Um, but it’s it’s difficult to have an empirical conversation and evidence based conversation when people zone in on just the small number of cases and say, well, and that’s just the ones we know you open it up to paranoia. So it is very, very difficult. I’ve really tried on my end, um, around that subject to point out, you know, that there are these cases and every time we cover them, we say, you know, it’s small, you know, that like this 2000 vote race and they’re not going to be very likely to affect larger racist, like statewide or presidential racist just because the sheer number of votes just, it wouldn’t work like there’s that would be a massive conspiracy that people would find because it would be very difficult to pull off. So we try to point that out. And I’ve also tried to point out sometimes where to your point about the democrats, they have reasons for doing the things that they want to do right. They have reasons for wanting to have multiple mail ballot drop off sites, which I think just empirically, I think is a good idea. You want to give people the opportunity to vote as easily as possible. But then there’s other things like unsolicited mail ballots, which to the point about voter fraud can lead to problems if you’re sending mail ballots to incorrect addresses. And so they want as many votes as possible. But there are issues that come with that kind of stuff, right? And I wrote a story about Harris County and how basically they poke the bear and they’re now dealing with the consequences. And I think there are some people in the Harris County Elections department that are not my biggest fans. But nonetheless, I have to point it out, you know, there are political consequences. All of it is politics. And so, um, that’s sort of how I deal with it. Just try to tell it from all sides and try to be fair and uh, just be as clear as possible, whatever. 

[0:22:15 Jim] You know, I think it’s interesting that the arguments have have pivoted a bit on the Republican side. I mean, I think, you know, I think we are hearing a little bit less now about there’s this widespread unreported voter fraud and hearing more of what you were, you know, two things that you were talking about. One, the idea that you know any fraud is intolerable. We have to have all you know a kind of zero tolerance policy which is kind of empirically an empty set.

[0:22:42 James] And the thing is the thing is to that you know it is kind of true. Uh You gotta give republicans credit when when they say this isn’t part of a big national movement. We’ve been doing this which is true like texas are the O. G. S. And things like they’ve been doing this for several. You know I remember covering those bills, I remember covering sp nine from senator Hughes so they do certainly have a point. Um I think the political reasons for doing it remained the same and I don’t know if we’re gonna talk about this but like on the other hand real things that we need like actual um a lot of attention on like the electricity grid and like the funding of public schools, those things have not gotten the attention, um, this, this session.

[0:23:24 Jim] Well, yeah, one of your competitors at the statesman, Madeleine Mengelberg, you might have heard of her had tweeted earlier that state affairs moved out sp three earlier today. The the bill on the electricity infrastructure bill essentially. So they’re gonna they’re gonna try but I, you know what they wind up doing, I think is is is an open question at this point.

[0:23:48 James] Yeah, I think, and I think when consumers and and ratepayers realize that they’re getting stuck with the bill, um, you know, there’s not gonna be any way to say, you know, all Texans on market and the p you see like

[0:24:00 Jim] that doesn’t mean, you know, as you as, you know, we pulled pretty extensively on that now and we did a poll with our colleagues at the UTI Energy Institute in May, ask more questions in april. And as you, you know, as you get to the more sophisticated measures, you know, the number of people that don’t have an opinion on these things, because it’s too complicated. 

[0:24:21 James] I mean, you know,

[0:24:22 Jim] look, if you were probably there for some of that, if you were watching those hearings the week after it all happened, it was pretty clear that part of what a bunch of the policy makers were trying to figure out was just, you know, to put, not to put too sharp a point on it, like, what the hell was going on and how it all worked, because it’s enormously complex. And I think in terms of, you know, Ratepayers Pain. And as soon as you start saying, yeah, well, we’re going to securitize this and then once we securitize it, well, you’ve lost much of the public where you go, hey, there’s going to be no more, you know, no more foreigners on no more out of state or, or, or, you know, non us citizens on the market board, you know, 80% of Texans more or less. I think that’s a great idea. That’s, that’s

[0:25:06 James] gonna help, right? So, yeah,

[0:25:08 Jim] no, I think, you know, and that raises an interesting question. I was going to, you know, if we have time and I was going to take the time to do that. I mean, you talked about how we’re not seeing, you know, action, you know, at least frontline action on the electricity thing. And I think they would say, look, we spent a lot of time on it, We’re just not there yet, um, to give them some benefit of the doubt, um or education other things. And we did see a lot of action in particular in education in 2018. So I’m wondering because you’ve covered elections so much in the interim. I mean, do you kind of see this and I hate this phrase, and if I can’t believe I’m going to use it because I criticize my friends for using it. But is there kind of an elections have consequences piece here? But maybe a negative sentiments in this sense?

[0:25:55 James] Well, certainly, well, I don’t think it’s negative for republicans and conservatives who are getting their priorities and I think it’s very, very positive for them. But certainly, I mean, uh, republicans, um, you know, ran their campaigns, they wanted to keep their majority. Um, They wanted to have texas be a business friendly state, um, and it certainly has been a business friendly state. And I think the other big thing that they ran on was like, we’re not going to defund the police and they certainly have stopped or looking like they’re going to stop that from happening. So I think they ran on those priorities. And yeah, elections do have consequences and they have gotten those priorities so far. They’ve advanced them and we’ll see what happens in the next two sessions here. Anything can still happen. I guess.

[0:26:40 Jim] I don’t funding the police is probably going to make a comeback. You know, I mean, one might argue that they promised to do something that was not actually happening, but that’s, you know, perhaps,

[0:26:51 James] but they’ve certainly they’ve certainly been successful and yes, yes, the elections have had consequences. And they’ve they’ve certainly delivered on the things that they promised

[0:26:59 Jim] Yeah. I mean, I I seem to remember you and I talking probably in early 2019 about, you know, in a lot of ways that was kind of fear stalking the land, because of the close call that some people had in the 2018 election. You fast forward to 2020 you get pretty convincing effort by republican candidates to hold the line and all of a sudden, you know, I think with some of the other variables that we’ve talked about any speaker, etcetera, but you’re seeing a very different session in 2021 that you saw in 2019.

[0:27:29 James] And I think democrats are kicking themselves for not going out and campaigning and, you know, leading up to the last november, because, you know, the 2022 cycle doesn’t look anybody.

[0:27:37 Jim] Yeah, I mean, you know, I’ve got a running argument was scott operatic about just how big a factor of the non campaigning thing was, and I think it was a factor. I also think, you know, the worm turned in a way that I think democrats didn’t quite anticipate, and the campaigning piece certainly didn’t help, although I think we still need to figure out a way to empirically kind of look at that. You know, I want to ask you, Okay, one, a last kind of wild card question. Although, you know, we’ve we’ve talked a lot about these issues. You cover the legislature and the in state politics a lot. You know, what do you what what do you wish you could convey to people that you can’t quite get in print or that you can’t, you know, that would that would explain something to people or tell a story to your readers about the way that the legislative, legislative politics work that you can’t find a way to cover?

[0:28:32 James] Well, I think overall it’s more a political question, but I wish I could convey to readers and two people just how badly these guys try to duck uh, news outlets, real local news outlets like the texas, tribune the Dallas Morning News, Austin american, the people that they really are beholden to, right. And they’re only on like Fox News or if you’re a democrat, you only want to be on MSNBC and those national ones because quite frankly, not, not any offense or shape to them, but they don’t care about your property taxes. They don’t care about the local issues right that we care about. And so we were very well versed in them so they can throw out some cockamamie statement about property taxes or the border. And we are the people who know and can call them out on, you know, that’s actually not right or that’s incorrect. You know, the national outlets have a different idea. They have a different audience. They have different issues that they want to cover were the ones that know about the proper testing, all that stuff and they purposefully avoid us. Um, and I think that is not a good way for democracy or representative government to run. And I wish I could call them out more on that because also

[0:29:43 Jim] I just think that’s chicken.

[0:29:44 James] Like I just think they should, they should answer questions. So that’s the one thing I would like to convey to. Uh I wish I could convey,

[0:29:52 Jim] do you think that’s gotten worse than the time you’ve been a reporter? You have you been doing this not to make you say exactly how old you are, but you’ve been doing this for about how long

[0:30:00 James] I’ve been going, uh nine years professionally I think. Yeah, it’s almost 10 years. But yeah, I mean it’s certainly it’s certainly gotten worse as more and more uh just new startup outlets have also come out that aren’t, that are questionable on whether they are actually objective journalism. Um And as talk radio and places like Fox news have gotten stronger and stronger. Um yeah, there’s been less and less opportunity for traditional, objective journalism to get those shots, so yeah, it’s a troubling. Uh

[0:30:39 Jim] Okay, well, good, we’ll leave it on that up note. Um James, thanks a lot for being here. I really appreciate you taking time. I know you’re busy and you you’ve got news to cover. So much appreciated. Thanks to you. Thanks to our audio staff at the Liberal Arts Development studio in the College of Liberal Arts at Ut Austin. As always, you can find this podcast and others usual outlets and at the texas Politics Project website at texas politics dot utexas dot e d u again. Many thanks James and thanks to our listeners and we’ll talk to you next week. The second reading podcast is a production of the texas politics project at the University of Texas at Austin