November 8th, 2023 – Texas voters affirm most of the Legislature’s constitutional amendments, while GOP disagreements simmer in another special session

[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. 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

[00:00:27] 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 Joined again today by josh blank research director for the texas politics project.

Uh, good late morning, josh Good morning to you good post election

[00:00:50] Josh Blank: morning. Oh, yeah, that feels good.

[00:00:52] Jim Henson: I mean, it’s not you know As elections go it’s not It’s

[00:00:56] Josh Blank: low key. It’s like, it’s like a warmup elections, preseason for the real elections. You know,

[00:01:02] Jim Henson: every election matters. Don’t get me wrong.

[00:01:04] Josh Blank: That’s why everybody votes in every what?

Nevermind.

[00:01:06] Jim Henson: So exactly. So, so, you know, two big political stories in Texas today with, you know, no, you know, lack of, of. things to consider. Um, you know, first to be as local as possible, as I mentioned, the off year elections, which in Texas mean constitutional amendment elections and some notable local races, uh, took place yesterday.

We’re recording the morning of November 8th. So the. Morning after literally, there were also some big elections in several states across the country that people are looking at is, you know, potential leading indicators, which leads to our usual point about over interpretation. We’ll just get that out now, uh, for 2024.

Nonetheless, some interesting results out there, I think. And then second, uh, you know, just like that, the Legislature We’ll soldier on through a fourth special session called, uh, by Governor Abbott on the heels of the expiration of the third, and well, I think that’s been, you know, very discussed. We’ll, uh, we’ll come back to that as well, but But let’s, let’s start with elections.

Um, You know, on the constitutional amendment election, you know, what can you say? The odds are pretty good for these amendments if we add what the, you know, thus far unofficial results are to the historical data that you can get. from the, uh, Venerable Texas Legislative Reference Library. The Texas Legislature has now proposed, counting this year, a total of 714 amendments.

Of these, 530 have been adopted. And 181 have been defeated by Texas voters, and there are three amendments floating out there that never made it onto the ballot, and I did not go back and dig out what the story with that is for another, you know, historical footnote podcast.

[00:02:56] Josh Blank: Um, Yeah, I think the, I think the four special sessions in a regular session year, you know, sort of historical fact is enough for everybody this week.

Yeah, right.

[00:03:05] Jim Henson: Um, You know, so, so this batch of amendments did better than the, you know, basically 71 percent batting average historically. And, you know, we, Josh and I were talking offline about going back and figuring out what the historical trend looks like here. And we have a kind of outdated graphic on our website in our educational section that we’ll try to get to updating.

Sometime in the, I won’t say near future, but in the foreseeable future. So voters have unofficially again, at the, at this recording passed all of the 14 proposed amendments, with the exception of proposition 13, which would have raised the mandatory age of retirement for state justices and judges to 79 years old.

And, and, you know, and that went down by about the margin that everything, you know, the average margin that everything outpassed, maybe, maybe even a little below, but. And that 63 percent voted against that. Um, biggest winners were proposition four, validating some people’s view of the world, I think.

Authorized, which was the big property tax cut, uh, amendment, which was hard fought during, uh, this session. And proposition nine, which provided a cost of living adjustment to teacher retirement pay, um, the first one in quite a while, each, each of those received 83%, uh, of the vote. Two closest votes, you know, besides the, uh, the loser proper prop 13 proposition 10, uh, which was providing tax breaks for medical manufacturers and proposition 12, which abolished the Galveston County treasurer’s office.

Those were the closest winners with respectively 55 and 53 percent of the vote. So overall, not a lot of surprises here. I mean, I think the thing to speculate here is what happened with prop 13 and I, you know, I, you and I, I think we haven’t even really talked about it. I tweeted something about it last night in a very hot take, but I, you know, I think it’s.

It’s a hard time to talk about age

[00:05:11] Josh Blank: in politics. Well, and I think that’s the point though. Exactly. Right. Which is when you say, when you say that, you know, you’re raising this issue that’s floating around right now about the age of the two leading candidates for the Democratic and Republican nomination for president.

And this, this sort of ongoing discussion, not only, I would even say about that, I’d even throw in sort of. You know issues Mitch McConnell has had, you know, over the last few months and there’s this broader discussion about again sort of the Geriatric nature of most of our leaders in this country. I

[00:05:40] Jim Henson: think if you did a Google trend search for gerontocracy You’d see the pics.

[00:05:43] Josh Blank: Well, yeah. Yeah, or yeah I mean the Google word I could imagine the Webster word of the year be something something with that lines something along those lines But I think but the point there is actually there’s a sort of a subtle point in that, which is, you know, it’s easy to say, Oh, well, yeah, people are thinking about that.

But I think the major point here also is to say, I don’t think this is the sort of thing that people came in with. Significant opinions about right? So I mean, as the history suggests, you know, you don’t put legislators don’t put amendments on the ballot for them to fail. For the most part, they’re put up because they generally think that voters are going to support them when it comes to the age limit increases.

There are all kinds of discussions you could have about that are actually kind of complicated. In fact, someone called me to sort of talk about this, and it turns out it’s actually kind of complicated when you start to go into and think about, you know, Well, you know, is it good to have term limits? Well, sure, but in Texas, a lot of our justices are elected, so do people feel like that creates some sort of, you know, uh, transparency, some sort of, you know, avenue for voters to, to, again, to, to weigh in on this?

You know, on the other hand, you know, there’s just this broader sense that, you know, politicians are these sort of, you know, they’re sitting in these offices forever, and they should be. I think, honestly, the latter probably had more of an impact on people’s views, this idea of just sort of, you know, politicians, judges, elected officials, sitting in office, sitting in positions into advanced stage when they shouldn’t be there.

Those are valid concerns. Do I think that, again, that voters really were weighing out the different sort of, you know, competing normative arguments here or in a policy argument, such as they existed? I kind of doubt it. And so therefore when you say, is this like a coin flip? No, I mean, in general, we shouldn’t let just older people make these

[00:07:21] Jim Henson: decisions.

Yeah. And I mean, I agree with that. And I think we should note that for something that, as you say, it was probably, it was not getting a lot of direct policy attention was discussed in, you know, committee in the legislature, et cetera, et cetera. It is going to have, you know. Yeah, real effects. A real effect and almost immediately in that, you know, the Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht will be 75 next year.

So he will be affected by this.

[00:07:47] Josh Blank: Right. He doesn’t have to retire immediately. I believe. I think there’s a little bit of a kind of grace period. If you, if you go over, you know, again, when you’re elected and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, no, I mean, that’s. And I mean, I, there is sort of just a politics to this as I sit back and I mean, I didn’t see the debate on this and sort of what led to it, but I mean, it seems to me there, there are a number of Republican justices who will now in the next few years go up for reelection in, you know, we’re going to be, you know, I’m gonna say necessarily challenging electoral environments, but I would say uncertain electoral environments concerning what we’ve seen in the last number of years when it comes to sort of, you know, down ballot judicial races in Texas.

Yeah. And I haven’t,

[00:08:23] Jim Henson: you know, I haven’t really looked at how many. Thank you. Honestly, how many judges are affected by this? But I, you know, that will happen soon enough, I suspect. So, um, you know, other things were going on in this election as well. And, and the other thing, I think, I think the next thing that really got as much, if not more attention, really, at least inside the community, the, the, the, the professional political world was the mayoral race in Houston, where Uh, Mayor Sylvester Turner, uh, was term, is term limited, is about to finish his second term.

And, you know, there were a lot of, there, there were some very familiar figures to the Texas political world in this race, and that the top two candidates were State Senator John Whitmire and Congressman, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

[00:09:12] Josh Blank: Right. They obviously advanced to the runoff. Not really surprising there.

I mean, I think, you know, polling before this race had, had, you know, portended that there was likely that these two would make it to the runoff. I mean, you know, you could say maybe there’s a surprise and one of them would have gotten over 50%, but nobody really expected that. You know, they were only separated by about a little over 17, 000 votes, and the next, you know, highest sort of running, you know, candidate got 7.

2 percent of the votes. So, you know, ultimately this is kind of what we expected. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, obviously there’s been a lot of, you know, as, as is usually the case in these races, a lot of stuff happened kind of near the end, uh, you know, particular, you know, the release of an audio recording of, of representative Jackson Lee.

Using some expletives in a, in, you know, I’m not going to say a rant because I don’t like to, I don’t, I can’t value, I’ll just say, I would,

[00:10:02] Jim Henson: I would almost describe it as artful,

[00:10:04] Josh Blank: a heated discussion, you know, I’m sure, I’m sure,

[00:10:10] Jim Henson: I have a, you know, I mean the artful use of vulgarity to my mind is not, well, you know, I’m not, you know, I’m not saying that, you know, I’m not advocating it should weigh in one way or the other in terms of being the mayor of Easton, but

[00:10:21] Josh Blank: well, city politics are a curious thing.

So, you know, I mean, it is what it is. And the fact is, I mean, Whitmire began this race with, I think, you know, certain, you know, I would say both strategic and just resource advantages, you know, that he was able to apply to this race. And I don’t think that, you know, the. This ordering of the initial results, that’s not surprising.

Now it’s going to be a question about again, mobilizing, you know, different constituencies within the city and seeing who’s more effective at that. What’s going to be a low turnoff

[00:10:48] Jim Henson: run out. And it’s going to, we got to, you know, it’s a month away. So there’s a lot of time for a lot more negative ads and a lot more.

You know, surreptitious recordings and the like.

[00:11:00] Josh Blank: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think we should expect that. I mean, we’ll see, we’ll see.

[00:11:03] Jim Henson: And then also in Houston as a, as a deep cut for the tech slash crowd, um, you know, Paxton attorney and media figure, Tony Busby made it to the runoff for a Houston city council seat against incumbent Mary Nan Huffman.

So that, that runoff, that, that race will also be in the

[00:11:23] Josh Blank: runoff. I thought you were going to say CBD infused energy drink entrepreneur.

[00:11:28] Jim Henson: Well, you know, the thing is that the man admits of many adjectives.

[00:11:32] Josh Blank: Yeah. No, I mean, re Renaissance. I

[00:11:35] Jim Henson: would you go. Nice. Um, uh, okay. I like the way you, you, you accented that a little.

Like Zach Gakis in the

[00:11:43] Josh Blank: Hangover. It’s funny. Well, it’s, it’s, if you’re gonna say it, I like to say it with an, with an accent, like, with a little

[00:11:49] Jim Henson: z gcas flair. Um,

[00:11:51] Josh Blank: I think it, it fits here.

[00:11:53] Jim Henson: and then another, another race, you know, watched by the, by the text ledge crowd. But also not a big surprise was the HD two seat.

Uh, rendered vacant by the exit of former House Rep Brian Slayton, uh, amidst a pretty nasty scandal during the session. And, you know, that’s been, you know, this has been a Republican race that has, you know, brought out Republican factionalism. There’ll be a runoff there too. Number one finisher was Brent Money.

Who is the defend texas liberty candidate if we can say that basically the candidate of the uh, The far right insurgent faction of the republican party second place Was jill dutton also a republican 25 of the vote You can read all about this. I mean, you know from You know their endorsements through their campaign consultants through their finance years.

This is one of those very clear you know far right versus the the right in the republican party with A kind of you know money being the candidate probably most likely shall we say to carry on The ideological traditions of brian slayton and in how he would behave in that seat

[00:13:10] Josh Blank: Whatever that means, but yeah, but I mean, I think one thing I just want to like throw out here and you already mentioned this, but like, you know, the results that we saw in this race yesterday, and I think also the results of the runoff.

You know, there’s going to be a lot of desire to over interpret these results. Now, some of this is going to be purely based on self interest. So whoever wins is going to say, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s money or dud, and the various aligned groups of them are going to say, this shows, you know, what Texas voters think.

And it’s just important to step back and say, number one, you know, these candidates received about 11, 000 votes total, one, in a district that is overwhelmingly conservative that originally elected Brian Slayton. So let’s, you know, put it into context. So to say that, you know, these results speak for the broader Republican party or anything or about, you know, where they come down on the passing trial, anything is just rank horrid over interpretation

[00:14:03] Jim Henson: of the results.

Yeah, I mean, this is a, you know, a very, you know, kind of exurban slash rural district, more rural than exurban, but there’s some elements of that in it. It’s, you know, 74, almost 75, you know, it’s just over 74 percent white. Per the last redistricting estimate, you know, I imagine it’s gotten even a little whiter Since then so if anything as you say this is Rather than being a leading indicator of how the tides are shifting or not shifting You know, it’s it’s a lot more an example of gerrymandering And the drawing of safe seats for incumbent republicans.

Yeah, and for incumbents writ large

[00:14:40] Josh Blank: to be fair Well, and I don’t say the only thing that we can watch it is it’s a road test of of what? You know, what, what themes, you know, again, it’s a road testing of themes right now for both of those types of candidates and how, how we might expect candidates in similar positions going into the full primaries to sort of interact in this new dynamic, which puts sort of, you know, defend Texas liberty pack, et cetera, Paxton, et cetera, that group on one side and sort of, let’s say the speaker and, you know, right.

Whomever else you want to include that on the other broadly.

[00:15:11] Jim Henson: So let’s, you know, I mean, I, I think, um, Great. Thank you. Let’s look a little bit at at some of these national results and not because you know We’re gonna break any news here or you know These you know for if you followed this you probably already about had it up to here with hearing about all this particular viewer If you’re watching live election results last night, this is always the case on election night But especially on these off year elections, there’s a lot of air set aside for you know Not a lot of things to talk about.

So yeah, you know Um, other than, you know, refreshing your memory of, you know, what counties vote, which way in states like Ohio and Virginia, Kentucky, right. So let’s talk about those. So, you know, I think, you know, the big national news here is in Ohio where in terms of, you know, the desire to over interpret is, you know, going to be very powerful here, but it’s also a bigger data point.

I think, yeah. Yeah. You know, the constitutional amendment there passed guaranteeing abortion access and it passed fairly easily despite. You know, Ohio’s relatively newfound status is a pretty Republican state. I mean, 10 years ago, we used to talk about Ohio as a swing state, not really that way anymore, or is it, but I think on this, you know, the proposition passed 5743.

Opponents of abortion are quick to point out that a lot of money poured in on both sides, but a lot, but I, by most reports I’ve seen a lot more money and a lot, you know, a lot more resources on the pro abortion or pro choice side. Well, you know, I’m going to put a pin in that. Let’s just run through the states.

The other, the other interesting vote there, uh, in terms of, you know, some of the most popular data we ever have in our archive, is that Ohio also voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Yeah. And

[00:16:58] Josh Blank: actually this has been, you know, a strategy in quotes, I would say of some groups, but notably ground game, Texas

[00:17:04] Jim Henson: strategy, but I can’t remember what it was now.

Well, I mean, yeah, I’m sorry. That’s just, that’s too obvious, but I can’t

[00:17:10] Josh Blank: help it. But, you know, ground game, Texas has sort of made, you know, a place for themselves, sort of in the conversation here, at least basically putting, you know, essentially either decrim or, I don’t know. Legalization ballots on, you know, they sleep or measures on the ballot where possible is really an effort to increase democratic turnout and of course, you know, achieve progressive strategy victories or whatever they say, but you know, it’s interesting again in a state like.

Ohio, which we now, you know, again, was a, you know, was definitely a, a battleground state that we think of as basically a Republican state, but still you look at these two issues and I mean, it does sort of get more, I think for a group like that, that’s trying to raise money and sort of move in that way, it’s really puts more credence on the approach.

[00:17:51] Jim Henson: Yeah, I need to go back and, you know, look a little more closely at the Ohio data, but you know, I wonder if people aren’t, you know, pulling the trigger a little too soon on that, particularly given some of the candidates that have won in Ohio, there may be a little. More competition around the fat part of the distribution, uh, than, than people are giving Ohioans credit for the other big, uh, one of the other big states, or they’ll just do these quick, you know, two quick big states here in Virginia, Democrats win majorities in both chambers of the state assembly.

One they had the other they flipped another state race and this often happens with Virginia because they have these off year elections We saw it, you know, we’ve talked a lot. We we have occasion to reference Glenn Youngkin on this Yeah, cast more than one might think and you know Youngkin with you know This was a big scene as a big political high political stakes for Youngkin seeking to solidify his position in Virginia And his position as a national political figure, in part because of his success in 2021, you know, mobilizing voters and putting together an issue agenda that seemed to, you know, tap into what we’ll very roughly call here MAGA sentiments without going full MAGA.

And now I sound like Hakeem Jeffries or something, but I don’t mean to that. But I, you know, I think you, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a clear way of expressing this, that, you know, Youngkin was seen as a. Reliable kind of, in some ways he, you know, he comes across like, you know, the last generation’s conservative Republican, but that’s why he gave a lot of hope, I think, to that faction and that sentiment among Republican elites and Republican opinion leaders, you know, and there have been discussions of him, you know, jumping in at the very last minute now that’s become.

You know more and you know, even before this election that was becoming I think less and less likely and you know The kind of thing that why wouldn’t young kid encouraged that discussion even as he said he still had business to do In virginia, but the business he still had to do in virginia where it seems to have not worked out in this election Very well It’s like the general kind of you know hot take after this is that this is going to slow down his mow In the short run and you know leaves him with some work to do before the next presidential election cycle Let alone the next gubernatorial election now in virginia

[00:20:17] Josh Blank: Yeah, and I mean I think a big part of you know Again tying back to ohio one of the big sort of pieces of this campaign was that yunkin had proposed A 15 week abortion ban, basically, and I think a lot of GOP leaders had hoped that this would provide a test case, maybe a better path forward on abortion politics than they’ve seen based on, you know, again, these continuing election results, and so I think, you know, whether fair or not, in terms of interpretation, a lot of people are sort of Looking at, uh, Yankin’s failure to, you know, maintain at least, you know, some, some dominance over the political system there as a, as a slap back on this 15 week ban, which, if that were to be the case, that would kind of put Republicans back at kind of, in some ways, you know, ground zero and trying to figure out.

How to move forward in a way that’s electorally palatable on these abortion issues

[00:21:01] Jim Henson: Yeah, and I think if you look at this and you look at ohio, I mean it does It provides some you know degree of confirmation for the argument that we made on here and it’s very common out there but it’s certainly evident in our data in texas and is evident a lot of in a lot of uh, national data, which is that The dog catches car aspect of the victory in the long battle by conservative activists to overturn roe Has created big problems in terms of public opinion and even where the the central p Where the central voter and in the republican party is let alone, you know elites in the republican party Yeah,

[00:21:39] Josh Blank: I mean, in a lot of ways, I think if you’re sitting here looking at this from 30, 000 feet, I mean, I would actually say that, you know, the best thing for Republicans is like what happened in Ohio, because actually what it does is it takes the issue away from you having to deal with it.

It means it’s not going to be An issue in the general elections, you know, the midterm elections, the presidential election, at least as far as Ohio is concerned, in terms of its local politics. And if anything, it puts, I think, Republicans and conservatives back in a, in a safer space, which is to say, oh, we, we need to overturn this injustice.

Well, that’s, that’s what they had been doing. And that’s what they had been using to mobilize voters. And it just actually kind of sets that back. You know, kind of into position,

[00:22:15] Jim Henson: I think, to set the theme that we’ll come back to, I think, is after we talk about what’s going on in our legislature, you know, I, you know, republicans have a hard time settling at a strategically sound point, no matter, you know, no matter what, you know, no matter how big the signs are with the big arrow going.

You know, you need to go this way and, you know, I think they’re having a little trouble with that in a few areas. So just to kind of round out a couple, you know, uh, one of the other, you know, in Kentucky, you know, another reason Democrats are, you know, sort of feeling good this morning, uh, incumbent governor and.

Again, maybe rising star, uh, Andy Beshear won easily over a Trump endorsed Republican, the AG Daniel Cameron. And, and otherwise, I mean, I’ll say it’s a deep, I mean, it’s Kentucky. I mean, I’ll say it’s a deeply red state, but seems kind of ridiculous, you know? And again, you’re seeing. You know, uh, as with the Yunkin and maybe the Yunkin is a good lesson here, you know, you’re seeing a lot of Democrats, you know, even going into this race very quick to say, Oh, Bashir, maybe, you know, here’s, here’s a model for, you know, how to make it in red states or how Democrats can position themselves in rural and traditionally conservative areas.

We’ll see. Um, and, and. You know, less them to be too happy and, you know, they’re, they’re other kind of, which was much more of a fantasy and Bashir was pulling well going into this race. So, but yeah, you know, the Democrats had not managed to take the governorship of Mississippi, uh, which was a much longer shot.

Um, but they, they, they wound up not winning that one. So it’s not all,

[00:23:55] Josh Blank: you know, wasn’t, wasn’t wild, didn’t get wild last night.

[00:23:58] Jim Henson: So, you know, I mean, I, I want to move on to the legislature, but I mean, I think there is a, you know, I mean, we’ve kind of talked about abortion seemingly a winner for Democrats, you know, when you can put it at the center of the agenda.

Seemingly still a loser for Republicans, if it is. I think there’s still a lot of, you know, as you were saying, a lot of caveats about that. I mean, I think this is still pretty context dependent, but you know, you know, something that I, you know, I think you have to look at last night and think there’s a, a little more grist for that general argument.

[00:24:28] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, I think the Virginia result is, is, is interesting, you know, on that in particular, I mean, Ohio to a lesser extent. I mean, I mean, what’s interesting about both those season, they’re both, you know, reasonably competitive states and I mean, you know, it’s something interesting just talking about Ohio.

It’s like, you know, it used to be. I mean, we talk about Texas a lot and we say, you know, Texas is quote, unquote, a red or purple state and always have to remind people like, well, you know, if like, even if the Democrats like win a race or something, it’s not like Texas turns blue tomorrow and now it’s blue and now we’re in this blue state and that’s the same thing with Ohio.

I mean, that 5743 split is like, this is a state that’s become nominally Republican pretty consistently. So, but it’s still. You know, relatively competitive in this, in the scope of things, and I think, you know, you can, you can kind of see that there, I mean, the flip side of this is just sort of, you know, I think a lot of people are talking about this going into the election, but, you know, it seems like Democrats are in a position and this is some combination of, you know, I think party dynamics that people are discussing a lot right now and party, you know, sort of where the party, the Democratic Party is and is not attractive in the electorate, but also the issue environment and this specific election.

You’re talking about an odd numbered year. Yeah. You’re talking about the ability to really bring abortion politics to the center of the discussion, even in a place like Virginia, where that wasn’t necessarily actually about abortion, but it was a big part of the campaign. It was a big part of the, you know, the campaign in Kentucky in a lot of ways in terms of what people were voting on.

Even if it was a slowly, you know, it’s a closely attached to a particular candidate and in that low turnout race on this particular set of issues, you know, I think it makes Democrats look strong. But then the sort of the sort of subtext of this is a bunch of polls coming out that kind of show that Biden in particular looks really weak in a lot of these, you know, a lot of important states in the general election coming up.

And sort of other polling data that indicates, you know, declining democratic, um, you know, sort of identification amongst sort of key constituencies, black and Hispanic voters in a way that, you know, the, the question becomes, you know, Oh, you know, it used to be, you’d say, well, these low turnout elections, Republicans have this clear advantage, these off your elections, these weird special elections.

Now it’s, it looks almost like the opposite Democrats have the advantage there, but as the, as the electorate gets bigger and bigger, that advantage looks like it probably shrinks a bit. And this at least is going to. You get, does this prove that story? No. Cause we have to go to the next election and see, but it reinforces this discussion that’s going on right

[00:26:46] Jim Henson: now.

I think a lot. Yeah. A lot of section. Yeah. A lot of discussion in the last few weeks, given. You know, there’s a real, I mean, there was a real, there was a cluster of one year out national polls that just fed that discussion like crazy. None more than the New York times, Siena poll that had Biden losing in five of the six swing states or something like this, you know, in a Biden Trump matchup, terrible numbers for Biden.

But, you know, so, I mean, I think. You know, so now you have another, you know, and I think another sort of addition to that discussion And you’re seeing that just raging in all of the press statements and the morning newsletters and the post hoc analysis of this Election and I think I think it was politico boiled it down to this and it’s a little you know Oversimplified but there’s kind of a how much is this good news and how much is this bad news?

And what’s the mixture for the democrats and in particular for biden following on what has been? You know, a terrible week for Biden in terms of just, you know, media discussion. And, you know, the good news spin is, you know, that, you know, the democratic brand doesn’t seem to be as bad off as people thought.

And that in fact, if the diagnoses out there are growing weakness for Democrats is off, then maybe this helps Biden, but the bad news spin is. Yeah, Democrats seem strong based on this. And again, even that is an over interpretation. But if you’re going to run with that, but Biden is weak and that in fact, this underlines the degree to which Biden is weak.

Compared to other democrats and to democratic baselines I’m, not entirely persuaded by either one of those but it’s interesting that those are the frames that have emerged Well, you

[00:28:28] Josh Blank: know it’s it’s easy to imagine given the last few weeks and the news coverage of the data and the election results that if the democrats Had a deeper bench right now, which is one of the big sort of You know factors in all of this is the fact that there aren’t you know, you can’t list On two hands let alone really even one, you know That, you know, let’s say a, a solid set of democratic challengers to Biden to say, right.

But if there were, you could imagine in a week like this out of these elections. So then come in and say, look, you know, we went on the issues. We went on these key issues. And the truth is, is that we’re being pulled down by Biden. And the fact is you need someone else in there. The problem is there’s nobody else.

It’s who cuts a profile enough to make that argument convincingly at this point. So I think that’s, that’s where I think, you know, the democratic teeth gnashing is going to, is going to continue right now in some ways, you know, it’d be one thing if Biden was doing terrible and they were losing all these elections, then you’d go back and say, well, what do we need to change?

But the way that things have shaken out, it’s sort of like, well, the thing that they need to, that they’re talking about changing is the guy at the top and they’re having, obviously. But that’s sort of a non starter at this

[00:29:32] Jim Henson: point. Well, particularly given that I think, you know, I mean, I, you know, they’re not going to force him out.

I mean, yeah, that would, they would have to drag Biden out of there physically. I think to make him, you know, not do this. So, so yeah, I mean, I, I think that kind of sets a lot of this up in terms of the intermingling. You look, you know, I mean. the electoral races were not so telling here, but the other big story here, the return of the legislature does kind of underline the under mingling of kind of national and state and local Republican politics in the state of the party.

So as I said, starting off, you know, legislature will be soldiering on and, and The fourth special session is underway as we speak. Everybody gaveled in on on Tuesday and things are underway now. I think the Senate is moving a little bit slowly. We’ve had news that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has been at least over as of over the weekend had been sidelined with a You know, with a, with an illness, you know, so we haven’t really seen him.

I don’t think much recently remains to be seen how serious that is or how it will affect proceedings in the Senate house committees are meeting this week to consider two of the key. Pieces of legislation that the clock ran out on and triggered more conflict among Republicans in, in the last session.

Um, so they’re meeting on HB one, which is the chairman Buckley’s kind of kitchen sink education bill that has money for vouchers and other funds sprinkled throughout. for public ed as you know the long anticipated realization of let’s put some cards on the table and see What kind of deal can be made?

Yeah, there’ll be two days of hearings this week right now they’re scheduled for thursday and friday and I think notably You know, public, public testimony is welcome, which I think one could take as a sign of a commitment to good government, but also one could take as a sign that nobody’s in a hurry to ram this thing through at this point.

Yeah. And then, yeah, and then the State Affairs Committee will have a, has a Thursday meeting scheduled on another… Very controversial bill, HB4, which is the controversial enforcement bill, and to, you know, to bring these threads together that on the front side of this looked like it would be part of a great unifying effort by the governor and the leadership to use border security and immigration to lower the temperature among Republicans, even if it did lead to big fights with Democrats.

Instead, in the third session, the passage of two competing bills on, on this front triggered, you know, a massive slap fight between the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker. I, you know, that really underlines just, you know, for the umpteenth time, but You know, I don’t know. I guess we shouldn’t continue to be surprised by this, but the tenor of the last week of the session was, as we said last week, completely off the hook in terms of the the exchanges between the governor and the Speaker of the

[00:32:36] Josh Blank: House.

I mean, they were just bizarre. I mean, it’s like, I mean, it goes beyond even, you know, I mean, you’ve got basically One, you know, basically one side accusing the other of, you know, a huge, you know, Texas size catch and release bill, which is sort of the denigrating way they talk about the U. S. immigration system.

The other one, you know, describing, I think, you know, I think Patrick described the House bill as, is like a pro illegal immigration bill. I mean, just, I mean, sort of just, I mean, the sort of thing that honestly is kind of just crazy. And it’s sort of crazy to me because, I mean, the, I mean, just broad context, take a step back.

No matter what, this is going to be challenged in court immediately. Whatever the details of this bill turn out to be, this is going straight to court. And also that, and this movement straight to court is not, whatever, that’s the thing. It doesn’t make a difference which version. And also just to say like, that’s also not lost on the bill authors.

Like this is, you know, part of an ongoing strategy to pay to place Texas as sort of, you know, uh, standing, you know, at the border fighting both, you know, undocumented immigrants crossing, but also the federal government’s in action on the other side, this becomes another. Case in the exhibit. So they don’t mind going to court over this and having a long drawn out battle over, you know, whether or not the federal government really has sovereignty or whether they’re doing their job over on immigration, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But the whole point is, is that the details of the bill almost make no difference to this fight because it’s going to be challenged immediately, which is why it’s so bizarre to think. That again, outside of other things going on, which we’ll get to, we kind of discuss this a little deeper or soon. It’s, it’s sort of like you guys couldn’t just come up with something here.

I mean, you couldn’t just,

[00:34:13] Jim Henson: yeah, I mean, it seems like, you know, this is. A real inability to stick to the script here. Yeah. You know, now I’m sure people say, well, there’s no script. I mean, that’s, you know, and I don’t mean that in a conspiratorial way, but, you know, the political benefits to Republican candidates at this stage of the game seem pretty clear.

Now, you know, I don’t, you know, I don’t want to come off as naive. There’s the argument that. You know, in the absence of a voucher bill, the Lieutenant Governor and, and the leadership of the Senate are, are not going to be satisfied with anything and are not, you know, are not going to go along with the script that says, okay, we’ll, you know, we’ll save face, pass some border security bills, unconstitutional, constitutional, whatever.

We’ll take those to our primary voters. We’ll, you know, funnel more money to the governor’s office for yet more border security enforcement and, you know, live to fight another day. Or as the governor said in the beginning, or we’ll, you know, and we’ll fight it out over vouchers in the primaries. Well, I think that’s not.

That’s not what the lieutenant governor wants to do at this point. So again, I don’t want to disconnect these two things too much by saying, but I don’t think you can disconnect. But I think it’s still, but I still think it’s kind of gobsmacking that it’s gotten to this point.

[00:35:33] Josh Blank: Well, it’s, you know, it’s, it is because, and again, you know, here’s the thing, I mean, I think it’s your point, right?

You could imagine a world in which they pass. You know, the border security bills and then Abbott calls them back for vouchers. It’s also very easy to imagine a world in which they would have passed the border security bills and Abbott would have said, look, I’m not calling you guys back to not be able to pass anything.

We’re done. Thank you. Goodbye. And I think it’s very easy to imagine. The fact is it’s not, I mean, Pat, I mean, Patrick has. Uh, held up legislation in the past to force a special session. It’s not beyond him. Do I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but because I don’t know, but at the same time, when you look at again, the rhetoric going back and forth about, you know, what ultimately, you know, should be something that they should be able to agree on relatively easily here.

I don’t think, you know, the policy disagreement is, I mean,

[00:36:22] Jim Henson: I think it’s, I think, you know, I think that point is what, you know, really makes you figure this, this is not about. The specifics of the border security bill. This is about the chess match between, you know, the three dimensional trust map chess match between the House, the Senate, the governor to see who can box who in.

And, you know, I think Lieutenant Governor Patrick is not ready to get boxed in by the border security play. Yeah, um, and that’s what we’re seeing so I guess You know that kind of moves us, you know to step back a second. I mean that does move us on to You know where we think the negotiations are on, you know, the school choice public ed bill near as I can tell You know and again, I you know talk to a few of the principals and watch this and we’ve looked at the you know We’ve done a ton of polling.

It doesn’t seem like they’re there.

[00:37:13] Josh Blank: Well, I’m just you know, well, here’s the thing I mean there’s something that I was thinking about this morning because I knew we were going to talk about this and You know, I’m very, like, I mean, I think the policy process is a negotiating process, and especially when it’s as public as this, and when, you know, we’re so focused on just a few issues, right?

So I don’t think that necessarily the policy that’s getting released by either chamber, whether, or even by the governor’s, in the governor’s press releases, are reflective of what any, any members of any group think the final legislation is going to look

like. Yeah. The Senate goes, you know, again, the first in the third special session now, Ram, you know, basically runs through the voucher bill, you know, says we’re going to basically give, you know, about 8, 000 a student or whatever, then the house comes back as well. You know, we would consider about six and change to attach it to some other stuff.

And then like, and then and then the house is well, actually, Um, Well, then the governor says actually no, I’ve negotiated something with the speaker, which again, appears to have not actually been true at any like substance. Substantive.

[00:38:17] Jim Henson: Thank you. There might have been a, there might’ve been a misunderstanding.

[00:38:20] Josh Blank: They certainly may have discussed it, but then they come back and he’s saying, Oh, we’re going to be giving, you know, these, you know, 10 and then the house comes back with Buckley and they could be like, How about 10 thou? How about 10, five and all? I mean, and so as you’re just kinda watching this go on, you know, not to mention all the other monies and all the other funds being talked about, you just sort of go, is this, is this real?

Right. Like, I mean, are they really, and so, so I mean, part of this, I mean, and this is sort of the questions that I think come along we get to this point now, and I’m just, I’m just laying out sort of the, the sort of the up and down nature of what has looked like negotiating kind of up to this point. But I mean, I think the question becomes, you know.

Even with Buckley’s bill, with what’s happened up until this point, however you want to look at it with respect to, you know, whether or not, you know, they’re going to move forward on the border security stuff and how, you know, have the fundamentals really changed and what I mean, like, have they changed significantly in terms of what the negotiating pieces are significantly enough for the House to move a bill, for Patrick to accept it and for Abbott to sign it.

Right. And I mean, as of right now, it sort of seems like an open question and there’s so far

[00:39:23] Jim Henson: we haven’t been able to get the conference, you know, answering any of those questions. Well, well,

[00:39:30] Josh Blank: the, well, the issue here that’s interesting to me is, you know, I mean, there’s all this sort of focus on the ideological opposition to vouchers, but the ongoing concerns within the Republican conference have nothing to do with like church state separation right now.

They’re worried about program costs. There’s a big debate over the. Legislative budget board authority to move funds outside of the legislative process into this program or not and that was a big stick. It’s a very technical matter, but a pretty big sticking point between the House and Senate versions.

There’s big questions about eligibility who actually gets to use the program. The price tag, both individual dollars just to students and families, but also collectively, whether there’s a cap, there’s this whole issue, you know, issue about transparency tracking and whether or not the students have to take an assessment or their big disagreements.

Even among, again, the coalitional players, these are not like ideological concerns per se. These are just like policy concerns that have not been, you know, really.

[00:40:19] Jim Henson: And going back a little bit to our angels dancing on the head of a pen, you know, conception of some of these things. And all of those things are simply inside of a freestanding voucher bill, which the implicit admission here seems to be no matter what’s in there, that’s not passing.

So there’s all those things internal to the bill to argue. And then there’s this broader picture where people said, okay, well, how about if we, can we move it by putting all these other things, which then magnifies all those kinds of problems in terms of cost administration, distributive questions, all of that.

In that even broader. And I, and I think it does raise the question of kind of, you know. I mean, I think you’re right. And, you know, we talked about this, I think, during when the third session started, the differential desire of people to make any kind of deal or the effort of the different sides to induce the other to feel like, okay, well, now I’m ready to make a deal.

And really, whether it’s, you know, either the very strong pro voucher side, the very strong anti voucher side, or even those who like would be open to And You know, well, if you could meet my price, then maybe I’ll, you know, but I, you know, there’s, I just don’t see that there’s a settlement in any of those areas thus far for a lot of the reasons that you’re talking about.

You know, so I think if you step back just to kind of, you know, get us to the end here, I mean, you look at these kinds of fights that are going on over something that maybe people don’t, you know, a lot of people don’t want, right? In terms of vouchers. Some people do want them pretty badly and are, you know, we Transcribed Talk to polling on that to death and talk to be at the elite pieces, but that, you know, in legislative terms, the votes are just, you know, do not seem like they are there, right?

And, you know, in terms of what’s changed and what hasn’t, I mean, look, I think it’s fair for proponents to say, look, we have moved the ball forward. The third session wasn’t a complete waste. You know, we’ve now got a bill in the house that has a bunch of stuff in it. That has the trade off grand bargain elements, even if it’s as you say, it’s not a done deal And we’re starting the session with the governor giving us a call that has everything in the call Unlike the beginning of the third so, you know to be fair there has been some movement That doesn’t mean it’s enough that does argue that you know What people are trying to are going to try to see here is Some continuity on that, but there’s still too much disagreement.

I would say, step back, you look at that. And then you look at where we are on, on this immigration stuff, which is, we’ve said, it’s just kind of bananas. I think so consistent with what we’ve been talking about all this session is that once you get within a certain limited range of discussion within the de facto control of.

Of the agenda by the Republican Party with, you know, some input by Democrats, but not A veto input, the kind of fights that everybody attributes to ideology. They give way to other things. They give way to political ambition. They give way to these, you know, I mean, I don’t see how you look at that fight between, you know, all those exchanges that we’re making so much of between the lieutenant governor and, and the speaker last week without going, you know, there’s just a thing here that has nothing to do with politics per se, you know?

[00:43:52] Josh Blank: Yeah. Well. Well, no, I said, there’s something to do with, with ideology. I mean, there’s something to do with politics. I mean, you know, I thought, you know, one of the things just stuck out to me at the end of last week is look, I mean, again, on the border stuff, you can’t tell me that you couldn’t pick five random Republican senators from the Senate and let’s just say 10 random Republican members from the house and they couldn’t come up with a border security enforcement bill that would pass.

I mean, just, just no chance in my mind that that would not happen. And it’s also, you can’t say, well, you know, the Senate didn’t have time to pass the House’s bill because, you know, it’s like, no, the Senate could have passed anything it wanted as fast as it wanted. We’ve seen them operate that way when they want to.

Um, but instead, you know, you’ve got this sort of, you know, you replace that instead with his acrimony. And the thing that really stuck out to me, and I’ll just highlight it again, was, was Patrick basically saying the House needs to just pass the Senate’s bill. It just strikes me as so. Remarkably crazy in some ways that a politician is accomplished as lieutenant governor would continually reinforce a dynamic that makes the house less likely to support what is ultimately his agenda.

I mean, it’s one thing to talk to, you know, you’re, you know, basically to know that you just need, you know, 2021 Republican senators. To do whatever you want, whenever you want. And the truth is that works pretty well. And if anything, what it probably also does, it also probably limits policy debate. Because if a bill moving through the process, and especially in a session in these sorts of scenarios, is the favored vehicle of the Lieutenant Governor, not only, you know, Is it going to take a lot for you to say, no, like this isn’t a good bill, but also I think it probably limits the amount of criticism that he’s built taken.

I mean, again, someone who watches this stuff fairly closely. I’m not saying that either chambers better or worse or whatever, but the house seems to have a lot more. I would say friendly fire. You have a lot more, you know, both to the ideological diversity, among other things, you know, Republicans asking questions of Republican legislators about bills that I just think you see less of.

In the Senate, but that when their lieutenant governor basically says, no, the house just passed our bill and move on. This is the house that hired Dade Phelan, Bonin, and Strauss, who have consistently basically all had ongoing running conflicts with the lieutenant governor over basically similar power dynamics.

You know, ultimately, you have to kind of take a step back and say, who’s the problem here?

[00:46:10] Jim Henson: Well, I mean, I, you know, I think, you know, if. If the lieutenant governor were, if we were fortunate enough to have the lieutenant governor here, I think what he would say was, you know, well, look, you know, the house did that to us in the first special session.

That was essentially what Dave Phelan told us. So there’s a little of this to go around for everybody. Now that said, I mean, I think this is, you know, one of the reasons we’re constantly going on about, you know, understanding the institutional axes of conflict and how the nature Of the two institutions Feeds the conflict under these circumstances Yeah, because you know, I mean date feeling I mean date feeling has a completely different set of You know political conditions to meet then does lieutenant governor and that’s not going to change

[00:47:01] Josh Blank: Yeah Well, I mean, I think that’s I mean, I think this is an important thing to note I think about the lieutenant governor in particular and on these issues right which is you know The lieutenant governor is nearing the end of his his political career, right?

I mean, he’s probably gonna run again He originally had indicated he wasn’t gonna run again Then he says he is but he’s not gonna run In perpetuity, he’s, he’s coming near the end of, you know, his time, his running government. And I think there is something, you know, and sometimes I look through this kind of stuff and I think, you know, if there is something that he has a preference for, it’s for quicker action, bigger action now.

I mean, if you think about the, if you think about the debate, you know, where they started on property taxes, Patrick wanted, you know, again, big homestead exemption. Let’s return dollars into people’s accounts immediately. The house was focused on compression, which would. Lower the rate at which property tax were increasing, which would have a long term impact, but it’s not really going to give voters a pot, you know, the difference in their pocketbooks right now.

I mean, the voucher thing, it’s not enough to set up a pilot program and to incrementally build it up, which is like how most programs work. It needs to be a big program. It needs to be right now. And I mean, I think, you know, and even when you look at some of the debate on, on the, on the, uh, border security bill, I mean, one of the things that I think the house, you know, had, I think a reasonable concern with was.

You know, in the Senate version, essentially, the state was going to be, you know, housing some number of these migrants that are caught and ultimately, you know, this is, you know, in a, you know, public safety or criminal justice or whatever budget this comes out of DPS budget. That’s already stretched pretty thin when it comes to this and this becomes an ongoing liability I mean, that’s something I think the house is aware of that you have to pay for in perpetuity now again If you’re gonna plan on beat stick it around for a while, but if you’re not

[00:48:35] Jim Henson: Well, and you know, I don’t want to give that you know, the house too much or too little No, I don’t either but I would say, you know, but I mean to buttress that point.

I mean our polling is shown pretty clearly That that incarceration piece is where you run into trouble, right? Because you get, you know, the, you know, because it’s a hard thing to do. I mean, it’s, it’s part and parcel of the, the issue that if you’re going to start detaining people, that detention becomes, you know, creates numerous issues, whether it’s cost, conditions.

Family separation. I mean, there are just tons of vulnerable points in that. Now, you know, I will say that in, in, you know, and this is, I think, you know, probably my view of the legislation generally, but you know, the house version solution to that of empowering law enforcement to cart people off and take them back to the border and essentially repatriate them to Mexico, whether they’re from Mexico or not.

You know is Is equally problematic if not more so in a from a policy perspective

[00:49:44] Josh Blank: Well, and again the broader context here is none of this is gonna

[00:49:47] Jim Henson: right which brings us back to where we you know what our earlier point that you know, if you’re gonna You know, and so, you know the fact that the house and the senator disagreeing over these two equally untenable positions Underlines the you know, the the um, you know the gestural politics of this right, right, which is that you know Again broken record time, you know the to the extent that you know Border security and immigration are the issues for republicans and they’re they’re a winner but it you know And they’re a clear winner with their voters for the most part You know, it’s just back to where we started, the fact that that’s going to be the point of argument, and that’s, that’s, that would be why they wouldn’t pass the bill or work something out is, is kind of mind boggling, but it’s only mind boggling if you set aside the strategic considerations that we talked about earlier, which is that, you know.

One can say, you know, the flip side of the argument that the governor gave us the opportunity to pass these immigration and border security bills, which is a political gift to every Republican for the most part. You know, could be seen as, you know, from the, from the, you know, from one perspective as well, why wouldn’t you guys just do that?

And then you can or can’t do about your bill. Then we all knew that was going to be hard, but you know, as we’ve said, I don’t, I just think the Lieutenant governor is not ready to concede that. And the question is. And it’s the question that everybody is asking, probably including the news, you know, will he ever, you know, and so when we get to three, you know, three weeks from now, if it lasts that long and who knows what they’re going to do about Thanksgiving, presumably they’re going to take a Thanksgiving break, but, uh, you know, or they’re going to get everything done quickly before Thanksgiving.

I don’t expect that to happen.

[00:51:40] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, there’s no

[00:51:42] Jim Henson: indication. Right. So now, you know, again, I’m wrong all the time. So, but it certainly doesn’t look like that. And so, you know.

[00:51:51] Josh Blank: You know, real compromise emerges pretty quickly when it emerges.

[00:51:54] Jim Henson: Yeah. It always feels sudden, even if, you know, at this point it’s development will have, will have taken quite a long time, but I, you know, I, I think we once again, you know, see this, you know, interesting.

intertwining of, you know, the national struggles and the national questions within the Republican party right now, as everybody looks at Trump’s dominance in the presidential race and the presidential nomination race and wonders, you know, whether, you know, whether, and if anybody’s going to be able to fight that in a very competitive environment.

But now that we look at what’s going on here, you know, you do see A different version of the same story and that this factional conflict is just so, uh, uh, you know, intertwined to use that word again with all of these other axes of conflict and, and, and at the local level that are clearly kind of determinative so far, right?

And, um, I, you know, whether people are going to, are going to get around and see the incentives. You know to find some you know to agree on some kind of compromise both within these legislative areas And in the bigger picture of what they’re actually going to do I find it hard to believe that they’re going to finish a fourth special session and not produce another border security

[00:53:19] Josh Blank: bill well, and I think the main Well and look, you know what it comes down to is that you know I think our polling really backs this is that you know, unlike in past Sessions are on past issues.

The Lieutenant Governor can’t say we’re not passing a border security bill until a voucher bill gets passed because it’s not, it doesn’t have the support among voters or in the conference. And so, so that’s why, you know, instead of saying that out loud, it becomes, well, this is an amnesty bill or, you know,

[00:53:45] Jim Henson: or your, yeah, you’re on

[00:53:47] Josh Blank: immigration, you know?

Yeah. You’re sorry. Oh, you know, the Democrats are ruining this for everybody and the Democrats are looking around like, well,

[00:53:54] Jim Henson: okay. You know, democratically controlled, they’d feel

[00:53:56] Josh Blank: under something. Right. Some nonsense. But I mean, that’s, but, but I mean, again, he can’t say that. He can’t say this is the exchange point because it just doesn’t actually, it doesn’t add up.

It’s

[00:54:05] Jim Henson: his bargaining position, but it can’t be as a public party. His public bargaining position is what it certainly looks like at this point. So on that Josh, thanks for being here. Thanks again to our excellent production team in the dev studio in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. Didn’t reference a lot of polling data today, but you should look at our blog site and our data archives, our polling results at texaspolitics.

utexas. edu. If you’re interested in the podcast, there’s lots more to interest you there. Thank you for listening this week, and we’ll be back soon with another Second Reading podcast.

The Second Reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.