The Opaque Texas Speaker’s Race: We don’t know more than we know

00;00;00;09 – 00;00;05;25
Jim
Welcome to the Second Reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

00;00;05;28 – 00;00;16;16
Intro
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.

00;00;16;19 – 00;00;24;04
Intro
It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution, they have become the norm.

00;00;24;10 – 00;00;33;25
Intro
At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

00;00;33;27 – 00;00;48;21
Jim
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 today by Josh blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project. Good morning Josh. Good morning. Thank you for being here.

00;00;48;25 – 00;00;49;25
Josh
Thanks for having me.

00;00;49;27 – 00;01;21;20
Jim
So, you know, having been focused largely on the election and its implications for most of the last few months, I mean, I think we’ve taken a few, you know, interludes to talk about things closer to the ground, you know, here in Texas and our usual themes and, and, you know, those election discussions were pegged to Texas. Nonetheless, today we’re going to join the sharp pivot that as we float around in Austin in political circles in the last couple of weeks, the pivot is very sharp to paying attention to the legislature.

00;01;21;22 – 00;01;54;05
Jim
What’s in the ether right now? And people are it’s a very signal rich environment, put it that way. lots in the ether that point towards attention to the session and to what’s coming up, in January. So, you know, among those that we’ve seen in the news, you know, signals from the leadership, the state leadership on broader priorities, I think recently in here, we talked about Lieutenant Governor Patrick’s interview on WFAA, which I think I mentioned in the mailing last week to subscribers to our Texas politics Project mailing list.

00;01;54;11 – 00;02;16;00
Jim
More specifically, signals from both Patrick and Abbott, on border spending. You know, the the very interesting jockeying around gestures toward the Trump administration on border policy, land Commissioner Buckingham’s offer of land to the tenant of, state land to help detain that are well, I’m not sure what.

00;02;16;01 – 00;02;18;18
Josh
Staging grounds for deportations or something.

00;02;18;18 – 00;02;44;15
Jim
Yeah. Stage, immigrants that are to be deported. The governor’s. I thought sharp elbow pushing back on that, you know, seem to be not only about the session, but also, you know, I would say an early, signal on, you know, hashtag Texas election 2026, you know, signal and then, you know, all the signals sent through early bill filing over the last couple of weeks.

00;02;44;18 – 00;03;06;09
Jim
you know, it’s been a lot of early bills filed. Most, of course, will never see the light of day. But, you know, they’re nonetheless catnip. And there are some nuggets in there. And they do. You know, it does put everybody in the air. okay. This thing is coming. Bill filing is started. You know, the game in town right now is the upcoming session.

00;03;06;15 – 00;03;31;04
Jim
So I think today we can’t help but join the Texas politics crowd in looking at the maneuvering over who will be the speaker of the House in the next session. Now, the the pegged for this in a big way. This Saturday, the Texas House Republican Caucus will convene a much anticipated meeting, to name an endorsed candidate for speaker.

00;03;31;06 – 00;03;51;09
Jim
and they’ll also elect their leadership board, which I think is a subgame, but also probably interesting and will send some some signals as well. Now, only two declared ineligible candidates, even though some people have jumped in the race and since gotten out, some of that is still kind of floating around in some of the insiders speculation. Maybe some of that will come up.

00;03;51;12 – 00;04;25;11
Jim
Most candidates being the incumbent speaker Dade feeling from Beaumont, and state Rep David Cook from Mansfield, who is in some ways kind of the last man standing, you know, chosen by a group of, at least at the time, filling opponents, you know, who were choosing among cook and a couple of other candidates, sort of throwing their names in the hat, you know, cooks primary campaign sort of, promise is to eliminate the appointment of Democrats as House committee chairman.

00;04;25;11 – 00;04;26;24
Jim
That’s been.

00;04;26;26 – 00;04;28;09
Josh

00;04;28;12 – 00;04;38;29
Jim
A real, you know, rub, among what’s the how would I want to characterize this group? certainly. You know, what I would call the right wing of the party?

00;04;39;01 – 00;04;40;13
Josh
Yeah.

00;04;40;16 – 00;04;50;09
Jim
and and, you know, also some I, you know, to be fair, some more mainstream Republicans, you know, look at what is widely viewed as a long tradition in the House.

00;04;50;13 – 00;04;52;29
Josh
Yeah.

00;04;53;02 – 00;05;18;07
Jim
you know, those who have seen it as Acronis thick in and, you know, you know, what the cause and effect here is? We can, you know, it’s a little bit of both in terms of us being in more polarized times, you know, the way politics work in Texas and in the country. certainly putting less value on bipartisanship, cooperation, compromise, guys, you know, that that part of the logic of the legislative of the legislature.

00;05;18;07 – 00;05;23;12
Josh
I think the word there might be overdetermined for someone to look up on this one. There’s a lot of things that are going into that. Yeah.

00;05;23;18 – 00;05;24;29
Jim
You know what.

00;05;25;02 – 00;05;41;27
Josh
Yeah, I mean, you I mean, you certainly I, I the only reason I’m just we’re not again in this conversation yet, but I mean, it’s sort of like the national thing. I, I agree with everything you’re saying there, but it’s also like the particular dynamics of the conflicts in Texas over the last session have made the leadership of the House, which is not really something that most people care about, which we’ll get to in a second, something of a political issue.

00;05;41;27 – 00;05;53;28
Josh
But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good political issue. I think, you know, you go out and say, hey, look, the Republican, you know, I mean, I think if you’re a Republican candidate who wants to say, hey, look, I don’t think the Republican speaker of the Texas House Point Democratic Committee chair is when we have these big majorities.

00;05;53;28 – 00;05;57;18
Josh
You know, I think most voters are, you know, most Republicans would say, yeah, I guess that makes sense. I think.

00;05;57;21 – 00;05;58;09
Jim
Yeah, I mean, it’s.

00;05;58;09 – 00;05;59;05
Josh
Just kind of like.

00;05;59;07 – 00;06;03;13
Jim
You can easily caught on with the, you know, engaged social media.

00;06;03;16 – 00;06;04;13
Josh
Right?

00;06;04;16 – 00;06;26;29
Jim
You know, conservative Republican crowd. Right. With some, as you say, with some bleed out. now, you know, in this about this caucus meeting, it’s good to know is we go in under the caucus rules, whoever you know is it gets the endorsement of the caucus, has to win the support of two thirds of the caucus members present in a secret ballot.

00;06;27;02 – 00;07;03;14
Jim
So be 58 members. Given where we are now, to claim that endorsement, if no candidate wins two thirds after two votes, the threshold drops to 3/5, 53 votes, of the caucus membership. And remember, as we’ve seen, you know, as we were anticipating anyway, in the U.S. Congress, when you have, you know, tight margins in the super majority was, you know, somebody getting sick, somebody having a family emergency, in other words, a no show or two removes those numbers in ways that can really matter.

00;07;03;14 – 00;07;16;18
Jim
And I think there’s a there’s been a little bit of, of an eye on that. I’ve heard rumblings about that, that remember, you know, because we’re not talking about a large denominator here. You know, it doesn’t take many absences to move those those thresholds down by a vote or two.

00;07;16;20 – 00;07;31;10
Josh
Yeah. And I think the other side of the too is that when the, when the margins are so tight, it also means that any individual could be the deciding vote if they choose to be difficult, or any collection of a few individuals could end up, you know, really shifting a process that seems fixed at the end. If they decide they’re not happy.

00;07;31;10 – 00;07;36;02
Josh
And that’s what creates a lot of uncertainty. This stuff is very there’s a lot of entry points for chaos.

00;07;36;08 – 00;07;55;21
Jim
And we should also, you know, we should also point out that, you know, there’s a caucus rule that says that, you know, in the House, vote for speaker when they get to the floor, that this is a, you know, this is a binding vote, quote, unquote, that, you know, you’re supposed to follow the will of the caucus whether you voted with the majority or against it.

00;07;55;23 – 00;08;07;25
Jim
The secret ballot, of course, you know, makes that an interesting rule. The other thing that makes it interesting was that there’s no real there’s no, you know, as I understand it, there’s no enforcement mechanism in the caucus rules.

00;08;07;25 – 00;08;11;03
Josh
And this is new, right? Jam. I mean, like, this is well, I mean, it was my understanding.

00;08;11;04 – 00;08;26;16
Jim
It’s relatively relative. Yeah. I mean, did the caucus playing this role has come up, you know, just in the last few elections. It’s sort of my understanding of this that it was always kind of there. But you know, when it wasn’t much of an issue, it wasn’t much of an issue.

00;08;26;17 – 00;08;27;28
Josh
Right. And oftentimes it’s not much of an issue.

00;08;27;29 – 00;08;48;19
Jim
You know, and as we’ve seen, you know, in the past, the, you know, certainly in, in the period of, of Republican hegemony when there have been challenges to Republican speakers, it’s either happened outside of this, the sort of caucus dynamic, or it’s been resolved in a way, before the caucus met. And this this mechanism was going to be and.

00;08;48;24 – 00;08;50;04
Josh
It hasn’t gotten to that point.

00;08;50;04 – 00;09;11;02
Jim
Right, exactly. But now, you know, and we were talking about this where we came on, you know, because of the internal dynamics of the party. you know, the it it’s it’s working differently. I mean, in other words, the, you know, the divisions and I mean, it used to be we used to talk about, you know, the kind of the numbers on the quote unquote, you know, right.

00;09;11;02 – 00;09;19;21
Jim
Fringe of the Republican Party being, you know, basically, and low double, low to mid double digits, not even mid double digits between 10 and 20.

00;09;19;21 – 00;09;24;13
Josh
So yeah, that’s what I would say. Right. Maybe up to 24 here. Like yeah at the height I think as I recall. Right.

00;09;24;13 – 00;09;52;05
Jim
And so you know this has not been you know, such a such an issue now. You know, this is as we’ve said about the speaker’s race every time we’ve talked about this as it’s arisen in the last year, eight months. you know, this is a very internal process nonetheless. I mean, and I think to underline that, you know, you would like draw on some of the data from the archive that really underlines how, you know, we’re talking about it.

00;09;52;05 – 00;10;02;22
Jim
If you’re listening and you’ve lasted this long, you know, you’re somebody that is interested in this and paying attention. But, you know, that’s pretty unusual.

00;10;02;24 – 00;10;04;01
Josh
Yeah. I mean, I think one of the really.

00;10;04;01 – 00;10;04;29
Jim
You say atypical.

00;10;04;29 – 00;10;21;12
Josh
Yeah. Atypical. I mean, I think what’s really interesting about this generally is the extent to which, I mean, there’s a lot of really I should say there’s a lot of interesting things about this, but one of the interesting features is the extent to which the players in these processes have tried to appeal to the public to try to put their, you know, their fingers on the scale in some way.

00;10;21;12 – 00;10;38;04
Josh
And and with the public opinion data tells us that, that would be really difficult in a lot of cases. So, you know, the most important feature we find, I think, about of public opinion with respect to the speaker’s race is often its absence. So going back a little ways, you know, when Joe Strauss is reelected to be speaker of the House for the fourth time, over.

00;10;38;04 – 00;10;51;19
Josh
Scott Turner, now Trump administration appointee, only 12% of Texas voters said that they had heard a lot about the election. And February 2015 polling, despite all the attention paid to Strauss by dissident conservatives. You know, for years.

00;10;51;25 – 00;11;10;09
Jim
From the moment he was taking over the speakership in 2009, there was dissent and disagreement and criticism again, from at that point, at that point, what were like very dissident conservatives that have now, you know, gained a larger voice in the caucus and in the party, right.

00;11;10;12 – 00;11;37;07
Josh
As an even among Strauss’s antagonists at that time, only 25% of the most conservative voters said that they’d heard a lot about the race. So even against among those who say they’re extremely conservative, 1 in 4 said they’d like, you know, heard a lot. So we fast forward to this year, you know, now a lot’s really changed. In April 2012, four polling, we found only 16% of Texas voters saying they heard a lot about the outcome of the March primary elections, that we were focusing on that sort of set kind of some of the precursor for this, only 14%, that they had heard a lot about the runoff election day feelings district.

00;11;37;11 – 00;11;51;14
Josh
We also identify him in that question as the speaker of the Texas House. So if you just kind of heard that the speaker of the House was in some kind of thing or, you know, either way, no. 14%. And then in June of this year, again, only 14% said that they had heard a lot about the results of the runoff election as district.

00;11;51;21 – 00;12;10;24
Josh
Only 20% of the most conservative voters were presumably the real target for a lot of that messaging. And then finally, you know, we talk about this a lot. You know, when when we asked voters to evaluate the job performance of the speaker in this case, did feeling, which is a trend question we ask on every UT Texas politics project poll, the plurality and often the majority responses don’t.

00;12;10;24 – 00;12;28;06
Josh
Now, he said, do you approve of his job? You disapprove. Most voters will say they do not know. They don’t have any sort of a ascent. This result actually holds. If we look at responses among only Republicans and even among conservatives. So for the most part, you know, the speakers as a job, as the race, all these pieces are pretty far outside.

00;12;28;09 – 00;12;44;03
Josh
And just the last bit of this, you know, to sort of say the limit of sort of public engagement with this. More Republican voters have approved a feelings job performance and have disapproved in each of the 18 survey surveys we’ve conducted over his two terms of speaker right now. Again, it’s been close. It’s not as though he’s hitting out the Parliament.

00;12;44;03 – 00;12;50;29
Josh
Most of them don’t have a view. Right. So we’re talking about, you know, like, you know, judge points numbers of like 25 approve, 21 disapprove or 20.

00;12;50;29 – 00;12;51;24
Jim
That’s our high and.

00;12;52;02 – 00;12;53;23
Josh
That’s at the high end. Yeah yeah yeah.

00;12;53;23 – 00;12;58;19
Jim
And consuming the high end of approval. But the high end of like the share of people expressing. Right.

00;12;58;21 – 00;13;21;23
Josh
Exactly. Yeah. And actually among conservatives specifically disapproval has only been higher than approval. So net negative right. On two surveys which was in October and December 2023, which is the high point sort of of public criticism by other elected officials of feeling and also of allied interest groups. Right. And so this is all to say, you know, even though there’s been a lot of sort of, I think, you know, efforts to sort of engage the public in this issue.

00;13;21;23 – 00;13;35;21
Josh
And there’s reasons why that would make sense. It’s not likely that this is really, you know, at this point, the public is weighing in on this so much, except for, I think, you know, potentially we’ll get to this, Republican members consideration about what’s going to happen in 2020.

00;13;35;21 – 00;13;54;06
Jim
Six and to be, you know, a little anachronistic here. This is unless it’s a very slow news cycle or you’re reading a politically focused media outlet. You know, this is this is generally not front page news, right? If it’s front page, it’s below the fold and usually on a slow news day.

00;13;54;06 – 00;13;54;23
Josh
Yeah.

00;13;54;25 – 00;14;02;11
Jim
Now people can send me examples of when that’s I’m not saying that’s a universal, you know, probably you can find it on the front page of the Austin American-Statesman.

00;14;02;11 – 00;14;08;11
Josh
At some point when the speaker gets elected right, it will be on the front page. But that’s about what most people’s engagement with this is going to be.

00;14;08;11 – 00;14;28;19
Jim
Yeah. I mean, there’s two things that are interesting to me about the, you know, about that data, all of which is, you know, I mean, one thing that I, you know, I had not noticed before either would have told you, I would have guessed the ballpark here, but, you know, the consistency of that 14% number. Now, part of that is just, you know, whatever what it, you know, the play of numbers.

00;14;28;22 – 00;15;07;28
Jim
But you know, 16% saying they heard a lot about the outcome of the primary elections, then the two fourteens, that’s a pretty good approximation of the high end of the level of interest. So this, this level of inside baseball, that’s pretty interesting. And I think, you know, a number I now I’m thinking I got to remember that, you know, I think the second point of this where the second thing I notice here, when you look at this in the longer in, in the medium term stretch, well, for a lot of people, long term stretch, the ten years between more or less, you know, the Strauss number that you’re talking about in 20, in 24,

00;15;08;01 – 00;15;37;25
Jim
15, I guess, you know, call it 15 years and go back to when Joe Strauss was elected speaker. and now and the in that 14% or 14% number range is how much more social media makes this seem more present than it is, because I bet a lot of those 14% are on X or Twitter.

00;15;37;27 – 00;15;38;17
Josh
Yeah.

00;15;38;19 – 00;15;58;17
Jim
Right. Which which would stand to reason given how few people we know actually used Twitter. But but at Twitter slash acts. But what the the tenor I mean you think back you know, the period of Joe Strauss’s leadership or speakership the last few years and, and the agitation around feeling.

00;15;58;19 – 00;15;59;25
Josh

00;16;01;14 – 00;16;24;25
Jim
you know, there are public pronouncements, you know, often, frankly, from the lieutenant governor and his close allies. Just call it what it is, you know, sort of that overlap social media that are more general media pronouncements. You know, the the, the lieutenant governor calling press conferences during the session to express his dissatisfaction with, feeling and then going back further to satisfy, I.

00;16;24;25 – 00;16;27;03
Josh
Mean, the speaker in the House with Strauss.

00;16;27;05 – 00;16;54;04
Jim
Yeah. And, you know, sending signals in those kinds of ways. But, you know, I think the bigness of this in the minds of people that pay attention and something we want to keep in mind, I think in terms of thinking about this in the longer stretch of history and thinking about where the precedents are, is just how much social media has provided a bigger platform for this kind of inside baseball.

00;16;54;06 – 00;17;14;15
Jim
Yeah, right. And I you know, I gave a talk yesterday, I, you know, I moderated a panel. I didn’t give a talk. I didn’t have that much to do, actually. It was great at, the sort of annual conference or pre legislative conference about the professional advocacy associated section of Texas and, good panel with, you know, two of that.

00;17;14;15 – 00;17;54;16
Jim
These people have been on the podcast, Cromer Jeffers from the Dallas Morning News and, Brad Johnson from the Texas and of course, Harvey Cronenberg from Quorum Report, Harvey Cronenberg’s Quorum Report to get the branding correct. and you know, we were, you know, there was a discussion with the audience in which somebody and, you know, one of the lobbyists in the audience did make the point that, you know, the dynamics for the members in these kinds of races and in how they behave and how they, you know, what they’re facing as members in the legislature has been so changed by by social media that, you know, basically somebody in the audience said someone’s going

00;17;54;16 – 00;17;59;12
Jim
to notice and comment in a public way on almost everything you do.

00;17;59;16 – 00;17;59;26
Josh
Yeah.

00;18;00;05 – 00;18;03;06
Jim
And it did not used to be that, you know, that is very different.

00;18;03;06 – 00;18;16;07
Josh
Well, and you know, you know, just a and just the thing is it’s not just them, it’s it’s the deployment of the social media to and the ability to, you know, target these messages. So much more clearly to the types of voters who might impact someone’s career.

00;18;16;07 – 00;18;29;15
Jim
And just the. Yeah, and just and just to cause, you know, churn difficulty. Yeah. New external parties, if you will, by using social media. And this is one of those instances where I think that, you know, you really do feel that impact, right?

00;18;29;19 – 00;18;29;29
Josh
Right.

00;18;29;29 – 00;19;05;00
Jim
Now, that said, I mean, I think, you know, one of the points we’ve made in here, in talking about this, you know, in doing public events like yesterday, you know. The nature of these races, the old saw used to be, you know, these these are intensely personal. There’s nothing more personal in terms of the relationship, the contest among the members than a speaker’s race, because it just involves not just the policy, not just the politics, but the personal relationships.

00;19;05;00 – 00;19;32;01
Jim
And, you know, you you get a sense that, you know, you, you get a better feel for who trust who and who doesn’t trust who. And, you know, you get all this jockeying around where people are making commitments and you can’t read anything about this, you know, with an inside perspective without people, you know, with varying degrees of directness saying, you know, people pledge their allegiance.

00;19;32;01 – 00;19;46;25
Jim
But, you know, maybe that’s reliable and maybe it’s not. I was reading an account from an older, you know, maybe even somebody said this yesterday, too, at the Pat meeting, that if you’ve got 150 members and, you know, 270 commitments.

00;19;46;25 – 00;19;48;23
Josh
Right, right. Yeah.

00;19;48;26 – 00;19;58;18
Jim
And you know that and that, you know, that bounced that, that’s bound to be a very personable thing because, you know, you find out that sometimes people are lying to you.

00;19;58;18 – 00;19;59;18
Josh
Yeah, it turns out right.

00;19;59;19 – 00;20;03;04
Jim
Or they’re, you know, they’re they’re covering their bases in a way. So what.

00;20;03;04 – 00;20;03;18
Josh
Here.

00;20;03;23 – 00;20;38;22
Jim
So that makes this all, you know. And and I think this coexists really interestingly. This is why, you know, the social media point I made a minute ago, I think, you know, sort of mundane but and, you know, so commonplace and obvious. On the other hand, when you think about the role of social media as such an active space for messaging and political tactics and strategy, and then you look at that in the context of just how interior and internal, interior and personal this process is in the house.

00;20;38;25 – 00;20;41;09
Jim
Those two things sit very uncomfortably together.

00;20;41;09 – 00;20;48;00
Josh
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, I yeah. And I think on purpose in the case of the people and a lot of cases are they’re trying to deploy social media.

00;20;48;00 – 00;21;08;23
Jim
Yeah. And, and it’s, and it’s, you know, and you know, I mean I think you a you’d seen somebody use the use that or somebody that you know, but but that doesn’t change the fact that the internal, you know, that the whole process is, as you were saying, opaque. Right? I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s very difficult to have good information, you know, good information.

00;21;08;23 – 00;21;32;19
Jim
I mean, I think, you know, you were sort of virtually watching the Tribune event. The Texas Tribune had a legislative preview of and were recording on Thursday. So the events we’re talking about were Wednesday. and we were both noticing the same dynamic at both events, which is when you talk to reporters, even when you talk to members in a public forum and you say, oh, okay.

00;21;32;19 – 00;21;50;15
Jim
So it’s a you know, it’s a very common belief that if it’s not feeling, it may not actually be cooked and that there are various people out there, you know, subtly kind of putting there and not or not so subtly, you know, suggesting themselves of alternatives. You know, if this gets difficult.

00;21;50;15 – 00;21;50;27
Josh
Right.

00;21;51;03 – 00;22;10;20
Jim
Right. But a lot of people don’t want to mention those names explicitly, you know, and I think, you know, part of that is they don’t want to be wrong. Part of is they don’t want to, you know, they don’t want to report on rumors. But, you know, I noticed yesterday because I was, you know, I was there in person, you know, in between or you walk in the hallways.

00;22;10;24 – 00;22;36;17
Jim
People will mention that. Yes, right. In a very speculative, guarded kind of way. But people say, well, you know, so-and-so went to, you know, had a lunch with a bunch of people yesterday or met with or, you know, so-and-so is calling people and saying, hey, maybe not. And we can just say this because it was reported publicly, a quorum report, you know, reported unnamed sources saying, that, that, you know, there were members, you know, calling around, etc..

00;22;36;17 – 00;22;45;29
Jim
So, and I think that, you know, that is the thing that has to give us the most humility about this. That’s also why people don’t want to mention names, right?

00;22;46;00 – 00;22;46;20
Josh
Yeah. You know.

00;22;46;21 – 00;22;56;17
Jim
The name I was going is James Frank. I was I was going to say James White wrong, wrong legislative session. But, you know, James Frey, it was reported that James Frank was calling people and then that name had been.

00;22;56;17 – 00;23;10;06
Josh
But I think, you know, I think but I think that raises I think that’s a great example, which is that sort of proves the point here, which is that, like everybody can say was this guy, it’s this guy’s like, yeah, but then there’s also this guy and there’s this girl over here. And also people are hearing this person’s meeting with these people and it’s like, yeah, we’ll see.

00;23;10;07 – 00;23;22;23
Jim
Right. And then, you know, and look, it’s not to say that people are necessarily wrong about that, but, you know, a lot of, you know, as we’ve said before, of 150 members, nearly 150 can imagine themselves as speaker.

00;23;22;23 – 00;23;35;11
Josh
Well, Jim, isn’t it the case, two that like, you know, even beyond all that. Right. Even if it’s the case that it does seem like coalitions are forming, things are set like how fixed are those? You know what we know. Yeah.

00;23;35;11 – 00;24;01;00
Jim
And there’s and it’s just not right. I mean, and that’s one of the, you know, you know, that’s one of the things that is, is fascinating about this. And it is one of the things that doesn’t change very much. I mean, you know, I’ve been looking through all these interview files of several years ago, we had a project that really never came to full fruition, although we used a lot of the footage where.

00;24;01;03 – 00;24;03;12
Josh
when you say several years ago, I mean, like a decade and a half, it was.

00;24;03;12 – 00;24;10;19
Jim
About a decade and a half. And I, you know, I was trying to remember when we did these interviews, and I want to say it was around 2007.

00;24;10;19 – 00;24;11;25
Josh
That sounds right. You know.

00;24;11;25 – 00;24;12;23
Jim
More or less than.

00;24;12;25 – 00;24;13;28
Josh
Seven somewhere in there. Yeah.

00;24;13;28 – 00;24;17;24
Jim
Something like, you know, somewhere between 2000 and 6 and 2008 or 9. So more.

00;24;17;24 – 00;24;18;22
Josh
Like 20 years in a couple of.

00;24;18;23 – 00;24;21;12
Jim
Years. Yeah. You know. Yeah, more like 50 years is a while ago.

00;24;21;12 – 00;24;23;09
Josh
I’m just doing that for the sake of our audience. Not. Yeah, yeah.

00;24;23;09 – 00;24;50;21
Jim
Just so. Well, I mean, and, you know, and, you know, not to belabor the point, I mean, so we interviewed a lot of people that had been involved in the Constitutional convention of 1974, but what became really clear as we as I was doing the background research before the interviews that we started doing the interviews and some of the areas were conducted by friend and colleague, Louis Bakari, who was lecturing here long term, long time lobbyist that people know or a lot of people who listen to this will know.

00;24;50;23 – 00;25;29;14
Jim
what became clear as we were doing the background research in the interviews on that was that a huge thing that was going on at the time of the Constitutional Convention? was the fact that there was an active speakers race going on. Slight bit of Texas history. Price Daniel Junior had been elected as speaker as a reform candidate, had presided over the House in the 19th in the 73 session, the Constitutional Convention was held in 74, but Price Daniels junior, announced pretty early on that as part of his reform platform, he was not going to run for reelection.

00;25;29;14 – 00;25;56;23
Jim
And what that did, it certainly identified him as a reformer. It also made him an immediate lame duck and set off, you know, a speaker’s race that just went on for months and months and months and months. Right. So you know, it’s going on throughout kind of the spring and summer, as I recall. And two candidates emerge as the lead candidates, Fred had and Carl Parker.

00;25;56;23 – 00;26;16;07
Jim
Carl Parker later went on to the Senate, became a lobbyist. and Fred had actually ran for the Democratic nomination for, I can’t remember what office, a mid-level office, I think two cycles ago. And people were like, oh, I didn’t know he’s still around. So but, you know, people listening to this and know the history will notice that there has never been a.

00;26;16;07 – 00;26;17;04
Josh
Speaker.

00;26;17;06 – 00;26;40;08
Jim
Or a speaker. Parker. Right. And so, you know, what happens is that Billy Clayton, who was, you know, a conservative, you know, from the conservative wing of the party, but also in a way that I was thinking about this recently and having conversations yesterday, but was also himself billed as something of a reformer in the wake of Sharp Stan to everybody wanted to be a reformer after Sharpe.

00;26;40;08 – 00;26;58;00
Jim
Stan. so, you know, basically in those interviews and, you know, and I’m going to try to make this short because I’ve, we’ve got a bunch of audio. I was thinking, we in our spare time, I want to put something together on this. for those of you who can’t see Josh turning a little pale right now.

00;26;58;00 – 00;27;00;09
Josh
You know, why is this? Because what we need is a better time.

00;27;00;09 – 00;27;02;19
Jim
Another little. Another little ad hoc project.

00;27;02;19 – 00;27;03;28
Josh
But just stuff it in there a certain.

00;27;03;29 – 00;27;26;14
Jim
But, you know, the funny thing about this, you know, that I think bears on what we’re seeing now is that if you look at all the media coverage going up to Labor Day weekend, of this race in the newspapers, and they were buried in the back of all these newspapers coverage that I found in the archives up at the Barker Center.

00;27;26;17 – 00;28;02;08
Jim
All the coverage, you know, sees this as a race between Parker and had with Parker having the edge. And in talking to Carl Parker, you know, he felt very confident going into Labor Day late that Labor Day weekend. Billy Clayton and a bunch of his associates basically ran out the top floor of the Driscoll down in downtown Austin and, you know, bringing a bunch of phones, basically install a phone bank and start calling members and start, you know, so at that point, they kind of they kind of push head out of the race.

00;28;02;08 – 00;28;28;28
Jim
There’s a bunch of personal animosity between Head and Carl Parker. and they slowly gather enough votes so that on Tuesday they announced they’re going to have a press conference. And Jack Golden Horn was working on, Billy Clayton’s team. And, you know, as in the interview with Comma Horn, Jack is saying, well, you know, so we’re going to have the press conference at noon.

00;28;28;28 – 00;28;48;20
Jim
And then we were, you know, at ten, and then we were going to have it at noon. They were going to have it at two. And as it as we start getting close to having the votes, all of a sudden people want to get on board. He’s got a great description of them deciding that they were going to announce they had 76 votes or, you know, at least on the Tuesday after Labor Day.

00;28;48;22 – 00;29;18;07
Jim
And he said, as soon as the word got out that we had the votes, of course, a lot of people wanted to get on board and, you know, you’re tapped. You’re having to tell people, well, you know, if you’re 76, that’s great. But, you know, if you’re after that, you know, we appreciate it. However, you know, I was thinking about this in a conversation we’re having earlier, and he’s got a great line in the rejects, as you know, as we were going to an at downstairs to announce we had 76 or 77, you know, there were like, you know, 82 and 83 were on the elevator going up.

00;29;18;12 – 00;29;19;05
Josh
Yeah. Right.

00;29;19;08 – 00;29;37;09
Jim
And so I raised that because, you know, all the things we’ve taught, some of the things we’ve talked about social media, more insight and, you know, more publicity around the process matters. But at the end of the day, you know, in terms of everybody trying to figure out who if there’s a Billy Clayton out there.

00;29;37;09 – 00;29;38;11
Josh
Yeah.

00;29;38;13 – 00;29;43;19
Jim
You know, part of the Billy Clayton that succeeding was that not too many people knew that was going. Yeah.

00;29;43;19 – 00;29;44;26
Josh
You didn’t know until it was happened.

00;29;44;28 – 00;30;02;10
Jim
Yeah. I mean, I ask, you know, Carl Parker, did you you know Carl Parker. So, yeah, we figured we were going to have, you know, I he was I was in Beaumont at a conference or something. We figured, you know, that we’d have we’d have we’d be over the threshold by Wednesday or Thursday of that week. Next thing I know, they’re having a press conference saying that they’ve got it.

00;30;02;16 – 00;30;08;18
Josh
When I love that story because, I mean one, I’ve heard it a lot of times, and familiarity breeds, you know.

00;30;08;24 – 00;30;10;26
Jim
A lot of like last time, the last week or so especially.

00;30;10;26 – 00;30;21;03
Josh
Yeah, I know it’s true. But what I love about it is just, you know, in short, the idea is, you know, you’ve got these two who are the clear candidates for months and months and months and months and months, and then at the last minute, either of them.

00;30;21;05 – 00;30;23;04
Jim
Yeah, something different happens.

00;30;23;06 – 00;30;29;22
Josh
And that’s like going to say like that’s not like that’s not an abnormal situation. It’s not. It’s just illustrative of what is going to what’s going on. Yeah.

00;30;29;23 – 00;30;31;23
Jim
And again I don’t you know, I say no.

00;30;31;26 – 00;30;32;29
Josh
We’re not saying is gonna be somebody not.

00;30;32;29 – 00;30;42;06
Jim
Saying that that did that sooner. You know I think you know, look, I mean the social media point does say that it would be harder for that to happen this time.

00;30;42;06 – 00;30;43;27
Josh
Yeah. No, it seems right, right.

00;30;44;03 – 00;30;59;17
Jim
In this environment. Right. I mean, it’d be difficult for a scenario like that. Yeah. All the other is I was going back and looking at the transcripts of those interviews over the last couple of days. You know, it is interesting, you know, the, you know, we we went into the hotel and we, you know, and saw the phone bank.

00;30;59;17 – 00;31;00;27
Josh
Well, you know, yeah.

00;31;00;27 – 00;31;02;15
Jim
Not exactly how things work. These I.

00;31;02;18 – 00;31;12;16
Josh
I think there but that actually connects to something. We were talking about. I’m just looking at you remember sort of various discussion points. We may touch on some of them. We may touch on all of them. But I’m just looking at the point this thing, you know, that really does apply back to that sort of GOP caucus rules thing.

00;31;12;16 – 00;31;25;29
Josh
I mean, I keep thinking about, you know, are these rules and these numbers, but like, what are the numbers people want to put out? Like, yeah, 76 is is the one hard number you need to know, but everything else is a little bit more. You know, I would just say lose. I keep thinking of like like a seesaw, you know.

00;31;25;29 – 00;31;49;23
Josh
So like once we get enough weight over here, everybody’s going to roll down the seesaw to the other side. Not everybody. There’s not I mean, this is a question about feeling and you know, how much what the strength and sort of, you know, I don’t know, commitment of the holdouts are against feeling. But I think it does point to this idea that, like, you know, if the writing is on the wall or if it seems like it’s going a certain way, the outcome may look a lot less lopsided than the actual internal dynamics were.

00;31;49;27 – 00;32;03;05
Josh
Right? Right. And that’s sort of just to speak to then that speaks to that. Right? Because you don’t want to be on the outside looking in. Right? I mean, you don’t want to be taking sort of a, you know, like a conscience vote that you’re basically not going to get anything for from anybody at this point is not going to do any good.

00;32;03;05 – 00;32;27;01
Josh
You got to serve your constituent and you need to work with people like casting a vote for the sake of it. At this point, some people that’s part of their identity in this, they’ve committed to it for sure. But there are a lot of people. I mean, I think what’s sort of funny about this is everybody focuses on the big players and kind of like, who’s going to be the speaker and who are the committee chair, unless there are a lot of sort of, you know, second term, you know, third term members who are just trying not to get like crosswise with people to.

00;32;27;04 – 00;32;33;23
Jim
Yeah, you know, you were talking about that beforehand. And I don’t, you know, I mean, that’s going to be one of the interesting things to think. I mean, you know, and again, this.

00;32;33;23 – 00;32;37;23
Josh
Was there’s five fewer than there were, you know, I mean, I, I don’t know actually, but I mean, yeah.

00;32;37;23 – 00;32;39;10
Jim
I mean, I don’t know, I mean, I think to your.

00;32;39;10 – 00;32;40;09
Josh
Social media point and.

00;32;40;09 – 00;32;59;19
Jim
Stuff, you know, so you know, there were there were people at the conference yesterday, somebody from I mean, he would not disown this, you know, Brad Johnson from the Texan, who’s, you know, very well sourced in conservative circles, it seems to me well, source generally, but particularly in those circles, you know, saying that there was a hard core group.

00;32;59;19 – 00;33;07;10
Jim
And I think he said that, you know, he estimated it, I think about 30 who no matter what, we’re not going to vote for dad feeling.

00;33;07;10 – 00;33;07;25
Josh
Yeah.

00;33;07;28 – 00;33;18;11
Jim
And he, you know, he didn’t go into why. But you can speculate as to why. But but it gets to your point about, you know, will there be a massive defection one way or the other at the end or not?

00;33;18;11 – 00;33;18;25
Josh
Right.

00;33;18;28 – 00;33;44;04
Jim
And, you know, I think this, you know, the difficulty of that and why I think, you know, the point that Brad was making, I, I think I broadly agree with that, you know, there will probably be, you know, a larger if feeling wins the speakership, there will probably be a larger number of dissenters inside the party and no votes in the floor vote than we’ve seen before.

00;33;44;07 – 00;33;45;06
Josh
Yeah.

00;33;45;09 – 00;34;05;26
Jim
You know, that’s just, you know, Brad’s hypothesis, which I think. But I mean, I think, you know, I thought about that a lot because I do think that. You know, it’s a function of two things. One, what we just saw, which was the movement, you know, the definite rightward movement in the Republican caucus.

00;34;05;28 – 00;34;06;17
Josh
Yeah.

00;34;06;19 – 00;34;31;07
Jim
You know, and it’s an idea, you know, and it’s very ideological. And some of it is personal about feeling and wrapped up with ideology, but also the checks being exercised at the grassroots level, you know, in Republican primaries, but also the general weakness of the Democrats as a balancing factor in this. Now, the Democrats are very important in this process, as important, maybe as they’ll be.

00;34;31;07 – 00;34;32;03
Josh
Yeah.

00;34;32;05 – 00;34;41;15
Jim
Right. In the sense that whoever wins is, unless there’s a big earthquake, is likely to need some Democratic votes.

00;34;41;15 – 00;34;41;23
Josh
Yeah.

00;34;41;26 – 00;35;04;07
Jim
And it’s also, you know, and it’s unclear what is going on among, you know, as is often the case, what is going on among the Democrats. Right. You know, we just saw it, you know, Gene Wu to my mind, come a little bit out of nowhere, you know, not that Gene Wu was nowhere but was not somebody big in the discussions until the last minute of who would be the chair of the Democratic caucus in the House.

00;35;04;07 – 00;35;04;17
Jim
Yeah, that’ll.

00;35;04;17 – 00;35;06;18
Josh
Happen real quick. I’d like to know a little more about that.

00;35;06;18 – 00;35;25;13
Jim
Yeah. Well, you know, some of the people I was talking to yesterday, last night, you know, a lot of the speculation, you know, the speculation immediately turned to the speaker’s race and. Right. Was like, you know, where was Wu in his ability or willingness or interest, you know, where does he land in all that? Where would he lead the caucus?

00;35;25;15 – 00;35;45;08
Jim
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s a million other factors there. Given the other people that were running, you know, Trey Martinez Fisher was one of the people being mentioned, you know, all of, you know, I mean, there’s a dynamic within the Democratic caucus that’s a thing unto itself, shall we say. but a lot of speculation that, well, you know what?

00;35;45;10 – 00;36;20;07
Jim
You know, of course, the first thing you know, I heard people speculating like, what does this tell us about the speaker’s race? Did anybody, you know, did you know, to what degree was that a factor? What is Wu’s relationship with, like with the current leadership in the House? You know, all of this. So I think that, you know, when you step back and look at, you know, what we were talking about a minute ago, how do you balance out, you know, what, where people are going to land finally, and where the big blocks of vote are?

00;36;20;13 – 00;36;24;15
Jim
How right. You know, so your analysis is a little unfair to us?

00;36;24;17 – 00;36;36;02
Josh
I don’t know, I say real quick, I’m much I mean, I’m not much younger than you, but I’m significantly younger than you. And I’ve been in a lot of these conversations, is the significantly younger person. So I’m very happy to be corrected in, well, I’m.

00;36;36;02 – 00;36;37;20
Jim
Not even correcting you. I mean, I but I think.

00;36;37;23 – 00;36;38;13
Josh
You is racist.

00;36;38;20 – 00;37;16;00
Jim
When you say that, you know, like when, you know, people argue that at the last minute people may just come around, you know, for, you know, as they process what’s in their interest. Yeah. You know, I think people’s perception of their interest right now, particularly in the Republican caucus, is complicated. Oh yeah. And varies a lot. You know, I mean, it may be that the rational thing to do, you know, as a far right member who is backing cook in the case of it looking like feeling is going to win is going to be to stick to your guns, you know, and maybe in the short term, it turns out to not necessarily be great

00;37;16;00 – 00;37;27;03
Jim
for your district individually. But if you don’t stick to your guns and this is still a rational argument, but or, you know, there might be, you know, there’s a lot, you know, those calculations are going to be very complicated for those.

00;37;27;03 – 00;37;29;26
Josh
Yeah, I mean, that’s an interesting way to put it, because, I mean, in some ways I would say and.

00;37;29;26 – 00;37;36;03
Jim
Again, that, you know, undermine him and I it’s still a rational argument, but I think with a different outcome than the one you were, you know, sort of saying, well, you.

00;37;36;03 – 00;37;52;22
Josh
Know, a part of this is like I mean, you know, just and this is kind of going a direction here in some ways. But I mean, it just in reaction to what you just said. I mean, if you think about it, if you’re a far right member in the, you know, the Republican caucus in the Texas legislature, whether you’re new or they’ve been here for a while, your job perception is that you have not been treated well by leadership.

00;37;52;22 – 00;38;10;26
Josh
So the so so the status quo is not good for you. So ultimately and whether you come come around the end of it’s feeling, we’ll get to that in a second or not. You know the calculation that you’re going to be hurt by casting that no vote is probably, you know, against the fact that you’ve basically so publicly said you’re against feeling you’re probably not going to be in a great position anyway.

00;38;10;27 – 00;38;30;25
Josh
But there’s something else to which is this which is that. Look, at the end of the day, the legislature is still going to be very conservative. It is still going to pass a lot of conservative legislation with a feeling become speaker with all the Democratic votes and some Republicans, or whether somebody else becomes speaker, cook or somebody else, it’s still going to be a very conservative legislative session.

00;38;30;27 – 00;38;47;23
Josh
Those members are still going to have influence over the process, whether they vote for the speaker or not. And that’s I mean, that’s sort of kind of underlying this, a little bit of the subterfuge of all of this is like, well, you know, you know, there’s a Democratic run house in Dade Field. Everyone’s like, you know, and yet it’s been the most conservative sessions in Texas history session after session recently.

00;38;47;25 – 00;39;03;10
Josh
So there is that kind of the piece of it, I think, you know, I mean, the other side of this is kind of going back to feeling at least I don’t know if you’ve had this experience. It’s funny. You know, we’ve been talking about this obviously for a while, and the idea of, you know, feeling even returning as a speaker seemed kind of, you know, crazy to me in some sense.

00;39;03;12 – 00;39;22;09
Josh
But the more I sort of talk to people, you know, especially reporters, it seems to be coming like it’s almost being treated like it’s like a likely outcome. Now, we said before, I said a while back, like, yeah, this is the most likely outcome in that out of a probability between 0 and 100%, feeling was probably like the 10 to 20% likely to be speaker again, and the other 80% is like distributed among a bunch of unknowns.

00;39;22;09 – 00;39;47;13
Josh
Yeah, but he’s the known thing, right? You know, but at this point, like, I just don’t understand like how if you don’t have all the GOP members or a big, huge block of them, what how you can think about self-interest, how a GOP member could at this point be sort of the deciding vote with all the Democrats to make feel and speaker, because essentially what you do guarantee is, you know, a seven figure primary challenger next time.

00;39;47;16 – 00;39;48;19
Josh
Yeah. You know.

00;39;48;22 – 00;40;01;13
Jim
Absent the primary challenger part, I mean, I had a Republican member who is supporting cook make it pretty much that argument to me a couple weeks ago.

00;40;01;13 – 00;40;20;27
Josh
Yeah. And so I mean, unless all the other votes are going to fall Fillon’s way again, like, unless it’s like you want to be, you know, you don’t want to be, you know, you don’t wanna be 77th, but better than not being on the boat at all. Right. And you kind of go along and at that point, like you’re basically just putting, you know, a scarlet letter on yourself and say, primary challenge me spent $7 million and yeah, look, are there some are there some members who could handle that?

00;40;21;00 – 00;40;22;03
Josh
There are a few.

00;40;22;06 – 00;40;48;15
Jim
Well, there’s a few. Well, you know, this kind of goes into some of these other factors that are floating around out there, right? I mean, you know, there are few and they survived it last time, and they’re kind of loaded for bear this time after having the governor come after them. And the lieutenant governor, you know, talking trash and, you know, and people spending money against them and just, you know, and that speaks to the another dynamic that, you know, we’ve talked about.

00;40;48;15 – 00;41;13;04
Jim
And then, you know, we’re kind of curious about is, you know, and I really wanted to bring this up yesterday and I didn’t get a chance on the panel. What is the general state of the traditional House versus Senate dynamic? And who’s dug in to continue, you know, standing up for the House against the Senate, standing up against the perception, well grounded.

00;41;13;04 – 00;41;31;24
Jim
I would say that the lieutenant governor’s meddling in House politics versus a certain degree of exhaustion and kind of seeing, you know, exhaustion and the kind of rational calculations you’re talking about and saying, like, you know, maybe we just shouldn’t, like, spend the whole session fighting with the Senate.

00;41;31;26 – 00;41;33;11
Josh
Well, it’s interesting, you know, because you just told.

00;41;33;11 – 00;41;33;28
Jim
Dan Patrick.

00;41;33;28 – 00;41;45;04
Josh
When you told me an anecdote this morning, from the past, and I’ll turn back to you to tell, because I’m going to tell your story, that I think is interesting in this because I suggest that you raise these two things, which is like, what would be nice if we were in conflict all the time. Yeah, that’d be great.

00;41;45;07 – 00;42;02;00
Josh
On the other hand, you know that in some ways I think it’s hard to imagine that that doesn’t include a huge kind of ceding to Patrick. You know, I think in order, in order in order to have a friendly relationship with Patrick. I mean, basically, Patrick has asked that that house be run like the Senate, which is going to be a very different house.

00;42;02;02 – 00;42;11;09
Josh
It’s not clear that’s what everybody wants, but it seems like there’s a couple different ways you could respond to that. And I think, you know, your anecdote yesterday was kind of interesting about sort of Toomey’s response to what feeling would bring this time.

00;42;11;13 – 00;42;25;00
Jim
You know, what is interesting there that kind of ties some of this together is and is a little bit of an answer to the, well, do you really want to be, you know, the Republican that tips the vote to feeling.

00;42;25;02 – 00;42;25;29
Josh
Yeah. You know.

00;42;25;29 – 00;43;05;04
Jim
And then have to, you know, answer for Democratic chairs and all of that. To me the balancing factor is this House versus Senate, House versus Patrick. There are clearly some members in the House, probably among those 30 that that Brad was Johnson was talking about at the event yesterday. For whom? That’s not a problem, right? Basically, right. To me, that underlines why this question of how much of that institution or house pride identity coupled with resentment of the lieutenant governor to some extent, the governor’s, you know, participation in primaries, who’s been beaten down and who’s ready for to fight more.

00;43;05;07 – 00;43;06;13
Jim
So, yeah, oversimplifying.

00;43;06;13 – 00;43;08;02
Josh
What does the fighting look like? Yeah.

00;43;08;05 – 00;43;27;15
Jim
What was interesting yesterday, you know, so one of the panels at the at the event I was out yesterday included a panel with the Chiefs of Staff of the big three, and everybody was interesting there anyway. But I mean, you know, people are paying a lot of attention to Mike Toomey, the former member, former lobbyist, you know, had a lot of roles.

00;43;27;15 – 00;43;47;22
Jim
Now, you know, board of governors, chief of staff, longtime hand in Texas politics, say the least. You know, in his choice of signaling in this environment at this moment was very interesting in that he took the first question which was asked of him, which was not asking for this response.

00;43;47;22 – 00;43;48;04
Josh
Yeah.

00;43;48;07 – 00;44;08;10
Jim
And just said, look, let me, you know, let me lay out, you know, let me just tell you all in memory. This is a crowd full of lobby people how it’s going to be, first of all, take everything you know about how the process has worked in the past. House or in the, you know, in the house in the past and forget about it because it’s going to be completely different and basically, you know, made the case.

00;44;08;12 – 00;44;08;15
Josh
If.

00;44;08;16 – 00;44;27;00
Jim
It we’ve seen in, you know, in a lot of bits of news coverage that, you know, look, we’re going to have all the committee chairs appointed by the end of January. We’ve already got these multiple working groups formed and policy, they are going to be working so that, you know, when we hit the constitutional, you know, threshold for beginning to, you know, actually work, that we’re ready to work.

00;44;27;00 – 00;44;30;16
Jim
We’re ahead of the game and we’re going to start passing bills right away.

00;44;30;17 – 00;44;30;26
Josh
Yeah.

00;44;31;03 – 00;44;47;21
Jim
You know, there were some other elements that he talked about without going on and on. We’re running out of time. But you know, the point was it was something of a campaign speech and perceived as such. It presumed as you would in that position. That feeling is going to be speaker, what.

00;44;47;21 – 00;44;48;10
Josh
You do in a campaign.

00;44;48;11 – 00;45;15;22
Jim
But probably, you know, most relevant to the discussion we’re having now. And I kind of raise this on the panel because we we talked after the the chief, the Chiefs panel was, you know, this is a sign that the dissidents, the anti feeling elements who are billing themselves as reformers. That message has been internalized. And, you know, for one thing, Toomey’s presence is and the staff changes in the speaker’s office are clearly a sign of that.

00;45;15;24 – 00;45;37;06
Jim
But also a signal like, yeah, you know we hear you right? And the process is going to run. And he was, you know, very direct in a couple of points about, you know, flawed thing, you know, recognizing complaints that people have had about the consistency of rulings from the Dyas about, you know, what legislation moves and what doesn’t, how much people know about the whys of that.

00;45;37;07 – 00;46;02;19
Jim
Yeah. And so, you know, on one hand, it was a reassurance and a pitch to the lobby, a pitch to Democrats and a pitch to Republicans that may or may not have a personal grudge against Dave feeling, but whose complaints have been not only or, you know, not at all ideological, but have been very process driven. You know, it was a very clear signal that the process would change if Phelan returns.

00;46;02;19 – 00;46;14;29
Josh
Well, see, I think that’s something that, you know, is sort of missed in a lot of the coverage is that I mean, there’s so much focus on you, the PACs and impeachment and vouchers and all this. But, I mean, one of the most consistent things that, you know, I think we all heard from participants in the process was that the process was not running well.

00;46;15;04 – 00;46;33;20
Josh
Yeah. You know, a lot of problems. That was true in the first field session. I think it continued on. And so those are just real complaints about how the House is run. I think the longer term context of that sort of discussion is this idea of, you know, the House has been getting buried session after session by the Senate, who comes in and just start passing bills, sending them to the House, and then saying, why aren’t you guys acting?

00;46;33;25 – 00;46;49;01
Josh
Yeah. And the House has kind of been relying on this idea of like, well, look, we we operate differently. We have different procedures. It’s much bigger, which are all true. But I think what they’re saying here is and this is what I think interesting about this, you know, who are they? Are they hiring someone to work better with Patrick, to stand up for the house?

00;46;49;04 – 00;47;01;07
Josh
All these kind of things we’re talking about here? In some ways, this is an affirmative defense for just say, yes, we heard you. We’re going to fix those things. But also we’re going to we’re going to go on offense to I mean, we’re going to we’re going to get bills to them and say, hey, why aren’t you dealing with our bill?

00;47;01;10 – 00;47;05;25
Josh
Not in, you know, May, but maybe like in, you know.

00;47;05;26 – 00;47;06;21
Jim
February or March.

00;47;06;22 – 00;47;22;08
Josh
Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s something that it seems like, you know, is again, it’s an a direct appeal again, to those members who kind of feel like, you know, the leadership is kind of letting them down. Again, I think along these dimensions, two dimensions, both in how the house is run, but also still this sort of relationship with the Senate.

00;47;22;09 – 00;47;23;04
Josh
Right.

00;47;23;06 – 00;47;30;15
Jim
So I think, you know, all of which is to say, all of those considerations pretty internal.

00;47;30;18 – 00;47;32;28
Josh
Yeah, right.

00;47;33;01 – 00;47;58;07
Jim
Pretty internal. And and you know, look, as I think about it, you know, having those process reforms in place does enable another candidate to emerge that says, you know, I really applaud the direction that things are taking. I still think that pick your arguments speaker feeling is too divisive a figure. I have better relations with people, you know, whatever.

00;47;58;08 – 00;48;14;00
Jim
You know, whatever the argument is, it creates a little bit more middle space for a challenge, which is also, you know, the gamble is, you know, I mean, how about if somebody stood up and said, I think the working groups are great, that the speaker feels set up. I’m not going to touch him. Yeah, we’re going to continue on this process.

00;48;14;03 – 00;48;30;07
Jim
I too will get committee chairs name by the end of of you know, why not just, you know, appropriate the prize. You know, build on what’s already happened. but offer yourself as a less controversial alternative. before we close out, there’s one other thing that we’ve left out.

00;48;30;07 – 00;48;31;07
Josh
Here, please.

00;48;31;09 – 00;48;59;08
Jim
And that is. And this came up yesterday, you know, because we can’t have a conversation about even this most internal approach without talking about Donald Trump. Right? Right. And that is, you know, Donald Trump endorsed against stayed feeling, he criticized, stayed feeling even before the primary, all with the very common understanding that this had been engineered directly or indirectly through the lieutenant governor’s office.

00;48;59;11 – 00;49;05;00
Jim
Speculation but speculation, I don’t think anybody is really, you know, questioned all that much.

00;49;05;02 – 00;49;08;09
Josh
And it’s not even in the interest of the lieutenant governor anyone to even tamp that down.

00;49;08;09 – 00;49;24;03
Jim
Right. And so, you know, then the question becomes, does Donald Trump have the time and the bandwidth amidst all the few other things he has on his plate right now, to hear somebody saying, hey, by the way, this is going on in Texas.

00;49;24;05 – 00;49;24;14
Josh
Yeah.

00;49;24;20 – 00;49;43;21
Jim
Remember that guy Dade feeling and he go, oh yeah. Right, right, right. Will he get involved and put his thumb on the scale and endorse, cook or endorse someone else, or come out against feeling, you know, he’s already, you know, been negative towards feeling in a very public way. But you know, two things I think that are, you know, the the question there’s a bunch of questions here for Donald Trump.

00;49;43;21 – 00;50;06;13
Jim
But one, does Donald Trump have the bandwidth for this right now given what’s going on with his cabinet appointees? I mean, he’s sort of really been, you know, the extra costs of the approach he’s taken to that or to is this the kind of thing where he has somebody look into this or, you know, somebody tells him Trump does not like to endorse losers?

00;50;06;16 – 00;50;07;03
Josh
Yeah.

00;50;07;05 – 00;50;18;00
Jim
And so, you know, if is this indeterminate enough, does somebody tell him like they told him with some other things recently? You know what you got. You should stay out of this.

00;50;18;07 – 00;50;18;20
Josh
Yeah. You know.

00;50;18;20 – 00;50;42;03
Jim
I’m thinking of the Senate majority leader race where, you know, whether he was going to put his thumb on the scale in some way was very widely anticipated for reasons that, you know, for various reasons. He stayed out with a we don’t know for sure he stayed out of it. But one of the things, you know, that we, you know, does seem to be widely reported and seems accurate enough, and he’s not always followed this, but by and large, he would rather not endorse somebody that doesn’t win.

00;50;42;06 – 00;50;45;24
Josh
Yeah. I mean it’d be like go. But it’s interesting in the sense that, you know, it’d be an interesting fact.

00;50;45;26 – 00;50;51;27
Jim
Who’s he listening to? Right. You know who he’s listening to. But there are also more Texans around him a little bit right now. So yeah.

00;50;51;27 – 00;51;13;20
Josh
I mean be really interesting flex on Patrick’s part assuming he’s the one making the call it like let’s say it comes down to two people feeling that someone else, whether cook or otherwise. And we’re going towards an actual vote. Yeah, right. You know, and if Patrick wants to flex and can get Trump to do it and say, listen, you know, I need the strongest leadership I can get in Texas, feeling is ABCd all the things he’s already basically on the record for.

00;51;13;20 – 00;51;24;10
Josh
Yeah. You know, if we need you know, if we want a strong Texas, we need you know whoever the fill in the black whoever this person is right. You know, I got to be honest, hard for me to imagine that not having an impact on a lot.

00;51;24;10 – 00;51;29;00
Jim
Of I think the general sense. I’m certainly on the panel yesterday people were like, yeah, you know, Trump says something.

00;51;29;00 – 00;51;51;20
Josh
And then the other thing that’s interesting about that to me, just serve as a kind of trailing off into the end of this. This podcast is, you know, it’s interesting to think about, you know, the relative power dynamics between Patrick Abbott and their relative, you know, their individual relationship to Trump as we go forward right now in terms of who’s where, who’s seen as sort of the the power center and that, you know, the main conduit to Trump in Texas, you know.

00;51;51;27 – 00;52;10;16
Jim
And so, you know, as we as we close out and we think about going into this Saturday caucus meeting, I mean, I think kind of two things to remember. One, nobody is sent a clear signal that they have enough votes to reach any of those threshold. If they do. Two, we don’t know how much it’s actually going to matter because of this lack of enforcement and what that’s all going to be.

00;52;10;21 – 00;52;21;06
Jim
And three, and this seem to be the consensus among the people that wanted to take a position on it yesterday, the caucus could could not reach any of those thresholds and then have an indecisive result.

00;52;21;12 – 00;52;26;00
Josh
I love that. I wish you we had said that before an hour because you said that was like, oh yeah, that’s right. You know.

00;52;26;00 – 00;52;31;01
Jim
It’s very possible that, you know, for all the attention, you know, and anticipation, which I think is, you know, legit.

00;52;31;01 – 00;52;31;10
Josh
Yeah.

00;52;31;16 – 00;52;39;25
Jim
Of this meeting on, on Saturday of this caucus meeting on Saturday, you know they may not be able nobody may be able to put together the supermajorities that are required.

00;52;39;26 – 00;52;59;05
Josh
And I think that’s I was thinking, you know, it was a lot of people have sort of I think this has been reported. I’ve heard this from a lot of people. I feel comfortable saying it. I think I’ve read it, but I know this is almost certainly the case. It’s, you know, it wasn’t as though cook had like the majority of the people who initially endorsing when he released that list, you know, they did not in the barbecue meeting that led to sort of cook saying, I have the support of 47 members.

00;52;59;11 – 00;53;14;11
Josh
It’s very clearly said that, like, it wasn’t clear that he was the consensus guy to begin with. Right? There was a lot of it took some movement of some other people, some other people pulling out to create that consensus, which is sort of should, I think, lead anyone to question how committed anyone is to anybody at this.

00;53;14;14 – 00;53;21;12
Jim
Right. And we should, you know, we should know. And and again, you know, these early, you know, point we made earlier nobody’s defection proof.

00;53;21;18 – 00;53;23;01
Josh
Right, right, right.

00;53;23;01 – 00;53;48;06
Jim
We’re very few people out there, you know, really nobody’s defection proof. And we can refer you to a quorum report was sent out a hot buzz right before we came on saying that Trent Ashby you know, somebody more on the, you know, non dissident side of things, somebody seen as a little bit of an opinion leader in, in the House at various times put his name forth unsuccessfully for speaker when Dennis Spawn and was elected a few sessions back.

00;53;48;09 – 00;54;08;13
Jim
So you know there’s still movement going on at the last minute. There will be a lot of buzz around Ashby saying that he is going to vote for cook. But again, until we see if anybody else emerges, you know, what that actually means is a little unclear. So I think we’ll be back for one last podcast, at least before the holidays.

00;54;08;16 – 00;54;12;17
Jim
You know, we probably won’t be able to resist this since this will happen Saturday and will want to follow up.

00;54;12;17 – 00;54;12;28
Josh
Yeah.

00;54;13;02 – 00;54;37;09
Jim
Until then, thank you for listening. Josh, thanks for coming in today. Thanks again as always to our excellent production team in the Dev Studio here in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. The data we discussed, you will find it at our website Texas Politics dot you texas.edu. So again thanks for listening and we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast.

00;54;37;12 – 00;54;43;04
Jim
The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.