Luke Macias - Host & Political Consultant Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, let's get back to Texas conservative values. Two seven
fifty two is their time. Luke Visias joins this host
and political consultant. You know, I get the impression, Luke, that,
especially at the state legislature level, that we are just
not as conservative as we were just a few short
years ago. I mean, we've always had a problem with
Rhino Republicans in the state legislature. We've always had a

(00:21):
problem with them allowing Democrats to have more control over
issues than they should. But it feels like it's gotten
worse instead of better.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, you and I have been talking about this for
the last several years, right, I mean pretty consistently last
session with the impeachment of Ken Paxton and the killing
at that point of nearly every single Republican priority piece
of legislation. And so I would say that as the
dust starts to settle and we're doing some analysis now,
I actually want to do like a good dad and

(00:52):
the ugly of the legislative session series that I think
will hopefully break things down. But let me give you
a slight positive take. The Democrats and Rhinos tried to
pass a number of very significant bills in very watered
down fashions this session, and that they were not successful
in doing so for two reasons. There are about twenty
more conservative legislators than there were last session because more

(01:16):
Rhinos lost their primary than ever before in modern history.
And so that conservative coalition, along with the Texas Senate
trying to force some of these policies in the right direction,
meant that the China landban that we got, the parental
Bill of Rights, that got rid of DEI and sex
and gender theories out of our schools were very, very
significant and strong. And these are policies that Democrats successfully

(01:40):
killed last session with their partnership with Dave Felan. And
so those are just a couple examples. I do think
that we got some significant wins on the board that
we had not gotten in the past, and that we
would not have gotten if conservatives hadn't seen the victories
of the primary. But it is true that there are
obvious layups being getting rid of the abortion pill that's

(02:02):
killing twenty thousand children a year in Texas. There was
a bill that said that we could get rid of
drag shows, the drag queens story hours in libraries. The
Texas House killed that bill. So there were some obvious
things that they killed, a ban on in state tuition
for illegals, e verify and e verify something that the

(02:22):
Texas Senate passed that the Texas House didn't even take
up or have a hearing for, so a number of
really key losses. While also I do think it's worth
recognizing that we were able to get a significant amount
of some strong wins that had not been gotten in
previous sessions, and I think that is due to Conservatives
upending the system a little bit last year.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Look, I had to put you on spot on only
up about thirty seconds left. I want to get a
quick thought from you on the THC bill that's supported
by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Do you believe that Governor
Abbott is going to sign that bill because there's a
lot of opposition, in particular from veterans groups.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
There is a lot of opposition. I do think that
if I had to put money on it, I would
say Abbot's more likely to sign it than not. I
don't think anything's guaranteed. Also, one reason he might sign
it is because significant work was done by Tom Oliverson
and Tony Tinderholt to work with the Lieutenant governor to
actually expand teacup so that veterans could get access to

(03:20):
THCHC for traumatic brain injuries and chronic pain, and so
that they would have access to that, but just in
a safer way than having it in every single gas station.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Nice sir, Thanks as always appreciated. Look to see US
host and political consultant