Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven, twenty two hour time you're in Houston's more News.
How did it come to this? Pretty simple? It's exactly
how the Republican leadership in the Texas House planned. I
think Brandon Waltens joins us at Texas Scorecards. Is anybody
really that surprised Brandon that there's a lot of bills
that just aren't going to make their way out of
the Texas House.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, you know, if you've been paying attention since the
session started in January, you shouldn't be. And that's because
you know, even back then in January February, we were
talking about how the House had been, you know, taking
four or five day weekends, had been slow to actually
start the process. They weren't actually passing bills until you know,
(00:43):
about halfway through the session, which is you know, it's
one hundred and forty day session every two years, so
there's a limited window to get this stuff done. And
now we're in a position here where we're four weeks
away from the end of the session. We've got less
than a month to go. We're starting to hit some deadlines. Next, first,
I believe, is the deadline for the House to pass
(01:05):
House bills, and then there's a little bit longer for
them the pass bills that come over from the Senate,
and there's still a lot of priorities of you know,
not just the Republican Party of Texas, but of conservative
members that still look at this point like they're not
likely to get a voter arm.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah. Well, the problem is the leadership in the Texas
House meet the new boss same as the old boss.
As far as the Speaker goes, I guess maybe he
thought that getting the school choice taken care of would
get the governor and the Lieutenant governor off of his back.
Is that enough? Where do you think we're gonna end
up with a special session if they don't get things
in gear.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, it's it's tough to tell right now. Obviously, school
choice was a big issue for the governor and something
you know, they had the signing this last weekend and
you had the governor, Lieutenant governor and Speaker Dustin Burrows
all there, and so that's certainly, you know, I don't
want to minimize that. That was a big priority for him, certainly,
But there are a lot of other issue is there
are things like property tax relief, which we haven't seen
move yet in the Texas House. There's issues like dealing
(02:06):
with immigration, things like he verify, ending in state tuition
for illegals, and then you've got some issues like ending
taxpayer funded lobbing that the chairman of the State Affairs
Committee in the House last week told a member, according
to that member, that he wasn't even going to give
it a hearing. And so there's a number of these
issues that are still languishing. Probably the next big one
(02:31):
for on the governor's list is bail reform, something he's
been in Houston talking about and something he's sort of
made his big issue now that school Choices has been
signed into law, and I think that's going to be
the next big battle that we really see happen in
the Texas House.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Okay, well we found in the past if it's something
that the governor really wants, he's willing to call special session.
We'll see if he does it this time around, if
he decides, if he decides the bail bomb thing is
enough to call special session on, it's pretty clear, is
it not. The Democrats really still controlled the Texas House,
and it's really an amazing thing to watch how we've
(03:09):
gone from one speaker to the next speaker, and it's
pretty much the same modus operandi. We've got Republicans who
are supposedly in charge, who have the majority, who should
be running all the committees, but in reality they're really not.
They are allowing the Democrats to have more control than
they should have. What's the reason behind that? Why haven't
(03:31):
the Republicans coalesced around each other and just taking control
of the Texas House?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Because what we've seen is there are you know, a minority,
but a significant group of Republicans that are willing to
join with Democrats in order to sort of create a
uniparty coalition. We saw this happen with the speakers race
earlier this year. You had about thirty Republicans joining the
six year so Democrats in the Texas House to make
a majority, leaving the majority of republic is actually out
(04:00):
of the process. And whenever that happens, you know that
that was obviously just one vote, that was the first
phot of the session. But what we've seen since then,
I think is a reflection of that, which is that, ultimately,
I think health leadership realizes that they they are there
because of the Democrats. That's their constituency, and so you know,
(04:22):
they sort of have to do a little bit of
a walk, a little bit of a tight rope of
you know, addressing you know, maybe his few conservative priorities
as they can, but enough to try to play kate
maybe different groups of people without losing their Democrat base
of support in the House. And ultimately those things are
at odds with each other, and it's time for leadership.
(04:45):
You know, they're going to need to decide who do
they want to please want the Democrats of the Republicans.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, amen, Thank you, sir as. Always appreciated. Brandon Waltons
with Texas Scorecard. It's seven twenty seven. It is
Seven, twenty two hour time you're in Houston's more News.
How did it come to this? Pretty simple? It's exactly
how the Republican leadership in the Texas House planned. I
think Brandon Waltens joins us at Texas Scorecards. Is anybody
really that surprised Brandon that there's a lot of bills
that just aren't going to make their way out of
the Texas House.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, you know, if you've been paying attention since the
session started in January, you shouldn't be. And that's because
you know, even back then in January February, we were
talking about how the House had been, you know, taking
four or five day weekends, had been slow to actually
start the process. They weren't actually passing bills until you know,
(00:43):
about halfway through the session, which is you know, it's
one hundred and forty day session every two years, so
there's a limited window to get this stuff done. And
now we're in a position here where we're four weeks
away from the end of the session. We've got less
than a month to go. We're starting to hit some deadlines. Next, first,
I believe, is the deadline for the House to pass
(01:05):
House bills, and then there's a little bit longer for
them the pass bills that come over from the Senate,
and there's still a lot of priorities of you know,
not just the Republican Party of Texas, but of conservative
members that still look at this point like they're not
likely to get a voter arm.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah. Well, the problem is the leadership in the Texas
House meet the new boss same as the old boss.
As far as the Speaker goes, I guess maybe he
thought that getting the school choice taken care of would
get the governor and the Lieutenant governor off of his back.
Is that enough? Where do you think we're gonna end
up with a special session if they don't get things
in gear.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, it's it's tough to tell right now. Obviously, school
choice was a big issue for the governor and something
you know, they had the signing this last weekend and
you had the governor, Lieutenant governor and Speaker Dustin Burrows
all there, and so that's certainly, you know, I don't
want to minimize that. That was a big priority for him, certainly,
But there are a lot of other issue is there
are things like property tax relief, which we haven't seen
move yet in the Texas House. There's issues like dealing
(02:06):
with immigration, things like he verify, ending in state tuition
for illegals, and then you've got some issues like ending
taxpayer funded lobbing that the chairman of the State Affairs
Committee in the House last week told a member, according
to that member, that he wasn't even going to give
it a hearing. And so there's a number of these
issues that are still languishing. Probably the next big one
(02:31):
for on the governor's list is bail reform, something he's
been in Houston talking about and something he's sort of
made his big issue now that school Choices has been
signed into law, and I think that's going to be
the next big battle that we really see happen in
the Texas House.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Okay, well we found in the past if it's something
that the governor really wants, he's willing to call special session.
We'll see if he does it this time around, if
he decides, if he decides the bail bomb thing is
enough to call special session on, it's pretty clear, is
it not. The Democrats really still controlled the Texas House,
and it's really an amazing thing to watch how we've
(03:09):
gone from one speaker to the next speaker, and it's
pretty much the same modus operandi. We've got Republicans who
are supposedly in charge, who have the majority, who should
be running all the committees, but in reality they're really not.
They are allowing the Democrats to have more control than
they should have. What's the reason behind that? Why haven't
(03:31):
the Republicans coalesced around each other and just taking control
of the Texas House?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Because what we've seen is there are you know, a minority,
but a significant group of Republicans that are willing to
join with Democrats in order to sort of create a
uniparty coalition. We saw this happen with the speakers race
earlier this year. You had about thirty Republicans joining the
six year so Democrats in the Texas House to make
a majority, leaving the majority of republic is actually out
(04:00):
of the process. And whenever that happens, you know that
that was obviously just one vote, that was the first
phot of the session. But what we've seen since then,
I think is a reflection of that, which is that, ultimately,
I think health leadership realizes that they they are there
because of the Democrats. That's their constituency, and so you know,
(04:22):
they sort of have to do a little bit of
a walk, a little bit of a tight rope of
you know, addressing you know, maybe his few conservative priorities
as they can, but enough to try to play kate
maybe different groups of people without losing their Democrat base
of support in the House. And ultimately those things are
at odds with each other, and it's time for leadership.
(04:45):
You know, they're going to need to decide who do
they want to please want the Democrats of the Republicans.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, amen, Thank you, sir as. Always appreciated. Brandon Waltons
with Texas Scorecard. It's seven twenty seven. It is
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