August 19, 2025 • 38 mins
Texas Tribune politics reporters Kayla Guo and Renzo Downey join the TribCast to forecast what will happen in the second, extra-special special session, now that the Democrats have returned from their quorum break.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the trib
Cast for Tuesday, August nineteenth, which is both my mother's
birthday and Bill Clinton's birthday, which I know because it
is my mother's birthday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Is your mother, Bill Clinton?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
My mother is Bill Clinton?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Twist?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
No, that's a growing up in the Clinton era and
having a I thought that was a very fun fact.
Less relevant now than when I was eight. But anyway,
we have a lot to talk about this week. I
am elean Or Klebanoff Law and politics reporter, joined as
always by my co host, Matthew Watkins. Matthew, how's it going.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm you know, I'm a little grumpy, but maybe that
I'll lead to a happy podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Just sat in First day of School traffic.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was going to say that the first day of school. Yeah,
I was gonna ask if your kids, I guess maybe
your daughter are they old enough to be affected by
the cell phone band?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
So my daughter does not have a cell phone, she
does have an Apple Watch, and so right before I
dropped her off, she had to put her Apple Watch
in her backpack because they're not allowed to wear the
Apple Watch anymore. And I was like, you were one
hundred percent going to lose this in the first week
of school. So if anyone finds an Apple Watch around
(01:32):
Anne Richard's High school and Austin, just drop it off
of the text tribune.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah great, And also like, how will she know how
many steps she took?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So yeah, her step going to take it. The Texas legislature,
I don't know when you think and I think about
that like kind of I'm like, that's the sort of
thing that Texas legilature should be keeping themselves busy with,
Like should we have cell phones in schools? The rest
of this seems like a little bit of a sideshow,
but that's what we're here to talk about. We are
joined this week by two very special guests. We have
(02:03):
Kayla Lake Saint Charles is not Chicago who and uh
Renzo We will let him talk about the srec Downey. Thanks,
thanks you both for joining.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah. So, as I was telling Kyle and Renzo before
we got started, I'm going to try to summarize everything
that has happened in the last ten weeks in two minutes,
all right, so then we can talk about times where
things go from here.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Kay Ready, set go June.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Second, the Texas Legislature gabbles out siney die. Everyone starts
making their summer plants. Governor Abbott veto's the THHC bill.
Everyone cancels their summer plans. Then we start hearing rumors
that President Trump is asking Texas to redraw the legislative maps.
Is tech is Governor Abbitt gonna put this on the
special session call? This is the question. Then July fourth, devastating,
(02:53):
horrible Hill Country floods, one of the worst tragedies the
state has ever seen. Then Governor Abbott puts out the
call it flooding response. It also has congressional mid decade
congressional redistricting, and it has a bunch of other conservative
priorities on it. Immediately Democrats start saying, we might have
to quorum break. We have a bunch of hearings on redistricting.
People are very upset about it. We see the map.
(03:16):
It adds five additional seats for Republicans. It gets voted
out of the committee. Democrats go on the lamb, they
leave for Chicago and other places. They break quorum. They
stay out for about two weeks. Governor Abbott a Churnyhynal
compacton say that they are going to try to remove
them from their seats. Bunch of legal brujaha proceeds. Then
(03:39):
they both chambers adjourn. California says they're going to redistrict.
Democrats return yesterday, say we did it. Republicans say we
did it. We're back to Special Session number two with
the maps already passed out of both committees.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Nice. How do you do under sub two minutes?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Amazing? You want to just talk about.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Bill Clinton was born? Did I miss any major high points?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I think there's just you have all heard me talk
about this in the newsroom. I think there's this one
other thing to point out, right, which is the how
the timing of this with regard to the floods too.
There's been a lot of talk about Greg Abbott, you know,
being accused of using the floods as a political football
to to force the redistricting and things like that. Of course,
Abbott had called a special session, or at least announced
(04:30):
that a special session was coming and detailed you know
that it was very clear that redistricting was going to
be on the ballot before these floods actually happened. So
that's like a whole other aspect of this that I
think is just worth like including in that timeline too.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yes, I think he had not formally said redistricting would
be on the call before the floods, but.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
We all knew it was going to be.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
It seems likely.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, it seemed likely, but it was sort of
an open question. I mean, to be clear in hindsight,
like of course one hundred percent they were going to
to the call, but it was like, oh, is he
really going to do this? And now of course it's like.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, he was. He always knows.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think he's safe to say he would have done
it without the floods, but certainly the floods enabled were
like lowered the political well, there was still a lot
of political pushback to it, but someone lowered the political
pushback into doing that. So that's where we are. I
do want to talk about sort of where things go next,
but Kayla, maybe you can start. You were in the
house yesterday as they triumphantly returned question mark or question
(05:35):
mark on triumphant, if you know, if you ask, what
was the vibe in the chamber.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
I mean there was just a huge crowd, right outside
of the chamber that gave them a real warm welcome,
a lot of cheers. Like you said, they kind of
returned presenting as heroes, although obviously not like six hours later,
they did pass the new map out of committee.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
I mean, the floor was pretty quick.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Speaker of Burrows was really like, enough with the name
calling and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Time for action. Let's get a move on.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Also, you will have a dps ES court around the
clock until we vote this smap out in two days.
So yeah, I mean, I think some wladmakers made like
made light of their dpsscore people were like, I think
Renzo tweeted Tony Rose was exchanging phone numbers with her
s core Ramon Romero was sort of like, oh, we're
going to become good buddies.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Obviously not everyone.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Reacted that way to their ES court, but yeah, and
I think Republicans were like, let's just get this done.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I want to go home.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And of course Nicole Collier does not sign the paper
and accept her escort, leaving her stuck in the Texas House.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
A representative from Fort Worth.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yes, as people, it kind of the House livestream kind
of becomes like bald Eagle cam and people are just
watching her like wander around the house floor, which I
found entertaining.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, I used to when I worked in a public
radio station Louisville, and when we did our fun drives,
we would always put up on the big screen this
camera that watched senior Dogs and it was very sweet.
Had sort of a similar vibe. Not a commentary on
represent of Collier's age, of course, but you know, just
sort of watching a lot of nothing rindo. What is
(07:24):
the vibe from Republicans going into this, Well, I think
before the Democrats actually came back, there was starting to
be some talk of like, maybe we should punish.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
These Democrats a little bit more. I mean, that's pretty
I mean this is full discleasure. This is my first
quorum break. But I think when there's a quorum break,
those kind of sentiments tend to come out where like,
you know, we need to stop this from happening ever again.
And you know, you had people like Represent Jeff Leach
from North Texas saying that maybe we should go for
(07:56):
more congressional seats, kind of echoing what Abbott had said.
You know, maybe we go for state house or state
senate redistricting. And I think right now, that seems unlikely.
Although you know, Abbott was asked about that at his
last press conference in the Capitol and he was like, well,
you know it's on the table if you know, they
don't play along. That's me paraphrasing, But.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, it doesn't really seem like there's been a lot
of chatter. Doesn't seem like yet there's been any action
towards that, right.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Right, Yeah, there's been absolutely zero indication that, like, you know,
that's actually happening. I think what may be more likely
is legislative punishment and that things that maybe weren't going
to pass before will pass now. So like maybe bathroom
bill passes, maybe abortion pill bill passes. So yeah, although
(08:50):
that one seems like a bit more of a stretch
to me, just because Republicans also don't like that. Some
Republicans don't like that.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, it definitely feels like there are like the ways
that lawmakers talk about punitive measures that like you know,
we're going to redraw seats or we're gonna you know,
evict them from their offices, or we're going to put
them in jail, and then there's like the actual ways
that you can sort of enact retribution that are like
much more subtle, but also for like Democrats who've been
fighting against some of these other bills for so long,
(09:19):
are pretty devastating to just like Ramrod in this like
conservative list of priorities.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
The other thing here is that you know, Burrows may
now have the seventy six votes to be re elected
speaker from within the Republican Caucus, but that doesn't mean
that he has the one hundred votes to pass constitutional amendments.
So it may seem like, you know, he now has
this mandate, but he still has to play along with
the Democrats next session, so he can't you go too
(09:47):
far punishing them.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And importantly, you can't pass a bill to ban quorum.
You can't get rid of quorum breaking. You can't let
me says, you can't lower the quorum, which I've been
hearing from a lot of people right like, we got
to find a way to not allow quorum breaks anymore.
You cannot lower the quorum count without a conscitial amendment,
which would require one hundred votes. So unlikely, despite all
(10:10):
of the big talk of the last two weeks, unlikely
to be our last quorum break, unless you know the
tex Supreme Court rules that these members can be expelled,
but even that seems increasingly a long shot now that
they're back.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Do we know has anything changed in the Supreme Court case?
I mean, do do we have a sense of where
that's going to go?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Now?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Nothing has changed in terms of rulings. We've gotten this
timeline that extends, you know, past Labor Day in terms
of waiting for arguments. Certainly, I think there's a sense
that the Court might just declare up moot now that
they're back a turn in general. Ken Paxson was tweeting
yesterday as if that is not what he would like.
I mean, that would require, you know, probably one of
the parties to ask for it to be declared moot,
(10:53):
and he seemed to indicate like he wants to see
this through. I don't know that. I don't know that
we've heard the same sentiment from Governor Abbott, but maybe,
you know, maybe we will. But certainly, as we talked
about on last week's episode, a long shot legal case.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Okay, so it's time for me to ask the question.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I've been sitting in traffic for the last forty five minutes,
so I'll ask it. What was the point of this
like we the Democrats leave, they're saying they're blocking this
terrible map, and here we are thirty days later and
we're in the exact same place. Maybe some bills, as
y'all mentioned, that might not have passed in the first
legislative session will pass. You know, we have heard things
(11:32):
like we brought national attention to this redistricting fight. But
the Tribune reported well before the quorum break that Gavin
Newsom was, you know, or allies of Gavin Newsom were
already convening meetings to do this sort of like tit
for tat redistricting. They said something along the lines of
when they started to indicate they were coming back, that
you know, we need to come back and you know,
(11:52):
create a legislative record that will you know, call into
question and allow this to be challenged in court or
strengthen the challenge of court, something that would have been
necessary had it had passed in the first session. And
you know, you don't have a legislative record if the
House isn't there. I mean, the only thing that seems
to have changed between then and now is that the
House Democrats have you know, brought in a million dollars
(12:15):
from beteo'rourke, like, what was the point of this.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Well, I think that.
Speaker 6 (12:23):
Yes, Gavin Usim was already saying he was going to
try to get California to redraw their lines, but I
don't think that the national attention was necessarily on it.
So I do think they are right in that they
brought the national conversation to Texas and redistricting.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And I also think that.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
You had a Keem Jeffries in the Texas capital meeting
with Democrats.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You had.
Speaker 6 (12:54):
DNC chair in Chicago meeting with Democrats. I think that
there's now a whole lot of attention from the National
Party on Texas that they have been lacking for years.
And they've been saying like, hey, DNC needs to pay
(13:15):
attention to us, and now they're paying attention, So that
could be one thing that they're seeing.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
I think another thing I heard Geen Mussey yesterday was
it gave them time to evaluate the legal case that
they could bring against these maps and in this map,
and in the past two weeks they've sort of come
to the conclusion that they have a really strong challenge
to be brought, which is why roughly half of them
(13:42):
are back to now times. Of the essence, if they
want to kill this map in the court before the midterm,
then the faster it gets past, the faster they can
bring this legal challenge. And so I don't know how
long it takes to come up with a legal challenge.
Two weeks, but that's no.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
They have already asked in the ongoing case against the
twenty twenty one maps, some groups have filed have issued
a filing to the court proactively saying once these do pass,
we would like a preliminary junction blocking it, which is
again a little bit of posturing ahead of you know,
the thing actually happening, but like, you know, it gives
them this I think part of it, right, it is
(14:22):
optics of like if this happens so fast, people don't
even know it was happening, right, Like this could have
theoretically passed and like a matter of weeks and you
get people kind of upset at the capitol. But beyond that,
like not it's really hard to make people think about,
understand or care about redistricting.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, all right, Well, you know where politics is an
attention economy, I guess, and I suppose this brought a
little bit more of attention. It does feel to me
a little bit like the victory over vouchers in twenty
twenty three, where it's just like we stopped it, actually,
and now five million dollars aren't coming to our schools,
and they're just going to come back and they're going
(14:58):
to pass it the next time.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
They they pulled together, I mean, and.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
They're going to replace some like moderate incumbents with some
really hard.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Line exactly, and the legislature is going to be changed
because of it. Right, And obviously that's maybe not the
case this time, at least from who's in the legislature,
but it might be the case in terms of how
much power democrats have and how they're treated in the chamber.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, I mean, I think And I wasn't here in
two thousand and three, but I talked to some of
the people who were involved in that qure and break cale.
I know you did twenty twenty one, two three, three, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
the last mid decade REGISTRICTA which like I guess I
had not realized like some of that history as well,
which was like very similar, right they left the state,
they but then the maps ended up passing. But a
(15:41):
lot of people involved in that felt like, well, we
brought attention to Tom Dealay's plan to like redraw maps
everywhere and like made it clear that like this would
not just like kind of sail through. We were like
a blocker to this larger national plan. And it's like,
if that's the framing of what they've done here, I
think that's there. There's an argument there. Yes, the more nationally,
(16:02):
I think the like framing of like we did it,
we're heroes, a little bit of a hurt herself, Kayla.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I think that's right.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
And I also think that split is probably within the
Democratic Caucus too. I mean two dozen or so, maybe
slightly under of them are still out of state.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You know, I don't.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
I think we saw a lot of statements from those
people who were out of stay. I think we saw
TMF Jessica Gonzalez both saying like, this is our only
tool as a minority party is to continue denying quorum
and so we're going to stay out of state. And
I think the flip side of the people who came
back is, you know, let's just get this battle to
court already and and fight it out there, because we're
under no illusion that we can we have the votes
(16:39):
to defeat this map on the floor and that we
can stay away forever. So I think that that's split
of what was the point and what's the goal is?
You know, it's not just among us. I think it's
among Democrats too.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
As and then the lone only other person who has
a different strategy, which is Nicole colly or stay on
the floor. Yes, as we were joking like they couldn't
get them on the floor and now she won't leave
the floor. They're like, we cannot figure out where you're
coming from. But you know, it's getting a ton of attention,
So it's an attention economy.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, I mean in terms of like we are now,
let's forecast ahead a week or so, We're going to
have new congressional maps. There will be a legal challenge,
as we've seen before, those challenges take forever to sort
of move through the court system unless something sort of
unusual happens and they managed to get an injunction blocking it.
We will have five new Republican We'll have five new
(17:27):
seats that will seem to favor Republicans in the twenty
twenty six midterms. Kayla, can you sort of talk about
you know, the position that puts you know, some Democrats
in I mean we're saying maybe a Caasar dogg It
this fight.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, put them in an awkward position.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
I think Tazar dogg It being the primary interesting primary
to come among Democrats. I mean it kind of leaves
Julie Johnson untethered. Al Green's district is like just not
a district anymore at all. But I mean al Green
is somebody like Doggett who has said that they're you know,
(18:08):
committed to running again, which again sets up these weird
little primaries that I think will sort of reflect these
broader clashes within the Party of experience and age versus
you know, youth and a new fresh face and strategy. So, yeah,
that's going to be pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Your thoughts on the weird fights we're going to see.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
Yeah, there's also that special election to replace oh yeah,
Sheila Jackson Lee and then Sylvester Turner. You know that's
going to be somebody's gonna be elected to serve that
district for one year and then who knows what's going
to happen to you know, where you live within that district,
you may have that new representative, you may have Al Green.
(18:54):
I don't know if he runs in that district or
you know what ends up happening. But that's that's a
lot of turnover for those residents who've had the same
leadership for quite a while and.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Like such a sort of historic district in so many ways. Matthew,
I know you're dying to talk about it. What does
this mean in terms of representation?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I mean, it's pretty I think it's pretty dark, right,
I mean, this practice of it happening in both states, right,
you know, I think Democrats would argue, and they would
argue correctly, that Republicans have started this battle. But what
it's going to mean is that in places Lake Texas,
in places like California, people are going to have much
(19:41):
less of an opportunity to decide who represents them. Right,
it's being determined ahead of time by politicians wanting to
preserve power and you know, strength of their party as
opposed to what our democracy is supposed to do, which
is people are accountable to the voters. And really, you know,
if when you move the when you make the only
(20:04):
primaries that matter are the only elections that matter the primaries.
And by the way, the primaries, as you mentioned, are
going to be super interesting and fun, yes, but it
leads to a boring general election, which means essentially you're
only accountable to the primary voters, who are a very
tiny proportion of the electorate, and that skews everything. It
skews the incentive structure, right. The primary electorate often are
(20:27):
more prone to these attention seeking behaviors that that you know,
the hardcore in the parties seem to reward. And it
just doesn't seem to me like it sets up a
great system for good governance, which you know, I think
is supposed to be the goal here, but you know,
it seems in a lot of ways we've sort of
(20:50):
lost the plot.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I mean, certainly I think these like and again it
happens we've like created this bad system across the country.
I mean, there are some states that are sort of
doing this better and have you know, non parson commissions
and things like that, but generally our system is like
a race to the bottom, and like your only most
candidate's only real threat is from someone more extreme within
(21:13):
their own party, and that's and in I mean all
these districts that they've drawn, and this has been the
case for a long time, even whether they're blue or red.
Districts can be one almost entirely by appealing to one party,
which means like there's no even putting aside like the
primaries or whatever, but there's no like need to do
consensus building or coalition building or like even just like
(21:33):
the political work of like persuading someone to believe your
vers like that your view of the world matters, like
you can just mostly assuming you appease your base sale
to a.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Victory, right exactly, and so your your only focus becomes
appeas of your base, so that you don't you know,
get that right, get that challenge right?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, yes, it's not great. There's another side show happening
in Texas right now that is similarly about representation in
some ways, Renzo, this is your time to shine. What
if you had to summarize in two minutes what is
going on with the start by what is the SRAC,
and what is going on?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
TuS up for that? But can you do? Yeah under
started star.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
So the first question was what is the SRAC. That's
the State Republican Executive Committee. It's basically the governing board
of the Texas GOP. And back in twenty twenty four,
I guess a little over a year ago now, at
the state convention, they adopted not they being the SRAC,
but the Texas GOP convention, a whole bunch of delegates.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
This is like thousands of people.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
They adopted this rule that says that no, if you
are censured under a certain process where you commit you know,
three strikes against the legislative priorities or parts of the
party principles, then you could be it for censure and
even removal from the primary ballot. And that has got
(23:07):
a lot of people concerned, and you know what the
Texas GOP may be trying to do here. I think
that you have to remember that this started immediately after
the you know, the Ken Paxton impeachment. After the primaries.
I think there's a lot of anxiety within the you know,
(23:31):
the GOP primary base that their house, the State House
was not going to be as conservative as I think
it ended up being. And so you had this campaign
to try to hold House members accountable. And that has
(23:52):
carried over until now where people are kind of happy
with what Burrows is doing and his leadership.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And all.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
And so you have this whole framework that's been in
place in this whole movement, Like the train was already
rolling on this, and so it's kind of gotten to
the point now where you have the the State Republican
Executive Committee. They not have this process that they've outlined,
and yes, they want to hold members accountable, but like,
(24:22):
we don't actually.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Want to boot people from the ballot.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
They don't want to own and like start and also
I assume start a giant legal process of or like
some legal blowback of can you remove someone from the ballot?
Speaker 6 (24:34):
It would come from that, yes, and you know, millions
of dollars and defending that yes. So in the state
party already being kind of broke.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know, sure, right, that's very good summary.
Speaker 6 (24:46):
Yeah, well I haven't even gotten into what happened most recently.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yes, now two minutes again.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Yeah, So, for the first time in this whole reforming
of the Texas GOP that you've had in the past
few years, they decided that they're going to have this
Legislative Task Force report that was going to be basically
(25:12):
a scorecard of the session, like what were the good
things that members did?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
What were the bad things?
Speaker 6 (25:16):
And the subtext throughout all this was that the list
of bad things are going to be the central offenses,
and so you had it was months long process to research.
They were going through the House journals, they were going
through public statements that members had made, and you had
(25:37):
this segment of the sor rec that was really trying
to create this list of every single thing that was
done wrong. And then you had this other segment that
is that had been kind of more like, hey, these
are our friends, like they've been playing along.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
House calendars Committee Chair Todd Hunter.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
He doesn't have to help us, but he's been helping us.
And so there's kind of this like split brand thing
that's been going on within the SEC. And I think
what ended up happening this past weekend was they had
added in a few extra.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Strikes in the.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Report and that by doing that, they ended up roping
almost half of the the GOP caucus into potential censer
territory and.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Potentially being removed, not being allout to run again. Essentially.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
Yeah, so that happened. I think everybody freaked out. They're like,
maybe we should pump the brakes on this. They delayed
the report by an extra week, they gave members a
chance to respond, and in those responses, there were some
of those items that they've targeted, be like, hey, you
should back off on this, and ultimately they did back off.
It took a they had to revote.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
On one of them.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
I won't get into what happened there, but they voted
one way and then they came back to the next stay
voted the other way. And by the end of it,
you ended up with only Ken King, how State Affairs
Committee chair with like over a dozen centrable offenses and
those are mostly for holding up GOP priorities and the
(27:15):
State Affairs Committee, which is like been the bottleneck that
has kind of always been the bottleneck, right. And you
also had a former Speaker Dave Feelin, you know, getting
three strikes, and you had Senator Robert Nichols getting five
or six strikes, but he's already retiring. Yeah, so you
kind of ended up with like, oh, well, now all that,
(27:37):
who is going to get centered.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
And like, are we even going to see this through
for those two right, like are Feeling and King and
really try to strip them from the ballot. Is that
like going to end up even happening.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
Like the they could try to remove them from the ballot,
but that's like the most extreme option, that is the
upper bounds of what the SRAC could.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
So they might just give him a slap on the
wrist and be like.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
And they would only do that if the county parties
asked them to. Okay, So for all.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
This like there, I mean it is it's like the Democrats.
Of course, I have spent a lot of the last
couple of weeks being like bemoaning their lack of options
and like the challenges being the minority party Republicans proving
you can make even being the majority party very complicated
and hard and not that fun. Like they're like really
trying to start this internal war against each other that
(28:27):
they don't nobody even seems to really want.
Speaker 6 (28:30):
Yeah, and I think what you saw a couple of
weeks ago where the SRAC was coming to town to
have this meeting where they were going to adopt this report,
and then they ended up going to the governor's mansion
and they met with Dustin Burss. That's the first time
they had met with the speaker, and he was there,
Todd Hunter, I mentioned the Coulendar's committee chair.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
He was there.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Mitch Little, a freshman representative who has kind of been
an anti leadership force but also now has been a
little bit complimentary of what Burrows has been doing. You know,
he was there, So I think that's that gives you
a good picture of where the state of the Texas
(29:14):
GOP is at right now, given the quorum break and
everything else, that has kind of helped put internal stuff aside.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Well, that's what I was going to ask in cale
maybe have a sense of this from Republicans, like how
much has this quorum break served to unify Republicans.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
I think it has absolutely unified Republicans. I talked to
Tony Tinderholt and Tom Olivers in yesterday and they're like,
Democrats have done a great job of getting us all
on the same page. They were both like, yeah, we've
both been you know, sort of in the anti leadership contingent.
We've had disagreements with Speaker Burroughs. But they both really
commended the way that Burrows handled this. I asked if
(29:51):
there was a speaker's race today there like he would
get the entire Republican caucus. And the other thing they
mentioned in terms of sort of what run to have
alluded to earlier was, you know, they're absolutely determined to
pass every single thing on the call and then some
more which Speaker Burrows.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Had also.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
Sort of said I think last week, and you know,
they were like if Democrats had any leverage going into
the first special session or any like seat at the table,
they don't anymore. And so I think Republican Republicans are
very much on the same page now in opposition to
the Corn Break.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
It's pretty amazing what Burrows has done. I mean, I
feel like I've said this multiple times on this show
over the months, but but to go from being sort
of the representative of that loathed leadership faction in the House,
something that like multiple speakers have not been able to
sort of shake off and face that sort of intense blowback,
(30:50):
you know, session after session after session. Do you have
kind of flipped this in one session from highly controversial
like was his you know, know, ascension to speaker even
legitimate under the House Caucus rules, to where he stands
now where you say it's essentially unanimous in support. You
(31:10):
just kind of have to tip your hat. I don't
think I thought it was possible to have pulled that off,
and it seems, at least for now that he has.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That's what I was gonna say they're a fickle butch
you know, politicians writ large, so you know, it's a
long time till the next speakers.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
But at the same time, even though he's sort of
consolidated his caucus behind him, I don't think we've seen
Democrats sort of really condemn him either. You know, like
even Ramon Romero yesterday was like, I don't blame Burrows
for any of this. You know, this is all on
Governor Abbot's hands, and Burrows has even though he's been
aggressive and harsh in trying to get Democrats back, which
(31:49):
is something that the Republicans have been you know, very
appreciative of and happy about, he's also, at least in
my ears, sort of struck this tone of you know,
the minority party always has a role to play in
the House, you know, they always they have a right
to you know, have their say, and but also like
the majority is going to prevail. So you've seen him
(32:11):
sort of manage to walk this fine line that hasn't
seemed to make anyone really unhappy. In facts, like everyone
seems pretty satisfied.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, I mean even just like his excuse me, even
though like his tone in the chamber has been like
through this whole thing has been like pretty like uh
almost like I mean, amused is not the right word,
but almost just like we're gonna get them back, guys.
Like it's i mean it's leadership in a sense, right,
like what supports his politics or not, but like it's
like he's basically being like you guys can like scream
and bang your you know, feet on the ground, and
(32:43):
you guys can be so mad over here, and like
I'm just like gonna be like we just got to
get quorum. We're just gonna do what we got to
do to get quorum. Even now with this Nicole Collier thing,
like you know, the name you're hearing flowing around is
like Charlie Garren for you know, as the House chair
of the House Administration Committee, like as the one who
sort of is making calls. It's like, it's interesting that's
not sticking to Burrows.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
I think it was one of y'all who kind of
described Burrows's tone yesterday is I'm not mad, I'm just
just disappointed.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
I think that was that was a stuff on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, Yeah, but yeah, no, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Work credits, Yeah, shout out to that stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah no, but It's true, it's just very like letting
everyone else be like having the meltdowns kind of Yeah,
it's I'm sure, you know, he probably is feeling pretty
good about how this is all played out. But again,
it is a long time till the twenty twenty seven
speakers race, and god knows what can happen twenty twenty seven,
(33:41):
we will have a whole other primary in them, or
a whole other congressional race in the middle of that.
You know, our congressional delegation could look very different.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
We will have.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Major statewide races, open primaries for the first time in
several of those. Going to be an exciting stretch of politics.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
I'm really curious, and I don't expect any of y'all
to know the answer to this, because I don't think
anyone knows the answer yet. But I'm really curious about
what this means for the long term with regard to
a dis routine, right, Like, is this a one time
flash in the pan because Donald Trump told them to
do it, and nobody else really seemed like they wanted
to do it, and even California doesn't really seem like
(34:20):
they want to do it, but they feel like they're
going to do it because the Republicans are doing it
in Texas, and are we entering a new era where
you know, states are manipulating their maps every two or
four years to try to upset the dynamic, or is
this going to be like a one time thing that
we've moved beyond.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Fingers crossed for one time thing. I'm just gonna go
ahead and put my vote in that camp. But I
think I do think some of that depends on how
twenty twenty six goes.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
If this blows up in either party's face, but I
think particularly the Republicans face, I think there will be
a lot more hesitancy to like embark on this again.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
But one of the things that it is done.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
We've talked about this in the past, right, is that
the reason the Republicans drew the maps that were currently
drawn was because of incumbent protection, right, And they've done
a pretty good job of drawing maps that I think
for the that is going to allow them to safely
gain seats in twenty twenty six. But what happens is
over five to ten years, populations shift, and you know,
(35:23):
suburbs pop up, and you know, all those different types
of things and things that once looked safe get less safe.
Particularly if you change the margin from a forty percentage
point to a twenty percentage point, it's a narrower gap
to go. So I don't think it's inconceivable that in
twenty thirty, for instance, you know, some of these seats
that they drew will become might become more competitive. And
(35:46):
what do they do then? That's I think the question
is do they just allow that to happen and say like, ah,
these are the maps we drew, or do we end
up back in all the same place again.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Well, I mean they're constitutionally required to redraw the maps
in twenty thirty one, right, right, So they definitely will
redraw it then, and it'll be interesting to see what
lessons they've taken from this.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
Basically the point I was going to make, is that
it's a shorter window that they have to worry about
the Dumby matter taken effect.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Even than two thousand and three when they did the
mid decade last time, then they had, you know, seven
years to see how it played out.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
But I think I've heard even from Republicans who are like,
I mean, yeah, we have the margin in Texas and
we've won enough in the past election to be able
to do this. Like, I don't know that I've heard
anyone really describe it as a long term strategy. It's
a short term keep a majority in the House in
twenty twenty six, let Trump finish out his term, pass
all the stuff he wants.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
To pass, and then that I think people will.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
Argue about whether that is generally popular, But if you're
of the belief that it is, then that allows you to,
you know, get Jade Vans into office after Trump and
that sort of that is the long term goal is
not necessarily to you know, continue padding the majority, but
it's to set off this sort of domino.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Ef Yeah, but there there was once a time where
corn breaking was considered sort of the nuclear option, and
you'll do it. And now we're in this cycle where
you know, it's like, oh, well you did in twenty
twenty one, why don't you do it now? You know,
And like it just sort of it feels like another
kind of weapon has been placed on the table and
like eventually someone's going to pick it up.
Speaker 6 (37:17):
And I think what's fascinating is that nobody likes gerrymandering, right,
But when you can say the other party's doing it. Yeah,
then this is a defensive measure.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Ye. People are all game for it.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Right, and it becomes a tool, like I mean the
idea that like people have been sort of dangling this
out there, not of we're gonna yes, like, oh, we
could redraw worst congressional maps for Democrats, which would endanger incumbents,
but we could redraw house maps, we could redraw Senate maps.
They have a lot more flexibility on that, like they can.
There are these tools now on the table, and it's
like a loaded gun sitting in the middle of the table,
(37:51):
and uh really the only thing that would like, you know,
sort of disable that is what we did see like
after the Obama which is that Republicans did, which is
like shift the dynamics of state houses. Right, Republicans control
a lot of state houses that control a lot of maps.
Democrats want to unload that gun win some seats in Texas.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Oh, that's gonna become a lot harder, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah in the Congress. Yeah, yeah, right, yes, exactly. All right,
Well that is it for this week's episode. Thank you
guys so much for joining us. Renzo Kyla, We're gonna
fore you guys back to the wilds of the Chambers.
Uh see what Nicole Collier's up to. Matthew, thank you
for braving the traffic to get here. Our producers are
(38:38):
Rob and Chris. You can watch the trip cast on
YouTube or get us wherever you get your podcasts, and
we will be back next week.
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the trib
Cast for Tuesday, August nineteenth, which is both my mother's
birthday and Bill Clinton's birthday, which I know because it
is my mother's birthday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Is your mother, Bill Clinton?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
My mother is Bill Clinton?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Twist?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
No, that's a growing up in the Clinton era and
having a I thought that was a very fun fact.
Less relevant now than when I was eight. But anyway,
we have a lot to talk about this week. I
am elean Or Klebanoff Law and politics reporter, joined as
always by my co host, Matthew Watkins. Matthew, how's it going.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm you know, I'm a little grumpy, but maybe that
I'll lead to a happy podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Just sat in First day of School traffic.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was going to say that the first day of school. Yeah,
I was gonna ask if your kids, I guess maybe
your daughter are they old enough to be affected by
the cell phone band?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
So my daughter does not have a cell phone, she
does have an Apple Watch, and so right before I
dropped her off, she had to put her Apple Watch
in her backpack because they're not allowed to wear the
Apple Watch anymore. And I was like, you were one
hundred percent going to lose this in the first week
of school. So if anyone finds an Apple Watch around
(01:32):
Anne Richard's High school and Austin, just drop it off
of the text tribune.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah great, And also like, how will she know how
many steps she took?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So yeah, her step going to take it. The Texas legislature,
I don't know when you think and I think about
that like kind of I'm like, that's the sort of
thing that Texas legilature should be keeping themselves busy with,
Like should we have cell phones in schools? The rest
of this seems like a little bit of a sideshow,
but that's what we're here to talk about. We are
joined this week by two very special guests. We have
(02:03):
Kayla Lake Saint Charles is not Chicago who and uh
Renzo We will let him talk about the srec Downey. Thanks,
thanks you both for joining.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah. So, as I was telling Kyle and Renzo before
we got started, I'm going to try to summarize everything
that has happened in the last ten weeks in two minutes,
all right, so then we can talk about times where
things go from here.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Kay Ready, set go June.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Second, the Texas Legislature gabbles out siney die. Everyone starts
making their summer plants. Governor Abbott veto's the THHC bill.
Everyone cancels their summer plans. Then we start hearing rumors
that President Trump is asking Texas to redraw the legislative maps.
Is tech is Governor Abbitt gonna put this on the
special session call? This is the question. Then July fourth, devastating,
(02:53):
horrible Hill Country floods, one of the worst tragedies the
state has ever seen. Then Governor Abbott puts out the
call it flooding response. It also has congressional mid decade
congressional redistricting, and it has a bunch of other conservative
priorities on it. Immediately Democrats start saying, we might have
to quorum break. We have a bunch of hearings on redistricting.
People are very upset about it. We see the map.
(03:16):
It adds five additional seats for Republicans. It gets voted
out of the committee. Democrats go on the lamb, they
leave for Chicago and other places. They break quorum. They
stay out for about two weeks. Governor Abbott a Churnyhynal
compacton say that they are going to try to remove
them from their seats. Bunch of legal brujaha proceeds. Then
(03:39):
they both chambers adjourn. California says they're going to redistrict.
Democrats return yesterday, say we did it. Republicans say we
did it. We're back to Special Session number two with
the maps already passed out of both committees.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Nice. How do you do under sub two minutes?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Amazing? You want to just talk about.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Bill Clinton was born? Did I miss any major high points?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You know?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I think there's just you have all heard me talk
about this in the newsroom. I think there's this one
other thing to point out, right, which is the how
the timing of this with regard to the floods too.
There's been a lot of talk about Greg Abbott, you know,
being accused of using the floods as a political football
to to force the redistricting and things like that. Of course,
Abbott had called a special session, or at least announced
(04:30):
that a special session was coming and detailed you know
that it was very clear that redistricting was going to
be on the ballot before these floods actually happened. So
that's like a whole other aspect of this that I
think is just worth like including in that timeline too.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yes, I think he had not formally said redistricting would
be on the call before the floods, but.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
We all knew it was going to be.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
It seems likely.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, it seemed likely, but it was sort of
an open question. I mean, to be clear in hindsight,
like of course one hundred percent they were going to
to the call, but it was like, oh, is he
really going to do this? And now of course it's like.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, he was. He always knows.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think he's safe to say he would have done
it without the floods, but certainly the floods enabled were
like lowered the political well, there was still a lot
of political pushback to it, but someone lowered the political
pushback into doing that. So that's where we are. I
do want to talk about sort of where things go next,
but Kayla, maybe you can start. You were in the
house yesterday as they triumphantly returned question mark or question
(05:35):
mark on triumphant, if you know, if you ask, what
was the vibe in the chamber.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
I mean there was just a huge crowd, right outside
of the chamber that gave them a real warm welcome,
a lot of cheers. Like you said, they kind of
returned presenting as heroes, although obviously not like six hours later,
they did pass the new map out of committee.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
I mean, the floor was pretty quick.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Speaker of Burrows was really like, enough with the name
calling and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Time for action. Let's get a move on.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Also, you will have a dps ES court around the
clock until we vote this smap out in two days.
So yeah, I mean, I think some wladmakers made like
made light of their dpsscore people were like, I think
Renzo tweeted Tony Rose was exchanging phone numbers with her
s core Ramon Romero was sort of like, oh, we're
going to become good buddies.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Obviously not everyone.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Reacted that way to their ES court, but yeah, and
I think Republicans were like, let's just get this done.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I want to go home.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And of course Nicole Collier does not sign the paper
and accept her escort, leaving her stuck in the Texas House.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
A representative from Fort Worth.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yes, as people, it kind of the House livestream kind
of becomes like bald Eagle cam and people are just
watching her like wander around the house floor, which I
found entertaining.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, I used to when I worked in a public
radio station Louisville, and when we did our fun drives,
we would always put up on the big screen this
camera that watched senior Dogs and it was very sweet.
Had sort of a similar vibe. Not a commentary on
represent of Collier's age, of course, but you know, just
sort of watching a lot of nothing rindo. What is
(07:24):
the vibe from Republicans going into this, Well, I think
before the Democrats actually came back, there was starting to
be some talk of like, maybe we should punish.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
These Democrats a little bit more. I mean, that's pretty
I mean this is full discleasure. This is my first
quorum break. But I think when there's a quorum break,
those kind of sentiments tend to come out where like,
you know, we need to stop this from happening ever again.
And you know, you had people like Represent Jeff Leach
from North Texas saying that maybe we should go for
(07:56):
more congressional seats, kind of echoing what Abbott had said.
You know, maybe we go for state house or state
senate redistricting. And I think right now, that seems unlikely.
Although you know, Abbott was asked about that at his
last press conference in the Capitol and he was like, well,
you know it's on the table if you know, they
don't play along. That's me paraphrasing, But.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, it doesn't really seem like there's been a lot
of chatter. Doesn't seem like yet there's been any action
towards that, right.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Right, Yeah, there's been absolutely zero indication that, like, you know,
that's actually happening. I think what may be more likely
is legislative punishment and that things that maybe weren't going
to pass before will pass now. So like maybe bathroom
bill passes, maybe abortion pill bill passes. So yeah, although
(08:50):
that one seems like a bit more of a stretch
to me, just because Republicans also don't like that. Some
Republicans don't like that.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, it definitely feels like there are like the ways
that lawmakers talk about punitive measures that like you know,
we're going to redraw seats or we're gonna you know,
evict them from their offices, or we're going to put
them in jail, and then there's like the actual ways
that you can sort of enact retribution that are like
much more subtle, but also for like Democrats who've been
fighting against some of these other bills for so long,
(09:19):
are pretty devastating to just like Ramrod in this like
conservative list of priorities.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
The other thing here is that you know, Burrows may
now have the seventy six votes to be re elected
speaker from within the Republican Caucus, but that doesn't mean
that he has the one hundred votes to pass constitutional amendments.
So it may seem like, you know, he now has
this mandate, but he still has to play along with
the Democrats next session, so he can't you go too
(09:47):
far punishing them.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And importantly, you can't pass a bill to ban quorum.
You can't get rid of quorum breaking. You can't let
me says, you can't lower the quorum, which I've been
hearing from a lot of people right like, we got
to find a way to not allow quorum breaks anymore.
You cannot lower the quorum count without a conscitial amendment,
which would require one hundred votes. So unlikely, despite all
(10:10):
of the big talk of the last two weeks, unlikely
to be our last quorum break, unless you know the
tex Supreme Court rules that these members can be expelled,
but even that seems increasingly a long shot now that
they're back.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Do we know has anything changed in the Supreme Court case?
I mean, do do we have a sense of where
that's going to go?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Now?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Nothing has changed in terms of rulings. We've gotten this
timeline that extends, you know, past Labor Day in terms
of waiting for arguments. Certainly, I think there's a sense
that the Court might just declare up moot now that
they're back a turn in general. Ken Paxson was tweeting
yesterday as if that is not what he would like.
I mean, that would require, you know, probably one of
the parties to ask for it to be declared moot,
(10:53):
and he seemed to indicate like he wants to see
this through. I don't know that. I don't know that
we've heard the same sentiment from Governor Abbott, but maybe,
you know, maybe we will. But certainly, as we talked
about on last week's episode, a long shot legal case.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Okay, so it's time for me to ask the question.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I've been sitting in traffic for the last forty five minutes,
so I'll ask it. What was the point of this
like we the Democrats leave, they're saying they're blocking this
terrible map, and here we are thirty days later and
we're in the exact same place. Maybe some bills, as
y'all mentioned, that might not have passed in the first
legislative session will pass. You know, we have heard things
(11:32):
like we brought national attention to this redistricting fight. But
the Tribune reported well before the quorum break that Gavin
Newsom was, you know, or allies of Gavin Newsom were
already convening meetings to do this sort of like tit
for tat redistricting. They said something along the lines of
when they started to indicate they were coming back, that
you know, we need to come back and you know,
(11:52):
create a legislative record that will you know, call into
question and allow this to be challenged in court or
strengthen the challenge of court, something that would have been
necessary had it had passed in the first session. And
you know, you don't have a legislative record if the
House isn't there. I mean, the only thing that seems
to have changed between then and now is that the
House Democrats have you know, brought in a million dollars
(12:15):
from beteo'rourke, like, what was the point of this.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Well, I think that.
Speaker 6 (12:23):
Yes, Gavin Usim was already saying he was going to
try to get California to redraw their lines, but I
don't think that the national attention was necessarily on it.
So I do think they are right in that they
brought the national conversation to Texas and redistricting.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And I also think that.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
You had a Keem Jeffries in the Texas capital meeting
with Democrats.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You had.
Speaker 6 (12:54):
DNC chair in Chicago meeting with Democrats. I think that
there's now a whole lot of attention from the National
Party on Texas that they have been lacking for years.
And they've been saying like, hey, DNC needs to pay
(13:15):
attention to us, and now they're paying attention, So that
could be one thing that they're seeing.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
I think another thing I heard Geen Mussey yesterday was
it gave them time to evaluate the legal case that
they could bring against these maps and in this map,
and in the past two weeks they've sort of come
to the conclusion that they have a really strong challenge
to be brought, which is why roughly half of them
(13:42):
are back to now times. Of the essence, if they
want to kill this map in the court before the midterm,
then the faster it gets past, the faster they can
bring this legal challenge. And so I don't know how
long it takes to come up with a legal challenge.
Two weeks, but that's no.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
They have already asked in the ongoing case against the
twenty twenty one maps, some groups have filed have issued
a filing to the court proactively saying once these do pass,
we would like a preliminary junction blocking it, which is
again a little bit of posturing ahead of you know,
the thing actually happening, but like, you know, it gives
them this I think part of it, right, it is
(14:22):
optics of like if this happens so fast, people don't
even know it was happening, right, Like this could have
theoretically passed and like a matter of weeks and you
get people kind of upset at the capitol. But beyond that,
like not it's really hard to make people think about,
understand or care about redistricting.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, all right, Well, you know where politics is an
attention economy, I guess, and I suppose this brought a
little bit more of attention. It does feel to me
a little bit like the victory over vouchers in twenty
twenty three, where it's just like we stopped it, actually,
and now five million dollars aren't coming to our schools,
and they're just going to come back and they're going
(14:58):
to pass it the next time.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
They they pulled together, I mean, and.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
They're going to replace some like moderate incumbents with some
really hard.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Line exactly, and the legislature is going to be changed
because of it. Right, And obviously that's maybe not the
case this time, at least from who's in the legislature,
but it might be the case in terms of how
much power democrats have and how they're treated in the chamber.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, I mean, I think And I wasn't here in
two thousand and three, but I talked to some of
the people who were involved in that qure and break cale.
I know you did twenty twenty one, two three, three, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
the last mid decade REGISTRICTA which like I guess I
had not realized like some of that history as well,
which was like very similar, right they left the state,
they but then the maps ended up passing. But a
(15:41):
lot of people involved in that felt like, well, we
brought attention to Tom Dealay's plan to like redraw maps
everywhere and like made it clear that like this would
not just like kind of sail through. We were like
a blocker to this larger national plan. And it's like,
if that's the framing of what they've done here, I
think that's there. There's an argument there. Yes, the more nationally,
(16:02):
I think the like framing of like we did it,
we're heroes, a little bit of a hurt herself, Kayla.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I think that's right.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
And I also think that split is probably within the
Democratic Caucus too. I mean two dozen or so, maybe
slightly under of them are still out of state.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You know, I don't.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
I think we saw a lot of statements from those
people who were out of stay. I think we saw
TMF Jessica Gonzalez both saying like, this is our only
tool as a minority party is to continue denying quorum
and so we're going to stay out of state. And
I think the flip side of the people who came
back is, you know, let's just get this battle to
court already and and fight it out there, because we're
under no illusion that we can we have the votes
(16:39):
to defeat this map on the floor and that we
can stay away forever. So I think that that's split
of what was the point and what's the goal is?
You know, it's not just among us. I think it's
among Democrats too.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
As and then the lone only other person who has
a different strategy, which is Nicole colly or stay on
the floor. Yes, as we were joking like they couldn't
get them on the floor and now she won't leave
the floor. They're like, we cannot figure out where you're
coming from. But you know, it's getting a ton of attention,
So it's an attention economy.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, I mean in terms of like we are now,
let's forecast ahead a week or so, We're going to
have new congressional maps. There will be a legal challenge,
as we've seen before, those challenges take forever to sort
of move through the court system unless something sort of
unusual happens and they managed to get an injunction blocking it.
We will have five new Republican We'll have five new
(17:27):
seats that will seem to favor Republicans in the twenty
twenty six midterms. Kayla, can you sort of talk about
you know, the position that puts you know, some Democrats
in I mean we're saying maybe a Caasar dogg It
this fight.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, put them in an awkward position.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
I think Tazar dogg It being the primary interesting primary
to come among Democrats. I mean it kind of leaves
Julie Johnson untethered. Al Green's district is like just not
a district anymore at all. But I mean al Green
is somebody like Doggett who has said that they're you know,
(18:08):
committed to running again, which again sets up these weird
little primaries that I think will sort of reflect these
broader clashes within the Party of experience and age versus
you know, youth and a new fresh face and strategy. So, yeah,
that's going to be pretty exciting.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Your thoughts on the weird fights we're going to see.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
Yeah, there's also that special election to replace oh yeah,
Sheila Jackson Lee and then Sylvester Turner. You know that's
going to be somebody's gonna be elected to serve that
district for one year and then who knows what's going
to happen to you know, where you live within that district,
you may have that new representative, you may have Al Green.
(18:54):
I don't know if he runs in that district or
you know what ends up happening. But that's that's a
lot of turnover for those residents who've had the same
leadership for quite a while and.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Like such a sort of historic district in so many ways. Matthew,
I know you're dying to talk about it. What does
this mean in terms of representation?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I mean, it's pretty I think it's pretty dark, right,
I mean, this practice of it happening in both states, right,
you know, I think Democrats would argue, and they would
argue correctly, that Republicans have started this battle. But what
it's going to mean is that in places Lake Texas,
in places like California, people are going to have much
(19:41):
less of an opportunity to decide who represents them. Right,
it's being determined ahead of time by politicians wanting to
preserve power and you know, strength of their party as
opposed to what our democracy is supposed to do, which
is people are accountable to the voters. And really, you know,
if when you move the when you make the only
(20:04):
primaries that matter are the only elections that matter the primaries.
And by the way, the primaries, as you mentioned, are
going to be super interesting and fun, yes, but it
leads to a boring general election, which means essentially you're
only accountable to the primary voters, who are a very
tiny proportion of the electorate, and that skews everything. It
skews the incentive structure, right. The primary electorate often are
(20:27):
more prone to these attention seeking behaviors that that you know,
the hardcore in the parties seem to reward. And it
just doesn't seem to me like it sets up a
great system for good governance, which you know, I think
is supposed to be the goal here, but you know,
it seems in a lot of ways we've sort of
(20:50):
lost the plot.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I mean, certainly I think these like and again it
happens we've like created this bad system across the country.
I mean, there are some states that are sort of
doing this better and have you know, non parson commissions
and things like that, but generally our system is like
a race to the bottom, and like your only most
candidate's only real threat is from someone more extreme within
(21:13):
their own party, and that's and in I mean all
these districts that they've drawn, and this has been the
case for a long time, even whether they're blue or red.
Districts can be one almost entirely by appealing to one party,
which means like there's no even putting aside like the
primaries or whatever, but there's no like need to do
consensus building or coalition building or like even just like
(21:33):
the political work of like persuading someone to believe your
vers like that your view of the world matters, like
you can just mostly assuming you appease your base sale
to a.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Victory, right exactly, and so your your only focus becomes
appeas of your base, so that you don't you know,
get that right, get that challenge right?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, yes, it's not great. There's another side show happening
in Texas right now that is similarly about representation in
some ways, Renzo, this is your time to shine. What
if you had to summarize in two minutes what is
going on with the start by what is the SRAC,
and what is going on?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
TuS up for that? But can you do? Yeah under
started star.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
So the first question was what is the SRAC. That's
the State Republican Executive Committee. It's basically the governing board
of the Texas GOP. And back in twenty twenty four,
I guess a little over a year ago now, at
the state convention, they adopted not they being the SRAC,
but the Texas GOP convention, a whole bunch of delegates.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
This is like thousands of people.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
They adopted this rule that says that no, if you
are censured under a certain process where you commit you know,
three strikes against the legislative priorities or parts of the
party principles, then you could be it for censure and
even removal from the primary ballot. And that has got
(23:07):
a lot of people concerned, and you know what the
Texas GOP may be trying to do here. I think
that you have to remember that this started immediately after
the you know, the Ken Paxton impeachment. After the primaries.
I think there's a lot of anxiety within the you know,
(23:31):
the GOP primary base that their house, the State House
was not going to be as conservative as I think
it ended up being. And so you had this campaign
to try to hold House members accountable. And that has
(23:52):
carried over until now where people are kind of happy
with what Burrows is doing and his leadership.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And all.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
And so you have this whole framework that's been in
place in this whole movement, Like the train was already
rolling on this, and so it's kind of gotten to
the point now where you have the the State Republican
Executive Committee. They not have this process that they've outlined,
and yes, they want to hold members accountable, but like,
(24:22):
we don't actually.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Want to boot people from the ballot.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
They don't want to own and like start and also
I assume start a giant legal process of or like
some legal blowback of can you remove someone from the ballot?
Speaker 6 (24:34):
It would come from that, yes, and you know, millions
of dollars and defending that yes. So in the state
party already being kind of broke.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You know, sure, right, that's very good summary.
Speaker 6 (24:46):
Yeah, well I haven't even gotten into what happened most recently.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yes, now two minutes again.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Yeah, So, for the first time in this whole reforming
of the Texas GOP that you've had in the past
few years, they decided that they're going to have this
Legislative Task Force report that was going to be basically
(25:12):
a scorecard of the session, like what were the good
things that members did?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
What were the bad things?
Speaker 6 (25:16):
And the subtext throughout all this was that the list
of bad things are going to be the central offenses,
and so you had it was months long process to research.
They were going through the House journals, they were going
through public statements that members had made, and you had
(25:37):
this segment of the sor rec that was really trying
to create this list of every single thing that was
done wrong. And then you had this other segment that
is that had been kind of more like, hey, these
are our friends, like they've been playing along.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
House calendars Committee Chair Todd Hunter.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
He doesn't have to help us, but he's been helping us.
And so there's kind of this like split brand thing
that's been going on within the SEC. And I think
what ended up happening this past weekend was they had
added in a few extra.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Strikes in the.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Report and that by doing that, they ended up roping
almost half of the the GOP caucus into potential censer
territory and.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Potentially being removed, not being allout to run again. Essentially.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
Yeah, so that happened. I think everybody freaked out. They're like,
maybe we should pump the brakes on this. They delayed
the report by an extra week, they gave members a
chance to respond, and in those responses, there were some
of those items that they've targeted, be like, hey, you
should back off on this, and ultimately they did back off.
It took a they had to revote.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
On one of them.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
I won't get into what happened there, but they voted
one way and then they came back to the next stay
voted the other way. And by the end of it,
you ended up with only Ken King, how State Affairs
Committee chair with like over a dozen centrable offenses and
those are mostly for holding up GOP priorities and the
(27:15):
State Affairs Committee, which is like been the bottleneck that
has kind of always been the bottleneck, right. And you
also had a former Speaker Dave Feelin, you know, getting
three strikes, and you had Senator Robert Nichols getting five
or six strikes, but he's already retiring. Yeah, so you
kind of ended up with like, oh, well, now all that,
(27:37):
who is going to get centered.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
And like, are we even going to see this through
for those two right, like are Feeling and King and
really try to strip them from the ballot. Is that
like going to end up even happening.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
Like the they could try to remove them from the ballot,
but that's like the most extreme option, that is the
upper bounds of what the SRAC could.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
So they might just give him a slap on the
wrist and be like.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
And they would only do that if the county parties
asked them to. Okay, So for all.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
This like there, I mean it is it's like the Democrats.
Of course, I have spent a lot of the last
couple of weeks being like bemoaning their lack of options
and like the challenges being the minority party Republicans proving
you can make even being the majority party very complicated
and hard and not that fun. Like they're like really
trying to start this internal war against each other that
(28:27):
they don't nobody even seems to really want.
Speaker 6 (28:30):
Yeah, and I think what you saw a couple of
weeks ago where the SRAC was coming to town to
have this meeting where they were going to adopt this report,
and then they ended up going to the governor's mansion
and they met with Dustin Burss. That's the first time
they had met with the speaker, and he was there,
Todd Hunter, I mentioned the Coulendar's committee chair.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
He was there.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Mitch Little, a freshman representative who has kind of been
an anti leadership force but also now has been a
little bit complimentary of what Burrows has been doing. You know,
he was there, So I think that's that gives you
a good picture of where the state of the Texas
(29:14):
GOP is at right now, given the quorum break and
everything else, that has kind of helped put internal stuff aside.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Well, that's what I was going to ask in cale
maybe have a sense of this from Republicans, like how
much has this quorum break served to unify Republicans.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
I think it has absolutely unified Republicans. I talked to
Tony Tinderholt and Tom Olivers in yesterday and they're like,
Democrats have done a great job of getting us all
on the same page. They were both like, yeah, we've
both been you know, sort of in the anti leadership contingent.
We've had disagreements with Speaker Burroughs. But they both really
commended the way that Burrows handled this. I asked if
(29:51):
there was a speaker's race today there like he would
get the entire Republican caucus. And the other thing they
mentioned in terms of sort of what run to have
alluded to earlier was, you know, they're absolutely determined to
pass every single thing on the call and then some
more which Speaker Burrows.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Had also.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
Sort of said I think last week, and you know,
they were like if Democrats had any leverage going into
the first special session or any like seat at the table,
they don't anymore. And so I think Republican Republicans are
very much on the same page now in opposition to
the Corn Break.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
It's pretty amazing what Burrows has done. I mean, I
feel like I've said this multiple times on this show
over the months, but but to go from being sort
of the representative of that loathed leadership faction in the House,
something that like multiple speakers have not been able to
sort of shake off and face that sort of intense blowback,
(30:50):
you know, session after session after session. Do you have
kind of flipped this in one session from highly controversial
like was his you know, know, ascension to speaker even
legitimate under the House Caucus rules, to where he stands
now where you say it's essentially unanimous in support. You
(31:10):
just kind of have to tip your hat. I don't
think I thought it was possible to have pulled that off,
and it seems, at least for now that he has.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That's what I was gonna say they're a fickle butch
you know, politicians writ large, so you know, it's a
long time till the next speakers.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
But at the same time, even though he's sort of
consolidated his caucus behind him, I don't think we've seen
Democrats sort of really condemn him either. You know, like
even Ramon Romero yesterday was like, I don't blame Burrows
for any of this. You know, this is all on
Governor Abbot's hands, and Burrows has even though he's been
aggressive and harsh in trying to get Democrats back, which
(31:49):
is something that the Republicans have been you know, very
appreciative of and happy about, he's also, at least in
my ears, sort of struck this tone of you know,
the minority party always has a role to play in
the House, you know, they always they have a right
to you know, have their say, and but also like
the majority is going to prevail. So you've seen him
(32:11):
sort of manage to walk this fine line that hasn't
seemed to make anyone really unhappy. In facts, like everyone
seems pretty satisfied.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, I mean even just like his excuse me, even
though like his tone in the chamber has been like
through this whole thing has been like pretty like uh
almost like I mean, amused is not the right word,
but almost just like we're gonna get them back, guys.
Like it's i mean it's leadership in a sense, right,
like what supports his politics or not, but like it's
like he's basically being like you guys can like scream
and bang your you know, feet on the ground, and
(32:43):
you guys can be so mad over here, and like
I'm just like gonna be like we just got to
get quorum. We're just gonna do what we got to
do to get quorum. Even now with this Nicole Collier thing,
like you know, the name you're hearing flowing around is
like Charlie Garren for you know, as the House chair
of the House Administration Committee, like as the one who
sort of is making calls. It's like, it's interesting that's
not sticking to Burrows.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
I think it was one of y'all who kind of
described Burrows's tone yesterday is I'm not mad, I'm just
just disappointed.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
I think that was that was a stuff on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, Yeah, but yeah, no, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Work credits, Yeah, shout out to that stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah no, but It's true, it's just very like letting
everyone else be like having the meltdowns kind of Yeah,
it's I'm sure, you know, he probably is feeling pretty
good about how this is all played out. But again,
it is a long time till the twenty twenty seven
speakers race, and god knows what can happen twenty twenty seven,
(33:41):
we will have a whole other primary in them, or
a whole other congressional race in the middle of that.
You know, our congressional delegation could look very different.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
We will have.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Major statewide races, open primaries for the first time in
several of those. Going to be an exciting stretch of politics.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
I'm really curious, and I don't expect any of y'all
to know the answer to this, because I don't think
anyone knows the answer yet. But I'm really curious about
what this means for the long term with regard to
a dis routine, right, Like, is this a one time
flash in the pan because Donald Trump told them to
do it, and nobody else really seemed like they wanted
to do it, and even California doesn't really seem like
(34:20):
they want to do it, but they feel like they're
going to do it because the Republicans are doing it
in Texas, and are we entering a new era where
you know, states are manipulating their maps every two or
four years to try to upset the dynamic, or is
this going to be like a one time thing that
we've moved beyond.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Fingers crossed for one time thing. I'm just gonna go
ahead and put my vote in that camp. But I
think I do think some of that depends on how
twenty twenty six goes.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
If this blows up in either party's face, but I
think particularly the Republicans face, I think there will be
a lot more hesitancy to like embark on this again.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
But one of the things that it is done.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
We've talked about this in the past, right, is that
the reason the Republicans drew the maps that were currently
drawn was because of incumbent protection, right, And they've done
a pretty good job of drawing maps that I think
for the that is going to allow them to safely
gain seats in twenty twenty six. But what happens is
over five to ten years, populations shift, and you know,
(35:23):
suburbs pop up, and you know, all those different types
of things and things that once looked safe get less safe.
Particularly if you change the margin from a forty percentage
point to a twenty percentage point, it's a narrower gap
to go. So I don't think it's inconceivable that in
twenty thirty, for instance, you know, some of these seats
that they drew will become might become more competitive. And
(35:46):
what do they do then? That's I think the question
is do they just allow that to happen and say like, ah,
these are the maps we drew, or do we end
up back in all the same place again.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Well, I mean they're constitutionally required to redraw the maps
in twenty thirty one, right, right, So they definitely will
redraw it then, and it'll be interesting to see what
lessons they've taken from this.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
Basically the point I was going to make, is that
it's a shorter window that they have to worry about
the Dumby matter taken effect.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Even than two thousand and three when they did the
mid decade last time, then they had, you know, seven
years to see how it played out.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
But I think I've heard even from Republicans who are like,
I mean, yeah, we have the margin in Texas and
we've won enough in the past election to be able
to do this. Like, I don't know that I've heard
anyone really describe it as a long term strategy. It's
a short term keep a majority in the House in
twenty twenty six, let Trump finish out his term, pass
all the stuff he wants.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
To pass, and then that I think people will.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
Argue about whether that is generally popular, But if you're
of the belief that it is, then that allows you to,
you know, get Jade Vans into office after Trump and
that sort of that is the long term goal is
not necessarily to you know, continue padding the majority, but
it's to set off this sort of domino.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Ef Yeah, but there there was once a time where
corn breaking was considered sort of the nuclear option, and
you'll do it. And now we're in this cycle where
you know, it's like, oh, well you did in twenty
twenty one, why don't you do it now? You know,
And like it just sort of it feels like another
kind of weapon has been placed on the table and
like eventually someone's going to pick it up.
Speaker 6 (37:17):
And I think what's fascinating is that nobody likes gerrymandering, right,
But when you can say the other party's doing it. Yeah,
then this is a defensive measure.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Ye. People are all game for it.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Right, and it becomes a tool, like I mean the
idea that like people have been sort of dangling this
out there, not of we're gonna yes, like, oh, we
could redraw worst congressional maps for Democrats, which would endanger incumbents,
but we could redraw house maps, we could redraw Senate maps.
They have a lot more flexibility on that, like they can.
There are these tools now on the table, and it's
like a loaded gun sitting in the middle of the table,
(37:51):
and uh really the only thing that would like, you know,
sort of disable that is what we did see like
after the Obama which is that Republicans did, which is
like shift the dynamics of state houses. Right, Republicans control
a lot of state houses that control a lot of maps.
Democrats want to unload that gun win some seats in Texas.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Oh, that's gonna become a lot harder, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah in the Congress. Yeah, yeah, right, yes, exactly. All right,
Well that is it for this week's episode. Thank you
guys so much for joining us. Renzo Kyla, We're gonna
fore you guys back to the wilds of the Chambers.
Uh see what Nicole Collier's up to. Matthew, thank you
for braving the traffic to get here. Our producers are
(38:38):
Rob and Chris. You can watch the trip cast on
YouTube or get us wherever you get your podcasts, and
we will be back next week.
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