Unpacking the constitutional amendments on the ballot

Texas Politics Project’s Joshua Blank joins the TribCast to walk through the 17 constitutional amendments on the ballot this November

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune Tribe Cast for Tuesday,
October twenty eighth. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff. Matthew Watkins is not
here today to butcher my title, so we can stick
with law and Politics reporter, which is my official title.
We are so excited to be joined today by the
Great Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project,

(00:42):
where he's conducted public opinion polling of Texans for over
a decade. Joshua, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thanks. I think the Great was a little much average.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
The average, Joshua Blank. That's very polling, it is. I
I am just average, just average. We are going to
go through today all the constitutional amendments that are on
the ballot.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Lucky out there.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yes, you guys are locked in. Do not touch that diet.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
We are currently in early voting, and I think probably
a lot of people are thinking, like early voting, what
is even on the ballot? Like obviously, last election, big deal,
we elected a president, a governor, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Got a governor, Congress.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
President Congress coming up on next election will be the governor,
the attorney general, all these important roles. This one is
a little bit of an interim. There are if depending
on where you live, you might be electing some local
or sort of have some specific races, but generally thinking
generally speaking statewide. The big thing on the ballot is

(01:47):
the constitutional amendments, which means that to get a constitutional
amendment on the ballot, lawmakers had to approve it on
two thirds basis in both chambers. We should say, you know,
Republicans have a two thirds majority in the Senate. They
do not have a two thirds majority in the House.
So the bar for this is pretty high, requires some
at least some degree of bipartisanship behind it.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
It certainly limits what can actually be on a constitutional
amendment in some ways. Another way to look at it,
it requires some Democrats to sign on to get something
onto the ballot.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Right, and we don't have, as someone who has reported
extensively on abortion in Texas, we do not have a
citizen led ballot measure.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
We have no mechanism to do that here and so,
and part of it is just to say, I mean,
I guess for you listening. Part of the thing about
Texas and part of the reason that we constantly amend
our constitution. The Constitution has so many amendments. Is one
of the main things that distinguishes the Texas Constitution from
the US Constitution is the US constitutution is pretty short
and pretty general, and then there's that Necessary and Proper
clause where all the powers kind of emanate from.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
And we've never had to fight about that even once.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Never once. It's been so simple. No's just like parental rights,
which will get to later, absolutely, But then in Texas
it's different here, you know, it's almost very Texan. It's like, no, no,
the government shall only have the explicit powers that we
give them. So we have a very specific and very
long constitutions, like twenty times the size of the US Constitution,
and we have to amend it constantly. When people say,
why do we have to mend a constants because because
we explicitly have to give the government the powers to

(03:11):
do the things that it does. So it's a different
it's a different ballgame here, right.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
That is interesting and it is part of I assume
why Also, it is hard to amend the Constitution. We
have to do it a lot, but the bar is
pretty high.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I mean the bar is pretty high, but I mean
it's sort of like, I mean, we have. Yeah, we've
got like five hundred minutes. It's not that hard. I
mean we got seventeen on this one, so it's it's
higher than you know, the average you know, bill that
has to pass through legislature, it requires some degree of
supermajority support in both chambers, you point out. But ultimately
it's actually like a pretty normal part of the political process.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Here, right, Like after a legislative session, we pretty commonly
have a couple of conscercial amendments seventeen in this case, Yeah,
that voters get a chance to weigh in on, and
it's like really a very meaningful way for voters to
have their voices heard, Like is this how you want
the state to proceed? You are not an elected official
probably listening to this probably actually are. But if you're
not an elected official or don't work for an elective official,

(04:01):
this is a way to have your voice.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, I mean I've been you know, I end up
doing a lot of talking about these constitial amendments honestly
to like daily tax and reporters and sort of student
newspaper wards. You wanted like, well, what should we care
about as students? Like, well, I don't know if you're
gonna live here for a while, you should definitely care
about water. You should, I mean, dementia prevention is another
you should definitely care about what you talk about the specifically,
But it's sort of like it's kind of like a
bit of a pitch. It's like it's a bit of
a long cell, but it speaks to what these things

(04:24):
are about. Which these are really about long term usually
big picture you know, sort of state level issues and
about how the state is run, and that nothing is
more important.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Right, And if you like the way the state, you
know what your legislators are doing, it's a way to
sort of pa you know, put through what they have
put forward. If you don't like it, it's a way
to sort of.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well and I derail And that's a good way to
like transition in some ways. To point out this isn't
like a random selection of all the ideas that they consider.
This is a very specifically selected and strategically selected list
of issues that really hit different buttons for different people,
but particularly driven by the majority party right.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
And another piece of that is to undo a cons
social amendment, you need to amend the constitution. Again, you
need two thirds majority and the approval of the voters.
So you know, if when these pass, they do, you know,
stick around with the current majority party.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, just because it would require such a massive shift,
both in both chambers of the legislature to go back
on what they already did, to put something new back
in front of voters to assume that they would then
make a different choice. So there's that. I think one
other thing we should say before really get into this
is just to remind you know, if you're watching the
outcome of these elections, just remember the turnout these elections
is insanely low. And so, I mean the last one

(05:35):
was a little bit high. I looked this up. It
was about fourteen percent of registered voters. Two point five
million Texans out of about eighteen and a half million
Richard voters voted in twenty twenty three. The rate of
participation is somewhere between in the last like four costecial
amendment cycles a little bit around six percent to fifteen percent,
let's say, being generous as generous and both ends. Actually,
and so this is just to say that, you know,

(05:56):
this is not a random selection of voters, is not
representative of the electric people. Ask a lot who votes
in these elections. They tend to be older voters, They
tend to be consistent voters. They tend to be people,
honestly who lean more conservative just because of what that
electric ultimately produces. When you have older homeowners in Texas
who tend to vote these elections, they just tend to
be more conservative and more Republican on balance, and the

(06:18):
list of issues that's put before them tends to take
that audience into consideration.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Right, right, So it is it does also mean like
if there is higher turnout, if a group of people
gets really motivated, you can really have an influence on
this election.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
In some cases. I mean, I think part of the
challenge with a lot of these, honestly is just their technicalities.
Like a lot of these have to do with really
really technical issues that most people don't understand or at
least don't understand as written, which is a whole other
kind of pieces that we could talk about maybe at
the end. But I would also say, and I say
it to a lot of people, you don't have to
vote on all of them. Anybody can go out and
vote on as many or as few of these as

(06:52):
they want. And so I'd say that even for any
individual you don't have to be like educated on all
seventeen of these to go vote. You can just go
and vote for the one, two or three that you
actually want. Point. So that's not a So there's no
there's no necessary level of knowledge to participate, trust me,
none whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I vote in these. So it's
like real, the bar could not be lower. So we're
going to run through these. And what we're going to
do is we're going to put all the tax related ones,
which is the majority of the seventeen of the Amber.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Sixty percent, just to put it like it is an actual.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
This is mostly a property tax election. We're going to
put a pin in those, and we're going to run
through in order the non property tax, non tax related ones,
and then we're gonna circle back. So and we're going
to sort of rapid fire through some of these. Some
of them are a little bit more and.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know, discussion worthy.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, some are more discussion worthy. Proposition one easy place
to start Texas State Technical College funding. This would so
the Texas State Technical College, which is the state's primary
higher education system for workforce development. This would get them
an eight hundred and fifty million dollar endowment. They do
not currently have a tax taxing authority, so they've been
relying sort of uneven intermittent funding from the state legislature.

(08:03):
This is part of this broader workforce development push. Let's
get this, you know institute, that's this eleven campus system
that's educating our workforce some like steady consistent funding.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, and this has been a consistent priority of the
governor as a priority is one of the emergency items
I think heading to the legislator when you think about
just broadly workforce training. And this is an effort to
put some more teeth in this. And this is honestly,
really I was. I look at this as sort of
a continuation of an ongoing effort to create more stable
funding streams for different, different varieties of higher education options
in the States. So while you know, obviously the University

(08:37):
of Texas and sort of the big Texas systems have
their own funding system, big funding streams, to be the honest,
you know, I think was last session they worked on
community college funding mechanisms and how they're going to do that.
Here they're creating again a stable mechanism for funding the
state technical colleges. And this is all about a broader desire,
which is part of our Texas overall goals of educating

(08:57):
the population with a college degree or some kind of
post posting a high school education, whether for training or
for just generally. Yeah, and so this is just part
of that. And this is really just putting teeth into that,
actually putting money behind it.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Right, pretty straightforward. So that's Prop one, Prop three.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Right, a little less straightforward lestward.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
You know, this is about bail. It is sometimes referred
to in the Capital as bail reform, which is confusing
because you know, ten years ago bail reform meant sort
of the opposite.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Well, you know, I mean, I think it depends on
who you're time. I mean, this is one of the
things about American society right now in general, depend on
who you're talking to about certain terms, they mean very
different things. Right when you're talking about things like discrimination,
who you're talking to matters, and you're talking about free speech,
who you're talking to matters. Here, bail reform has really
taken on a new I'll say, I'll say, let me.
I want to say, it's taken on a new mean,
but has been strategically re engineered to mean something.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
It depends to me swung in the opposite.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Direction right, and so bail reform for a long time
was really almost a right left co LIS's really kind
of the far ends actually of both political parties who
were trying to sort of decriminalize a lot of actors,
a sort of libertarian push for this. There was a
liberal push for this and kind of keeping people out
of jail, sort of the concern over inequities and the
cash bail system. But ultimately, I would think sort of

(10:10):
looking around twenty twenty in the focus on defunding the
police and the success that Republicans found in mobilizing voters
against you know, I would say perceive democratic excesses around
and even like down drug judges too, but around sort
of decriminalization, you know, sort of policing efforts in general,
and this is sort of what the tail of that
in some ways, and I think, you know, the governor
really pushed for a legislative effort on the bail issue.

(10:34):
It really took a long time to kind of get there.
And the reason it took a long time to get
there was because the House has kind of been in
the old mold of bail reformed for a long time,
and actually they've been moving the opposite direction, and so
I think this ended up being a pretty heavy lift.
But ultimately, I mean, when I look at what it is,
it's not a huge change. I mean, for the most part,
most judges are not releasing really violent offenders back out

(10:55):
onto the street. And what this really just codifies in
some ways is that if the state demons traits that
they have a flight risk, then they can't do that.
But honestly, and this is one of those things, this
is like a real is this a real problem or
is this more of a solution in search of a problems.
I don't think there's a lot of judges in the
state who are right letting dangerous offenders out on the
street repeatedly. But this is a way to deliver on
bail reform, to continue the discussion about, you know, ultimately

(11:19):
policing crime and public safety in a way that the
governor has really engaged with.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Right the governor has sort of highlighted a couple of
cases where this has happened and where, like you know,
there's been horrible outcomes, right as indicative of a larger
problem that a lot of research says, you know, it's
not necessarily a wider problem.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Well, and the issue I think is that, you know what,
most of the discussion in this area has really been
about the last you know, five or ten years at least,
has been about the consequences of keeping people in jail
while they've been accused of a crime they you know,
have presumed us yeah and the yeah that thing, and
the consequences that has on these people's lives and society

(11:55):
and culture and on and on and on. So jailer,
cro crowding and all this is but this is a
this is a way to reform relate that issue.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Right, So, this specifically would require judges to deny bail
in certain cases for individuals accused of committing specific felonies
such as murder, aggravated assault, and indecency with a child.
They would have to demonstrate that bail is not enough
to prevent the defendant from being a flight or public
safety risk if they, you know, defendants who are legally
oh right. Also this part, which is defendants who are

(12:21):
legally presumed innocent, would also be entitled to the right
to an attorney during their bail here, right.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
So, So I mean it's one of these things where
you know, this happens a lot with constitutional medicine, and
you'll see this as we get some of these other ones.
Sometimes they they sort of do things or say that
the aren't really huge changes, right yeah, well we'll get
to this in a minute. Like, you know, but Texas
doesn't have inheritance tax, but we're going to ban it it, right, So.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Right, it's like because it's a and to be fair,
that's because it anstitial amendment sort of ties lawmaker's hands
in the future, in the.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Future, right yeah, And this this would again make it
And I think what this does in some ways it
makes the expectation, even if it doesn't actually fundamentally change anything,
that the default in these cases is that these are
probably going to keep these people in jail.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Right, And it's you know, I think increased oversight over judges.
We're supposed to degree of independence, which we will get to.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
We'll get to that in a minute.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, Okay. Proposition for water infrastructure funding. This is a
big one that was a huge focus this legislative session.
If you want to know more about water infrastructure funding,
you should look at the over twenty five articles that
the Texas Tribune did in.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Love I love water infrastructure funding. I was here for
the last big water bill, yeah, back in like twenty
thirteen when they did the bat last the Swift and
all these different pieces of this has been ongoing absolutely.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
I mean there's been so much like research showing that
Texas's water infrastructure is not ready for the population boom
that we're having. Their Texas twenty thirty six estimates that
the state needs nearly one hundred and fifty four billion
dollars by twenty fifty. This is not that this is
twenty billion dollars for water projects over the next two decades,

(13:56):
up to one billion dollars of sales tax revenue into
the Texas Water Fund each year starting in twenty twenty seven,
to fix aging pipes and other infrastructure, developing and increasing
new water sources, flood mitigation, supporting conservation efforts to help
meet water demands, which you know is a to some
extent a bipartisan understanding that we have a problem we
need to fix, right.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, Oh, I think it's definitely, I mean, it's it's
definitely a bipartisan You know, when we poll Texans over
the last few years about whether or not they've experienced
a boil water notice or some kind of other interruption
in service over the last year. Regularly we see more
than a third of text and saying that they have,
which is in some ways, you know, an understatement of
the problem because that only sort of a is the
end user, let alone all the water that's gained loss

(14:37):
in these pipes and in a state that honestly has
drought problems, right, And so we know this is you know,
an ongoing issue, and it's a bipartisan issue. You know,
there's some challenges here. I will say worse first about
the mechanism. I think, you know, you raise this issue
about one hundred and fifty one billion estimated need against
the twenty billion and one of the things and I
you know, the regional water authorities are gonna have a
lot of authority to distribute these funds. And my understanding

(14:59):
is the way they generally do this stuff is they
look for projects that are you know, matching some amount
of the funds or using bonding authority to at least
you know, finance part of the project, and then they're
working with the various regional authorities and then get more
money so that money can multiply out more than what
it looks like. And again I'm not an expert, and
sure water water policy economics, if that's a thing, I'm
sure it is a.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
There's a guy out there.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I'm sorry, now he's a ut right now he's madam.
You can email me. But this will this will move it,
you know, I think in that direction, I think a
lot of people, it seems, you know, in what recent days,
are people who are worried about this proposition, in particular
because it's a big price tag and in a generally
fisciality conservative state, there is concern that even though this

(15:43):
is like really critical I mean like not even like
kind of critical infrastructure, like fundamentally critical infrastructure, like we
don't have water, people don't live here kind of thing,
it is possible that this could have a tougher fight
then maybe it should.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Right Like I think during the legenlative session there was
a lot of like a decent amount of agreement on this,
and this is what can happen between the end of
the legislative session and well.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
There was a I'll say this, you know, there was
a decent amount agreement on the overall goals.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
But there was there was there was price tag.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well there's price tag, and there's also about the distribution
of the funds between you know, dealing with leaking pipes,
so aging infrastructure versus new capacity, and that's just you know,
that's just an issue. I mean, the problem is both, right,
that's the problem.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Make it forty billion.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, you can't. You can't. You know that you can't
really trade off one and the other. They're both needed.
And so I think that was the main sort of
conflict point. And obviously you know, if you're depend on
where you are, you might have more of one issue
or more of another issue, right, Right, So I think
I think that was more the lines of conflicts are
than partisanship in some ways.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Right, absolutely, So, Yeah, it'll be interest that one will
be interesting to see. I think it seemed maybe more
certain towards the end of session than it does now
for yeah, voters.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I'm you know, you never know.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right and right, I mean, and I do think, like
we said, it's something affects so many people that you know,
when people do go to the box, you know, they
thinking and in.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
The past, you know, and we've seen these these efforts
put sort of these infrastructure bills on on the belt.
They've usually passed. They might not pass as overwhelmingly as
people expect them to, but it doesn't really matter at
the end of the day, whether you know, fifty plus
one is good enough.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, we'll take it. Yeah, right, Okay. Proposition twelve changing
the State Judicial Conduct Commission. So this one, the Texas
State Commission on Judicial Conduct sort of oversees judges and
handles any allegations of judicial misconduct. Currently it is six
judges to attorneys five citizens. This would turn that into

(17:36):
six judges which we are appointed by the Texas Supreme Court,
and seven citizens non lawyers appointed by the governor who
I'm sorry, non judges who are at least thirty five
years of age. You know. This sort of is in
similar came from I think, sort of a similar impetus
as the bail stuff of like judges are being too lax,
a lot of attention on Harris County in particular.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, I mean there's a couple of things going on here.
I think that's a perfectly reasonable place to sort of
stick this, and I think that works. I mean, I
think there's some other ways to look at this too,
which is one, you know, there's there's sort of a
a broader move towards Morris executive authority, especially among Republicans,
both at the federal level and the state level. And
some of that is, you know, there's a little bit
of a fancy word is indogeneity. That's just what indogeneity.

(18:22):
You should look it up. It's an academic where yeah,
that's me. Look it up, kids. But it's when things
are affecting each other, right, we can't tell, right. And
so in some ways, you know, this move towards executleators
at bottom up is a top down like, it's all
kind of coming from various directions. You know, Abbott sort
of has initiated a lot of more executive authority on
his part, but it's also been given to him in
a lot of ways. Patrick as well, he's initiated a
lot more executive there, it's also been given to him, right.

(18:44):
And what's interesting about this is that this is about
the judicial branch, and this is about changing the balance
of power in terms of who gets to have oversight
over the judicial branch from the judicial branch, which is
how it usually is, to the executive branch, because the
executive branch would appoint the majority of the members of
this commission. And part of the way that Texas governors

(19:05):
have historically, and this is sort of going back over
the last two governorships, accumulated this executive power in a
state where the constitution really envisions a weak governor is
through appointment powers. It's through placing like minded allies on
boards and commissions to oversee and execute strategy and policy.
And so this is like one of those kind of

(19:25):
like kind of a big deal, kind of hiding in
playing sight. It doesn't seem it seems like a pretty
technical thing, but ultimately, what you're doing is you're giving
the governor the ability to appoint the majority of the
members of the Judicial Oversight Commission at a time when
we're seeing increasingly, you know, wo'ld say executive I don't know,
castigation of the judicial branch and particular judges and based

(19:47):
specifically on specific opinions they make. And so it's hard
not to look at this and say that even though
this is about judicial overstate, it actually probably decreases the
independence of the judiciary if passed. And that's a very
like political sciency, you know.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Sure, right, but I think I mean, I think it's
one of those things you think, well, sure, more oversight
of really.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Or citizens, citizens are better? Right?

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Right? It is interesting too because speaking of the power
of appointments, as of Friday, I think, you know, so
six of these judges would be appoint by the Text
Supreme Court. Seven of the nine judges justices on the
Tech Supreme Court are appointed by.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Thinkner app Well, I think it's eight now, right, because
we seven now with Kyle Hawkins okay? Seven Howkins okay?
Which and again and even that in and of itself
is not actually how the system is designed, right, I
mean those that is that is some kind of you know,
agreement that has emerged where these were these judges who
normally run for election in Texas independently and the claim
is to create citizen accountability, are instead retiring early from

(20:45):
their terms and being then appointed by the governor and
an interim appoinment and then running as incumbents.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Right, Kyle Hawkins now, who was just appointed, will run
as the incumbent even though he was appointed.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
By the governor who has done this now with seven
of the nine justices. Those justices are also the people
picking the judges on this side. So it's a little
you know, it's a weighty one, even though it doesn't
seem like it.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Right, No, right, certainly. Yeah. Only one of our current
nine Supreme Court justices was actually originally elected to the seat.
Do you know who it is. It's a good trivia.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
That's a good trivia, John Divine. Oh well, no problem there, Yes, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
So that's Proposition twelve. Proposition fourteen funding for dementia research
and prevention. This would provide three billion dollars to create
the Dementia Prevention Research Institute of Texas to study dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's,
and other brain related conditions. Wide bipartisan support, some resistance
to the price tag, but a huge deal.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
I mean, honestly, it's sort of hard. I mean, you
know this in the time when I think in general
the view among the public or just sort of this
general you know, the zeitgeist's government stinks, government can't get
anything right, and this is the opposite. This is a
really big deal. And I mean this is I think
as I saw. I mean, one, if you look at
the you know, the dementias is one. We're measuring everything better,
So there's that. But if you look at the rate

(22:01):
of dementia, like in a state like Texas, it's overwhelming.
I mean, it's really shocking and kind of frightening. This
you know, investment I think would match about how much
the federal government is putting into dementiary research right now.
But it's in the same ballpark. And the other side
of this is just for the state. For the state,
it really creates a ton of opportunity in terms of businesses,
in terms of medical reasons. So this is actually like

(22:23):
even though it's sort of I don't want to say
it seems random, because I feel like that's a little
bit that's not fair, but it sort of seems to be.
It's like one of these things is not like the other,
and this thing is sitting here, but it's actually I
think one of the things in here that it's a
really big deal for the state, like both now and
in the future. Yeah, and maybe for the country too actually, right.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
I mean it's modeled after like the cancer version of it,
which is now the second largest funder of cancer research
in the country, which is I mean just amazing.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
So this is and the expectation is this is going
to be pretty similar kind of a impact, right.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yes, Okay, Proposition fifteen, codifying p rental rights. Yeah, not
a straightforward this is this thing it's been going on
in Texas for the last couple of years around you know,
parental rights. And this would amend the Constitution to say
that the Constitution provides that to entrying truths that are
deeply rooted in this nation's history and traditions, the people

(23:13):
of Texas here by affirm that a parent is the
responsibility to nurture and protect the parent's child, and the
corresponding fundamental right to exercise care, customing, and control of
the parent's child, including the right to make decisions concerning
the child's upbringing.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Why do we have to care?

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well? Because nobody, I mean honest say, I don't want
to say I'll i'll be I'll just say it this way.
Nobody knows what that means. Now, I mean we do,
like an a basic sense. And just to say for
the people out there who have, like you know, deep
fears about like what does this mean? I mean to say,
where did this come from? I mean, this is outline
kind of federal case laws. So it didn't like come
out of thin air. This wasn't ridden you know by
some think tank somewhere. This is something that's you know,

(23:51):
I would say, relatively established the challenges And we were
kind of joking about this. I think before, you know,
defining rights and define the extent of rights and their
application who, where, when and under what conditions is a
very very tricky enterprise. And anyone who studies US history
knows that, Like, you know, you kind of look at

(24:11):
these sorts of rights whatever they are, think about the
Bill of Rights, and then it takes hundreds of years
to sort of figure out what that actually means. And
I think that's why people have mentioned about this and
sort of their concern is that, you know, where what
is you know, what is the water's edge on parental rights?
And I think in a place like Texas, the thing
that I you know, I think inevitably comes up is
and where does that water's edge? You know, I guess

(24:34):
get everybody else wet? Right? You know, at what point
do your rights sort of you know, stem into my
rights and at which point? And then how do we
resolve those conflicts? Right? And so this doesn't do anything
to clear that up. But in some sense, what you
could say is that as opposed to sort of piecemeal
efforts to give parents more access to decisions about the
child's education, decisions about services being provided to their children,

(24:58):
potentially books, other kinds of educational material and content. This
is kind of a broad blanket sort of you know,
right that sort of subsumes all that other stuff that
they have been doing. I just don't know if this
isn't something that you know, down the line, there's not
concerned that maybe this was not a wise idea because ultimately,
you don't know who's going to want to, I would say,

(25:19):
exercise their rights and what those rights are going to
look like. We only have one idea in mind, and
then later it's it's something completely different.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Right, Like I think, you know, there was a lot
of talk this session and you know, build a pass around,
like you know, a teacher can't you know, help a
child socially transition without their parents, you know, buy in
or like, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well just just to be a little bit mean, a
teacher can't help a child change you know, out of peace,
staying pants if their parents haven't said okay. So there's
a lot of like I mean, there's like there's you know,
I have kids in the public schools. I have checked
a lot of boxes, sign on a lot of forms.
I've signed a lot of forms so that the teachers
can give basic assistance with a lot of error rights.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
But then there's also like, you know, there was a
lawsuit brought with Texas band gender for I mean care
for my There was a lawsuit brought under the existing
printal rights statute basically saying like, don't I, as a
parent have a right to give my child gender firming
care in consult with their doctor. The court sort of
said no, And so now this new thing is on there.
We don't know what that will mean.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
It's going to mean a lot of litigations. Gold be
a lot of litigation. This is something that we're not
really going to know what it means honestly for at
least decades really realistically.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Right, That's one of those things like years from now,
like I do now with where it's like calling experts
be like why did they put that in the constitution
and they're like, we don't know. It was a weird
time in Texas, is right.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, well you have to understand.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah. Another one that is something we already is already true.
Proposition sixteen clarifying citizenship requirements for voters. This would add
language to the Texas Constitution to explicitly say that persons
who are not citizens of the United States cannot vote
in the state. Just already true, already true.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Well, so this is a reflection again of you know,
the majority party and the reality. That's one challenge that
Republicans have right now in Donald Trump's presidency is that
he's taken the issue of immigration and the border off
the table. So for you know, really, honestly, maybe over
a decade, whenever we ask Texans what's the most important
issue facing the state of Texas, not the country, the

(27:14):
state of Texas, without fail, usually in the ballpark of
sixty to seventy percent of Republicans will say immigration or
border security. Now, if you wanted to say, well, what's
the Democrat's top issue, it would take about six to
seven issues to get up to sixty or seventy percent
of because they're so split out. Now that's changed recently,
story for another day, But ultimately, with Trump taking over
the executive office and so aggressively cracking down in immigration,

(27:36):
you know, one it seems like less of a problem
to Republicans in particular, but two, you can't have the
same sort of rhetoric about the unchecked problem of immigration
from Republicans who've been talking about the unchecked problem of immigration,
you know, perpetually, you know, basically for the entirety of
any time that Donald Trump has not been in office,
and so how, But it doesn't mean the voters aren't

(27:57):
still somewhat concerned about it still not still a meaning,
it's still or an issue for republic marks. But there's
not much that you can go out there and do
besides her of support the president.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Right, the legislature can't.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
So this is a chance to to sort of point
out in some cases some of your most conservative, older,
most you know, consistent voters that in fact, we are
still doing this. And it also gets it's a twofer
because you get voting also, right, So voter voter fraud
which we don't have any evidence of, uh you know,
nonsenizen voting which is not legal and we have no
evidence of. So vote, but we're not not going to

(28:26):
happen here. It's not going to happen today never.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
And now that is the non taxing issues we are
now going to get to Texas.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
All right, this is what I always tell my kids.
I'm I'm learning about or whatever is in an Amazon package. Yeah,
what I don't want them to ask me, I say, taxes, taxes, Yes,
it's more tax stuff.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, the main category is lowering taxes on certain groups
of Texans. And I'll run through sort of what the
specifics are of each, but big picture, I mean, this
has been an issue for a long time, Right, this
is a thing that Texas owners or Texas lawmakers certainly
have been talking about for a long time.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Well, you know, this is just a perpetually difficult issue.
And I mean I don't just to state the obvious
here that the challenge in a state that relies on
property taxes is that, you know, people don't have control
over their taxes, right, I mean, their taxes are related
to their property, not based on their income, and so
that can create some real sticky problems for people in
certain situations. Elderly people whose incomes are fixed, for example, Right,

(29:31):
people who go through you know, serious strategies in one
way or another, that can be a huge problem. Your
property taxes don't change even that you might lose an income,
and so in some ways this is just a perpetual issue.
And the other challenge is the fact that because of
the way the mechanisms available to lawmakers, they really don't
have a huge sort of I don't know, lever at

(29:53):
their disposal to significantly impact the property taxes the Texans pay.
And you can say, like, whoa, but but they do. Yeah,
But every time we ask them about it. So every
time we asked Textans sort of after the fact, about well,
is this enough to make a difference? Have you noticed it?
How did they do on this issue? And the answer
is always no, I didn't notice. No it's not enough,
and no I don't approve. And so you know, even

(30:13):
at the end of most sessions, I'll book end this
and level we can go through it, you know, but
I'm booking with the polling a little bit. You at
the beginning of the session when we asked Texans in
an open ended question, you know, what should the legislature
be focused on it? What are they you know? And
obviously immigration comes up, is what it is. But what
also came up was, you know, prices, cost of living,
like because the inflation issue and this is just sort
of ever present in the polling and it's getting worse,

(30:35):
not inflation but prices because inflation as well it's moving.
We'll see, we'll see. But because Texans were so worried
about the cost of living and prices, I mean, one
of the things is that's hard. That's nothing the legislature
can just go and say, oh, well, we'll we'll lower
your grocery.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
We're not going to do a price control.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, we're not going to do a price control. We're
not gonna We're not gonna come in from the other
side and do some kind of like support through social
safety net spending. That's not happening. So really, I look
at the odd suite and why there's so many tax
proposals on here, and to some extent, is the legislature's
effort to try to address the twin concerns of the
cost of living in the cost of housing. Right, It's

(31:10):
easy to look at this and just sort of general
you know, Republicans like tax cuts, so therefore we have
a bunch of tax cuts. But actually, I think this
is the effort that is most visible that they can
make to actually impact Texans day to day financial lives.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Right. But on the flip side, right, I mean, these
property taxes go towards things like paying for schools, paying
you know, local governments rely on them, and so there
is this piece too that's like the state will, particularly
on schooling. The state has to make up that difference,
like someone has to pay these bills eventually.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Oh yeah, no, I mean, I think that's one of
the things that people fail to appreciate is that whenever
you're talking about property taxes and Texas, you're talking about
public education. And if you don't want to like just
accept the fact that this is more complicated than it is,
then you're never gonna understand it, because that is the
big piece of this. I mean, the tech. Just to
be clear to I think the listeners probably know this,
But the legislature does not does not have a property
The state of Texas doesn't have a properity text. Local

(32:03):
entities collect taxes. What the legislature is doing here is
it's basically buying down the school property taxes and replace well,
at least with the host set exemption. We'll get into it,
and weards replacing those funds in the public education budget.
This has been an ongoing discussion for a number of years.
Has been a lot of back and forth on this,
especially once those fund budgets got out of whack. At
which point the local entities were paying more for public

(32:24):
education than was the state for a while because the
state was using the rising property values essentially buy it off.
So they were basically saying, oh, you know, local entities
are raising property texts, they're taxing you out of your
own But at the same time, they were taking all
that extra revenue and they're putting it in other places
as they were decreasing their spend on public education. They've
obviously rebalanced that over the last couple of years, but

(32:45):
this is like a big, continuing, ongoing expense in the
budget that's only growing, right.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Like, there's been some talk lately of right like zero
out property taxes, abolished property taxes, there is there are
ripple effects to that. Well, the state has.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
To Yeah, it's not clear to how that's anything other
than a fantasy at this point in time because absence,
you know, some huge way to fill that hole, and
the state has really limited itself. I mean whether in
these constuger amendments rather states really limited its options for
filling a hole that big if it were to remove
the property tax. And so that is an ongoing discussion
among some people close by where we're recording right now.

(33:20):
And the governor has certainly, you know, expressed interest in this,
But I think the governor has the benefit of not
actually having to try to figure out how to do it.
It's really easy to be for something that you don't
actually have to negotiate and like to iron out the
details on the floor of the house, you know. Yeah,
I'm I'm for free beer and pizza on Friday for everybody. Yeah,
I think you good.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Con Social Amendment, Yeah, what's good.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Right, let's do it, you know right.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
I'm going to run through all of these sorts briefly
and then we'll get to the big ones, which is
Proposition five tax exemption on animal fee.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
It's funny to lead with that, right.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
The Legislaive Bunchet Board has said there will not be
a significant loss for that tax exemption for veterans spouses
these are people whose spouse has died from a service
related cause. They would be exempt. It's approximately three thousand people.
Impact on property tax revenue is not expected to be significant.
Proposition nine Inventory and equipment tax exemption. Currently, businesses don't

(34:11):
have to pay property taxes on up to twenty five
hundred dollars of inventory or equipment. This would increase that
exemption to one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. The
state would have to help school districts make up the
difference of approximately one hundred and ninety three point five
million dollars in twenty twenty seven and more than one
hundred million dollars annually after that.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Well that's a drop in the bucket, sure.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
But you know, proponents say it would contribute economic growth.
People's you know, people on the other side say we
need those property taxes. Proposition ten tax exemption for homes
destroyed by fire. If your house burned down and it's
uninhabitable for thirty days, you could apply for a temporarily
adjusted tax bill. They cannot calculate the cost of this
measure because we don't know how many fires there will.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Be, but we have fires here a lot. So yeah, no,
I mean, I mean also, like this is one of
those things. But like this, this kind of speaks exactly
to the challenge with the property tax. Like, you know,
you have the home, it's whatever it is, it's a
certain value, it gets burned down into fire, and all
of a sudden, you're still responsible for the value of
this property. That is now unlivable, right, And so this
is the sort of thing that we have to vote

(35:15):
on so that we can kind of have I hate,
I hate to use as a word, but like have
some common sense here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. So one is I'm going to do out of
order Proposition seventeen, which is property tax exemption for border
security infrastructure. If the state builds border security infrastructure on
your property, you should not have to pay for that
increased appraisal.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
And I think there's people who are like, what does
that even mean? And I just point out if you
know anything about sort of the twelve hundred miles stretch
there outside of the RGV, a couple you know cities
in between the RGV and L Passo, it's a lot
of undeveloped area. And so to the extent that you know,
electricity gets out there, water infrastructure, all of a sudden,
this land could significantly change in its value. It has
nothing to do. I know, I've heard people it's even

(35:53):
talking about's like it's it's infrastructure.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
The state wants to encourage people to give them that
land or to let them get on that land, then
not them have to foot the bill for it. And
that is not expected to significantly impact property tax revenue.
The two big ones that are really expected to potentially
impact property tax revenue proposition I'm going to do these
an opposite order. Proposition thirteen, which is the increased tax

(36:17):
exemption for homeowners. Currently, if you own your house one
hundred thousand dollars up the house's value, you could be
exempted from property taxes. This would increase that homestead exemption
to one hundred and forty thousand dollars. The owner of
a typical Texas home valued at three hundred and two
thousand dollars last year would have saved about four hundred
and ninety dollars on their school property taxes had the
higher exemption been in place, which is expected to cost

(36:39):
the state more than two point seven billion dollars in
general revenue for the next budget cycle at more than
one billion dollars annually after that, and then paired with
that Proposition eleven, which would allow elderly or disabled homeowners
to shave off an additional sixty thousand dollars from the
tax bill value of their home rather than the ten
thousand dollars on the current exemption, cost a state more

(37:01):
than one point two billion dollars in general revenue, and
then about in the next cycle, and then four undred
and seventy seven million dollars annually after that.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, big numbers, you know. I mean, I think the
first thing that sort of stands out about all this
is to say, you know, the homestead exemption has increased
like dramatically in the last you know, ten years, and
so I mean, even increase it by forty percent after recently,
just increasing it dramatically is just notable, and it speaks
to the fact that it's not working. I mean, and
I don't mean it's not working since it like you know,

(37:30):
people don't notice it or it's not helpful, but in
the sense that it's not it's not seeming to solve
the problem, right, because they have to keep going back
to the well on this, right, And so I think
that's part of the challenge here is that, you know,
in general, you take that four hundred and ninety dollars average,
you know, most people are paying on the monthly and
so they basically divide that up by twelve on their

(37:52):
bill and then it doesn't really move the needle for
a lot of right people. It doesn't mean it doesn't
move the needle for some people. But it just doesn't
move the needle.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
It's not enough that people will say like I'm good,
I'm done here, right.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
And this is kind of why, you know, if you
people want to understand a little bit more. I mean,
there's a couple different ways to understand the dimensions of
the fights that take place over how exactly to lower
property taxes and the benefit politically I can if I
can just do it. That way of the home set
exemption is that it's instantaneous. Yeah, right, So I think
you know, Dan Patrick has been really i would say,
the proponent of going after the home set exemption. And

(38:25):
Dan Patrick he is probably not in office much longer,
and he's looking to deliver, honestly for the voters in
a way that they're going to feel immediately. The other
piece of this would be to say, well, we want
to do something to arrest the rate at which property
tax rates are increasing, right and if anything, maybe decrease
the rates if possible. And so there's different ways to
do that, whether it has to do with directly limiting

(38:48):
you know, the rates, or in place like Austin. We're
doing this now basically saying, you know, if the local
entity increases the revenue that they're generating from these taxes
above a certa amount, then they you know, they have
to go to the voters to basically prove it. And
ultimately that's why that's about the slope of the line,
like how fast are the rates increasing? You know, how
fast is your tap property tax burn it increasing? This
is about like can I give you something right now?

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Right?

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Can I deliver for you? Because I know you're gonna happy? Right?
You know, would this do it with another forty thousand
dollars in the home seat exception? You know, do this
for you? And so this really is I think in
some ways about that because I mean to your point
you when you say like, oh they're gonna have it's
gonna cost this much, or you're what they're what you're
talking about, they're gon put that money into the public
education system. But this is something I'll just sort of
a point I like to make when talking about, you know,

(39:31):
property taxes in public education, is that you know, just
for a brief bit, even though no this is about
directly about public education. You know, when a lot of
state leaders talk about the massive investments the state has
made in public education, over the last you know, five years,
a lot of that massive investment has simply been buying
down the property tax reductions they've been giving through the
home set exception. So it's not new money in the system, right,

(39:53):
it's actually just replacing the money that was already there
and bringing the state up to par in most cases.
And so one of the things I think about this,
just to sort of sat out, is that ultimately what
it does is it puts the state, you know, more
on the hook for public education funding, which maybe in
the future limits the increase they're going to put into
public education funding.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Right, There's only so much money.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
There's only so much money. And they've this is property
tax money that they are now putting into public education.
But it's not new.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Money, right, And like obviously we don't have, right, like
endless ways that we can generate more tax revenue.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
And fewer and fewer. And I mean, so I just
understand the piece they're about the voter. You know, this
is why we constantly see I mean, I say, there's
two parts of this. One is just actual need and
one is I think politics, which is, you know, elderly
homeowners get a lot of breaks now. Part of that
is because their incomes are fixed or they don't exist
or whatever. So that makes perfect sense in a fairness perspective.
But also we know that the demographics of the state,

(40:45):
the voting patterns of the state, older voters are also
overwhelmingly Republican, and so in some ways this is like
a direct benefit to voters who overwhelmingly vote Republican. I
think you know, you look at so it's like a
lot of business tax exemptions, oh, one hundred and twenty
five thousand dollars of personal business property. You know. Again,
this is the constituency of the Republican Party, more of
the center right wing of the Republican Party. You know,

(41:05):
military spouses, veterans again, another constituency within the Republican Party.
I mean animal feed exemption, which I think you brought up,
which is none of itself. Use almost have to really right,
I mean, people brought this up. Why why animal feeds? Well,
farmers again again, these businesses in particular, like and I
would say that when you think about the business taxisms
and the animal feed that is probably an effort to

(41:26):
potentially lower some prices maybe, you know, again speaking to
this broader concern, but overall, it's hard not to look
at this and sort of go, you know, these are
constituencies here in Texas. And then you look at something
like the ban on securities transactions with Props six, and
you know that the Texas is trying to set up
its own stock exchange, and it's sort of an interesting
thing to say, hey, you're gonna set the stock and
you say, look, maybe it's a good idea to say,

(41:47):
Texas isn't going to tax any you know, securities transactions
is a great place to get on the exchange, which
makes totally total sense. At the same time, that's a
huge potential source of revenue that is just off the table.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Right And it's a constituitional so it's not saying, you know,
for the first couple of years, will revisit this new
new part of the constitution. And to jump ahead, that
is Poposition six that prevent the state from creating new
taxes on securities transactions such as stock trading, because that's
the other category of amendments, right is we also have
proposition too, which is would ban the state from taxing

(42:20):
people on profits or potential profits from capital assets. Security
tax ban, and then the inheritance tax ban which, as
you said, we don't currently have an inheritance tax. But
you know, all of these are you know, ways to
both restrict the state from taxing in the future reduce
the taxes people are currently facing. But things do still

(42:40):
cost money.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
They still costs money. And I'd add one other think
of that list. It also is reminding in particular Republican
voters of what they get with Republican state leadership, right,
they get to codify into the constitution a ban on
all these types of taxes that Republicans of all stripes
well before railed against for decades. And so even if
it's not any threat of happening here, right, some of
these are just expressive.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Right. It's just saying, you know, if a tornado swept
through and political wins changed entirely and Democrats won every
seat in every office, you still couldn't do an inheritance tax,
right without getting two thirds of a vote and the
vote of the people.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Which would be tricky. Right.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Yeah, So you know a lot of this, As you said,
overall turn out for these elections tends to be very low. Yeah,
they I believe, like nationally there is data that shows
like they do tend to pass, right, like when issues
go to voters.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, I mean just to say, the legislature doesn't usually
punt an issue to the voters. Sometimes sometimes every once
in a while, there's something that's got a certain amount
of you know, political jews, and it's and you know,
you twist it and your train say, you know, let's
let's put this to the voters and do it. But
for the most part, if something's on here, it's because
the legislature thinks that it will pass, right, right, They

(43:58):
think they have the momentum or I mean just honestly,
you don't put these up to fail. That's the nature
of the two thirds rule, right, And so there is
an expectation that most of these should pass, but because
of the low turnout, it's a little bit less certain.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Right, Yeah. Absolutely. Those are the seventeen cons social amendments
that that voters will have a chance to consider this election.
Early voting is already underway. We actual election day is
an early November. You may also have propositions and maybe
even candidates for local office on your ballot.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Special election in Houston.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
There's a special election CD eighteen, which we asked for
Gabby Barnbaum to explain last week and we all got
so tangled up we had to.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
It's very breath It is a little yes, but it's confused.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
It's confusing.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
I had a conversation with someone about this yesterday. There's
a lot of pieces here.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yes, but definitely, you know, find out what is on
your ballot, turnout and vote. Got a big proposition here
in Austin that we will not get into. But a
lot I've had some we don't have to. I've had
some door knocking in my neighborhood. I'll tell you that.
But yeah, that is the trip Cast for this week.
Thank you Joshua for joining us.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
My pleasure, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
You can find the trip Cast anywhere you find your
podcast or on YouTube. Our producers are Rob and Chris
and we will be back next week.