You You And they're off to the races. Welcome to The Texas Take, the number one political podcast in the great state. I'm Scott Braddock. He's Jeremy Wallace. His work, of course, is always at HoustonChronicle.com. And you can find the inside story on Texas politics at QuorumReport.com. The legislative session has started in Austin, Jeremy. It was so great.
to walk the halls of the building, walk onto the floor of the Texas House, see everybody who's there, so many people who are among our dear listeners, lawmakers themselves, staffers, the sergeant-at-arms folks as well in the House. I didn't see the sergeant crew in the Senate because we're not allowed on the floor over there anymore. But I'm sure they did a good job. Dan Patrick banned me from the Senate floor back in 2019. Then he banned all of the press. So I was just the trendsetter on that.
But as I was walking around the Capitol this week and people were saying, oh, so good to see you. A lot of folks that I haven't seen in a while. although I saw quite a few of them on the campaign trail all across the state last year, Jeremy. Just catching up with people, it's got first day of school vibes. That's the way that the session...
goes you know everybody gets back and it's you know they're finding where their desks are and new members of the house and senate are figuring out how to vote from their desks and things like that the you know the very basic basic things right before they all get shredded in a legislative session you know with all the issues
going to be hit with, and we'll get into all of that. But I want to start with one thing that's positive here. Evan, of course, our producer, is based in the Los Angeles area where the fires have been playing out here recently. And last week...
We didn't really get into this on the show, Evan, but we thought at one point you were maybe going to have to evacuate right in the middle of the show, right? I mean, that's all died down a little bit now, right? It has died down, but we got to keep an eye out and anything can happen at any time.
Right. And, of course, you have seen, Jeremy, all of the just nasty comments that have been made by some people from Texas and others about California and its leadership. Everybody's real quick to politicize literally everything. about this, the fact that people will say, Scott, you're really not that old. You always talk about yourself like you're an old man. And I was talking this through with Evan earlier before I was visiting with you, Jeremy. And I think this is one big difference.
in my experience versus some folks who are a little bit older. You know, when we would think as young boys and young men, Jeremy, what would the old folks say? They would say, you know, things didn't used to be this way. And they were talking about things from 30, 40, and 50 years ago, right? They were talking about change that had happened over decades. And when I will say things didn't used to be this way, I mean like 10 years ago.
And so part of what I'm saying is that the rate at which things have changed and gotten worse in politics and the nastiness of it has sped up exponentially over the last decade. Am I being fair with that? No, absolutely. The news cycle moves at light speed right now. So it's like five news cycles ago is like Tuesday now versus – in the old days, it was like six months ago. Right. And so the nastiness is –
really amplified all over the place. And all of this, of course, is just for me to be able to justify saying that I don't really feel that old. In fact, I feel like a spring chicken now that I'm thinking of it this way. But I did want to start with something positive about the wildfires which is people across the country this always happens when you have a disaster when you have tragedy that it brings out the best in a lot of people because they really do step up
Right. And Texas firefighters are among those who are helping battle those wildfires raging around Los Angeles. Here's the governor out there, California Governor Gavin Newsom, giving the Texas guys some credit. Texas is one of the states that stepped up. currently now have nine states that are supporting our efforts out here. In fact, where the Texas crew on our EMAC process, they'll be exactly where the Mexicans team will be in the hand crews. And so Texas firefighters.
working right alongside those firefighters from Mexico, Evan, saving your ass out there, and people partnering up who, as you know, Jeremy, in our political discussions, it's as if we're supposed to be against folks from Mexico. All the time. I mean, you have the way that Abbott talks about the immigration situation. He's echoing Trump on most of that. We need to build a big wall between us and Mexico. We need to shut down the borders. Wasn't it Don Huffines who just lost really badly?
to Greg Abbott, only to have Abbott then do most of the stuff that Huffines had said when it comes to the border and, you know, being adversarial with Mexico. But in these real world situations, you find these folks working together to try to make things better.
Yeah, people want to get into the politics right away on this stuff, but it always is a little offensive when there are literally people dying. Both Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, it doesn't matter what your politics is, the fire still wants to kill you, right?
are willing to politicize that even when it's going on. Hopefully the hurricane will pass before the finger pointing starts, or in this case the fire will end before people start doing the finger pointing. But now we're in the point
Where it's like, it's the middle of it. And like people are just wanting to get in and be experts on firefighting. Like, you know, some dude on the internet thinks he's an expert on fire suppression. It's like, dude, chill out, wait for this to, you know, and we can do. Do the post-mortem on all this stuff and dig into why it all happened at some point. But first, let's get everybody to safety. Like there are literally like people dying in their homes. It's like we can wait.
For the finger pointing. Well, the progression on that was that at some point it would have only been the guy at the end of the bar watching Fox News Channel making those comments just to the people in the bar. And some of those folks might have thought that that person was obnoxious. That turned into that same guy and some other guys.
on Twitter X or whatever, making those similar comments, but doing it in public where everybody, you know, in a very public way where everybody can see it. It's not just in the kitchen. It's not just in the local bar. And then the progression next is that the incoming president of the United States.
things like this, along with people like the governor of Texas. And so it just magnifies all of this ugliness. So that said, we have a legislative session underway. And what would the session be if not entertaining? right out right out of the gate and um how should we kick this off here i saw that a lot of um
Conservative activists were very excited, and they were getting on buses to come to Austin to protest against the idea of Democratic chairs in the House. They were wearing – did you see they had the red T-shirts that they were wearing at the Capitol that said ban? Democrat chairs. That's what was emblazoned on those shirts. And a bunch of them were excited to attend a little concert. And it had been promoted online as the Motor City Madman.
comes to Austin. And you would have thought there was going to be a rockin' concert that was going on, maybe on the Capitol grounds, Jeremy, with maybe a full pyrotechnics and all of that. Full concert, but no, it was just Ted Nugent jamming on the sidewalk out on Congress Avenue. Now, because it's Austin, someone out there asked me, they said, who's that homeless guy who's really good at the guitar? I said, calm down. Cool your jets, man. This is Ted Nugent. This is a real rock star.
What's the song that everybody knows from Ted Nugent? I can only think of three. I'm maybe only going to mention two. This, of course, is one of them. So he's shredding a little bit there, Jeremy. The Stranglehold, baby. And what's the other one that everybody knows? Cat Scratch Fever. Yep, Cat Scratch Fever. And then you know the other one, and I'm not even going to mention it. I don't even know if Rock Stations...
They might, but today, if they were going to be programming music, if they would include the third one that I'm thinking of. And I bet you know which one it is, Jeremy. I'm going to leave it out. I'm going to leave it out. In fact, what I would like people to do, Evan... is just go on the old Google now and type in top hits from Ted Nugent and see what pops up. That song, Stranglehold, that's the only one that anybody really, really knows from him anymore, right? I mean, they might know.
The second one I mentioned. But, of course, he's kept himself relevant by being a conservative activist, right? He's always out there talking about his guns. He's the one who had – was it Hillary Clinton who he wanted to suck on his machine gun? That's the comment that he had made that got all of the attention. But it's sort of just being as shocking as possible to try to stay relevant. But here in Texas, or especially around Temple Colleen, they love the guy.
Yeah, he's no longer the Detroit City Madman. He's the Waco City Madman, right? He's now based up in Waco and is in... constantly involved in Texas politics. So it's not shocking he would make the hour drive down from Waco to hang out with his friends on Congress Avenue. Right, of course. And as they were caught in a stranglehold of strife in the Texas House, see what I did there? The House elected Chairman Dustin Burroughs as its next speaker.
A little bit of a celebration there, Jeremy, but of course it was preceded by a huge fight and we'll break that down for folks. So we talked about it at length on the last show and we'll get into it here coming up. But I think it's interesting to check out what the governor had to say to lawmakers on the very first.
He was in the Texas Senate. And describe for us, Jeremy, the setting there. Of course, it's the first day of session, so you have all the pomp and circumstance. You've got the senators there and their spouses, their families. You've got their special guests who are there on the floor of the Senate with them.
And it really is – I mean I say sort of first day of school vibes, but it really is a cool thing when you look at what happens in the House, what looks – or how it looks in the Senate. And of course these people, especially those who are – brand new elected office holders. They are there for the first time. It's a huge deal for them.
Yeah, and this is kind of like – this first speech from Abbott is – it's just a welcoming one, right? This is not his official speech that he'll give later on listing out his priorities, his state-of-the-state type address where he – tells us what he really wants the legislature to work on. But even in this introductory type thing, you know, like he hasn't spelled out exactly what his emergency items are, you know, and that's important, you know, for y'all who aren't, you know.
who haven't listened to us a lot, that emergency item list is important because the Texas legislature can't actually pass any legislation for the first 60 days unless it's an emergency item from the governor or the House or the Senate makes an emergency item. So they need...
that kind of direction from the governor to decide what to start working on. He didn't kind of outline what exactly those items will be, but he gave us some pretty strong hints what he wants on that list, didn't he? He kind of hinted at it, and it's fair to say that it's an exercise. size of power when the governor designates something an emergency item, but it's also important to point out that it's permissive.
It's not he can't tell them what to do, but he can say, y'all can go ahead and start working on this thing that I have, you know, that I have named, for example, school finance, school vouchers, any of that stuff. We'll get to all that in a bit. But I did think. that this was something that he and I can agree about. He said that we shouldn't have multiple special sessions this year, that that should not be necessary. Well, it's great to join you in what I hope will be...
The only session that we have this year. He talked a bit about how much money they've got to spend. The comptroller earlier in the week estimated the surplus will be around $24.
billion dollars over the next 24 months and abbott didn't get into specifics as jeremy mentioned uh not he's not doing that just yet but he did take this shot interestingly at houston there are challenges that we face every single day Where the reality is there is a failure across this state to follow the Constitution laws of the United States and of this state.
And it's not just up to the judiciary and the attorney general to do something about it. It is up to the legislature to establish the guidelines, the laws of what must be done. to ensure that we adhere to our Constitution and to the laws of the state of Texas.
So what's he talking about specifically? Well, he said it has to do with the way bail has been handled in Harris County. I don't see her right now, but I know Senator Betancourt, I'm thinking of Senator Huffman. They hail from a city where... There have been people who have been murdered by people who were let out on bail who had been arrested for a prior murder.
We have a problem with judges not adhering to the laws, what should be the law, and that is you don't let somebody arrested for murder back out on the streets just to kill somebody else again. It is going to be up to us. in the Senate, in the House, and me working with you to make sure we do something about that so we stop criminals from killing other innocent people in our state.
Jeremy, you were there in the crowd, and who did you see who might have a little bit different thought on that? Yeah, it was interesting. He's making that speech, and I'm looking at the crowd, and one of the people in the crowd was Harris County attorney.
Christian Menifee. And so, of course, I immediately, like, you know, Menifee tells me he's up there trying to, like, you know, show some goodwill and show that he's willing to work with Republicans and Democrats. And so I asked him about what he had just heard. He's really not saying that he's mad at the guy. He's saying, I'll work with Republicans and Democrats. I just want to kind of make things work around here.
Yeah, and he was a little bit more explicit in our conversation. He said, look, it's like some of what the governor said was just wrong. And he pointed out that, look, it's the Texas Constitution. That actually says you have to provide bail. It's like it's not like these judges aren't following the Constitution. It's just not what Abbott wants. You know, this is like, you know, if Greg Abbott has a big white whale out there.
It's bail reform. He's been wanting this from day one. As a former judge himself, this has clearly always been an issue he wanted to see more done on. And he's mostly been rebuffed. He's gotten some – reforms, but not obviously what he wants, which is a change to the Constitution to prevent bail for more violent criminals, which, again, the Constitution just doesn't allow you to do that yet. And so Menifee kind of got into it with me.
a little bit on that but you can just see that it's like but it goes to a broader thing like when he was talking about it look he specifically said the bail issue but like that first sentence where he starts talking about all these people not following to texas
Constitution, that was really a bigger strike at cities and counties over a whole host of issues. You remember in that last legislative session, the legislature did a lot to try to rein in the types of ordinances cities and counties can do. do in their communities. And, you know, even after that, so Harris County specifically went out there and tried to do a universal income program, which gives money to, you know, poor people essentially to help them kind of with.
whatever they need help with. Well, despite the fact that other cities already do that in the state of Texas, you know, Ken Paxson and Republicans in the legislature said, you can't do that. You're violating the Constitution. can hear Abbott almost saying, like, taking the shot at Houston again, you know, they keep trying to do things that are unconstitutional, we're going to come at you.
You know, it's clear that they have a message and that's how like anybody from Houston and Harris County who heard that. knew it was about them, right? You know, this is about us. We know you're coming for us. It used to always be Austin. Remember in the olden days of, you know, a couple of cycles ago, it was like always Austin at the tail end of every attack, you know, from tree ordinances to whatever.
whatever else, right? But now it's Houston. Houston clearly is in these people's heads. And I think people who heard that just knew that Abbott's already opening the door to whatever the legislature wants to do to help him rein in Houston. Not just on judicial issues and the bail issue, but also other topics. He's clearly ready for that topic. Yeah, I mean, look, the very first speech that he gave.
as governor back in 2015 after he had been sworn in was about the the same thing he just said that the idea that um that there are cities and counties that are contributing to what he called the California-ization of Texas, that the cities and counties of those local governments are liberal and they need to be stopped. And that's the speech where he did mention the...
the tree pruning ordinances, things like that in Austin on the bail reform deal. It's interesting that some of the lobbyists who have worked on that issue and are very familiar with the kind of work that was done on that within the governor's office and reaching out to lawmakers.
in past legislative sessions. It has been identified by some of those key players in all of this as an issue on which the governor and his staff really roll up their sleeves and really try to get the work done on that and really try to collaborate with lawmakers, which is not his MO generally.
Usually he just says, hey, I want this thing and y'all do it. And I think that when it comes to the next item on his list here, again, not state of the state, but he's hinting at what he wants. He may do some more of that on school choice as well.
And on school choice, he had said that this is the session. And even though he – at the beginning, he was kind of contradicting himself almost. He was saying that we're only going to have this regular legislative session, hopefully, and not any special sessions. But in the same speech, he brought up the thing that basically had state government just wrapped around an axle for 18 months. I can testify for a fact.
to the urgent pleas of thousands of Texans to please use your voice and use your vote this session to expand the opportunity for every parent to choose the school. Now, a lot of the analysis I've heard here in Austin and elsewhere, is basically just this, that a school voucher bill is going to pass. We just need to hammer out the details. And I will continue to say this, that you can't count... the votes on such a significant piece of legislation without knowing what's in it.
And we don't know what the Senate's going to propose exactly. We don't know what the House is going to propose exactly. When Lieutenant Governor Patrick says that the Senate passed this multiple times, what he doesn't say is that the Senate passed multiple versions of it. They had some that were sort of similar to the things that they had tried to pass. But they did a complete Hail Mary at the end of the regular session two years ago, Jeremy. It doesn't seem like that long ago, but here we are.
Patrick and his education chairman, who you talked to last week in your newsletter, Senator Creighton, Brandon Creighton, that Creighton had said he'd like to keep things separate. as far as pay raises for teachers and school finance and all of that, have that in one bill and then have the school vouchers in a different bill. But it was Creighton in the Senate who was the original person to put them all together in one bill.
Remember that at the end of that session? That was the Hail Mary, where they were just trying to get this done. And I think at some point, Creighton and Patrick decided that that did not work out. We shouldn't do it that way. And so now you have the Senate in the position. of saying, hey, we're going to do this as separate legislation, keep the pay raises over here in this legislation, put the vouchers over there in that legislation. But over in the House...
And the leadership team has basically stayed the same. We'll get to the speaker's election. But in the House, they've taken the view that the governor is right on this. And they've said that, look, all of it needs to go in one package, that the school vouchers and the school funding have to be in one bill. And so that actually reminds me of the property tax debate that they had two years ago where it took them seven months.
to figure out exactly what they were going to do, because even though they all agreed that they wanted to do something about property taxes, it was the way that they were going to do it that became the point of contention.
Yeah, the way that it gets done, that's a really important part, right? Because if you go – Texas Take newsletter followers, if you guys check the newsletter, you'll see Creighton – when I talked to him, he was talking about the – The voucher program that he has in mind is still one that helps people who have special needs and kids who are in poor communities, you know, really kind of focusing on them, you know, and of course.
Abbott has wanted a more universal program. And the thing I wonder about, does he take more notes from what happened in Iowa? We talked about this before. You know, Greg Abbott, you know. really structured his entire strategy around this about what Kim Reynolds did in Iowa. And what happened up there is after she initially lost in her attempt at a more limited.
school voucher program, when she beat some people in primaries and elections, like the next time around, she went for a far more aggressive program that was more universal. And so now the question is, does Abbott push this now further? than where Creighton originally wanted this to be? And where does that negotiation happen? That's what this whole session is about. It's like, look, I'm with you. I want to see what the details of this are before I make any...
proclamation that something's going to pass, because you can't get there until we know, what are we even talking about still? Are we talking about a limited program that really does go for special needs kids, make sure they get the help they need if their parents think they need? They should be somewhere else. Or does it become more universal? That is a huge difference. That's like very small versus gigantic and altering of all public education.
Well, yeah, and I mean all of Abbott's demands over the last two, three years now have not reflected what actually ended up in any of the legislation in the last session, right? I mean he kept talking about a universal program. throughout that original campaign and then during the legislative session when he did his State of the State address that year and he was pushing for a school voucher program, all of that sounded more like a universal program.
that he was talking about but that's not even what really ended up in the senate bill right i mean by the end of the year you had patrick defending the lieutenant governor was defending the school voucher program from the senate as something that was very limited remember he was saying it what was the what was the number that
they were going to spend something like $500 million or whatever it was. It was nothing like what it would take to have a full... robust universal school voucher program in which all of the kids, the 5.6 million or so kids who are in K through 12 education in the state could be eligible. No, that's not at all what they were talking about in the Senate or the House either. And so for him to push it even further.
It would mean that they would actually endorse and propose something that would be universal. And I don't – I mean I'm just looking at the makeup of the House now. We'll get into the speaker's ration just a little bit and the way the speaker was elected, I think. will play a role in this. I don't know that the politics of the House have changed in a way that would be sufficient to get a universal voucher program through that chamber.
Yeah, what a big difference, right? That's a huge jump to think that, oh, just because of this last election cycle, a universal program is going to pass however Abbott wants. I don't think that's the case. I think he still has got to get in there and he's got to negotiate. His team, like you mentioned, there are things that they're really glued in on. And this is going to be one that they're going to have to really kind of get in on the ground. Because I don't think if –
If you listen to Dan Patrick and Brandon Creighton, they have structured stuff. Look, this is something we've talked about. Dan Patrick's wanted school choice. for a long time. He's been much more aggressive about it over his tenure as lieutenant governor than Greg Abbott has been as governor. There's no doubt about it. In 2017,
And Patrick was really pushing this through the special session. It's like – and it got nowhere with the governor. The governor put it on the list, but he clearly didn't put a lot of pressure on the legislature to do it. So I think this is a case where Patrick and Creighton –
are not just going to give up the fight and just let it be whatever Abbott wants. They have had this vision. They're going to push on this thing. They're going to work on this thing too. And so I think there's going to have to be a negotiation about, you know, if something's going to pass. How big will it be? And I'll give him some credit, which might surprise folks. But Patrick has been much more dialed in about policy when it comes to this.
He knows the nuts and bolts of what the policy would actually do, and of course he was the former education chairman in the Senate, and that's when he – one of the sort of inflection points for him about this when he really became passionate about it in my estimation. was when he rolled up his sleeves and really worked on education issues. And even those who would have been his adversaries would say that he was the best prepared education chairman they'd ever dealt with.
Because when folks would go in to testify either for or against legislation that he was trying to push in the education space, he was always ready for every argument that anybody had against any of his stuff. He can really get into it. Abbott speaks in these. sweeping terms and we need school choice and every parent ought to be able to choose and all of that sort of stuff. But nothing that reflects those broad statements actually ends up on the paper.
on the legislation that they would actually potentially pass. So we'll keep an eye on all of it, and there'll be plenty of time to debate all that stuff as the legislation is filed and goes through the House, goes through the Senate, and again. agreeing with the governor. Hopefully all of this is done. It either passes or fails and we just have one session and that's it. And by the summertime, we're talking about other stuff.
Please, for change. We'll see how that goes. We'll see how that goes. To the speaker election now. Here is Dustin Burroughs, who's now the former calendars chairman. Here he is being sworn in. As Speaker of the House by Secretary of State Jane Nelson.
So the vote on this, Jeremy, was 85 for Burroughs, 55 for David Cook. Nine votes were present not voting. And of those... who voted for boroughs, I've got the numbers right here, 49 of the votes for boroughs were Democrats. 36 of those votes were Republicans. For David Cook, it was 52 Republicans and three Democrats. So both of them had some Democratic support. But when you see how many Democrats voted for boroughs, it probably wouldn't surprise you that there were conservatives.
who were outside the Texas house, outside the building actually, who were protesting very angrily, really pissed off in their banned Democratic chairs t-shirts. This is our house! So a lot of the people who are paid to sound really angry about this have been going off nonstop. I'll give you an example. Sarah Gonzalez is one of the – I guess she fancies herself a conservative commentator. She's over there at the Texas Scorecard.
When you hear that, think Empower Texans, that whole crew, the folks who are bankrolled by our friendly West Texas billionaires, Tim Dunn. and Ferris Wilkes. Listen to how worked up she gets. She's just working herself into a frenzy about this. Voters last year in the primaries and the runoffs, voters in the state of Texas overwhelmingly voted in Republicans who promised Texas House reform. No more Democrat chairs. No more bartering.
With the Democrats, like, this is Texas, and we should be utilizing our majority to make this place as freaking red as possible, right? Cram your agenda. down the throats of the Democrats. That's why we are telling you we're giving you the majority.
As the voters, we're like, here, take this and run with it, because we don't like what the Democrats have to say. That's why we're not voting for them. Now, who plays rock music under what they're saying, but then uses a word like bartering? Is this the...
Is this the 1800s, Evan? Evan, you're the producer around here. Is that good production work? I mean, the levels are good, right? The levels are good. Sound quality is good. But why is she talking about bartering? Is she talking about chickens? Chickens – they're going to trade chickens and pigs for corn and wheat? I don't know. So that's all very slickly produced, and they put this stuff out from this publication, Jeremy, the Texas scorecard. On the floor of the house –
A Republican from Houston, Lacey Hull, said that people like Sarah Gonzalez and the Republican Party of Texas are part of a, quote, political machine lying to Texans about all of this. Hull said that she and other Republicans. and Democratic colleagues of hers as well, are in Austin to work on serious policy.
to make people's lives better. That's why I'm offended at the political machine made up of big money and bigger lies that has attempted to pull the wool over the eyes of so many hardworking Texans. Those Texans deserve the truth about this contest, so I'm here. I have always advocated relentlessly for the causes and candidates that I believe in. You can bet I'll keep doing that until my last breath.
I'm especially honored to advocate for my 200,000 constituents. They put their faith in me, and I take that very seriously. Like each of you, I'm here with their best interests at heart. As I said, she's a Republican. On the Democratic side, Representative Mihaela Plessa stressed bipartisanship and working with Republicans when they can find common ground. From McKinney to McAllen, Texas moves forward when we work together.
Even when we disagree. And I can guarantee you, I will disagree with Chairman Dustin Burroughs. However, we need a speaker who will cultivate an environment allowing us to work through our disagreements. with mutual respect. That's why I'm supporting Dustin Burrows. Not because we agree on everything, but because he understands that this house, this is the people's house.
It's for all Texans, even Democrats from Collin County. Now, being elected with that much Democratic support sets up what I think, and I have said this previously, Jeremy, I think this is the most fascinating scenario that we could have. about the House leadership now. For the last 15 to 20 years, these groups like
The Texas Scorecard, the Empower Texans crowd, all of those folks were financed mainly by Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes over that period of time. They have told this, and I'll just say this, and you can look at the record on this. As if facts matter in any of this, but I'll just point to the stuff. They have lied and created this myth.
about joe strauss the former speaker who was elected in 2009 and and ken paxton has repeated this and lieutenant governor patrick has said a version of it you heard him last week on the show here saying And he was being interviewed by who? By the Texas scorecard. Patrick was saying that the House rules dictate that...
The Republican members were supposed to vote for David Cook, which is an out-and-out lie. Patrick and those others and the scorecard people, they've always said that Joe Strauss was elected. with a majority of Democrats joining with a small group of Republicans. But that's not what happened. Strauss was elected by acclamation in the House. There was no opposition, and that was after he had released a list.
of Democrats and Republicans. And the speaker who was there at the time, Tom Craddock, stepped aside and Strauss came in. In 2015, And I just hate the idea that these folks get away with this, Jeremy. In 2015, there was a Republican challenger to Strauss, a guy named Scott Turner, who just this week was named head secretary. He had his hearings in the Senate.
And that's an interesting, I mean, that's a great example of how the failed bid for Texas Speaker is always a springboard to something else. That was true for Ken Paxton, who ran for Speaker, and he eventually became Attorney General. True for Brian Hughes.
who used that as his springboard. He ran against Strauss, and he ended up in the Texas Senate. He's also someone who could end up in a statewide office like Attorney General. We keep an eye on him. He's ambitious, as you know. Scott Turner, now in the Trump administration. Think of this. And here's something encouraging for David Cook. Scott Turner lost to Strauss badly. He only got 19 votes total when he ran against Strauss, and Strauss got all of the others out of the 150.
And now you've got Scott Turner's in the line of succession because he's going to be a cabinet member, right? So just take heart for any of those who are supporting him. But here's to me what's fascinating. That myth that was told forever about Strauss and then about Dennis Bonin, they said basically the same thing, that he was elected with a lot of Democratic support and some Republicans. They said the same thing for the last year about Dade Phelan.
the speaker who just stepped aside so that this race would play out, that he was elected with Democrats and just a few Republicans. But guess what? With Burroughs, it's actually true. With Burroughs, he was elected with mostly Democratic support and just a smaller group of Republicans.
And so I don't know how many cliches I can use about this. He's going to have to thread the needle. He's going to have to walk a tightrope. All of those phrases come to mind because he's going to have to hold a coalition together, Jeremy, that is mostly Democrats in their thinking.
that in some ways that's going to pay off for them. But look, let's get real here. He's also under a lot of pressure. Just because he was elected that way, he's under a lot of pressure from Governor Abbott, from Lieutenant Governor Patrick, and all of those third-party right-wing groups, and we'll see how he handles it.
Yeah, and look how dangerous it is for him. Here's a guy from Lubbock. Not necessarily your liberal bastion up there, right? A conservative in a region of the state of Texas are his voters, right? He's going to be threading this needle with Democratic support, you know, having to oppose Dan Patrick and Governor Abbott where he sees.
It's necessary. There's a couple of things I kind of want to circle back on. Going back to – there's a really important word in all of the discussion about the Speaker of the House race. It's like it is the people's house. And it's like when you say the – I don't want to get too, you know, Pollyanna about this. But when they say the Speaker's House, it's not just the people who voted.
There's 25 million Texans who did not vote for Republicans at the election. It's like people who voted for Democrats and people who didn't vote at all. The House is supposed to represent all of those people still.
because you don't vote it doesn't mean we can't pay attention to you right it's the people's house so it's it's the people in the fifth ward of houston it's the people on the south side of san antonio it's the people in the woodlands it's all their houses it's like that's the thing where like i
I wish the legislature still had this perspective that we kind of have to represent everybody ultimately in still. It's all 30 million people of Texas deserve to have a voice in trying to figure out how to make this state the best. And there's a piece of history that is – is I think really vital to this whole discussion, particularly about the Democratic chairs. I can't believe they're letting them in. Remember how this started. This was House Speaker Clayton in the 1970s.
Who started putting Republicans. He was a Democrat. And he started putting Republicans in as chairman of committees. Like even though they only had 18 seats in the entire house. 18. Right. 18. 18. That's it. Of 150 members, they had 18 seats. And what did Clayton do, a Democrat? He put Tom Craddock, a Republican, as the chairman of a major committee. It's like that was kind of the first sign of a guy trying to make sure the state, even though it was –
dominated by Democrats. He was willing to have a Republican lead an important committee. It set the tone for what we have today. It's like we've continually done that. When Craddock became the speaker, he ended up making Sylvester Turner. a chairman, one of the chairmen within the Appropriations Committee, to make sure that there was a voice for a Democrat from Houston.
to be part of the program. And I think that's a really important piece of this whole conversation that gets lost in the t-shirts and the chants and whatever else. It's like, come on, tone it down a little. It's still a government that was created with a reasonable constitution. that wanted everybody to kind of work together. You know, there's a reason, like, you know, you can't just, you know, and the Texas House is set up to make sure you need...
a consensus on a lot of issues, right? You know, whether you're Republican or Democrat. And it's like, and so it just makes sense for us to kind of look back at that history. And one final note, like, I can't help but think, you know, when you think about winning...
the speakership is kind of not, you know, it doesn't say a lot about your future, right? You mentioned all those people like Turner and Paxton who went on to higher office. Think about our last house speakers. It's like house speakers don't really. Don't really go on to much. You have to go back to Sam Rayburn. Sam Rayburn went from being the House Speaker here to become probably the most powerful House Speaker in the history of the United States. But outside of him...
It's best to lose that race for House Speaker if you want to do more things in politics other than be the House Speaker. Right, and that's the point. All those people I mentioned were the ones who lost, and then they were able to move on to other stuff, and it speaks right to what I was talking about at the beginning of the show. which is just sort of the way that all of the attacks on these people are amplified in such a way that now the person who becomes the speaker becomes the face of.
You know, of whatever it is that people don't like about Austin, that person is the face of it. Whatever these right wingers don't like about it, they're the face of it. And I had somebody say to me the other day that it doesn't even matter who the person is. They said it's the position, not the person. That causes all that anger. So if those Republicans who were nervous about maybe supporting Dade Phelan for Speaker.
I mean, I would think that they should be just as nervous about supporting Dustin Burroughs for Speaker because the position of Speaker itself has become so vilified. I mean, that's maybe one of the ways to think about it. And one of the big parts of that vilification is Dan Patrick, right? Dan Patrick, who runs the Texas Senate, has made an industry out of bombing.
the house speaker no matter who it is right like he clearly he did it in this race so like he just he wants to have influence over this he went after strauss all the time he went after uh you know bonding and not nearly as much as strauss but he clearly doesn't like the guy But then even with Burroughs, he was just getting in the dirt trying to stop Burroughs from becoming the next House Speaker, which gives you a sense of what's to come, right?
Dan Patrick can get Donald Trump to put out a mean tweet about anybody who gets elected House Speaker. It doesn't matter who it is. That's going to happen. And that, you know, and that's one of the things I'm sure Burroughs had to kind of sit in there in consideration thinking, you know, look, you know, in the end, there could be a day where, you know, Dan Patrick and Donald Trump are calling the same names they called Dade Field.
do I really want this job? Ultimately, he said, yes, I'll take this on. So good luck, buddy. I can't wait to see how this all gets navigated. Well, right to that point. I mean he was so pushed in on all this. We talked about it on the last show, as I mentioned, that he was – that Patrick appeared in an interview last weekend on the Texas Scorecard website just blasting Burroughs and saying that the Republicans need to vote.
For David Cook, after Burroughs was elected speaker, Patrick put out a statement that I thought I could charitably describe as salty, if you will. And he said, this is part of what he said, quote, close quote. He was not... Happy about it. And I'll tell you that he and there was no agreement that this was off the record. So I'm just going to share it. Patrick's office was reaching out to me this weekend, reaching out to me, which they have not done in.
Probably eight years. The last time I had outreach from Patrick's office was Sherry Sylvester was still there as one of his top advisors. And I had told her that she was a complete hypocrite about the bathroom bill because when she was at Texans for lawsuit reform. They weren't for that. But then when she went to work for Patrick, suddenly she was. So then she didn't want to talk to me anymore, but she doesn't work there anymore. So Patrick's office reached out to me on Monday.
Wanting for me to publish in the quorum report information that would have been detrimental to the incoming speaker, Dustin Burroughs. And I'm thinking, wow, this is the same guy. Who kicked me off the Senate floor back in 2019. Last year called me the biggest liar in Texas media. And this weekend wanted me to publish information that he would have thought would damage boroughs.
Before that vote in the House. To your point, Jeremy, he was all in on this. I mean, he was trying to recruit me, who he has just hated in the past. And I don't hate him, but he has hated me in the past with his public statements. And he was trying to recruit me as an ally against the Speaker. By the way, I didn't publish any of that stuff. If I thought it was legit, maybe I would have.
I looked through it and I didn't. But in his first speech as Speaker, Burroughs focused first on empowering the members of the House regardless of party. I'm a firm believer in servant leadership. So just imagine my spot at the bottom of the house organizational chart, supporting each of every one of you in your obligations to your district and to our great state.
You represent millions of Texas families who entrusted you with their vote and their future. He talked about his career thus far in the House. During my time in this chamber, I've occupied every station. From what felt like the highest to what had to be the lowest, sometimes in the same session. I've carried major legislation and minor bills and experienced sessions with no bills at all. Each role.
Each experience has taught me something essential about this institution we call the People's House. Something really interesting in watching the progression of Burroughs' career is how he...
He came into the House as an outsider, which happens quite a bit. Some people will come in as sort of right-wing flamethrowers against the leadership and will make their way into the leadership circle, which he did. When Burroughs was elected… to the house originally um he didn't have to go through a republican primary you know about this jeremy so what happened was senator robert duncan from lubbock who is now going to be the chief of staff to burroughs that announcement was made this week
Senator Duncan retired from the Senate to become the chancellor at the Texas Tech System. And so that opened up a Senate seat, and Senator Charles Perry got that seat. And then we were at the point on the calendar where party bosses choose. The new nominee, right? This happens quite frequently. We saw that with Senator Boris Miles.
And more recently, I think you were there for the choosing of Sylvester Turner as a nominee, right, for the precinct chairs to choose. Well, so if it's a district where it includes multiple counties, the party chairman picked. Those county party chairmen come and they pick the person in a meeting. And at that time, they chose Dustin Burroughs, who's a lawyer in Lubbock. And what Burroughs did to get the nomination.
from those party chairs, this was the promise that he made, Jeremy. You'll love this. You love this kind of history. He promised he would vote against Joe Strauss in 2015 and vote for Scott Turner instead. So he was one of the 19 Republican members who was completely on the outside. And so when you heard him mention there that there were sessions where he carried no bills at all and didn't get to do anything, that was back then. But then he made his way into the inner circle.
as a trusted ally of Speaker Dennis Bonin and now is going to hold the gavel. You know, facing this opposition from Patrick, and he talked about his growth. And I've seen this with a lot of members, by the way. He talked about his growth and the kind of mentors that he has had in the House. And in his speech, he pointed to one mentor in particular.
who is a veteran Democrat from Houston, that would be retired Representative Garnet Coleman. I remember great Garnet Coleman, who chaired my first committee and shared wisdom I have never forgotten. He told me... We all have the same people, poor people, wealthy people, and everything in between. United by the fact they all have problems. But at the end of the day, we have to work together because of whom we represent. We work for the people.
So citing Democrats in his speech, relying on Democratic votes to become the Speaker of the House, you might think that when the House votes on its rules as soon as next week, that Speaker Burroughs would – deliver for the Democrats and preserve what you were talking about, Jeremy, the tradition of having chairmen who are in the minority party. I can't tell you with any certainty right now that he's doing that, that he's whipping votes for that.
What I was told earlier today is that there are probably only seven or eight Republican votes in the House right now.
to preserve Democratic chairs. And to continue that tradition, you would need something more like 15 to 20 who would tell the – if the speaker was whipping on this, which again, I don't – i don't know that he is and i don't see any evidence of that so far um but you would really want 15 to 20 and it's not because somebody said why don't you know the exact number and i said it's not that i can't do math
It's that things change on the floor. You might – which you know, Jeremy, when they're trying to get enough support for something, they want to have a buffer. They want to have a cushion. And so I think the hard number – if everybody was present, the hard number is I think 14. But beyond that, you'd probably want to have – 17 or 20 who had at least said that they would, but before the vote actually happens, those specific people might get certain pressure that makes them vote.
The other way. And I do think that that's going to that will help tell the story of a lot of what's happening with the session, which is, as we told you on the show before, there are a lot of Democrats who are kind of resigned to the idea that there are not going to be any Democratic chairman. you know, chairmanships anyway. You know, and most of the Democrats, the vast majority in the House are not chairman.
And I've heard from a lot of Democratic lawmakers who have said, why are we continuing to fight over this? They would look around their caucus and say, I, in fact, am not a chairman.
And so I don't know what it is that – why am I having this big fight about the goodies that somebody else might get? But I do think that for the kind of – session we're going to have, the kind of spending that's going to have to be done, some constitutional amendments that are going to have to be passed in conjunction with the budget, to have House Democrats at the seat of government, at the table of power.
Again, how many cliches can I work in here? To have the Democrats actually there in the conversation that they need to get something. And there have been some conversations about making Democrats vice chairman. having them be ranking members or something like that, including some more money for their office budgets, which I think that they may.
come up with something to kind of offer some kind of a bone for folks out there in the House. But they're really, in a lot of ways, they're almost just begging for scraps from the Republicans at this point, even though they just delivered the votes to... to elect the speaker. Yeah, I can imagine a situation where, you know, despite them helping Dustin Burroughs become the speaker, there are no Democratic chairs, right? Right. What a weird twist that's going to be. If somehow what those...
Republican conservative voices were chanting, they kind of get what they want, but with the guy they didn't want. Right. Good luck trying to figure all of this all out. But that's what's so beautiful about the 140 days that we call a legislative session. You know, things happen that just doesn't seem like it's going to happen in things you think.
are going to happen, don't. So it says, you know, never count on anything going into a session and just expect things are going to blow up. Yeah, right. It will happen. So the inauguration in Washington is coming up. early next week on monday and there is a you know just a polar vortex all this winter weather moving in on the east coast already and we'll see this here by monday we'll see the temperatures dipping down into the
Well, into the teens around here. And we may get some snow and ice next week, Evan. As far south as the Rio Grande Valley is what I saw in some of the forecasts. The ERCOT grid for right now, they're saying here on Friday afternoon that the next six days look good. But you'll want to keep your eye. We've heard this before. You'll want to keep your eye on HoustonChronicle.com, QuorumReport.com. We'll keep you updated if anything shakes loose there, if we have any issues. And the Texas House.
is set to vote on those rules next Wednesday, the rules that we were just talking about, I could imagine that some of the Republicans who are going to Washington now for inaugural events for Trump, that they might not be able to make it back. You know, if the airports get shut down amid a snow and ice storm. So we might see that, Jeremy.
Yeah, we got a lot of Texans headed up that way, right? You know, this is very much a Texas presidential inauguration in a lot of ways. You had Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have both already said that they're going to be up there. George W. Bush.
is supposed to be in the crowd. He's already said that he and Laura Bush are going to be there. Lots of Texans. You've got Tillman Fertitta, who has played such a big role in helping get Trump elected. He's going to be hosting one of the... the receptions after the inauguration, actually after the swearing in, he'll be there. So we're going to have a lot of Texans freezing in 14, 15 degree weather potentially, waiting for Trump to put his hand on that Bible.
Yeah, so they're moving all of that indoors so they don't have to do that. And one of the musical acts from Texas as well, Conroe's own Parker McCollum. Burn it down. Jeremy you were telling me about when you first kind of discovered Parker. He was I guess touring with and was introduced by Randy Rogers when he was going around performing.
Yeah, he's a very country artist, obviously, but he has a very good Texas music route to him. Randy Rogers has really kind of put him under his wing, tried to help him a lot. You've seen him down at Cheatham Street Warehouse.
which Randy Rogers actually owns. But that's where George Drake got his start. And so that's where you get Parker McCollum playing in places like that. He's done all the Texas dives that you're supposed to do to kind of pay your dues. So that group really kind of loves him still. even though he is becoming a more popular big-time country. And so, look, we don't have a lot of Texas music that's going to be part of the music.
you know, lineup during the inauguration balls. But it's just good to see a kid from Conroe get his chance to be kind of part of this thing. You know, five, six years ago, there's no way Parker McCollum ever thought he'd be playing at a presidential inauguration.
right you know but here he is you know getting to be on uh on stage so you know look i i know people will go oh these are people we need to boycott who play at this thing it goes the same way you know it's like i know people were saying oh we gotta boycott springsteen because he you know, likes Biden or whatever.
Forget all that. If music is good, just like the music, man. Everybody has opinions, but the fact that somebody might not listen to Merrill Haggard or Willie Nelson because of who they support in an election seems insane to me. This guy's music is good. Go check out his Austin Scene Limits performance. Just give it a listen. Judge him for who he is. Look, he's such a pretty boy that it makes me the way he is.
and you know i mean the women go nuts at his concerts and everything you know that um but but that's why it makes me uh happy to hear that he kind of came up through the ranks the old school way, having to play in all those dive bars and, you know, really, you know, really earn his keep around here.
Yeah, they just had a 50th anniversary of Cheatham Street Warehouse, you know, a big rally down there. A lot of performers played. But when Parker McCollum got on stage, I kid you, it was 90% young women. near that stage man men just get the hell out of the way this is this is their artist but like he's got legit
You know, country music from a Texas perspective. It's like, you know, listening to this stuff, you can see he's a songwriter still who's putting this stuff together. So it's not just him taking other people's music and putting life to it. Like this guy's like legitimately. He actually was on that Miranda Lambert album, that new one that came out. He actually did a duet with her on that, which just adds even more credibility to both of them, quite honestly. I mean, you know.
some of the country music artists that we love so much are big time democrats i mean with willie nelson you know ain't voting for no republicans he's at every who's at every betto rally and everything else Chris Christopherson? You think he voted for a lot of Republicans? I'm going to guess no, based on the personal politics. As my daughter always says when it comes to this stuff, you've got to kind of separate the artist from the art.
Do you appreciate the music or not? So we'll close out the show. Go ahead. No, I like when they come together too, when you can have like Shower Crow, who backs Kamala Harris, does a duet with Kid Rock, who obviously is Trump through and through. For them to still do music together.
It's like, okay, there's a message there, y'all. It's like if they can do music together, we can listen to both of them still too, right? Maybe they don't have to completely hate everybody. We're kind of ending the show with what we started with, which is everybody should stop hating everybody. That's my message of peace and love this afternoon on a Friday. I'm a little surprised I can be in this good of a mood.
after a week like this, but I'm ready to roll all through this legislative session, Jeremy. All right, let's wrap it up here. We'll end with a little more Parker McCollum for you. So some of you can, you know. Appreciate the music. Same thing I said with Ted Nugent. Go Google Parker McCollum top hits. Some cool stuff comes up. You should check out Jeremy's newsletter. You can find that on his X page, Jeremy S. Wallace.
It's the pin post. He's got the link right there. The newsletter comes out every day, Monday through Friday, and I'm pushing him to do it seven days a week during the session. We'll see what happens. You should be a subscriber at quorumreport.com and houstonchronicle.com. And we'll see you next time. It's been a hell