This week's episode of the Tripcast is supported by Raise Your Hand Texas and Water Groves. Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for January tenth, twenty twenty five.
We are back.
The Tribune trip Cast is back after a short hiatus. Thanks everyone for joining us back. My name is Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texas Tribune, and I am joined by our two new Trip Cast co hosts, Eleanor Klibanoff.
Hello, Eleanor, Hello, thanks for having.
Me and James Bettergan.
Hello, gat to be back.
Great to have you back, and we are Our guest today is Jasper Sharer Paulitics, reporter for the Texas Tribune.
Hey, Jasper, Hey, thanks for letting me crash.
Absolutely we are happy to have you. The subject of this first special edition of the trip Cast is the legislative set that begins Tuesday. It'll be the beginning of a one hundred and forty day sprint that will touch the lives of every single Texan in the state. They'll determine how much to spend on schools, how much our property taxes are, you know, road construction, little things, you know, will designate some state flower that pollinates or something.
I don't know. We already have a.
State flower of anything's like that. But but you know, a major moment in the lives of Texans, whether they know it or not. And today we are going to preview that that session, talk about the key issues, but maybe most importantly and what will take up a big part of our discussion at the beginning is the speaker's race. Any ledge preview has to start there. And what I'm going to do here bear with me all three is I'm going to just go through a sort of table
setter of where we are right now. I'm going to try to do it as fast as I can, but it's complicated. So here we go. Last year's legislative session and the special sessions that fall ended with many people sort of repeating the claim that House Speaker Dade Feelin is, if not the most then at least one of the most conservative speakers in Texas history. But there were three things that happened under his watch that turned many Republicans against him. The first one he continued the tradition of
selecting Democratic committee chairs. The second one is Attorney General Ken Paxon was impeached under his watch, later acquitted by the Senate. The third one is Greg Abbott's Priority voucher bill failed in the House multiple times under his watch. Essentially since then there has been intense pressure on the House. Abbot and Paxxton and their allies targeted multiple Feelin allies in the GOP primaries. Anti Feelin forces sort of rallied around David Cook as a new Speaker candidate, and under
that pressure, Dade Feelin dropped out. Dustin Burrows, a Republican from the Panhandle Lubbock area, stepped in. It created what sort of is a two person race, although we'll talk about whether that actually is true or not, in which really kind of both sides have at various times claimed victory. Caucus rules say that GOP members must vote for the
caucus endorse candidate. On December seventh, that caucus met, but Burrough's supporters walked out of the meeting after two rounds of voting where no one could get to the sixty
percent threshold. The remaining voters then voted forty eight to fourteen to endorse Cook, earning him the official endorsement of the Majority Party and the requirement that basically or the expectation that Republicans in the caucus vote for him, but soon after that, Burroughs on that same day declared that he had the seventy six votes necessary to become a speaker,
half Democrats, half Republicans. But soon after that some of the people on Burroughs list said they shouldn't have been on it, which brought his vote count back under seventy six. It's been very intense, a lot of pressure on people to change their votes, particularly the Borough supporters. After that, we've had Amoro businessman Alex Ferry saying he'd spend twenty million dollars in the next primary to quote, expand a new majority. We'll talk more about what that means. Paxton
has toured the state in support of Cook. Abbott has said members should select a speaker quote in accordance with caucus rules, which many people to take took to mean a sort of endorsement of Cook and the GOP. The actual state party has said it'll censure members who vote for the non caucus pick, potentially removing them from the twenty twenty six primary ballot. Meanwhile, Democrats don't really seem to all be on the same page, or at least
publicly have not rallied around an individual candidate. This all sets up Tuesday, the first day of the session, when there will be a vote on the House Speaker. Okay, and I'll be basically, I think the first time since the seventies where we'll go into that day not knowing who the House Speaker is going to be unless something changes between then and now. First of all, Jasper, did I get that right? Did I miss anything?
Yeah?
I think that was a pretty pretty solid summary. I mean, it's it's it's kind of weird how you mentioned. This is just sort of unprecedented over the last handful of decades to go in with so much uncertainty. It's kind of created this sense of, you know, just sort of inertia, just a lack of movement. You know, nobody really you know, the polsy discussions that you might expect to be having,
you know, heading into the session. There's just way more uncertainty, you know, a week before we're set to kick off, because nobody knows who's going to be in charge of you know, one half of this b cameral legislature.
James, give me, like a brief introduction to these two candidates are what do they represent? Who what's their backgrounds.
Yeah, it's a certain extent, it's not really about the two candidates. It's about the camps that they're in, which is that Dustin Burrows is the establishment candidate of the traditional business minded Republicans, and he argues that he is conservative. He just doesn't want to do every single thing that the right wing of the party wants him to do. And I think he would say that, particularly the people who fund the right wing would want him to do.
David Cook is an unusual pick for this right wing coalition that's trying to take over the speaker's gavel in the House because he's kind of a pretty moderate guy. He's like in the middle of that GOP caucus, so it's kind of strange that he is the guy that they went with. But people in his camp had said, it's not really about him, it's not really about his policies.
We kind of disagree with him on some of the policies, but it's about changing the way the speaker operates, meaning we want there to be you know, less ticky tacky points of order or less like more flow with the parliamentarians and more I would say, looseness on the rules they might contest that, but that's I.
Think what it is.
They want a commitment from the speaker to prioritize Republican Party of Texas legislation, and they want no democratic chairs, which Burrows hasn't committed, but he sort of has because he says he'll leave it up to the will of the members, which with an eighty eight Republican majority, it'd be hard not to see that ban on democratic chairs.
So a lot going on there, but it's basically a showdown between the right wing of the party and sort of that traditional business minded Republican faction of the party.
Can that's a question what is a speaker of the House, Like why does this matter? You know, for like outside of the sort of the Republican Party has dominated Texas for a long time. This is all like we're talking about a small corner of the party fighting against another small corner of the party. Like what is the impact for Texans?
Yeah, I think a lot of it is like inside baseball, honestly. But what the speaker does is he's the traffic cop. He directs the flow of how the chamber is going to run. He appoints the committees, he appoints the people who lead the committees, which bestows a lot of power because if a chairman or chairwoman doesn't like your bill, then they're not.
Going to move it right.
They also appoint the calendar's committee chairperson, who like decides what gets on the House floor, and they also decide sort of, you know, what the flow is going to be, what the pace is going to be of the chamber, which goes into a lot of the dynamics between the
House and the Senate. You know, they theoretically are working together to pass legislation, but sometimes they are at odds because you know, there's one hundred and fifty House members, so they're elected by less people, and then there's thirty one members in the Senate who are elected by more people, and so there's like a little bit of a different constituency.
I would also say that in the recent history of the legislature, there's always been one chamber that has been sort of the like calming, cooling, moderating force on the legislature. For a while, that was the Senate, particularly under David Dewhurst. At the time they had the two thirds rule. Basically, any bill that reached the House of the Senate floor had to have the approval of two thirds of the chamber.
That usually meant some kind of bipartisan support for the bill to reach the floor, and that you required compromise in order to get that done. Dan Patrick, when he was elected Lieutenant governor to preside over the Senate, changed that rule to three fifths, which then gave Republicans essentially a super majority and able to kind of exactly it lowers the threshold. But around that time you had Joe Strauss come into the House, and Joe Strauss was elected
by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. He was a more moderate member and was sort of a thorn in the side and enemy of that kind of hardline right side of the party. Speakers since Strauss have gotten I think more conservative. I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but to the extent that there has been things to kind of slow down that a Republican agenda, it has often been in the House. The school voucher
vote is an example of that. I think one of the questions heading into this session is will the House continue to be that moderating force? And I think a lot of the people supporting Cook want it to not be and sort of want those sort of guardrails taken off, you know, and they have reason to do that, right.
The body is a very conservative body. The Texas voters have voted for very conservative candidates, and I think their argument is that agenda should be pushed through without any friction because they control that chamber.
Yeah, And I think it's also important to remember that I completely agree with the characterization of sort of the two chambers. The House has been the more sort of moderating body. But you know, even in over the last couple legislative sessions where we've seen just this array of conservative laws getting passed, I think, you know, even that role for the House has started to diminish a little bit.
And it sort of gets to the point that whether it's Dustin Burrows, David Cook, or someone else, you know, this is still gonna be It's still gonna be a very conservative house. There's gonna be a lot of pressure on you know, whether again, whether it's Burrows or whoever, to you know, enact the priorities of kind of Governor Dan Patrick.
Uh.
You know, Governor abbott Is has been pushing for a private school voucher program pretty aggressively for the last couple of years. So it's you know, it's we're not really considering a situation where it's like, is the House going to be, you know, super moderate versus you know, ultra conservative. I think it's it's regardless of what happens, it's going to be on the closer to the ultra conservative end.
What what really is up for debate is how much power sharing there's gonna be with with Democrats and and sort of also you're starting to get at this point, Matthew, just the the kind of the influence of the Senate in Dan Patrick over you know, the the way the House operates. I think there is that is sort of up for debate. Just's if it's David Cook or someone from the wing of the party that supports David Cook.
You know, I think the feeling is that Dan Patrick will have a much easier time getting his way on and that does mean a lot more conservative legislation. But there are also things that you know, his for example, he has voiced his view that he wants to ban THHD in Texas. You know, that doesn't fall neatly along partisan or even conservative and moderate lines necessarily, So I
think that is. It's sort of the democratic power sharing and also the independence of the House that's kind of up for debate right now.
Yeah, But like you said, the key word, which is power, right, Like, that's what this is all about. It's not really about like who's more conservative who's less conservative, because the reality is, you know, Lieutenant Governor Patrick sometimes does things that aren't
really associated with traditional Republican conservative ideology. I'm thinking back to when there was a winner freeze and you try to claw back all that money from the energy companies, Like that doesn't fall neatly into traditional conservative lines of thinking, and a lot of it, like getting involved in THHC that also doesn't like really fall in line with conservatives.
There's this sort of new conservative of like we are the conservatives, and we say who what conservatism is, which goes up all the way to President Trump to a certain extent to Governor Abbott. There's no like real rules of what conservative is. So they say, we are the conservatives, and if you are not doing what we're doing or what we want you to do, then you are not conservative enough. And I think that's what the traditional Republican
faction is arguing about. They're saying, like, we're actually the real Republicans, we actually have ideology that we've been following since the eighties, and you guys are just making up new rules. One of the things that you hear a lot with the Cook supporters is it's not really about feeling. It's not really about Strauss, it's not really about Burrows. It's about the members being able to drive the conversation.
And literally everybody says that, you know, Dennis Bonden said that when he came in, Felan said that, and to a certain extent, Felan let the members drive the conversation. So it's just interesting to see this. But it's all really about power. I mean, it's not really about who's more conservative or less conservative.
It's who has the power.
And if you look, sorry Eleanor, but if you look, a lot of the people who are backing Cook are people who don't have a lot of power. I mean, there's some chairman in there, of course, and they have valid reasons, i'm sure, for supporting Cook, but it's a lot of new either freshmen or sophomore legislators who aren't going to have the power because of seniority.
If you look at Burrows this it's people.
Who are chairmen who've been there a long time and who are invested in maintaining that power.
And I think one other way to look at this and kind of illustrate the point you're making is just the ideological range of members who are supporting the two candidates. There are tons of super conservative members who are supporting bur and there are a bunch of you know, folks who fall on the more moderate or maybe you know, sort of establishment side of the party who are who are supporting David Cook. So it's it's not neatly divided, you know, down the middle ideologically.
And it seems like this is sort of like an inevitability of politics. So because like we're talking about like really splitting hairs of conservatism, right like, there are very few, like like you said, this is not a question of are we gonna have a very liberal session or a very conservative session. And it sort of speaks like you cannot really have one party in dominant power without eventually
having like schisms within that. So it seems like the impeachment of at traditional Kin Paxson was like sort of a watershed moment for that, which is like we're gonna have two We're have two sides fighting each other. They agree ideologically on almost everything, but you have to have a schism.
And of course David Cook voted for the impeachment of Kim Paxon, even though now Paxson is now out in this state campaign four Cook, which I think is just pretty fascinating. I mean, I'm I got to say, I'm really struck by and I think James and Jasper the what you just described about power maybe answers the question that has been going on in my head, which is the pressure against these Burrows and previously feeling supporters has
been so intense. You know, we just saw a blood bath in the Republican primary last year where members were just wiped out. They had so much spinning against them, even the ones who one felt like there were lies being told about them in the primary. It's very just uncomfortable to be in that situation when there's a bunch
of money coming against you. I mean, I think it's a pretty safe bet at this point unless something happens between now and Tuesday, that there's going to be an effort to remove each of those vote members from the ballot. Like I think we will see that attempt happen. And I mean, they're really in their political stake up for grabs here putting four sort of splitting of hairs of conservativism.
And maybe the answer is just there's only so many positions of power in the House, and when you have one, when you're in with the person who's in control, it's you want to fight to keep that.
Yeah, I think, I mean, thinking ahead to the twenty twenty six primaries, I think it will sort of serve as the ultimate test of you know, how is it possible, you know, sort of testing the limits of how much you know these kind of typically what has historically been an internal battle. You know, the House speakers race traditionally is a member to member thing that you know, that
the public only finds out about after the facts. So twenty twenty six will really test just the you know, how the public's appetite, the ability of the folks on the right to you know, make this a central component
of these primary campaigns. And they you know, they've they've been trying to do this generally for for the past decade, but it has gotten into such a degree of hair splitting that they've sort of been fishing for for issues to you know, include on their on their campaign mailers and sort of accuse the you know, alleged Rhinos of
of not supporting. So I think it's it's you know, a lot of this is kind of inside baseball, as James was saying, And you know, it's I think kind of if if we do get a speaker, Burrows or somebody who the the right wing of the party is unhappy with, you know, they're of course going to be going scorched earth against the you know, the members who didn't vote the way they want to. But you know, our our primary voter is going to be receptive to that. I'm not sure.
I do want to get into like whether we think it's going to be Burrows or Cook, just because I think that would be fun and I want to put you guys on the spot. But I but I also, uh, you know, I pushed back on that twenty twenty sixth things just because you know, it's so far away. It's so far away, it's like a year and a half way,
and that's like an eternity in politics, right. And then also we have this whole session for lawmakers to really try to pass conservative legislation to go back to their constituents and say, look, this is actually conservative legislation, Like it doesn't matter what everybody else says, Like this.
Is what we're passing, right.
And I think the third thing that people are overlooking is that in the last primary cycle, there was a couple of things that converge to create that like really crazy storm for a lot of these incumbent Republicans. It's the things that you talked about Paxston getting impeached that really catalyzed the right wing of the party. School vouchers not passing that really catalyzed, and so it was Paxton
and Abbot sniping their own Republican fellows. I don't see that happening because I think we are going to see school vouchers pass this session. I think the Republicans feel that pressure and they know that they've got to pass something, and so I just don't see that same storm coming. And so if then you take Abbot out of the equation and potentially and potentially have Abbot backing you as a school about your supporter, that really really changes the equation.
And when Abba gets involved on the side of the traditional Republicans, it's a completely different game, and I think that's a calculation they're making.
Yeah, I think that's right.
Okay, well let's do this then, James, you wanted to say, Oh, that's yea Burrows. I'm not going to ask for a prediction because I don't I don't know if we need to make predictions. But let's hear from the three of y'all on who the who you think the favorite is right now at eleven twenty four on Friday.
Well, I think just I mean it's got to be Burrows. Just sort of reading some of the tea leaves lately, and part of the reason I have twenty twenty six on my mind is just at some of these campaign stops that that Ken Paxson has been making over the last few days, going around to try to pressure, you know,
hold out house members to get behind Cook. You know, you sort of heard some of the language there has they you know, has been we think we're going to win, but if we don't, you know, these these guys are
in trouble in twenty twenty six. So I think, just sort of again trying to read the tea leaves there, you know, it feels like the groundwork is maybe being laid a little bit for if things go the way of Dustin Burroughs on Tuesday, I think also just looking at the coalition that Burrow's put together in his initial list, you know, he has lost some members from that list. You know, we haven't seen a public you know, list of supporters from him over the last month or so.
But I do think just looking at the sheer math of it, you know, David Cook is trying to get to seventy six votes through a route that doesn't really give Democrats a lot of obvious reasons to support him. You know, his whole kind of platform is predicated on eliminating power sharing, you know, all sorts of changes that if I'm if I'm a Democratic lawmaker, I'm probably going to be looking elsewhere first. And so Burrows just has a much easier path to go compared to David.
Cook at this point.
James, Okay, well, Jasper stole all my lines, So no, I would say I would agree with that. I mean, I think I've shared this with you guys. I think that Burrows is in pole position just because, like if you just look at the lists, he's got the highest number. I mean, it's not seventy six. We know that for sure, but it's still higher than the fifty six.
Fifty seven.
Then we saw David Cook put out at his highest. His watermark is fifty six. Even Burrows after losing the seven people he lost, is still higher than fifty six, right, And so I think the other thing too is we have to talk about the role of Democrats, right and the role of like these squishy Republicans who maybe are on both lists, who are trying to figure out if they want to be in power, who's the guy that's going or gal who's going to get them to be
in power? And you're on if you feel like you're on sinking ships, like neither one of them is going to get to seventy six, which some of these folks do feel like. We've seen the letters from Gary Gates. They're looking for a third option, and they've been looking for a third option for a while. And there's that uncommitted group of Democrats who are neither Cook nor Burroughs, and they're trying to figure out, can we build a coalition, can we pull from these other coalitions to build our
own coalition so that we are in power. I think that's still an interesting thing to look at. But like I said, I think it's Boroughs third candidate and then Cook. But I do think that the ironic thing in all of this is that these two guys who are fighting to be the more conservative Republican, the conservative choice for speaker, are going to have to rely on Democratic votes and it's going to be interesting to see like how exactly they go about getting those.
Owner Are you going to be a contrarian?
Sure, I will, I'll make the case for you know. I mean, I think the main thing is, like we is, we've got a lot of people who are on both sides of this that are sort of just trying to predict accurately where the power goes. So I do think there is a chance that this, you know, a sort of the fear campaign that's being lodged against some these members takes hold. You just need, like the numbers are so small that you really do just need like a
few people to move in either direction. I do think it's also possible that we have, you know, a third candidate, that someone else emerges, that this all like becomes sort of all this like back and forth becomes irrelevant. But I kind of think, and I guess it's a question for you guys. But like, regardless, the fact that they sort of I mean, it's reminiscent of the House Speaker
vote in Congress. Like the fact that they can't agree on this first question does sort of set up a potentially very painful, drawn out session.
And I'm curious, like how long that first day is gonna go. The other thing we have to say is that there is officially a third candidate, which is Anna Maria Ramos, who hasn't dropped out, and she's got her vote, and then as of this morning, she has Ray Lopez. So that's two votes for Anna Maria Ramos, have to say it, but there's other Republicans still kind of floating
about in there. But yeah, I'm curious, like how long this thing is going to go, if we're going to have like multiple votes, or if it's going to wrap up pretty easily.
And also, just like the session at large.
I do think the point about the Democrats though, is that could be maybe the it might be the leading contender as sort of the factor that could upend Dustin Burrows's chances. If the Democrats, you know, just come out Tuesday totally fractured, you've got the the you know, I don't know the exact number of folks who are you know, planning to go to the to the mat, go to the floor casting their vote for for Anna Maria Ramos, even knowing that she doesn't have the math to win.
There's also sort of another faction of House Democrats, you know, apparently led by Sinfronia Thompson, one of the longest serving members in the House, who who has been through a whole lot of speaker races in her time, so, you know, assuming she knows what she's doing, she's also kind of leading the Burroughs like sort of the holdout members who are keeping their powder dry. And then, you know, the biggest faction of Democrats as of now at least are
the ones who are publicly supporting Burroughs. You know, there might be some crossover between the Sinfernia Thompson Onno Maria Ramos Camp's not sure, but it's you know, if.
If that's the same camp.
Yeah, but if it's you know that that if it's evenly divided or even there's you know, uh, you know, I'm not sure exactly how the math works out, but just enough Democrats who aren't willing to support Burrows, and you know, the pressure campaign against the Republican members causes enough to hold out that could sink him, and then you know, the Borough's supporters have to look to someone else.
There's one other thing I just want to bring up, which I was sort of skeptical of the Borough's path because of the pressure.
But I will say, and because a lot of Democrats hate him, like there's a lot of animals.
Not really like ally meaningful allies.
Yet I will say, you know, I mentioned the Alex Fairley money earlier here, twenty million dollars that he said. He's he's a Marilla businessman. He's sort of a new player in the like Megadna worlds of Texas, particularly kind of perceived on that like hard line right. He put out that he was going to spend twenty million in the next primary to quote expand and you know a real conservative majority.
I think I'll speak for myself.
I saw that as a sort of implicit threat against people voting for Burroughs. He put out a statement like right before we came in to record this where it seemed like the tone had shifted a little bit. He said the speaker should be elected with a majority of Republicans supporting him or her, which right, and did not mention the caucus endorsement at all. And he said the fund will not primary members based solely on their speaker vote.
And that felt a little different from what the Republican Party of Texas.
Is exactly, And that felt a little bit almost like like someone people can read that and view that as permission to vote for Burroughs or a third candidate in this way. And I think that's meaningful because twenty million dollars is a lot of money. That's more than Abbot was spinning in the past primary. And if you feel like that money is not going to be used against you, that might make you feel a little bit more.
Comfortab It's a notable tone change.
Yeah, yeah, I'd put that in the category of the tea leaves that make me think Burrows is maybe the favorite as of right now.
Yea, all right, let's pause a disclosure that this is all pre recorded on Friday.
Right right, exactly.
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and generations to come more at Watergrows dot org. All right, let's talk about some Paul here. Vouchers is the big ticket item. We talked about the primaries. Many of those primary defeats of Republicans were people who voted against vouchers and drew the attention and the considerable financial resources of Greg Abbott. We're somewhere, you know, the back of the envelope. Math is sort of like we're around like seventy nine voucher supporters right now.
Is this a sure thing?
I don't think so.
I mean, it's it's I think we're heading into the session with you know, vouchers or education savings accounts, the kind of voucher like policy that's being proposed. I think it has its best shot of passing maybe ever, at least in decades. But at the same time, you know, the official or I guess unofficial whip count that's being thrown around in the House is seventy nine votes. Who you know members who would support some sort of voucher
program if it hits the floor. You know, the big caveat there is that a whole lot of those members are not on record saying what type of voucher program they would support. And when you pair that with just how slim that margin is, you know, you're only three votes past the number you need to reach majority in the House. I think it's, you know, the smart money now is basically something is more likely to pass than not.
But nobody really knows what you know, format is acceptable to a majority of House members, right, I.
Think it's I mean, nothing's for sure in the legislature, but I think this is a pretty safe bet. As Jasper put it, just because you saw what Governor Abbott did in the primaries, you don't want to be facing him again in the primaries next time around. He wants to get something done. He's been very clear about that. He's brought in a whole new batch of lawmakers who
want to get something done on school choice. It just is a question of what that sort of voucher legislation looks like and I think that's going to be a sticking point, but I'm pretty sure it passes.
Yeah, I think like you, if you're David Cook and you and Speaker, you're you know, I think going to be more aligned with Dan Patrick in the future, and like it's a little bit more smooth sailing. If you're Burrows or some other candidate, I think you probably politically want to get Abbott as close to on your side as quickly as possible, and probably the best way to do that is to move a bill through and move it through quickly so that we don't end up in the situation we ended up in twenty two.
And Burrows I think has been supportive of school actually, right, Yeah, so that's not an issue.
Right exactly.
Okay, what other issues are standing out to y'all in the session? I'll start with you eleanor Well.
I as the women's health reporter, I got to make a pitch for you know, twenty twenty three last session. I joke, and this is very overstated, but that like the word abortion was not said under the Capitol Dome in the twenty twenty three session. It just like was not touched at all, so, I obviously am watching to see whether, you know, we've seen some momentum from conservatives
around trying to crack down further on abortion pills. We see a couple bills that modeled after like a Louisiana bill that makes abortion inducing drugs a controlled substance, a couple like smaller things on that front. And then I'm also watching after the election, where we saw so much conversation, particularly from conservatives about trans kids. Trans adults really was seen as like a very powerful tool during the election for conservatives. I think we're expecting to see more bills.
You know, last session we saw a huge victory for conservatives on this effort they've been pushing for a while to ban gender firming care for minors. It's not yet clear like what the next frontier is whether they're going to sort of try to regulate trans adults lives or further restrict sort of this care for trans miners, but that probably will We'll see more conversation on that front than on the abortion front.
Yeah, if you watched college football in the fall ahead of the election, you know that that was maybe the most popular Republican ad in Texas and beyond and so you got to think there's going to be something related to that, you know, women's sports, trans kids, any of those types of things.
Yeah, it's tricky because Texas has done a lot of that already. But every I mean there's a group out there that tracks like anti trans legislation, and it's just like the years Texas meets in the legislature, you can see there's like a huge spike nationally and then the years we don't meet, like other states are just not doing nearly as much as we are on that front. So they'll do something.
James, what's on your radar?
Social conservatives are in so more socially conservative legislation.
Ten Commandments bills, a lot of the trans bills.
Ten Commandments is requiring schools to hang them in the classroom walls.
Right, Yeah.
And then I think immigration is thing to watch. The return of this question of banning whether cities and counties can pay lobbyists to advocate on their behalf in Austin, I think that's a big push my social conservatives.
And then I guess immigration is something to watch too.
Yeah, I mean right, the big question is how much does the state invest in immigration? And that Trump presidency.
Yeah, I mean all of the above for sure.
I think also just looking at the the budget surplus that we're expected to see for the second straight regular session, it's going to be a sizeable, you know, share of some billions of dollars. We don't have the official estimate yet from the Comptroller, Glenn Hagar, but that's going to be you know, doled out to presumably property tax cuts,
property tax relief of some sort. Just looking to see how big that relief packages, and also whether the two chambers can agree on what format takes or whether we see a redux of the you know, endless, endless fighting that led to multiple special sessions. I think also keeping on the theme of the budget surplus, like water, infrastructure is a big one, just continuing the investment made last regular session to you know, fix the leaky pipes all over the state and find new sources of water and
just kind of infrastructure in general. You know, we spend billions of dollars on highway expansion and just all kinds of stuff that sort of flows under the radar of these these charged political debates. But I think you know a lot of the big issues will kind of flow through that the budget surplus two we're talking about like public school finance, you know, kind of parent that that conversation is always just by nature paired with the voucher talk.
Just you know, how much gets spent on raises for teachers, and you know, trying to shore up.
That issue, the workforce shortage.
In public schools. I think that's a big one. And I guess the last one to flag would be the grid, the power gridg just you know, Dan Patrick has said he wants to continue providing the low interest loans to incentivize the construction of new natural gas plants. So just you know, whatever gets passed in that genre is hugely important for the state.
Yeah, Urkott really support late last year or middle of last year, actually saying predicting demand on the grid going up seventy five percent over the next six years. Anyone who lived through twenty twenty one, that's a scary thing to think about. I think the politicians of the state would really like to not have something like that happen again.
So I think you'll see some commitment there. I'll add two more gambling not I don't think a lot of support for that in the Senate at least at the top, but a lot of money being spent by lobbyists on that one, So that'll be a fun one to watch. And then THC marijuana. We talked about this already, Dan Patrick coming out wanting to ban all those THHC products that are sort of like marijuana, sort of being unregulated and right now in the way that they're sold.
That was interesting too because Sid Miller kind of came out against that, and there's obviously a lot of rural lawmakers who's that's a big cash game for them in their district.
Well, and people forget that the House passed a marijuana decriminalization bill last session. It's a very different House, of course, but I think a big a good question to ask of whether there's support for that in the.
Yeah, I think that's kind of an early sleeper pick for like a big issue that could divide the two chambers, you know, when we get around to like April or May, and you know, thinking about bills that could could bring drag other uncontroversial bills down with it. You know, there's always a few of those every session. I feel like it seemed like the vibe that in the House is generally among the Republicans is against banning THHC, maybe more
regulation of it. It sort of depends on where Dan Patrick wants to go with that.
Well, I hope y'all have your suits already and you know your floor passes ready to go. It's going to be an interesting one hundred and forty days. We will be here, The trip Cast will be here, We're going to be running through the legislative session. If we built find an audience, if people are enjoying it, we're going
to keep going after that. So if you like the show, you want to keep hearing it, share it with your friends, give us a good review, do all the things that can help kind of promote the trip Cast and everything there. Our schedule here is we're going to have a special version of the trip Cast sometime after the speaker vote when we know who the speaker is, likely Wednesday, when that episode will come. Then after that will be in your various podcasting apps every Tuesday from here on out.
So it'll be me James and Eleanor and other Tribune journalists alongside you know, some experts and other things like that. So looking forward to going through that with y'all. I want to say thank you to our sponsors, raise your hand, Texas and Water Grows. Our producers for this show are Rob a Vila and Chris Voboda. Our music our theme music that you heard at the beginning composed by Rob, so shout out to him for that. And we will see y'all next week