Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune Trip Cast. I am Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texas Tribune, and we are live from the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington, our second straight live trip cast, joined as usual by co host and politics reporter Eleanor Klibanoff.
Hello, Eleanor, Hello Matthew.
Good to see you on the road again.
Exactly has been fun So in our Austin podcast, I believe a college student came up to you afterwards and said that she really loved the podcast because she loves millennial humor, and.
That was offensive to me.
In fact, what she said was she's getting all of her friends to listen to it because gen Z loves millennial humor. And I was like, well, whatever gets I'm listening. You know, I like to think of myself as also one of the young people, but apparently.
That is a myth.
Yes, well, I took it as an invitation for more dad jokes.
Matthews like, we think I'm a millennial.
Amazing, So we are very pleased to be joined for this episode by two state representatives. First, we have it is his district. We are in his domain. State Representative Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie. Thank you for being here, Thank you for having me. Great to be here, and we also we are near his district, not quite there a state Representative Mitch Little of Republicans Lewisville, and.
It's good to be here with you. Thank you so much. I'm playing the road game, Chris is in the home game, and I will try to contribute to the millennial humor. I'm on the cusp between gen X and millennial.
But you know, all generations welcome. We're being listened to by the youth.
You should know, surely gen X no millennial humor here.
Yes, right, Well, you know we need someone to balance this out here. Okay, So let's we're here to talk about the legislative session. It's impact, what happened, some of the politics, and maybe look a little bit forward. So I want to start off just by talking about some of the big ticket items. I think, more than anything, this legislative session was an education session, an issue where education was kind of at the forefront. It was something we were talking about in the lead up to the session.
One of the.
Biggest bills being HB two and eight point five billion dollar infusion into the school system. And you know another major bill that has sort of in some ways dominated legislative politics for years now, the school voucher education Savings.
Account program that passed this session as well.
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, we have a yes vote and a no vote on the voucher bill.
That's how that went, right, Chris, which one was? Which?
Tell us?
I think he was a yes. I was definitely an.
And two yeses on HB two right, yes, yes, all right, I want to let's start. We're on your home turf, so let's start with you. Representative Turner. Let us kind of help us understand from your perspective what this legislative session meant for education in this state overall.
I mean, in your.
Opinion, I think there's good and bad, right, but what should our big takeaway be?
You know, now that it's all all said and done.
Sure, well, thanks again for having me. It's great to be here, and thank you all for doing this at u T Arlington. So there was definitely good and bad from my perspective. So we'll start with a good. The eight and a half billion dollars additional to our public schools is definitely a good step for public education this stay.
And just to remind everyone, you know, in twenty nineteen, which has now been six years, we had landmark public school finance reform in the form of House Bill three that really increased funding and also made a lot of reforms that they funding work better for our public schools. But a lot has happened since then. We had a global pandemic, we've had high inflation, and there has not been a subsequent funding increase to our public schools in the six years since. So that's what made House Built
two so very important this year. While it was an important step forward, I'm gonna temper my enthusiasm just a little bit by pointing out two things. One, despite the eight and a half billion dollar additional investment, that does not get us back to twenty nineteen levels of funding because of inflationary pressures. It would really take almost probably a little more than twice that amount to get back to twenty nineteen level. So that's number one. Number Two.
I think that the bill the House passed in April was again it could have been more. I think it was structured well, and it was structured around an incre in the basic allotment, which is the foundational funding mechanism we use for our public schools. We'll say it changed a lot in the Senate, it changed a lot coming
out of the Conference Committee. I think it's still a good bill, but I do think it's a little overly prescriptive in how the funds are allocated and gives less flexibility to our school districts than I would like to see. But on balance, it's a good step forward. I think the key thing is we need to not take another six years before we address public school funding again. This
needs to be something we prioritize every two years. On vouchers, essays, Look, I'm strongly opposed to taking public funds and putting them into private schools, and I think that, you know, we have a constitutional obligation in our state to provide for
a free and efficient system of public schools. That's what our constitution says, and I think vouchers flies in the face of that, and data from other states indicates vouchers have not been successful in improving outcomes and call have ballooned in the out years, and that is what I fear is going to happen in Texas if we don't have serious guardrails on this, but obviously it had the votes to pass this time. It has passed, and we'll
see how it works. But ultimately I do not think it is going to make a significant difference positive difference for education in our state.
So that was the good and the bad for you? Was it good and good on education?
I didn't see anything bad. So as we look at the eight billion dollar bill that came out of the House on HB two, it got another half billion dollars added to it when it came back over from the Senate. Only the eight and a half billion dollars was more cabined by its use, so it is compartmentalized as opposed to simply dumping more dollars into the basic allotment. We know that the money will get to classrooms. We know that it will get to teachers, so I think that's
a wonderful thing. HB three obviously provides some more educational options for families, and it's not going to be something that every single family in Texas is going to be able to access. It's a program and it's still a government program, and we'll see what improvements it makes if any. I think I look at the grand scheme of all the bills that were targeted education, and for me, there
was a lot to be excited about. Especially Tasby and Taska were also very excited about the school discipline bills and their ability to get their hands around some of the things that were going in the classroom. We have SB twelve, which was the Parents' Bill of Rights. I think there's going to be a significant impact there bringing the Ten Commandments in prayer time back into schools, making that possible for families to integrate that into their students learning.
It's a wonderful thing. I also was able to successfully pass out of the House Bill forty six twenty three, which in sovereign immunity for students who were sexually abused in the school system, which I think is important. There are a lot of things in the session that were targeted at education. I think it's a comprehensive overhaul of some things in the past that haven't worked.
You know.
We also ended the affirmative defenses for educators on harmful display of content to minors in the school system, and I think that was also an important step.
I wonder do you agree with Representative Turner's assessment that there's more work that needs to be done in this realm. What's your assessment of kind of how schools should be feeling about their financial situation now.
Well, my school districts seem to be excited about the infusion of capital into the system, and I think it will make improvements. I think we constantly have to be diligent to determine whether what we're doing at the state level is actually reaching and improving student outcomes, because at the end of the day, it's about outcomes. Are our students improving or not. It's not just about injecting cash periodically.
Are we getting the intended result? And I think we'll see improvements in the results as a result of this investment.
Okay, another big measure that passed that got a lot of attention is getting a lot of tension is the ban on THCHC. This, as people may know, we have seen all these stores and shops pop up all across the state, big cities, rural areas, pretty much everywhere you can imagine selling you know, substances with THHC. They're you know, not I guess marijuana, but hemp like substances that can get you high, like marijuana, the legislature moved to ban them. There is a push by some people to get Governor
Rabbit to veto this bill. I'm interested to see whether the y'all think that's at all a realistic possibility. But it was interesting, you know, for you two House members, because if you looked at past sessions, it seemed like the House was going in a different direction in marijuana, like maybe being more open to expanding medical marijuanna, which also happened this session I should acknowledge, but also, you know,
even exploring ideas of decriminalization. Then we come around and take this very dramatic measure in a little you voted for this measure. I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about why why you felt like this was a good idea.
Yeah, it's an it. SB three was an interesting prism for how you view this topic. And on the Republican side, so not on Christ's side, but on the Republican side, you have this interesting schism between what i'll call conservatism and a more libertarian bent, and so not everyone on the Republican side is in agreement on SB three. I
voted for it because I heard the stories. So there it's very impactful when you can hear families that have a child that was that was actually impacted by THHC induced psychotic disorder from synthetics that are sold in stores that are completely unregulated and that children can walk into the store and buy it. In fact, they did. They did kind of a sting operation or test kids going into smoke shops who they weren't even asked for ID.
They're selling them to underage kids, and it's highly addictive and highly dangerous and completely unregulated. So on one end of the spectrum you have the synthetics which are extremely dangerous, seriously affecting young people. On the other end of the spectrum, you have what i'll call it low grade THC edible stuff that you saw in Governor Patrick's press conference. And yeah, I'm not going to throw anything at you guys today. You'll see that my hands are empty. I didn't bring
anything with me, no props. But so there is a schism in philosophy of adults saying, well, why can't we when in reality the people who are most negatively affected by this are young people, And so the question is do you address that with the band? So we've decided to start with the band. You saw the bill that came over the House. It was a clean band when it came overt of the House, and the committee substitute was about a million pages long, very complex, and it
was amended back to a ban on the floor. Fortunately, I think there was enough momentum there to resolve that issue. The more libert Harry inside of our party is going, how dare you This isn't this isn't good. This is you know, our liberties are being impinged. Reality. If you go to these package stores where they're selling alcohol, liquor, et cetera, a big percentage of their profits are coming
from THC oriented products and they're upset about it. Certainly there are a lot of adults that are upset about it. My principal focus is are these synthetics harming Texans? And I think the answer to that was a clear.
Yes, Representative Turner. I mean, there was a lot of blowback to this. It's also true though, I mean it didn't really seem like this was what the legislature intended when they passed you know, the original hYP law, right, The idea was never for these you know, these substances to be sold and these stores to pop up all over the state. Am I wrong on that?
No?
I think I think that's fair to say. I don't think that.
I don't think this industry was contemplated when when the hemp law was passed in twenty nineteen, I say that, you know, I sit on the State Affairs Committee and we had a sixteen seventeen hour hearing earlier in session on at Center Bill three as well as a house build that also sought to ban most forms of HEMP, and.
We heard a lot of a lot.
Of powerful testimony from both from people who supported a complete ban, from parents, moms in particular whose children have been adversely affected. We heard the law enforcement perspective. We also heard from a lot of veterans who have found some comfort, some treatment really in being able to access certain THHC products to help address both physical and mental
scars from their time and service. We heard from a lot of business owners and talk about you know, how they are running responsible businesses and in what the LEFE sites are in ended up doing was going to disrupt a business that employs tens of thousands of people in our state. I think what came out of the House State Affairs committee that Chairman Ken King put together on a bipartisan basis, addressed a lot of the very legitimate
problems around him and represent a little articulated them. Well, yes, kids should not be able to access this stuff. Absolutely, there should not be products marketed to kids, you know, in the form of looking like a bag of chips or a bag of M and ms. We should absolutely ban all that. We need to ban the synthetic garbage that's out there, which is I think has been proven
to be harmful in many cases. But can you can you do that and then regulate an industry that obviously has some benefit to some adults in our state and allow it to continue to operate. And that was sort of the approach that came out of our committee, and I think that was the approach that made the most sense to address the bad actors, address underage and some of the bad products out there, but be able to have an industry still be able to survive. So that
was the approach I took. Ultimately, you know, the Senate's position, the Lieutenant Governor's position won out, and yeah, the Governor's got a big decision to make. I will not take debate and try to predict what he might do. That was my questioning about I'm good at predicting with the government.
The fascinating thing to me about this was what it revealed is going on with our veterans in our state. So this was an issue where veterans kind of came to the forefront pretty aggressively toward the end of the session. And we have all these we have all these piecemeal approaches to addressing what is a very serious problem with our veterans coming home from service in foreign countries is they're dealing with post traumatic stress, they're dealing with TBI
traumatic brain injury. And we had little piecemeal bills designed to rest like we have the Ibogain initiative that was passed, and I think that was an important thing to do. There was another bill as well with a different type of chemical treatment, and then it really came through with the thcpiece. And what was interesting to me was my friend David Lowe on the four arguing, I'm a veteran, I came home with injuries, i came home with post traumatic stress. Don't use me as a pond for explaining
why this should be available to self medicate. And so you've got him on one side as a veteran saying this is this is not good, and a bunch of other veterans going, actually, this is really helpful. We need to really get to the bottom of that issue. The problem in the legislative session is things happen so quickly, and these are complex, very serious issues that are being addressed in a matter of days. On the flour.
I want to we talked a little bit about education already. There were some other big kind of expenditures from the legislature that will have I think big impact on the future of the state. Water being a key one. Right, two point five billion dollars you know, appropriated this session
toward water. Assuming voters I think it's probably a fairly safe assumption, assuming voters passed a constitutional constitutional amendment this November, we'll talk about another billion dollars each year for the next twenty years. So really we're talking about more than you know, twenty two point five billion dollars committed towards
water in this session. You also had a big investment in our energy grid five billion dollars to the Texas Energy Fund to create more power to ensure that our grid can handle the growth of the state and these new industries that are demanding AI, bitcoin mining, those types of things that are demanding a ton of energy in the state. I had a conversation with a Republican yesterday where he made the case to me. You know, he said, he said, not you, the text Tribune, but the media
in general. And I was like, okay, focused so much on I appreciated the not you, but you know, anyways.
I'm just being polite. You're standing in front of him.
But I mean, he said, you know, the media focuses so much on these social issues, some of these you know, things like THHC. The big story of this legislative session is the investment that the Texas legislature made into the future of this state this year. I'm curious, as a Democrat, do you agree with that assessment? Is that the story we should be telling about this most recent legislative session.
Well, I think I think both stories are important to I think, you know, in terms of long term investment, I think, yeah, there's some good things to talk about. I think water to me stands out as a really good accomplishment done on a bipartisan basis, that is taking a long term approach to addressing a long term challenge in our state and and I think that was one of the most positive things to come out of this
session without a doubt. And I would add from a North Texas perspective, we beat back in a attempt that seems to happen every two years to kill the Marvin Nichols Reservoir, which is critical to our long term water planning for those of us here in the Dallas Fort Worth region. So that was a really important win for
our region. But as you're telling that story about long term investment, I will say on the Energy Fund, the five billion dollars that you've mentioned, there was five billion dollars allocated two years ago, another five billion dollars in this budget. In my view, it's a boondoggle and is that we're lighting money on fire in the Texas Energy Fund.
This is something that if you talk to electricity generators, which is what this fund is designed to do, is to get more generation in the state of Texas, they will tell you, and they have told us in State Affairs Committee in the last two sessions, we do not need this financing is not the issue. And frankly, when this was originally passed two years ago, interest strates were still at historically low levels, so access to.
To low interest loans was not the issue.
The issue is how how our electricity market is structured and in our de regulated market, our generator is able to come in and be able to make a profit and a return on investment for their shareholders, which is ultimately how they make a business decision. And the legislature still has not fully addressed that. And and that's the and that's a difficult issue to address. And it's easier to say, well, we're just going to take ten billion dollars and put it in this energy fund and problem solved,
but it is not. It is not solving the problem. So I think that's that's an important issue that is going to continue to fester until we really figure this out. I will say, thirdly, on transportation, UH, that's an area where again we need some long term planning, long term thinking. Not a lot seemingly happened in the transportation UH area this session.
UH.
And I would just say being in a in a you know, the fourth largest metro area in the country that we're in the heart of right now. From a Texas from a state wide transportation playing perspective, we have got to as we continue to upgrade capacity and safety of our roads and highways. Uh, we have also got to get serious about mass transit in the state because the growing population, we cannot we cannot pour enough concrete
to keep up with it. And we've got to have a comprehensive statewide or at a minimum, regional approach on those issues.
All right, I want to talk a little bit about politics here.
Why why.
You want to?
Okay, you know, let's have some fun the we we came into this session. Well, let's let me do a quick history here. Right at the end of last session, there was a lot of backlash against the speaker daide feeling at the time, in part because of what happened with es A school vouchers, in part because of the impeachment of Kim Paxson.
Something you're gonna have to catch represent a little up on that. I think he wasn't there last session, so I actually think no.
I recall that were watching it on the news, the impeachment. I remember it. You were there.
Representative Little of course, represented Kim Paxson in the impeachment trial.
That's right.
Yeah, the millennial humor they're talking about.
You know, there was a big push to remove that speaker, which then uh led to for a brief period of time, a very open race, and that led to a race between Dustin Burrows, the current speaker, and another candidate who was supported by what we would maybe call the right wing of the party. Right in that race, I believe we have a Dustin Burrows vote and a non Dustin
Burroughs vote. And I'm curious because we then went through a legislative session that many have talked about, including Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, as perhaps the most conservative legislative session we have been through. I wonder whether each of where each of y'all stand now, no refunds, Chris, the Dustin.
Burroughs, we might just have switched seats on this.
Speaker decision that was made at the beginning of the session. You got your mic up, so let's start with you.
Totally fascinating how that had played out. Obviously you'll you'll probably know I'm a freshman. Chris has been doing this this like seventh term, right, eighth term. My goodness, you very experienced, you know what you're doing. You've actually been through this multiple times. This was my first time to be exposed to it. You know, you you go into politics or you're going into the Texas House thinking that things are going to be one way and they end
up being another. I mean, I didn't know how much I would like Chris and Terry Mason, Salomon and some of the other folks that are that are here, and it's it actually is very easy to work with one another as professionals. But you don't know going in what it's going to be like with the new speaker either is he going to carry quote unquote carry water for the Democrats? Is he going to shut down Republican ideals?
I was pleasantly surprised with the number of Republican Party of Texas priority bills that we passed, as well as some other important legislation. It things did not go the way that I thought they were going to go, Matthew, What did they go the way you thought they were going to go?
Kind of.
You've also been doing this about how many eight sessions?
Matt Yeah, yeah, he's been doing it longer than me. But so.
When you say things did not go the way you thought they were going to go, I I taken that implicit. Is it you mean it went better than you thought it would.
Is that right?
Yeah, it went a lot better than I thought it would.
So let me ask you this.
I mean, do you think Dustin Burroughs should be speaker next time around?
Okay, all right, that's Dustin Burrough's hype team. That was just intro music exactly.
He's coming out, folks.
Well, I'll just say it from not from a an evaluative standpoint, just a normative statement. He's going to be the speaker again. And I think he probably earned the right to be the speaker again based on the results. So I found, as someone who did not vote for him and should have been pushed to the margins, I found that he was very receptive to our initiatives and ideals in the House. And I think the results not only incentive Bill's past, but a house Bill's past bear that out.
Well, I'm just curious on that, like going forward, do you feel like, and I mean I've heard this from other members. You know that you know your freshman term, you come in really from the perspective of like almost the you share the same perspective as many people that you represent too, like don't have that insider view, and then you go inside and you realize, like you said, there's a lot more collaboration, there's a lot more working together.
Do you think going forward that will change anything in sort of how you think about the role, how you talk to voters, sort.
Of how you are about the speaker's role.
No, about like they about my role, about your role. That this has been you know that there is more room for collaboration, that it's less.
My role in ideology didn't change what I was pleasantly surprised by. I think I had in my mind the vision that everything that happens on the House floor is the product of what the Speaker wants. And when you see it play out in real life that there are negotiations going on led by Tony Tenderholt from the Conservative Caucus with the Speaker's office, and there are negotiations going
on between the House Democrat Caucus and the speaker. You see that there is so much important stuff going on on any given day, and the Speaker has to manage it all simultaneously. It's a much bigger, more difficult job than I realized I might go in. I might go on to the floor on any given day with three things that I'm really focused on. His office has to be focused on everything that goes on, so it's very complex. But my role didn't change or my attitude didn't change.
Do you think, I mean one of the reasons this happened was because an unhappiness among the right wing of the party among the voters right, do you think the voter's opinion has changed or do you think there's going to be backlash for the people who Backburrow Us?
Oh? I wouldn't, don't. I don't think I could speculate on that. Here's the problem from my perspective, speaking only for my party. My party's problem are the Republican representatives who vote with Chris and Salmon and all those representatives instead of voting with me. Okay, that has nothing to do with the speaker and Chris.
We like those people.
I know you. I know you do. That's why we need to get rid of them. So on our side of on our side of the Ledger, our problem is fidelity to the values that the party espouses that they run on behalf of if they if they want to express fidelity to some other ideology, they can run under that system. Our problem with the previous speaker was not poor communication or poor leadership. It just was total infidelity to our value system. You know, nobody sent the Speaker
there to impeach the Attorney General who was sitting. They did send the Speaker there to help manifest the Republican Party of Texas's priorities. And none of that happened in the previous two sessions meaningfully. So I see this as tremendous progress.
All right, So we're to start here, So, so some context.
So Speaker Burrows is the fourth Speaker I've served under, Speaker Joe Strauss, Dennis Bond, and Elen and now Dustin Burroughs. They're all Republicans, and you know what, they're all pretty different, different shades, different maybe wings of the party, but all.
Pretty conservative people.
And guess what, in a Republican majority in the House, not to mention the Senate, and with a Republican governor, Republican things are going to happen. And that has happened every session I have been there. There's an all And so what my I guess my after action review of Speaker Burrows is, I think it was basically what more or less would I expected it to be. He's a conservative guy, and the House Republican caucus got more conservative
in this last election. People like Mitch and some of his classmates came in and they're shade more conservative, or maybe several shades more conservative than the people they replaced. And frankly and my party lost two seats in the last selection, so there were ideologically the House shifted to
the right in a couple of different ways. And so that said, you know, it's it's a fallacy to think that, well, you know, Speaker Feeling, who who I like a lot and respect a lot, was somehow this moderate to liberal speaker. Under Speaker Feelings speakership, the legislature passed unlicensed Carrie, passed a complete and total ban on abortion in this state, and a horrific anti voter bill in twenty twenty one that the Democratic Caucus broke quorum over for five weeks.
So while I like Speaker Feeling a lot of really, from my perspective, bad things happened while he was speaker. And I could say the same about Joe Strauss, who I like a lot as well. But you know, under Joe Straus, who passed Sanctuary City, we passed Campus Carrey open carry. So so the point is in a Republican majority legislature and a Republican Speaker, and a complete Republican
control of state government. There's gonna be things that happened that are, you know, from my perspective, really far out there, pretty far out there on the right, and this session was no exception to that. Now, the question is how did Speaker Boroughs run the House? I think he ran it well, uh and he I think gave every member the opportunity to have a voice and have a role
in the process. Whether you're a freshman Republican coming in to reform things like like Mitch, or whether you're a Democrat who you know is trying to play some defense and get a few things done for your district, like like I was. You had the opportunity, and that's what a good speaker is supposed to do. And I think by large he allowed that environment to happen. So that's my thumbnail sketch.
I'm curious.
I mean, you've been now eight terms. I mean the House has certainly only gotten more conservative. As we've just discussed, we've seen, you know, coming out of the last election. I don't think there's signs necessarily that that is a trend that's going to meaningfully swing in the other direction anytime, you know soon the makeup of the Chamber likely isn't changing.
How have you seen, like the Democrats role change in the time you've been there, and what do you see as the future for the party in terms of even just within like the House Chamber, like getting things done.
Sure well, and I'll disagree slightly on that because I've seen it ebb and flow in the time I've been there. So in twenty seventeen, it was Joe Strauss's last session when we passed sanctuary cities and a lot of other really bad stuff that year, you know, Democrats were we had fifty five seats in the Chamber, and then the twenty eighteen election came around and we picked up twelve
seats and we go up to sixty seven. And if you to Democrats who have served since at least twenty nineteen, I think we would all say, to a person from our perspective, that was absolutely the best session we've ever
been a part of. And part of that was Part of that credit goes to Speaker Bonna and how he ran the House that session, But a lot of it has to do with just there was an electoral backlash to the Republican Party in twenty eighteen, and the Republican leadership in the Capitol adjusted accordingly in that session, and that was a much more bipartisan and I would argue productive session in twenty nineteen. And so looking ahead to the next session, here we are. Of course, twenty eighteen
was President Trump's first midterm election. We were coming up on his second midterm election. And I won't predict. You know, the political environment is changing so quickly right now, but historically the president's party loses seats in a midterm election. Uh, we as Democrats can't count on that, and we need to go out there and recruit good candidates. We need to work hard, and we need to make our case
to the voters. But there are several opportunities around the state for Democrats to pick up seats in this next election. So that's that's number one. But in terms of how
we uh navigate the process, it's it's a mixture. On On the one hand, Uh, there's things that we know Republicans are going to bring to the House floor and then we're just going to have a big partisan fight over because and we know what the outcome is going to be so vouchers would be the probably the best example of that in this In this most recent session, we knew after this last election the votes were there to pass pass vouchers, and that would have happened, I think,
irrespective of who the speaker was. So we've got to go and make our best case as to why this is bad policy and and hopefully be able to to translate that into some electoral success for us going forward. But at the same time, we're not there just to do that. I mean, every member of the legislature, Republican or Democrat, is there to get something done, whether that's a big policy issue they want to work on, whether it's a little thing for their district or some of both.
And so Democratic members are trying to figure out how do we work within this system to get things done for our district, whether that's getting something in the budget or getting a local bill passed, or whether this is a policy area I really want to work on and I've got some expertise in it, and so I'm going to use my expertise to help advance policy for the
state of Texas. And by and large, I think members of the House Democratic caucus punch way above our weight in terms of what we've got in terms of numbers in the Chamber, and we're able to get a lot done. If you look at the budget, if you look at some of the policy decisions that were made, some of the bills that were going to pass that were mitigated and made less harmful.
I think Democrats had an outsized influence in the session.
So I'm going to paraphrase a question from Sarah from New York, New York Fort Worth Man.
A big audience.
That asks, but I'm gonna ask it in my own way, which is a representative little You and the Speaker have one thing in common, Well, you have lots in common, but one of the things you have in common is that the biggest donor to Republican elections in the House right now, Texans for Lawsuit Reform.
Seems pretty mad at both of y'all.
And I heard that that came across my feet exactly. There's been some reporting today quoting a letter that seems to strongly hint an interest or a willingness to support primary challengers to folks like you and and maybe even the Speaker for what happened with Senate Bill thirty.
Chris is laughing. This is no laughing matter. Chris stopped laughing. Oh yeah, well they're mad at me too.
We should just briefly say this is Texans for Lawsuit Reform, right, which is like one of the largest his you know, Republican donors brought this bill SB thirty to and that you you know, this reporting from the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Tribune showed, you know, played a role in killing or you're neutering to a certain degree, used.
To really aggressive words killing and neutering.
Yes, that's the let's back up sensationalist media for you.
Let's see it is. You guys are tabloid. All right, Let's back up a couple of steps. So that bill that came over from the Senate came over almost unanimous Senate Bill thirty. It was, in my view, the most significant rewrite of civil jurisprudence maybe in the history of our state. Okay, by the time it came out of.
Okay, who's being sensationalist now.
I'm just telling you the truth. That's what it was. The page the bill was about probably twenty five pages long. Did made major major changes to both civil an appella jurisprudence as it relates to personal injury cases or really any case involving noneconomic damages. And then we had an opportunity to work on the bill. I was invited to work on the bill. I did work on the bill.
We got it to a place where he could come to the House floor, and we had an amendment go on by seventy two to seventy vote, and Joe Moody carried the amendment. I helped him with the amendment. And let me explain to you the reason. The reason was not politics, It was not lawsuit reform versus trial lawyers.
It was is this good for the civil justice system which I practice in and which a lot of my constituents practice in too, And if any of them actually get injured, they're going to live inside of that system. And the question I had to ask was is this good for the people of Texas? And I decided that we needed to have that amendment on. Joe Moody carried the amendment. It passed by the most narrow margin possible. If it had been a seventy one to seventy one vote,
it would have failed. It passed seventy two to seventy. The amendment goes on, and he thought, Okay, this is good, and then I voted for the bill. The bill passed out, so it goes over the Senate and goes to Conference committee, and they want to strip the amendment out. I was on the House side, one of five conferees, and I was a swing vote there on the conferees, and no, I didn't vote to take the amendment out because I
don't think it's good for civil practice. I've been practicing in the courts of this state and all over the United States for the last twenty one years. I've got a pretty good feel for what the rules of evidence are and are not and when you try to massage the rules of evidence to get in information in cases where that may not be relevant or maybe more prejudicial
than pro but I have a problem with it. And so if we had started this discussion literally in January when the bill was filed instead of, oh, I don't know, maybe a day or so before the deadline on second reading, we could have had a more fulsome conversation about but what the rules of evidence should be massaged to do and what they shouldn't be massaged to do. So now we're in politics, right, We're out of the legslative session.
We're no longer making policy. And the political kickback or the political recoil from this is we don't like those people because they worked on our bill. The only reason, I will tell you, I'm one of the only reasons that that bill came to the fore period. And Marklehood is too, and Speaker Burrows is too. And so the question people of Texas should be asking is is this good for the people who live in my district? And we decided that as it was written it was not.
So is their political recoil from it? Probably? And I'll just tell you they spent probably a cost ten million dollars against me in the primary. That won't be anything new. If they want to find a primary challenger, the people who live in my district will decide who represents our district. And I'm fine with that outcome.
So one last question, as we were talking about primaries is which primary will you be in? Because we of course also have a Attorney General's seat that will be open, and your name has been floated as a possible candidate there.
Will you be running for that?
You'll be the fourth or fifth to know. Matthew, Okay, this.
Wounds us, wound shoe, we want to be first.
I invited first to the trip cast. Okay, now the shoes on the other foot. Actually, to be fair, Eleanor, I'm on the trip cast because I bothered Matthew on the floor and I said, I listened to the trip cast. Why you inviting me?
And Mitch you did representive little did a little bit invite himself onto.
The trip cast, which I love.
I I was just getting coffee at Starbucks and you guys asked me to come up here on the tram.
I'll say, consider that an open any lawmakers that want to invite themselves onto the trip cast.
You know, we've got to see.
What was the question again?
Are you are you running for Attorney General?
Yeah, I'll decide that when it's proper. I think here's the thing. I just came out of a really traumatic experience. You know, Chris, it's traumatic, isn't it. Yeah? I mean, so you've done this eight times. This is the first time I've done it. Where you're you're up until two in the morning, you're back on committee at eight am, and it's like that for literally weeks and weeks and weeks, and so you get out of it and you come
home and you try to reacclimate to your life. I'm trying to, you know, drive my daughter to dance, go to my son's baseball games, fix all the things at our houses that are broken in our absence.
You have a list as well, Yeah, yeah, I do.
I have a list. I'm about halfway down it. But what I was going to say is the people. Here's the thing, Matthew about this race. The people of Texas need to hire the best lawyer that they can hire, someone who's fought in the courtrooms of this state, in the courts of appeals, in courtrooms in other states. This is not a role where the people of Texas can afford to hire someone and expect them to gain new skills that they do not already have. And so hopefully
the voters are going to evaluate that race. I don't know whether I'll be in it. I've had several conversations with my wife and my kids about it, and other people too who have been very thoughtful in asking me whether I want to be in it. I will tell you and the many many people who listen to the trip cast, that it would constitute a gigantic sacrifice and totally upend my life and the law firm that I've helped build for the last twenty one years. And if I decide to do it, you will know that I'm
extremely serious about it. Is that kind of answer your question?
Okay? Good?
Matthew would like to leave it there, But I actually have something that we would like to share, and we would like, actually represent Turner, you to be the judge of this, which is that we have a long running outstanding question at the Texas Tribune, which is that And I did bring props and let me I'll go with you with the real.
This is a major breach of decorum. I agree.
Are Matthew and Representative Little separated at birth?
This is a question we have.
This is a photo we have where they look, This is Representative Little, where they look remarkably similar.
Okay, so this is from eighteen, and this is him in.
An astronaut costume that Twitter created.
This is from twenty eighteen. I've got less hair now than I did then, but this suit still fits. So I'm proud of that. Great. I'll just say I don't I don't know if we were separated at birth. But I like him a lot. We could have been thank you.
I like you too, and this, so you know, is something that Rinzo Downey has been pushing in the newsroom for a very long time, that we look very much.
Yes, well, he didn't tell me about that. I saw him every day for the last several months. He didn't tell me that.
I asked him for the copy of the photo. He said, Oh my.
God, I am not saying this similar.
I am not thank you for your honing something, thank you for your honest I will say Mitch wore some very uh neutral appropriate socks here at ut Allington today, whereas Matthew is wearing hats.
And I think I think there's a rule against that.
TA socks. Can we get him some UTA socks? Allright?
Thank you to I actually did have a moment when I was sitting up here and I was like, I can't believe I'm wearing these socks. I can't believe that the background of these socks is that they were a giveaway at trip Fest. There's a little goodie bag they do for speakers, and we have about like twelve longhorns on staff, and they all gave me the aggie. There the Aggie socks that came from the giveaway. So basically these are the only songs I wear.
So what I'm hearing you say is we need UTA to become a part of trip Fest and get us all socks. Yeah.
Well this has gone completely off the rails.
Absolutely cast usually does, yes.
But thank you both for being here. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate y'all. Thank you, and this concludes the Texas Tribune Tribe Cast.
Thanks Guessing, Thank you all.