The Daily - Inside the Texas Legislature

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Over the weekend, months of tension in the Texas Legislature came to a head. A group of Democratic lawmakers got up and left the building before a vote — an act of resistance amid the most conservative Texas legislative session in recent memory. The population of Texas is becoming less old, less white and less Republican, so why is its Legislature moving further right?Guest: Manny Fernandez, the Los Angeles bureau chief for The New York Times. He spent more than nine years covering Texas as the Houston bureau chief.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: The recent session that pushed Texas further to the right, at a time when it seemed least likely to do so — as the state becomes younger, less white and less Republican.After Democrats killed a bill to restrict voting in the state, Republicans pledged to pass it in a special legislative session. A new fight looms. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily Watch. Today, the population of Texas is becoming less old, less white, and less Republican by the day. So why have Texas lawmakers just embarked on the most ultra-conservative legislative session in modern memory? Sabrina Tavernisi asked our colleague, Manny Fernandez. It's Thursday, June 3rd.

Manny, tell me what happened at the Texas State Capitol over the weekend. So, it was a wild weekend in Austin. You had the approach of the end of the legislative session at the Texas legislature. And up until this point, you had the Texas Republicans who control the legislature pass bill after bill after bill of conservative legislation. 21 ayes and 10 nays. Bill's finally passed. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Senators. Mostly steamrolling over the Texas Democrats, who are the minority party.

And just hours before the 2021 legislative session is officially over, the Texas House starts debating the controversial Senate Bill 7. The bill would restrict voting hours and drive up voting would not be allowed. And the Democrats basically get fed up. They kind of hatched this plan to walk out, to literally walk out of the building.

So no votes could be taken on a bill that was sort of the last straw for Democrats. Senate Democrats say this is voter suppression and it targets minorities. And that bill would restrict voting statewide in Texas. It's a straight up assault on voting rights. Text messages went out among the Democratic lawmakers. It said, leave the building, take your keys, don't come back. And many lawmakers did it. They left. A quorum is apparently not present. Mr. Guerin moves the House of Judges from 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Objection. Sure, here's none. So ordered. They broke a quorum, which basically means that they don't have enough lawmakers in the room to make a vote. And it basically successfully killed that voting restriction bill. So they effectively shut down the entire legislative session.

Yes, that's exactly what they did. And the thing is, it was really the only thing they could do because the levers of power in Texas are so firmly held by Republicans that Democrats basically have no other options. So Manny, help me understand the context here. What led up to this moment in the Texas legislature? So I think to understand this moment, you really have to understand that Texas wasn't always like this. have to understand that Texas wasn't always like this. Contrary to the stereotype of Texas, Texas was actually a fairly moderate state from the 1980s, 1990s, all the way up through the beginning of the 2000s. You had conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans who worked together all the time. And there was a little bit more of a balance of power in the legislature. And it's actually not until the Obama years

that Texas really begins to change dramatically. So what happens during the Obama years? So after Obama gets elected, there's this huge sort of groundswell of conservative momentum in Texas and across the country. And it's really this reaction to Obama himself, to his progressive agenda. And then you have the Tea Party form nationally and in Texas. And there's this rise of these new politicians with extremely conservative views on everything from abortion to the size of government to guns.

And Texas is really ground zero for this movement. That Bush-era Chamber of Commerce establishment Republican begins to be pushed out by this new type of right-wing politician. And Texas becomes this sort of right-wing foil to a federal government that is largely controlled by Democrats. Right. I think I remember Texas suing the Obama administration a lot in this period.

Yes, absolutely. Greg Abbott was the attorney general at the time. Thank you all so very, very much. It is great to be at the largest Republican state convention on planet Earth. And he famously was on a stage at the Texas Republican Convention. You know, some people ask, what exactly does the Texas attorney general do? I say my job's pretty simple. And he said that his entire job. I go into the office, I sue the federal government. Was just about suing Obama.

And then I go home. Got it. So that's Texas when it comes to national politics. But what's happening during this time in the state legislature? The situation is a little different in the Texas legislature. Basically, in the legislature at the time, you have some far-right lawmakers, but you also have a lot of moderate Republican lawmakers who are from this school of let's compromise and let's stay out of the culture wars kind of approach to Republican politics. Those moderates are still very much in charge of a lot of aspects of the legislature. And in Texas, when you say moderate Republican, many people will think Joe Strauss.

Who's Joe Strauss? Joe Strauss of San Antonio emerged from near obscurity to become the 75th speaker of the Texas House. Joe Strauss was a San Antonio Republican who was a longtime speaker of the Texas House. And Joe Strauss is from the Bush school of Texas politics. What most people know is that he hails from a storied clan with deep ties to the business wing of the Republican Party, that he himself is thought to be an ideological moderate. He sort of carries this sort of mantle of always being concerned about, like, the real pragmatic stuff. What I do reject, though, is this intense negative campaigning over wedge issues. I'm a pass-the-budget-and-go-home conservative.

And very sort of a cool-headed politician. He starts battling with the more far-right forces in the legislature. But there are specific issues on which people in your party have looked at you and said, well, I'm not sure he's one of us. And in the run up to your becoming speaker, some quarters of the further right wing of the Republican Party attacked you over abortion. They attacked you over gambling. And they attacked you over... And he was a very effective politician to slow, stall, ignore, or kill bills that he thought were just too far right and were just not where Texas was headed. And so he and his allies really exercise this

power over and over, even as the state legislature is getting more and more conservative throughout the Obama years and even into the Trump administration. What's an example of that? So probably the best example I can give you was in 2017. So do you remember a few years back when a lot of the red states were passing these bathroom bills to legislate where transgender people can and cannot go to the bathroom. Right. This took off in North Carolina, and then it took off in Texas. And Texas tried to pass a bathroom bill.

And Joe Strauss thought it was a terrible idea. He thought that it would shine this sort of spotlight on Texas. He thought that some businesses would back away from doing business in Texas because of this bill. As had happened in North Carolina, right? Exactly, as had happened in North Carolina. To walk with our eyes wide open into a situation that North Carolina led on, I think being the second state after them, or the first state after them, I think would be a tremendous mistake. And he sort of carefully fought it.

It's not just my opinion, it's the opinion of thousands of businesses who are those job creators. Walking that sort of tightrope between not being too extreme, not being too moderate, but he basically effectively killed the bathroom bill in Texas. So it sounds like even after Trump is elected, and you have these kind of hard right conservatives who are trying to get their agenda through, there are still these moderate Republicans trying to maintain their control by doing what they always did, being moderate. And they did that because they thought that was what was best for the Republican Party in the state.

That's absolutely right. And they did their best to hold on, but it doesn't last much longer. At this point, Strauss is, you know, virtually at war with his own house and with members of his own party. You have more and more moderates being voted out after each election. And Strauss sort of sees the writing on the wall. In an announcement that will be felt for years to come, five-term Speaker Joe Strauss says he will not run for re-election as state representative next year from San Antonio. And in late 2017, he announces that he'll step down before the 2019 session. From now on, far-right Republicans will have more sway.

It's virtually the end of any sort of moderate strain of Republicanism in Texas. As one professor put it, the political center of the state collapsed today. Wow, that sounds like a real end of an era. It is. So Manny, what happens next? So what happens next is the plot thickens. Friends, vecinos, paseños, tejanos. Because a guy named Beto O'Rourke decides to challenge Ted Cruz for his Senate seat.

I'm running to represent the great state of Texas in the U.S. Senate. This is in 2018. Beto O'Rourke is an El Paso Democratic congressman. is an El Paso Democratic congressman. And he ends up embarking on this campaign where he drives around to every county in Texas. I've traveled to 226 of the 254 counties. And he just starts firing up Democrats. Beto O'Rourke, he's running.

Hey guys, we got some Beto heads tonight. And he got people excited as in, like, there was a real rock star status for him. Beto, slide into my DMs, though. And it was a little bit of his personality. It was a little bit of his charisma. He just kind of appealed to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons among the Democrats. And all of this is coming at a crucial time in Texas history when the demographics of Texas are shifting and it's changing the politics of Texas. Something else is happening, and we've been talking about this for several years,

and that is the demographic change in Texas. We're seeing many, many more voters show up. Many of them are younger, under 35. Many of them are of color. And Texas is becoming more diverse. The Democrats see that. They know it. And they're trying to figure out a way to bottle that

and to bottle that into electoral victories. So how did the races in 2018 play out? In the high-profile Texas Senate race, incumbent Republican Ted Cruz narrowly defeated his Democratic opponent, Representative Beto O'Rourke. So Beto comes close, but he does not win. Ted Cruz wins by an electoral hair, roughly 200,000 votes in a statewide Senate race. So that's basically just a couple of percentage points, right? Absolutely, yes. It's 51-48.

This usually does not get that close. I mean, that is close. And then meanwhile, an interesting effect happens. So it seems the talk of a blue wave fell short in Texas, at least in the U.S. Senate, in Central Texas, U.S. House districts. But the Democrats did have a blue tide of sorts. And people call it different names, but you could call it the Beto effect. It was a sweeping decision 2018 win for African-American women in Harris County. For the first time, 17 African-American women who were running for judgeships won. And that is that, you know, so many new voters, so many voters of color are going to the polls that they're changing the down ballot races and the Democrats are now winning these down ballot races. And that starts to change the dynamics in Texas.

So Manny, we have Beto losing, but not by much. And we have all of these Democrats winning some of these down ballot races. What are the political reverberations here? So despite losing to Ted Cruz, the Democrats are pretty excited. And that election just seems to sort of open up all these new possibilities for Democratic gains in Texas that they didn't even think was possible in the past.

And they start looking to the 2020 election. And Republicans, meanwhile, are worried, and they're very nervous. And they immediately go on the defensive. And that's part of why the 2019 legislative session ends up being very pragmatic. It was a very sort of quiet session almost. And that's because the Republicans avoid the culture war stuff that might rile up the Democratic base ahead of the 2020 election. And what happens in that election? So in the buildup to the election, Democrats are hoping to flip nine seats. They have a very targeted campaign.

If they can flip those nine seats, they can take over the Texas House. But on election night, they completely fail. They're unable to flip any of the nine seats. They took their shot and they missed. And the Republicans are invigorated. The Republicans are saying the blue wave is a fiction. The bluing of Texas, the purpling of Texas is a myth. And there's a lot of gloating.

And at the same time, the Texas Republican lawmakers and the legislature are basically saying, no more being worried about sort of walking on eggshells about what, you know, the Democrats may or may not do. Let's have an ultra conservative session. Let's pass the bills that we want to pass. So in a way, it's like 2008 all over again, because you have Biden taking the White House and Texas is returning to this playbook, the playbook of yet again being the conservative antidote to the Democratic White House. But there's something different. And the thing that's different is that those moderate Republican guardrails are gone. And there are no more Joe Strausses to kill far-right bills. And it's the removal of those guardrails that really kind of set up this legislative session that we've just seen.

We'll be right back. So Manny, the guardrails are gone. What does the Texas legislature actually pass this session? The legislature passes a bunch of bills. Lawmakers in Austin passing House Bill 1927, allowing anyone 21 and up to buy a handgun. No license needed. They pass a bill that basically creates one of the country's most restrictive abortion measures. Starting September 1st, abortions will be banned once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

It basically bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. They pass a bill to punish cities that try to defund their police departments. House Bill 3979 discourages educators from discussing current events and limits their discussions around race and sex. They pass a bill to limit how racism can be taught in classrooms. Educators concerned about having to keep today's politics out of their history curriculum. And of course, the legislature was set to pass a bill that would have changed Texas election rules.

It would have limited voting hours, restricted vote by mail, and it would have given more power to partisan poll watchers. But of course, that was the bill that the Democrats walked out on and prevented it from passing. So what happens to that bill now? So what happens to that bill now? That bill was a priority for Governor Greg Abbott. And with the Democrats victorious, Governor Abbott said, I'm going to call everyone back to Austin and we're going to have a special session.

And that elections bill will be on the agenda. We're going to have a do-over, and the lawmakers are coming back. And so the Democrats have to think of some new strategies if they want to kill this bill again. Manny, let's zoom out a little bit. So I'm thinking about Texas's changing demographics. And, you know, I understand that basically politics and political races, at the end of the day, you either win or you lose, right? So the Democrats did lose. But isn't the bigger picture here that the demographics

are changing? And though the Democrats are losing, they're losing by smaller margins. So why would Republicans really double down on this strategy that kind of flies in the face of that? I think it just kind of goes back to this notion that they want to craft their own Texas. And no demographers, no strategists are going to change their belief that they can mold Texas the way they want to, despite any changing demographics. the way they want to, despite any changing demographics. And also, I think a lot of this has to do with primary elections in Texas. In Republican politics in Texas, the primary is where the action is. And no Republican lawmaker wants an upstart, grassroots, fired-up, far-right conservative to challenge them for their seat in the Texas House or the

Texas Senate. And so these lawmakers come into the session wanting to make sure that they're scoring points with the people who vote in the Republican primaries. These are the voters that go to the candidate forums, they go to the debates, they watch the debates, they show up at the campaign events, they have the yard signs. These are your fired up Texas conservatives and they drive a lot of the action in Texas Republican politics. I mean, it strikes me that it's really a response to a large part

of the Republican base that never really bought what the Joe Strausses of the world, you know, the Chamber of Commerce Republicans, those kind of fiscal conservatives, were selling. And for now, at least, Republicans in the state can win by appealing to them. That's exactly it. They win by appealing to them. And the Republican lawmakers told us they feel like they were given a mandate. And the mandate is the Democrats tried to flip the House. The voters said, no, thank you, and that is their mandate. One Republican lawmaker said, elections have consequences. And in his eyes, this was a consequence

of the Democrats failing to flip the Texas House. They believe that they are doing what the voters want them to do. So, Manny, hearing all of this, the thing I really want to know is what does what's happening in Texas mean about where we are in American politics? You know, it tells us a couple of things. In Texas, it's about the present versus the future.

Republicans have their hands on the levers of power. And as long as they're holding on to it, they're going to use it in the present. And they're not worried about what may or may not happen in the future, what blue wave may or may not be coming years down the road. They have their hands on the levers of power in the present. And so far, you know, it's been working for them. And also, you know, don't forget, Texas legislative politics may seem small, but it reverberates far beyond Texas's borders, just because of the sheer size of Texas, because of its sway in Congress, because of its enormous economy, those small Texas Republican turf battles reverberate around the country. And also to broaden it out a little bit, this session that we're talking about is a window into this sort of partisan warfare that is happening at state houses around the country. You've got purified parties, fewer moderates,ra-party civil wars. The extreme is mainstream. And I think Texas is sort of symbolic of this strange moment that we're in, in American politics right now. Manny, thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, political parties opposed to Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, released new details about their plan to try to oust Netanyahu in the coming days. Under the agreement, a new coalition government would be led for the next two years by Naftali Bennett, a former Netanyahu ally who is considered even more right-wing than Netanyahu himself. Israel's parliament must still approve the new coalition, something Netanyahu is lobbying furiously to prevent. And former President Trump has shut

down his largest online presence, a personal blog. A Trump associate told The Times that he closed the site, called from the desk of Donald J. Trump, after becoming frustrated by low traffic. Trump remains barred from using the Internet's largest social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, over his role in the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. Today's episode was produced by Luke Vanderplug, Asta Chaturvedi, Diana Nguyen, Leslie Davis, and Rob Zipko. It was edited by Dave Shaw, engineered by Chris Wood, and contains original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbarboro. See you tomorrow.