The Texan Podcast - 88th Session Kickoff: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Interview

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup In this special edition of The Texan's podcast, we play back a recording from our 88th Session Kickoff on Jan. 24. This particular panel was a one-on-one conversation with Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. We covered his priorities in the Texas Senate this legislative session, his plans for the future, the momentum school choice is enjoying so far this year, and the dynamic between the House and the Senate. Enjoy this content? Be sure to subscribe for similar podcasts and The Texan’s Weekly Roundup — a podcast released every Friday that brings you the latest news in Texas politics.

Howdy, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here. Welcome to a special edition of the Texans Podcast, where we play back a panel discussion with lawmakers that we hosted at our 88th session kickoff event on January 24th. This particular panel was a one-on-one conversation I was able to have with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. We covered his priorities in the Texas Senate this legislative session, his plans for the future, the momentum school choice is enjoying so far this year, and the dynamic between the House and the Senate. We hope you enjoy listening to this conversation and be sure to subscribe at thetexan.news to always be the first to have an insider's look at Texas politics and policymaking. Howdy folks, my name is Mackenzie DeLillo. I am the senior editor of The Texan.

We are so grateful you've stuck with us all day, or even if you're coming now. Thank you for coming now. We have the main attraction of the day. We are so excited to have Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick joining us as our keynote this evening. Please give a warm welcome to Texas' Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Thank you, Mackenzie. Great to be here. Bright lights. Yes, absolutely.

I first want folks to see your boots. Can we start there? So I've been working on redoing the Alamo, as you know. And we're making great progress. It's going to be fabulous. So you have to have the Alamo on one. And I work in the Capitol every day, so you have to have the Alamo on one. And I work in the Capitol every day, so you have to have the Capitol on the other. And I put in God We Trust. That was the first thing I ever did as

a freshman. It was not in the Senate chamber. And so we put in God We Trust on the top of that. And of course, someone else came up with remember the Alamo. Yes, absolutely. Credit where credit is. You're right. I found these, by the way, my wife told me. We were on a bus tour for Donald Trump in the campaign. And we stopped in San Antonio. We were visiting small businesses. And one of the businesses we visited was Littles Boots. They've been there for over 100 years. And my wife said, do not buy another pair of boots.

You have more boots than you need. And I walked in and saw these on a shelf. Not in my size. And they were red. Red leather. And I said, I can't wear red. Connie, that wouldn't work well. So, anyway, I got my boots. You got your boots. And they're very comfortable.

Well, sir, I want to reiterate our thanks for being here. Sure, thank you for the invite. And Connie, you know, this is overwhelming your success of this. No, it really is. To start something from scratch. Not only this event, but I'm talking about, you know, your newspaper online. It's just terrific.

And I'm really proud of you. She and I go back a long way. I've heard. 2011, we started the Tea Party caucus, and every Sunday, or once in about every three weeks, we used to meet in the Capitol. Yes. And then you were there.

No one ever thought you'd be a senator, and trust me, no one ever thought I'd be the senator. Look at y'all. Well, thank you again for being here. We're so appreciative. I want to start with your... And congratulations on getting married. Thank you. Yes, my husband's in the audience, so he being here. We're so appreciative. I want to start with yours. And congratulations on getting married. Thank you. Yes, my husband's in the audience, so he's here.

Where are you? He's waving back there. He's waving back there. All right. Yeah, hard to see. But let's talk Senate priorities first and foremost. You released your list ahead of the legislative session. A partial list.

A partial list. Okay. The 30 priority bills will be coming to a theater near Houston. SB1 through 30. There you go. So in terms of the ones you have released, rural law enforcement funding, school safety funding, border security, those are just some of the issues that you've talked about so far. At the beginning of session, as it stands right now, what is at the very top of the list for you? So right now, and it's interesting because the grassroots will look at your top 30 and say, wait a minute, that one's number 22.

It must not be that important. Everything in the top 30 is important. But I do kind of look at the top 10, and I get the 30. They're not my ideas. They're the ideas and the priorities of the people, of the party. When you go around the state, like the law enforcement, I'll talk about that in a little bit. So you get them really from the people, and then you get them from the senators. So we'll be asking the senators, we've already started, give me your

priorities, because every senator wants a low number priority on a bill. They want a low number bill if they can get it, because it shows that we're behind it, and it kind of sends a signal. So the first year I did 20, 1 to 20, and then I expanded it to 30. So that's a total of four sessions. So that's 110. And I think of the 110 priorities, we passed 105. And two of those were priorities that the senators really kind of, they told me they were going to move the bill, but then they decided, well, I'll do something else.

So we really have had a great, remarkable run in the Senate of passing that conservative legislation. Now, not everything got through the House. Not everything got signed into law, but a lot did. And so, you know, we're looking at that closely. But I would tell you that the most important issue that we face this session, and there are many important issues, is making sure we have enough power on the grid. We do not have enough thermal power. happened is that if you go back 2020, I mean 2000 rather, we had a lot of coal, we had some hydro, but mostly natural gas plants, thermal, and just a tiny bit, just a tiny bit of renewables. Today, renewables are a large part of our grid, and with the plans that were made years ago that are coming online, you're going to see it more than 50%. Renewables are fine. They keep our prices low. I was just

told before I left the Capitol today, we have the fourth lowest energy cost in the country. But if it doesn't turn on, it doesn't mean a lot. You have to be able to have dependable, dispatchable power. And at night, the sun's not out, so you get nothing from solar. And during the day, if the wind's not blowing, you don't get anything. And so we have to have more natural gas plants, or you could do hydro or other thermal opportunities. That is number one for us to resolve that. The PUC has put out a plan.

There's been some pushback from the Senate and the House. We'll look at that plan. We'll make a decision on do we change that plan? Do we use that plan? Do we tweak that plan? Do we come up with a new plan? But that is number one, because even if you pass a bill now,

it's two or three years before you actually have a power on the ground. And one of the reasons that I got rid of 313's last session, a bill now, it's two or three years before you actually have a power on the ground. And one of the reasons that I got rid of 313's last session, by the way, I just killed the bill. It was time to get rid of it. It had been misused. About 60% of all 313 projects were renewable windmills. And we, again, they're fine to have,

keep energy price low, and it helps the environment, but you have to have enough dispatchable to meet the needs. And we're growing so fast, that continues to grow. So that's number one. You've talked also in your priorities

about a 13th check for retired teachers or a cost of living adjustment. A 13th check was issued last session. Two of my four so far. Yes, there you go. In terms of the cost of living adjustment. A 13th check was issued last session. Two of my four so far. Yes, there you go. In terms of the cost of living adjustment being part of the conversation now, why is that the case,

and which of these approaches do you prefer? So I've met with a lot of retired teachers. My wife's a retired teacher, and as I went around the state, we did 130 cities roughly in 17 days on the bus tour, and we'll get back to that on the other plans for rural Texas. But I've met with a lot of retired teachers. I said, look, whatever you want, I'm fine with.

I'm not sure that the 13th check, if they can depend on it, isn't better. Because let's just say, for example, you had a 2% cost of living adjustment. Now, this year, because of inflation, it would be higher this year, but some years it would be 2%. Well, an extra check is much larger than 2% more. Now, cumulatively, it can add up over time, but whatever they decide, I'm fine.

We can do both. We have done two 13th checks, and what happens, Mackenzie, and Connie would know this being in the legislature, is once you start doing something, you kind of continue to do it, and it kind of gets baked into the budget. I really think, and of course we have a big surplus this time, I really think we can do a 13th check almost every session moving forward. I think that's more money, but I'm going to leave it up to them. Certainly. We'll get to the surplus soon.

Let's get to school choice. I think many voters, GOP lawmakers, are excited about the momentum that school choice has this session. No proposal, at least concrete proposal, has been put out so far from the House, the Senate, the Governor. We don't know what that looks like. How strong of a proposal is the Senate committed to passing? Well, we're the only body in the history of Texas that has passed it. We passed it twice. We passed it in 15 and 17, and it didn't get a hearing in the House.

I'm not being critical. It's just the facts. And so we are very focused on passing a bill. The Governor says he's going to be campaigning on it, and so he's also bought in and supportive, and he has been in the past. But I think he's going to make a bigger effort. So I don't know what the bill will look like, to be honest with you, but we're working on it.

There's been some talk of how do we address the world. So don't hold me to the exact numbers because I didn't look at notes today, but when I gave my inauguration speech last week, I'm close to this number. We have 1,207 school districts that I know. Of those 1,207, I think it's 966 have less than 3,000 students. Of those, 429 districts, I think, have less than 3,000 students. And of those, 429 districts, I think, have less than 500 students. So there's been pushback from rural Republicans

that this takes money out of the system and hurts the rural districts. The economies of scale for any business person, really, it doesn't make sense to go into a district that has 500 kids from kindergarten to the 12th grade. So that's a third of the districts. It doesn't mean it to go into a district that has 500 kids from kindergarten to the 12th grade. So that's a third of the districts. It doesn't mean it might not be a church school, but it really, and those districts are pretty spread out. So some of the pushback is, I think, misplaced because I don't think many businesses are going to open up private schools

in districts that have 1,600 kids in their whole school district, 100 kids per grade almost. But where that happens, and again, that's 966 out of the 1,200, 49 districts have about 50% of the kids. And we know most of our failing schools are in our big cities. We do have some problems in school districts in rural Texas, but for the most part, not as much. So we need to find a way, because at the end of the day, you have to count the votes. You have to count the votes.

And in the House, if it takes us coming up with a program that helps hold harmless the rural school districts, so if they lose a few kids, they still get paid, or they get paid 80%, or whatever the number is, then we have to do that, because we have to have school choice. It is, you know, we just have to have it. Again, we passed it in 15 and I was hopeful and we haven't gotten there. Now, my friend Kim Reynolds is the governor of New York. I knew her when she was a lieutenant governor of Iowa. I said New York, I meant Iowa. And Kim and I actually got baptized together into Jordan River. It was my second baptism, but we got baptized.

We're good friends, and she was on Fox today. I didn't have a chance to watch the interview, but they've just passed school choice in Iowa, and so I'm going to look at their plan because they've tied it into teacher pay a little bit. So we're going to pass a bill. I just don't know what it looks like today. We want all parents in rural Texas to have school choice available to them.

We need to protect those districts because we need to get the votes. And our focus is really on our biggest school districts. When you have a district that has 500 kids and you have a district that has 200,000 kids, there's just more failure in that district.

And all Texans and all Republicans, all Democrats need to be thinking about this. If you can't get a quality education, you don't have a chance at the American dream, and we have to provide that. Let's zero in on... Pardon? My mic's not working well? What do you want me to do?

I just followed instruction. Maybe we put it on the lapel, perhaps. Go from there. One, two, three, four. Let's give a hand for our friend here. Okay. Further down. Is that better, folks? Okay, is that better?

Okay, we're going to take it from the top? Yeah. Okay, well, I do want to zero in on that conversation about rural schools. Yes. Because you have said that if there was a way to get a proposal across the finish line, you'd be open to bracketing out rural districts. Mackenzie, that was said on one of my 15-hour days, and I really didn't say that right.

What I meant by bracketing, I wasn't talking about bracketing out the parents. Can you hear me okay? What I was talking about is finding a way to bracket the schools so that we can get the bill passed and the parents can still have school choice, but we have to do something to get those votes to convince those Republicans to vote for it by telling those school superintendents

you're not going to lose money by losing a handful of students. It really doesn't cost us much money to... See, what they're worried about, if you lose a handful of students from a big school district, and around the country, most of the parents who have opted out for school choice, it's about 5%, a big school district can kind of absorb that.

But if you have a small budget in a small district with 1,000 kids, well, that's big dollars to them. So that's what I meant by... We've got to find a bracket to address the rural schools. Because if we address the money, then really there's no reason why a Republican won't vote for it in the House. Shouldn't be. Won't pass it. And the other issue, the bills we passed so far in 15 and 17 were school, so I was just kind of taken out of context when I said that, or I didn't say it very well

either or, but you now know what we want to do, is we passed a bill for children with disabilities. And, you know, there's three reasons a parent would want a choice for a school. Number one, the school is a failure for their child, period. Why should any parent have to send their child to a failing school? Number two, maybe they don't feel the school is safe. Maybe it could for a variety of reasons. And number three, if you have a child with a disability, and I've been on the board of children, be an angel of children with disabilities for 34 years.

It's the only board I serve on. I'm focused on that, children with disabilities. Some of our schools do a great job. Some of our schools do not. And so if you have a child with a disability from mild dyslexia to something very serious, every child is educated. And if the school can't help your child, you ought to be able to take that child to a different school. And I really think it's cruel, quite frankly, for the legislature, any legislator, Republican or Democrat, to vote

against school choice for parents that have children with disabilities. And by the way, that accounts for about 1.6 million of our 5.5 million kids in public schools. So no one should vote against that. You said that you and the governor are both all in on school choice. Yep. The elephant in the room, where's the House?

What's your sense of where the House is on this issue? Well, I think I've learned not to speak for the House. They don't like that. And look, I don't like when they speak for the Senate, quite frankly. So, you know, look, here's the difference. I get elected by 4 million people. I'm the only statewide legislator who gets elected by 4 million people. I'm the only statewide legislator who gets elected by the entire state.

House members get elected by 150 districts, senators get elected by 31 districts, and the speaker gets elected by the members of the House. My responsibility is, and I have a responsibility to the members to operate the Senate in the most effective and efficient way to accomplish the goals that the people sent us there to do.

But my number one person that I'm responsible to are the people of Texas. So that's just the difference between the House and the Senate. And that's in every Congress, you know, the Congress and every state in the country. It's a different setup. And so, but I see no reason. And when I hear this, by the way, I hear this. Well, people in rural Texas don't want school choice. Balderdash is the nicest word I can think of.

It starts with a B. If you look at the primary results, 80%, nearly 80% voted for it in the primary. If you look at Greg Abbott and I, we were campaigning on school choice, and we got 77% of the vote in rural Texas. Now, the superintendents may not like it, but they're afraid they're going to lose money. So if we fix that problem, then quit worrying about it. Parents have that right, and I'm optimistic this is a session we can do it. Because, you know, again, you have to count the votes. I have to count the votes in the Senate and the House.

I mean, you know, I can't guarantee that we have every vote today in the Senate, but I'm very optimistic we'll get there. In your budget announcement, there is a $15 billion set aside for property tax relief. There's been rumblings of a potential property tax fund that would be separate from the general revenue fund set for cutting property taxes in order to not affect the spending cap. What is your position on a proposal like that? And is that something you're considering? So there's a... First of all, I want to talk about what we did in 2019 that we've been trying to do forever. And I started coming to the Capitol in 2003 when I was not in the Senate. I didn't come into the Senate until 2007,

focused on property taxes. And what I was always focused on is you had to break the connection between your appraisal and your tax bill. And so what had been happening for a long, long time is that as your appraisal went up, your tax bill went up the same. So if your appraisal was up 7%, your tax bill went up 7%. And your county judge and commissioner said, and they're all good folks, but they would say, hey, I haven't raised your taxes. Well, no, you didn't raise the taxes, but they went up 7% because you just, you didn't adjust the rate because your tax bill is the value times the tax rate. So in 19, what we did, and because of COVID, it didn't really kick in until this session. A lot of people, or this past year, a lot of people got high appraisals last year. They said, I thought you

fixed my property taxes. They went up 15%. My appraisal's up 9%. But if you look at your tax bill, and everyone who hears this or sees this when you replay it, if you look at your tax bill, your tax bill no longer reflects the appraisal. Now, a lot of people really still don't understand that, including in the capital. So what we did is we said to the counties and cities, you cannot raise your budget more than 3.5% without a vote of the people.

And school districts, you cannot raise your budgets more than 2.5% without a vote of the people. So no matter how high the values go, they have to lower their rate like a seesaw to get down under 3.5% or 2.5%. Now that's an average, but most people saw their school taxes even last time or this last fall when they got their bill

or went down a little bit or maybe went up a little bit. Some people may have been 4%, some people 1%. It's an average. So we have broken the bond between appraisals, for the most part, and the value. We also, and then we've increased the homestead exemption from $15,000 when I came in in 15, where it had been forever, to $40,000. And in our budget, we're raising it to $70,000. Now, when you are able to take 70, the average home in Texas is around $345,000 today, roughly. It's more expensive in suburban urban areas

and less expensive in rural areas, but on average. When you can take $70,000 off the top, and that impacts your school taxes, that's a significant saving. I want to get it to $100,000, but we have to maintain that. Remember, any time we cut taxes, that's a significant saving. I want to get it to $100,000, but we have to maintain that. Remember, anytime we cut taxes, we have to do it in a way that next year we can do it again. We're not always going to have a big surplus, but this cost to take it to $70,000 is about $3 billion, and I believe we can absorb $3 billion because we've absorbed taking it from $15,000 to $40,000.

We can absorb this. So that's in our budget of the $15 billion, $3 billion is to raise the homestead exemption. People get that. It's clear. It's easy. They see the save. I mean, you're talking about saving thousands of dollars over a 30-year mortgage. I mean, significant money just on that. What do we do with the other $12 billion, I'm wide open to that suggestion. Nobody has a specific plan, but we wanted, all of us, the governor, myself, the speaker, we all want to send a large chunk of this surplus back to the people. And so the idea has been kicked around of a fund that you could put $12 billion in, and then every year be able, whether it's on the compression rate, whether some more goes to the homestead exemption, that's all to be figured out by the members.

So I really wanted to explain that, because people, we get calls in the spring, my appraisal's up, but in the fall we don't get any calls because people's bills didn't go up that high. Now there's always, someone's going to call in, trust me, well, there's an exception, but for the most part, that's what we've done. And thank goodness, had we not passed that bill in 19, that literally I've been trying to pass since I became a senator, had we not passed that bill, we would have seen really sky high property tax. But we have to continue to lower them because in general, they're still too high. We're going to pivot to political dynamics here for a second. can I ask you, can I just hit on this rural, this bus tour and the police real quick?

So as I traveled around the state and it was the best experience I ever had, Mackenzie. I mean, I met so many wonderful people and I traveled around rural Texas before and I campaigned in rural Texas, but nothing like this. We were doing 10 to 12 stops a day.

We'd do a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner. We'd call the local sheriff and say, what's the best place? Where do people hang out? And that's where we went. And we'd visit all kind of businesses every day and see, you know, fun. We made it like a travel log. A lot of people really liked the videos we put up and like our postcard kind of events. And I just learned so much. And one of the things that really just jumps out at you, law enforcement, we have so many small counties with little budgets, but they still have crime. And I met a sheriff, I won't mention the town, but I met a sheriff who's making $31,000 a year. Deputies making

20-some thousand a year. You can't hire anybody for that. You go to some of these small counties, they have a sheriff and three deputies covering 900 square miles. Well, people in rural Texas deserve the same protection as people in larger cities and even larger rural cities. And because of Joe Biden's allowing criminals, even terrorists, I think we've arrested 13 in the last 60 days on the terrorist watch list crossing the border. But you have so many criminals crossing the border and so many people, they're flooding through Texas, going to other states, some staying somewhere, break-ins are up, you know, car smashes.

You know, it's a big deal when somebody smashes out the window of your truck and it cost you $3,000 to repair it. I mean, that's real money. And lots of times below the deductible. So we have to help them. And then they all have major roads going through their counties. And they pull over a car. There's drugs, people hiding in the trunk, whatever it may be.

So we've never, ever, ever sent any money to rural Texas from the state. We've always said that's up to the county to pay the sheriff, and the sheriff's main job is to run the jail. A lot of the counties don't even have jails. So we have in the budget $350 million for, it's going to be about 235, 236 of our 254 counties that we classify as rural. And it has to go to law enforcement so they can hire more deputies, they can pay them a living wage, they can buy equipment that they need. And that's one thing

that really came out of this tour. And I think the members will support that. It's never been done and it's an amount we can sustain year after year. And the second thing tied into that is we need more mental health care. My staff tells me as lieutenant governor, I put in more money for mental health care than any other lieutenant governor in history. We put billions in it, but this plan we have in the budget is right now $3 billion. For more, we'll either buy beds in hospitals

to turn them into mental health beds, or we'll create hospitals, and we've already done five of those in the last eight years, and that's all connected too. If you're a sheriff in Amarillo and one of your deputies arrests one who has a mental health issue, you might have to drive to Wichita Falls to find a bed. Well, you lose that deputy, that trip, and you get to Wichita Falls and they don't take

them because we only have 2,500 beds, either forensic for criminals or for general patients, available, and 1,000 of those are offline because we don't have enough nurses. So that dominoes into the next thing. I want to, and we're funding it in the budget, scholarships for anyone who will become a registered nurse. We pay for doctors. We pay for science teachers. We pay for math teachers. We pay for law enforcement. We pay their college up to a certain level with some commitments because we don't have enough nurses. Would that be a one-time experience? No, that's forever. We can afford to do that. And the commitments, like we need math and science teachers, you have to commit to teaching so many years. And the same thing in law enforcement, you have to commit to be in law enforcement. We'll pay for your college

education. A lot of people don't know about those three programs. And so we need to do it for, because we pay doctors pretty much their tuition. So we need to do that for nurses. So you connect law enforcement, mental health care, forensic hospitals for the criminals with that, because our jails, big cities and small towns, are the biggest holder of people with mental illness. And then you have to have the nurses. So this is a big package that we're doing that I think will really improve life in all of Texas. Thank you for that context. Speaking of all these dynamics and making sure it passes through the whole process, the House and the Senate have a very varied history. Two sessions ago,

lockstep, school finance reform, property tax reform. It was a Super Bowl session. That was 19. 19, yes. And then this last session, there was much more conflict, right? Whether it be repricing the grid, constitutional carry, there was more spectacle and conflict between the two chambers. What do you foresee this session in terms of the relationship between the House and the Senate? Well, one of the reasons we had a successful session in 19 is because, and I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I could never convince the then speaker, and I'm not saying anything negative to partake, but I always thought if we did a press conference at the beginning of the session, the three of us, the speaker, the governor, lieutenant governor, laid out at least some issues because we don't all agree on everything. If we all agreed on

everything, two of us could stay home and let one person run it. The other two could stay home and I'll be fine, I'll run. So you are going to have some things that we don't agree on. But Dennis and the Governor and myself, we had that press conference. We said we're going to fix school finance, which we changed it for the first time in a long time, and we're going to do property taxes. Well, when three of us say this is what we're doing, the members kind of get the message they're serious about this. We didn't do it this time.

We didn't do it last time. I look forward to working with the Speaker, but I make no apologies for passing a conservative agenda to the House. That's my job. That's what the people sent me to do. Most of what we pass is really nonpartisan, but on these key issues, the Senate has been the leader on that, and I hope the House will pass more bills. I can't control the House. They can't control the Senate. But we are not going to make apologies or excuses. We're going to send it over there, as we have every year. And we have the most conservative... I say this every session

because it's improved every session. We have the most conservative membership in the Texas Senate ever in history. When you bring over Tan Parker, Phil King, Pete Flores, Mace Middleton, and then Kevin Sparks, rock-solid conservative, the new member coming in from West Texas, that's five more talented people, all rock-solid conservatives. We've got a great Senate. We're going to pass great bills, and the House will have to do what the House does. I try to stay out of fights, but I'm not going to stand by and let people make excuses. We only come here every other year. You know, we need to get it done.

The Texas House has had one, yes, has had one big fight so far, and it was over the ban for Democrat chairs. Right? That was the big issue there. You released your list of chairmen this week and were allotted by Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi for only appointing Senator John Whitmire, the lone Democrat, to a committee chairmanship. His statement made it seem as though Whitmire, as he's announced he's running for Houston mayor, once he departs, he will be the last Democrat chair in the Senate. Clear this up for us. Is he the last Democrat chair you're appointing as your tenure as lieutenant governor or is this the last for this session? So I was I was eight years ahead of this movement because when I came in in 2015 I reduced the

Democrat chairs from six to one. I campaigned on that issue because back then we had 20 Republicans we had when I came into the Senate, 11 Democrats, but six of them had chairmanships. And yet a lot of good Republicans didn't have chairmanships. And they're very powerful positions. So I campaigned on that, and I did that. And I've left Whitmire in that position for one reason. He's the dean of the Senate.

There's a little respect for the office. But most importantly, he's the expert on our prisons. He's been overseeing our prisons since 1993. And while he is the chairman of that committee, if you look at the makeup of that committee, there are more Republicans on that committee than there are Democrats. So there's not going to be a bill coming out of there unless the Republicans support what that chair is going to do. So I'm not going to get in the House business. I'll just say that if a Democrat's controlling a major committee anywhere and we can't get a bill out,

that's a problem. That's a problem. But again, I stay out of their politics and they'll do what they're going to do. So when John leaves, as of today, yeah, that wouldn't leave any Democrat chairman. And again, I'm not going to play the game. We're going to have one or not one. But the only reason he's been that chair is because he was chair of, I mean, he's been overseeing the prisons for a long time.

And a lot of expertise in that. And we did have two sessions. I had Eddie Lucio as a chair, but Eddie voted more as a Republican and then one or two Republicans. So Eddie was fine. We're going to miss him because he was a pro-life. He was just a great senator. We're going to miss him. So another thing you've talked extensively about is tenure.

Last year you floated an idea of phasing out tenure for professors teaching critical race theory. Yes. What would success look like for you this session on that issue? Getting all these professors who don't like America, who don't like Texas, who don't like capitalism, who are trying to pollute the minds of young people going to college. I'd just

soon see them all go to another state. That would be success, okay? Look, this battle, I'm not a puncher. You know, I get this reputation, well, Dan's, you know, he's a tough guy. I'm not a tough guy. Connie knows that. I'm charming, right, Connie?

Right? Connie knows. Yeah, she's neutral. But I'm a counterpuncher. So I didn't start this. If you think about this, Republicans are counterpunchers, period. We didn't say boys should play girls' sports.

They did, and we punched back. I mean, as Republicans. We didn't say that you should be able to kill babies all the way up to bringing them to birth or beyond. They started that fight, and we've responded. We didn't say the border should be wide open. So what I'm saying, we're always pushing back because they will push us, the left will push us as far as they can push us. And if we don't stand up and say no and stand up for our values and our principles, they will keep pushing.

I mean, think about this. They started with the men and ladies bathrooms in 17. And Lois Colcourt carried that bill for me. She took a lot of arrows. I took a lot of arrows. Guess what? We did win on that issue. That bill didn't pass the House. We passed it out of the Senate. It didn't pass the House. I think that was the bill that drove Joe Strauss potentially out of the House because he was very upset about that. And Joe's a nice guy. I'm just saying, I think that was the straw, that he just couldn't go there.

But, and I respect whatever his reasons were. I'm not dismissing that. But my point is that we won that battle because you don't see any more targets out there letting men go in ladies' rooms. You don't see the boys, and where you do, there's pushback. There's always somebody that's going to try to get around that. So this is another issue.

We passed a bill to ban critical race theory in our schools K-12 last session. And all of a sudden, I see this press release, or I see this tweet from the Senate faculty, which is about a hundred professors out of three thousand, they represent, I guess they say they represent the other three thousand, they said they're going to teach critical race theory at the University of Texas. And so I tweeted out, well wait a minute. We banned it in K-12. We'll ban it in higher ed. They then tweeted out or put out a statement. We don't, we're not accountable to the legislature or we're not accountable to the Board of Regents. Now, just who

the heck do you think you are that you're not accountable? We're all accountable to somebody. Our spouses, our employers, our employees, each other, we're all accountable. And so when they say, we don't have to listen to you, then I say it's time to end tenure. And the fact that they started this fight, and look, it's going to be a hard bill to pass because we won't be able to attract any professors if we don't give tenure. Really?

Okay, if they're the kind of professors we won't attract, then I don't want to attract them. There'll be plenty of conservative professors who will come here to this state where they can, and I believe in academic freedom, but when you are teaching our students that America is evil and capitalism is bad, I'm sorry, that will destroy our country long term.

So we'll see. We're going to push for it. I've got to, let me tell you what, Brandon Crade's going to do one heck of a job as chair of education and higher ed, and I intend to get a bill out, whether it's ending tenure, reforming tenure, and I'll tell you a secret.

Most of the presidents of the universities, because they all, Dan, you've got to get rid of tenure. I can't say anything about it, because they get criticized by their senate faculty. But they know it it because these professors, and they don't represent all 3,000 professors at UT, but they got this megaphone and this platform and they run the school. On that note of recruiting professors, Speaker Phelan, what would you say to critics who,

our Speaker Phelan for one of them say to critics who, our speaker Phelan for one of them, saying that it would be difficult to attract conservative professors if tenure was to be eliminated? No. No. What, what, do we get, let me ask you this. Do we give guaranteed contracts to anyone we bring into the state of Texas to work, except for some schools that give long contracts and guaranteed money to football coaches? No one has a guarantee for life who has it who has a job where you're guaranteed that for life very very very few people on the planet I believe that professors will come here knowing that their campuses aren't controlled by the woke liberal left I think there are professors who

want to come and teach at a university. And I was talking to one president, one chairman of the board of regents. He said, we'll pay them more money. Simple. We can pay them more money. And you know what? I'll kick

in the kitty. We can do a 10,000 bonus to attract and look, I'm not saying they all have to come in here being rock solid right wing conservatives. I just want a professor like the old days, where they taught our students to think, not what to think. And there's a difference. And, and, you know, well, this isn't going on. I saw, I saw someone, he said, well, there's no CRT going there. Wait a minute. They just said they're going to teach it. And they developed the course that goes into our schools. So, no, I'm sorry. They started the battle.

So I'm in. There you go. The Senate will look very different this legislative session. You have, I believe, six new members. Yes. And a 31-person body. You went from 18 Republicans to 19. The lone Republican who would often go against the grain

if his own party is no longer in the chamber. What does that mean for the Senate this session? Well, despite the fact that we've had a few who maybe weren't as conservative as the people of Texas are, but we've managed to get, like I said, every priority bill, 110, I think I said, 105 or so went out, and all the other priority items. I can't think of a bill, to be honest with you, that we haven't passed of a strong conservative bill. It's just going to be easier this time. Okay, it's just

going to be easier. It shouldn't be that hard of work, really. And, you know, look, people have asked me what's the most important bill I've ever passed, and it is a senator or it's a lieutenant governor. First of all, the members get the credit. They meet in the committees for hours and hours. Connie knows she's been there. I'm glad you served, Connie, because it really gives you a focus of really understanding the way it happens. And the lieutenant governor only has so much authority. Now, the lieutenant governor of Texas has more authority than any lieutenant governor in the country. I'm not talking about me as a person in the office. If you take advantage of the power that you have to get the things done, again, not that I want, but what the people elected me.

I mean, they elected me, so I represent them. But, Connie, no, it's still a team effort, and not every, even amongst conservatives, do we all agree on different things. So the senators get all the credit. I don't get the credit. They get all the credit for the hearings, for the debate on the floor, for passing the bills, for finding a way to work together. And I've always said, if it doesn't happen, blame me. If a bill doesn't pass that the members want, I mean the public wants, then blame me. If it does pass,

give credit to the senators. And here's the way I really address that, that you can blame me. If I have a bill, and it's happened on three occasions, I won't mention the three occasions, that would be unfair. On three occasions where we were a vote or two votes short going to the floor. Some lieutenant governors would not bring it to the floor.

I've always said to one or two or three of those Republicans, it's been one or two, okay, you can vote for it. You can vote against it. But I'm bringing it to the floor. This is what the people, if you have 18 senators and 16 senators are for something

and two are against, you don't kill the bill because two are against it. And in every occasion when we brought it to the floor, the senator who was opposed to it or the two senators, they voted for it.

So that's why if it fails, I did my job. My job is to bring a bill to the floor. And I've told the governor this. I've told the speaker. I've told the members. My job is pretty easy, but maybe two or three times a year, I have to ask people to make an uncomfortable vote, just two or three times.

If I don't ask, and this time, I don't really anticipate any of that with the members we have. But that's kind of my job. If I just let anyone come in and say, I'm against that bill, don't bring it up. And that happened in the past. And it created some problems in the past. So we're always going to pass it.

But what I was going to say, the most important thing, McKenzie, that I've ever passed was changing the blocker bill. Because when was a senator, it was 21 votes to bring a bill to the floor. We've never had more than 20 Republicans in history in the Senate. So when I was a senator, Democrats, that's the reason they called it the blocker bill, they just, 11 of us are sticking together and you're not, you don't have 21 votes, you only have 20. And so that's why, if you look back through history, we had so many special

sessions when Rick Perry was governor because a lot of bills got blocked. And in the special session, the blocker bill was not enforced. So we only needed 16 votes to pass a bill. So Perry would call us back to pass the bills that the Democrats blocked. And I always saw that as wrong. And on my first day as a freshman, I moved to change the rules and I lost 30 to 1 on the rules because the senators decide the rules. And I finally got up to about 10 votes. And obviously to change the rules you need 16 out of 31. I never could get to 16. But in 2015, we had eight new senators come in with me.

Connie came in. And they all campaigned on that. And the senators, not myself, but the senators changed the rule. And the reason we've been able to send conservative bill, conservative bill, conservative bill, conservative bill out is because the Democrats can't stop us. The only people that can stop conservative legislation from passing are Republicans. And in the Senate, we're gonna pass conservative legislation. That's who we are as a state. People look to us around the country. When Texas leads, they follow.

When we pass a bill, they pass it. The heartbeat bill, they pass the heartbeat bill, whatever it might be. They see what we do. And so I see my job is really easy. I have great senators. I have great staff. We just tee it up and say, okay, here's what the people ask us to do. And a few of them may be my ideas, but most of it's just the people's ideas or the senator's ideas. And we're going to pass it. And the Democrats can't stop it. But we're still respectful of the Democrats. And here's what happened, Mackenzie, on this, which is I always believed this would happen.

When the Democrats could do this, and by the way, if I were a Republican in the Senate and there were only 11 of us, I would do this too. I mean, if you're the Democrats and you're the majority and you let me have the power of the rules to stop you, I'm going to do that every day. So I don't blame them for what they did. But I always thought once we changed the blocker bill and brought it down where they couldn't block anything They would participate and they would actually come up with an amendment and they would say okay. I know this bill is gonna pass Can you take this amendment?

Maybe I can vote for it So you will find that of the I don't have the stats for last session with session before we passed about 1,800 bills Only 23 I think was the number didn't have a Democrat vote. Because even on the conservative bills, many of them came on. And, of course, Eddie came on a lot, Senator Lucio. So that's the most important thing we've done. And I think, and I'm not criticizing the House, but I think what happens in any House, anywhere, is the other party can kind of control the flow of what comes to the floor. And I would like to see the House be able to control that a little bit more so that

if there's an important bill that at least comes to the floor. I'm not being critical, I'm just saying that's the difference, that the Democrats can't block us in the Senate, they can block in the House, and they're very effective at doing that. And so that's why, and again, it's a different world. Being a speaker is very difficult. I would never want to be in that, where I have to depend on 150 members and try to keep everybody happy, or they throw me out of the chair. That's a difficult thing, and I respect that, and I get it.

But it's not an excuse. Two quick questions before we let you go. One, you have endorsed former President Donald Trump. Yes. Polls show him in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in dead heat, even here in Texas. What would you make of a DeSantis candidacy? Well, I don't know. I don't know him. So I've been the campaign chair for the President Trump, candidate Trump. I was with Ted Cruz first. I didn't, you know, he was my guy. And when Ted didn't have the delegates, I reached out to the Trump campaign. I've gotten to be really good friends with the president. You have no idea how small the Trump team was back in 2016. I mean, it was really tiny. I mean, it was really small. And so

I got a chance to really get involved, and I think he's the best president we've ever had. I think he's the most conservative. He's been the most conservative policies ever passed. And so, and I support

him in 20, of course, and I tweeted out a few weeks ago that, you know, full-throated endorsement, we're all in, and I support him in 20, of course, and I tweeted out a few weeks ago that, you know, full-throated endorsement, we're all in, and, you know, hope to be working with the team again. In fact, I think we will. I got a call today to call one of the members of his team to talk about some policy issues, but I just don't know Ron DeSantis.

Actually, the last poll, the most recent poll, Trump is ahead of DeSantis by a considerable amount of votes now. And there was a poll out, I think it's on the Drudge Report today, that Trump is ahead of Biden now, and 2024 head up. I don't know who's gonna win. I don't know who's gonna be in the race.

But I think that right now, Donald Trump is the person to beat. I think Ron DeSantis has done a terrific job in Florida. I have nothing negative to say about him. I think he's done a really good job. But I'm a Trump guy. I think Trump wins the primary. I think he does. As of today, as of where we're here today.

Today. I'd be remiss. I know you just finished a re-election campaign just a couple of months ago. But I would be remiss if I did not ask you. 2026, are you going to run for re-election? Absolutely. I'm going to run in 26. And here's the reason. I really love what I do. I actually do have the easiest job of everyone in the Senate. The senators really work hard. I like the people I work with. Look, I have friends across the aisle now. They're not happy because they don't get some of their bills passed,

but we're respectful of each other, and Connie knows. I think, Connie, one of the things you found when you came in, you had friends on both sides of the aisle. Now, you never, ever voted for any of their ideas, but there's a little bit of a family. There's only 31 of them, and I'm not one of them. There are only 31. And, you know, the House, if you think about this,

that takes 150 to do the work that our 31 have to do. 31 have to handle all the bills that 150 send us. So they work hard, and our committees are larger. And you look at all the committees at Phil King and Tan Parker and Mays, the new ones, they were never on that many committees, or Phil may have been, he was a senior member. But when you're a senator, you're on a lot of committees and you're doing a lot of work. And if you're a Democrat and I'm sitting next to you for four months, we become friends, you know,

and we talk about a daughter that got married, or we talk about a new baby that's come along, or if there's a tragedy and there's a funeral and we attend it, there's this mutual... You can... See, politics shouldn't be ugly or nasty. We ought to be able to conduct politics and have honest disagreement and work really hard to block your bill if you're on the other side, or really hard to pass a bill. But at the end of the day, we ought to respect each other. And I will say that I think in the Senate that holds true. Now, did the Democrats all want to see me lose? Absolutely. Do they love me? Absolutely not. But do we have a healthy respect for each other? Yes. And so I love it. I think we've been very successful. I think we'll continue to be successful.

I'm in good health. And I just won by 830-some thousand votes. So why wouldn't I come back? I think we'll be in good shape in the 26th and the primary and the general. If the Republicans will do what the people ask us to do, we will hold power for a long time. Because we are converting so many Hispanic voters all over the state and getting out more voters each election that I think the future is bright for Texas. Governor Patrick, thank you so much once again for spending time at the very beginning of session. It is so busy in the Lieutenant Governor's office. I'm so appreciative of your time. This is great. And Connie, thank you again for inviting me. And thank you all for coming.

We're going to get the job done. Well, folks, help me thank Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter, tweet at The Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's

important we all do our part to support The Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you and God bless Texas.