The Texan Podcast - ESAs, An Open Statewide Office Seat, and Capitol Squabbles: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 14

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

In the latest episode of Smoke Filled Room, Senior Editor McKenzie DiLullo and Senior Reporter Brad Johnson take listeners on a "catch-all" review of the 89th Legislative Session so far, from school choice to Texas House and Senate committee fights to a newly vacant statewide office.Listen to more Smoke Filled Room podcasts from our team wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.

Maybe the responsibility scapegoat the aims of these organizations. That is putting it very lightly. They hate each other. They absolutely hate each other. Then you throw in the inner chamber rivalries. Oh my gosh, yeah. Certainly conversation and rumors swirling about certain members of the legislature who may be considering a party switch. Should we go with the House version or the Senate version?

This is not a place where we get financial advice, but broad just get financial advice. Well, it's more accurate and less offensive than Dumpster. Howdy folks, welcome back to another episode of Smoke-Filled Room. I'm Mackenzie and this is Brad and we're here to talk all things Texas politics. This episode is a little bit more of a casual. There's a lot going on and instead of picking one topic and delving into it we have like I don't know how many five, six, seven to walk through. We're recording this as the house is house committee on public education is considering HB3 the ESA bill so there's been

on public education is considering HB3 the ESA bill. So there's been multiple hours so far back and forth just on the dais between members. They haven't even gotten to public testimony yet, or maybe they just did. We walked in as Tallarico was still chatting about stuff. He's been on the mic a lot today voicing concerns about the bill. Concerns is probably too mild a term

for how he feels about this legislation. But regardless, that's where we are right now in the legislative session so we're recording a little earlier than we usually do for smoke filter and so this comes out and there are a few things that we missed it's probably either we did shoddy reporting which happens which happens or more likely that we are just recording before some things drop. I'm specifically thinking about candidates entering certain races, that's kind of what I'm thinking.

Or legislative movements. There's a lot that could happen in the next three days, or nothing could happen, but this is the day we have to record, so here we are. And here we go. Here we go. Right off the bat, we wanna thank two different organizations that are advertising on this podcast, both the Beer Alliance and Let the People Prosper.

You'll hear from them further on in the episode, but wanted to shout them out right up front. Thank you all for supporting our work here at the Texan. Brad, why don't we chat through some big three dynamics. Really talk through the, really the leaders of both chambers and how Patrick and Burroughs and where the relationship is right now. I think that was the big question coming into this legislative session more so even than what the policy fights would be would be how will these two leaders really work together this session. So where are we at with Patrick and Burroughs?

All quiet on the Western front so far. Kind of. Yeah, I mean, Patrick did. In kind of a peaceful way-ish. Yeah, that's why I mean it's quiet. They're not fighting, not yet. We saw Patrick do one of his on-site news video, reporting videos that he likes to do now. What's his new thing of?

Disclosing that the speaker gave him documents for a in audit a state audit into costs of impeachment and The number he put out there that I think was like four point four million dollars It's not significantly different than what we knew existed before, but I think it is a slight uptick. You know, some have argued that there's a lot more that's going to that should be disclosed in this. I don't know if that's the case. We'll find out in the audit. You know, I don't know how long it's going to take, but. Yeah, we don't have the documents yet.

That's important to stress is that we have this information. It sounds like it's pretty solid. Obviously, it's coming from the Lieutenant Governor's office so that in and of self yields credibility But there is no documentation that we've seen so far that we that is new, right? And that's really what we're kind of quote-unquote waiting for in the audit. It's a big part of that now Patrick kind of indicated that Some of the documentation that was turned over is new that some of the documentation that was turned over is new, but who knows. Exactly. And we have seen a lot of it, but it's just like whether or not there's actually new stuff here. Yep. Yep. And whether or not there's a significant increase in how much money we have been told before was spent in the House on this. And of course, the Lieutenant Governor has compared it to the Senate

and how much they spent or compared to the House, little they spent. Keep in mind also that the Senate wasn't, I think they hired one or two attorneys to help, but they weren't hiring an entire team of attorneys or investigators. And so that right there just naturally makes the cost on the House's side go up,

and that's their responsibility. their responsibility that's the cross they have to bear particularly when things fall apart like they did in the in the impeachment effort but overall you know who I don't know where this number is gonna end up and you know like I said there are those on the Paxton side that believe that's significantly higher. Yeah, for sure. And this is notable in that statement. The Lieutenant Governor said,

I want to thank Speaker Burroughs for releasing the Texas House's impeachment costs and for his commitment to transparency, unlike the former speaker, of course, never missing a chance to take a swipe at former speaker Phelan, who just gaveled in in his committee too. It was interesting watching him.

Yeah. What did he say? My gavel is a little bit smaller in this committee or something along those lines. I'll try and break one of these this time too. Yeah, but regardless, interesting to see that kind of process happen and interesting as well to see that the current speaker did in fact hand this over to the Lieutenant Governor

and honored that request. So interesting dynamics all around and definitely worth noting. I'll also say you know in that statement Patrick did like you said talk about the different monetary figures. The house of course shouldered far more costs because they did lead the impeachment effort right. There was more cost associated with leading something like this in the Senate. It was a few hundred thousand dollars they spent in the impeachment effort, right? There was more cost associated with leaving something like this in the Senate. It was a few hundred thousand dollars they spent in the impeachment process, which still a lot of money, but not nearly as much as what the House has tallied up at this point.

Um, but I think it's worth noting too, that the Senate was like receiving all of it. It's a very different process than leaving it and actually hiring a legal team to carry your case through the legislature. Um, so just very different roles that these carry your case through the legislature. So just very different roles that these two chambers played in the process. Criticize either, but it is, they're very different roles and different costs would be associated with those roles.

Yeah, you kind of just restated what I had already said, but congratulations. Thank you. Thanks, Brad, I appreciate it. I hope that made it more clear coming from a more pleasant sounding voice than my gravelly one, apparently. I'm a gravelly, so I never called your voice gravelly.

I thought of it as gravelly. Wow, okay. Do you think your voice is gravelly? Not particularly. Then why did you say so? Because I was adding color to this broadcast. We're kind of matching today. We kind of are.

Only slightly. If you really squint and think, if you think in color palette terms, we kind of are matching. Anyway, so this part of session, are starting to move both chambers have high hopes the cynicism hasn't set in fully people to judge and the song that was so Intrinsically bound to his campaign. I have no idea what you're talking about high hopes by is it panic of the disco?

Yeah, that's a terrible song But it was this song he played on repeat during his campaign and people who already probably hated the song really hated it more because it's all he played while he was running for president really paid attention to Pete Buttigieg's campaign didn't you know it was just a very popular thing to know at the time okay yeah well congrats on that anyway high hopes in the legislature. Yeah, now that you significantly derailed what I was saying. That was only a slight derailment. So, everyone is getting along so far, particularly the leaders of the two chambers.

They, from what I understand, still having Wednesday morning breakfast every week. Chick-fil-A? I have no idea. Okay. Why don't you send a PIR? Okay, that's probably a good idea. I say that because at our event that is what the lieutenant governor mentioned was that they would have Chick-fil-A, which made everyone in the news core basically say, okay, where's, where are they going to be meeting? Which Chick-fil-A do I have to stake out to watch the big three meet but anyways keep going okay the big thing that's causing tension right now in both chambers is the ESA bill the thing that's being heard right now the speaker has said this is going to pass lieutenant governor has said we're gonna pass it

until you do pass it the governor has said that this is a must have, uh, you can guarantee if it doesn't get across the line, there will be at least one special session on the issue. And, um, it seems like the, the wheels are greased sufficiently to, to pass this thing question is what, what's in the final version, right? And particularly once we get to conference committee, that's where this is really going to be hashed out because we can argue publicly back and forth about all these details, but when it gets to conference committee, and it will get to conference committee, you know, that's where most of these decisions are going to be made,

which is pretty funny considering how much time we're spending yelling about this in public committee and really it's just going to be decided behind the scenes. For sure. And the proposals are pretty different, right? There's a lot of similarities, but of course there are differences. And on an issue like this, particularly on the House, has been so criticized in past legislative sessions and even now still folks are waiting to see what they do with this issue.

But the speaker said there are the votes, right? I mean, folks are just kind of waiting to see what happens in the House. But all that to say, the cards are certainly looking good for this bill. Folks are very curious to see which side, which chamber kind of gets their proposal, or most of their proposal through, right? It's almost it's like in some ways similar to that property tax fight in the

last legislative session where both sides had their preferred method of property tax relief. We want ours. No, we want ours. It's like the Senate's plan, the House's plan. Like there's a label that's placed on it and credit can be taken if there's a significant portion of that chamber's proposal that makes it across the finish line, right? It's like bragging rights. So how will that affect this debate with the essays? It'll be very interesting. Well, in this, we've seen this tension among the pro side for years now. Where's the line between something that's sufficiently good in their eyes and something that will pass, right? Where do we draw that line? What do we accept? good in their eyes and something that will pass, right? Where do we draw that line? What do we accept? Abbot indicated last session a couple different

versions he would not have signed if it had passed in the house. Ultimately he didn't. This time around he seems behind, he is behind HB3 if that's the go-to blueprint here. But there are others, I just saw state rep Brian Harrison said that this bill is problematic because it allows children of illegal immigrants to access ESAs just like any other child. Now the court case Pilar v Texas I think it is kind of requires that. kind of requires that But there are those who criticize this from a Pro school choice side as being insufficiently good

Then you have a whole Argument on the other with it's you know, there's the the teachers unions the the explicitly pro-pub-ed people that hate this bill. But then you've also got some on the conservative right who hate it. They view whether it's hesitancy about its impacts on homeschooling, opening that up to more regulation. Which has always been the concern on this kind of legislation from the right. Right. Yeah. But then you also just have basic concerns about is this going to take money away from from public schools, particularly my area, if there's not a lot of choice there already to go a

different route. So there's many different arguments being made across the political spectrum and frankly none of it really matters right now. All that matters are the 150 members in the House and most of them are decided one way or the other which way they're gonna vote. It looks like the votes are there but again who knows what the final blueprint is on this. I think it's easy to underestimate to you the power of the conference committee in a situation like this when it is a priority of the governor, when it is the cornerstone issue of a legislative session, which I'd say that this piece of legislation, whether it's the House or Senate's proposal that actually is the bill number at the end of the day that makes it across the finish line, how big

of a role the conference committee will play in this. Well, and boil the conference committee down to two people. Brad Buckley, Brandon Creighton. They won't be the only ones with say in this. They'll have to get support from other members of the conference committee, but they're going to be the ones as the drivers of these two plans in each respective chamber. They're the ones that when we get to a conference committee that will be driving most of the discussion in that conference committee.

And representing their respective side in this. And not even, we're not even talking political parties, they're both Republicans, but the House side and the Senate side. And this is really where, so basically for folks who don't know, conference committee is after the point that the legislature has passed legislation. If there are discrepancies in a bill that's passed both chambers, they'll come together in a conference committee or members who are appointed to this conference committee will meet and determine what the final version

will be this does not happen in a broad public manner this is very much a small committee of lawmakers who come together and make these decisions and you can have say something was passed in let's say for sake of argument this probably won't happen but they take SB 2 and that's already passed that's in the house they strip some significant part of it in that in the house and they send it to conference committee they can put that back in if they want it whatever that is. Without having it go before the floor until they just present the

conference committee report right to the body and then everyone votes on it. But that doing that doesn't leave it vulnerable to a point of order. No. You can't add anything you still have to follow this with like the one subject rule. Right. You can't have additions that violate some sort of parliamentary rule but it is pretty, the ability of a conference committee to add stuff into that final. Pretty sweeping. Yeah.

I think we saw one version attempted in, it was the state resigned to run bill back in 21, I think, called the Allen West bill, or colloquially called. Oh, that's right. Because he announced for governor while still being chair of the Republican party. And the bill itself was trying to prevent that from happening, requiring state party officials

if they announce a run for another office to resign. It also did a couple of other things like make the chair and SRAC members elected not at convention but on a primary ballot. It didn't pass but it went to conference committee and if I remember correctly there was language that wasn't in either version that was passed put into that conference committee at the very last minute. New language. So the point is it can be very broad the powers of that that conference committee. And once we get to the end of session if you tune in to the House or the Senate a lot of what is

being done is just approving their conference committee reports. Right where the leader of that committee for the House and the leader in the Senate will come forward and say, this is what we did, we changed these things. People ask questions on the mic, the chamber will vote on it and they move forward. So it's a lot of what happens at the end of the legislative session

when all the bills have kind of made their way through the process and you're up against deadlines and no new bills can kind of make their way through the process. That is what the legislature is doing. Like the last day of session before, maybe it's the last two days before Sonny died, the only thing you can do is approve conference committees. Bless you. Thank you. And so yeah, you're right. At some point, that's all you can do. So you're just, and most of them are totally

uncontroversial. And you're tuning into the legislature like, what is going on? I feel like this bill's already been heard three weeks ago. You're totally right. That's what's going on. So but we don't even have a budget night set at this point. We're still very early in the session in so many ways. Not necessarily in terms of days that have elapsed but in terms of the process that is actually the meaty part of the legislative session. We're very early on so it'll be fun to watch. What do you think Abbott's been so far on this? What do you think it is? Gosh, it's kind of hard to tell because Abbott just wants an ESA bill on his desk, right? So there's that part of it that he's looking at Texas and saying hey we're a

big red state we don't have some sort of school choice bill that's made its way through the process for many sessions. This is his issue he's spent millions of dollars. Specifically universal school choice. He's spent millions upon millions of dollars. Specifically, a universal school choice, right? That's the big, but also, the universal school choice label can be debated over and over again, right? Is it actually universal? What qualifies as universal?

It's not just any student can grab an ESA and go to the school that they'd rather go to. That's not what we're talking about here in either proposal in the House or the Senate. Now, it is nominally universal because everyone can qualify, but it has a tiered priority system. Yes, and budget. And budget, yes. So not every kid is going to get one if they want one.

Right. But earlier this morning, part of the debate that stuck out to me was when Talarico was pressing him, pressing Buckley about well What if we capped we've put an income cap like if you make above five hundred thousand dollars regardless you can't qualify now politically That might get you some more votes But maybe not depending right like it depends on who you're talking about $500,000 is a pretty high cap at the same time. Right. Yeah. I'm not sure that would get Talarico's vote.

You know, I think, I think you're spot on with that analysis. Yeah. But you might get a Republican who is on the, the fence about it. Looking for a reason to vote for the bill, but nervous about it. Right. Yeah. Um, so he says that, that, uh, we should cap it. Let's cap it. Now, if that were to cap it, let's cap it.

Now, if that were to be implemented, it's no longer universal. You can't claim anyway, in any way, shape or form that it's universal. Because all of a sudden you have people that do not qualify. And so after all these promises that Abbott has made, that Republicans in support of this have made,

those on the outside that are pushing this have made, that would eliminate the universal, the ability for them to claim this is made, those on the outside that are pushing this have made, that would eliminate the universal, the ability for them to claim this is universal, right? And so politically that's a problem. Now add to this the fact that Talarico knows what he's doing and if he were to get his way on that, he knows that would be a poison pill for the bill. And he would hope for that, of course. Explain what a poison pill is.

Something put into a bill that would kill it, that you know, take Governor Abbott that would get his veto. That would cause him to veto the entire bill. So you can also have it putting something in there that would get the other chamber to all of a sudden flip and vote against it. We saw that happen when Representative Trent Ashby amended the taxpayer funding lobbying bill in 19 to exempt I think it was

municipalities in counties under 250,000 people. It limited only to counties above 250,000 people or something like that. So that exempted most of the state. That was the poison pill. Middleton, Mays Middleton in the House at the time, voted against his own bill because of that. And so that's how poison pills work and they happen quite a bit. That makes sense. I'm trying to figure out exactly how many people would be

if they were to put a $500,000 cap, like household income on a bill like this, how many people would that apply to? I think it's like 1%. Yeah. I'm not totally positive. I mean, you know, if the goal is, Tallarico in the words he said on camera here were correct in that if the goal is to Talarico in the words he said on camera here were corrected that if the goal is to prioritize Low income people and ensure that no one above five hundred thousand dollars in income can get it. I mean that that makes sense

But there's more to it than just that he's making a point Five percent like between five and three percent. percent is kind of what I'm seeing. Okay. There's not great numbers on this that I can still a small fraction, but it's a small fraction, but it still would not be universal. Right. And then you add the entire point. Then you get right.

Right. Then you add the question of do these people even, would they even apply? Would they take the time to apply for this? Maybe some, probably most of them not. Like it's Trump change for a lot of those, not 500,000 people making 500k, but people making way above that Makes no difference to them if they get a $10,000 ESA. Yeah, right. So This is being debated until the cows come home and Ultimately none of it is really gonna change anything. I

Don't think I think the votes are where they are and we'll see where they are when we have a final version on the house floor. I do think it is worth noting too that you're totally like they the ability to apply for these programs. We see this in even like the teacher world, right? Where there might be programs that can be applied to that would significantly increase maybe teacher pay or the opportunity for a student to go to a school that may not be in their normal income bracket, right? With an ESA, it still requires effort on the part of the person. It's not like this is just going to apply. People will get checks in the mail and students go to new schools like that's it still would require effort from parents who want to go and do this. Now, is it a significant amount of effort for the amount of money you'd receive for your child education? Like that argument-

That's gonna vary from family to family, right? Absolutely, but regardless, I think it is worth noting that just because there is a legislative proposal with something like this, it's not going to just solve everything, you have to still put in the effort to become part of the program, be accepted to it, and the same goes for teacher pay for these programs that are allowed for public school teachers.

It's the same exact type of thing. Has to be taken advantage of for it to actually move the needle. It is quite the public squabble over policy that we're seeing. It certainly is. That's a really good segue. It is.

Because we're gonna talk about policy squabbles happening behind the scenes. But first, we're going to hear from our sponsors. The Beer Alliance of Texas is proud to support its members who help deliver an annual economic impact of $35 billion and provide over 200,000 jobs to hardworking Texans. From local tax revenue to direct economic investment to charitable contributions, their members are heavily invested in the success of our communities and our state. The Beer Alliance is dedicated to ensuring

the safe distribution of alcohol throughout Texas. For more information, visit BeerAlliance.com. Man, I'm just shocked every time there's an ad read how good they are on the Texans podcast. They're just so good. Hmm. Did you read one of them? Yeah, but I only, we have several.

You probably read the Beer Alliance one. I did, actually. Well, swell job there. Thank you, thank you. I don't know which one this was but I'm sure it was really awesome even if it was not me who read it. Let's talk about the squabbles Bradley. There are a lot of I mean we are at the point in session where there are members who are territorial over their pieces of legislation and for good reason they were at the point in session where

behind-the-scenes fights are happening because hey that was my bill X amount of days ago hey but you're the chairman of this committee now. You're appointed to this position. It's getting contentious in some ways that is Perhaps not publicly Apparent but it's happening. Yeah, which one should we start with? Well, we just talked about Buckley and how this whole squabble has spilled over into the public view, but there he's been Dealing with this for for months trying to negotiate the exact parameters of this bill and that's that of course happens with every bill. That's not new, that's not remarkable.

Happens everything everywhere. But this is the one that has become a public knockdown drag-out fight. One that occurred entirely behind the scenes was over nuclear power and who would get to author the House priority bills creating some sort of nuclear authority. The whole purpose is to try and, I think we talked about it on the Weekly Roundup Podcast, not this past week, but the one before that. It is trying to spark a nuclear renaissance, as Governor Abbott put it, growth in the nuclear power sector. We have not seen growth in this for decades because the economics are just impossible. It costs too much money upfront, costs like $10 billion to construct

a large scale nuclear power plant. And that's just cost prohibitive for most investors. So we've only seen like one built in the entire country in the last 50 years and that was in Georgia. And that they just constructed, I think, their fourth reactor and got it up and running. So here we have two nuclear power plants one in South Texas or not science South Texas nuclear plant it's over in Baytown then we have one up in Glen Rose called Comanche Peak each of them have I believe two reactors but

The industry development that's occurred over the last five six seven years is small modular nuclear reactors They're a lot smaller. They're more Affordable they take less time to build and Instead of these ten billion dollar 15 year runtime to get these things up and running it costs $3 to $4 billion in capital investments and you get up and running in five years or so let's say. How much do you get up and running?

$3 to $4 billion. Yeah, it's a lot smaller. Maybe it's $2 billion. I don't know. It will depend on the operation and how big you're. So state officials are really optimistic. Not only that they can get this regulatory environment moving more with whatever legislation they're going to pass here, but they're optimistic that it will then solve the power problem for the state. It will provide a lot cheaper, a lot more accessible

generating units that can then supplement and provide electricity for the vast growth we're seeing in this state. So we see one, the first one that was announced in the state was at the sea drift plants, Dow chemical sea drift plants off the coastline in the Gulf and that is a project that Dow is building itself. And that will power its operations at this manufacturing facility. And that's kind of the vision here. At least start off on industrial side of things. So regardless, that has given people a lot of hope

that this can change the calculus, the economics of this, and get this off the ground and so the state is trying to create some sort of regulatory authority, some establishment of procedure to get these things through. And naturally that is an attractive bill to carry and the Senate. Tan Parker's carrying that. Now, Chairman Drew Darby, chairman of Energy Resources Committee, he filed the identical companion to Tan Parker's, but it wasn't a priority number.

Then the wait started. What's going to happen? Who's going to get it? You know, we kind of figure Darby would just at least initially because he is the chair of energy resources and he is he already filed the bill. Well, that didn't happen. State Rep Cody Harris, Republican from Palestine, got it. He is chair of natural resources. So two heavy hitters on the policy front. And they both care a great deal about this issue. And they both wanted it, ultimately.

Cody Harris got it. There was a pretty big lobby fight behind the scenes over who would get to do it. And there were slight differences in the bills too, right? There are, yeah. Not substantially different, but there are slight differences. From what I heard, there was a lot of debate over whether the PUC would get, whether this authority would be put under the PUC's umbrella, and it didn't end up that way.

It's under the governor's office, and the PUC has minimal involvement. But frankly, I think their only involvement they have is related to the fund, the nuclear energy fund that they're creating, similar to the Texas Energy Fund, to provide low interest loans. So there was that fight that didn't really spill over publicly at all, but it definitely happened. And just interesting developments. that didn't really spill over publicly at all, but it definitely happened and just an interesting development and I'm sure Darby cashed in some sort of compromise like, all right, you can have that

and I'll take XYZ. What that is, I don't know, but that's the way the game is played. That's how it's deal making. That's just what it is. And you think maybe, oh, yes. A is a, yes. A's are sucking all the oxygen out of the room with these policy fights. That's where the contention is. No, there are so many squabbles during a session like this. Thousands of pieces of legislation are filed and there are so many different ways in which members can be at odds with each other or at odds with an

advocacy group or one thing's added to a bill and then an advocacy group is like up, pull, and support. And then the entire win behind the sales of that legislation is just absolutely decimated. So it's... Then you throw in the inner chamber rivalries like, should we go with the House version or the Senate version? You know, does the Senate make better policy than the House or vice versa? All this stuff plays into it. And there's always some big floor fight that happens each session that is so unexpected, where you think this is going to be like a normal day of lawmaking.

You kind of know which bills will pass, which won't on the calendar. And then all of a sudden from somewhere, either an amendment's tacked on, there's a behind the scenes fight that's brewing that you're unaware of where a fight breaks out in my fight, I mean, like debate and contention and a bill dies. Something happens. Oh my gosh yes exactly and you just are like why is this very odd topic for a bill really this contentious and it's from our perspective as outsiders who get to watch all of this so fun yep as an aside, Abbott just said at TVPF for an event, Tex alleged has never been so close to passing vouchers and the reason is because we have not had a similar, had a speaker willing

to step up and stand for school choice. He said vouchers? No, that was the Ben Wurman that the Chronicle worded it that way. Got it. I was very surprised. Yeah, no, he did not. There's no way he said vouchers, okay. Well, let's talk about another bill

and another behind the scenes squabble that's been going on this time with phones in schools. This is an issue we've heard lots of conversation about over the last couple of years, specifically relating to just students having access to cell phones while they're receiving education while they're on school premises. Walk us through what's going on here. So, freshman representative Caroline Fairley, Republican from Amarillo, her

HB 1481 I believe, she filed that that prohibits cell phones or it restricts the use of cell phones and other electronics in classrooms. She filed her author sheet and it had 56 Republicans and 22 Democrats as either co-authors, most of them were co-authors, and a few joint authors. One joint author was Tallarico. Co-authors being somebody who just signs their name to a bill, joint authors having a little bit more oomph. They're listed on the top line of the bill. Other than that it's just a formality right? Either way it's a formality it's still Fairleigh's bill. Yeah. So she filed that and that's a strong show of support like that

shows you this thing's moving especially with how bipartisan it is. And if it made it to the floor, it would pass. Yep. Yep. And so that, especially for a freshman on an issue like that, that's pretty big. Right? So, however, there was a conflict over this because state representative Alan Tracz-Clair has been on the forefront of this issue for a while now, at least a couple of years. And she has been really pushing the envelope publicly on it during the interim.

And she filed her bill on the first day of pre-filing, fairly filed hers a few weeks later in early December. And they are different bills. They're not the same, they're not copycats. So I'm not sure exactly how intricate the differences are, but there are differences. Even though at this point that doesn't really matter as much as the goal, right? They both have the same objective to try and limit distractions in classrooms. And really what it comes down to is who's going to own the issue. Who's going to be the point person? Who's going to get the credit when the bill's passed? Because again this is significant support. And why we say it will pass is because you

need 76 votes to pass a bill in the House, assuming it's a normal bill and not a constitutional amendment. This has 79 co-authors. So if you sign your name to a bill, you are willing to vote for it. And that's the folks who aren't even, there are probably plenty of members who would vote for it who have not signed up to the bill. Right? So that's why we say it's a sure thing that if this made it to the floor, it would pass. That's why oftentimes, you'll see Brad or a member of our team tweet out, like, oh gosh, this bill has more than 76 authors.

That means it could pass. Like, that's just why we're too keen about it. But the important thing here, like you said, just because there's differences, that's great, but who's going to be the point person for leadership on this issue? Yeah, well, just like we talked about with the nuke bill, people want their names on this thing and they want to be the leader on it.

Especially if it is their pet project, right? Their pet policy. TroxClair has been talking about this for a while, Fairly really started ramping up talking about it publicly of late. But you can't really divorce this thing from the broader context. And the biggest piece of broader context is the speaker's race. TraxClair, of course, was one of the top members organizing and pushing for the reform candidate, David Cook, in the speaker's race. Fairleigh originally was on the reform team. And then-

Very strongly on the reform team. Very strongly, yep. I think she signed the contract with Texas too, I believe. And her father, who's a big donor behind the scenes of all these different fights as well, was very forthright about saying, hey, there's a big fund that can support this effort for folks who do align with the reform caucus

and then walked that back and then soon thereafter. Well that was the reason why her flip on the day of the vote from Cook to Burroughs was so significant. It's not just one vote. It comes with this 20 million dollar fund. Now you know we'll see how it plays out in the election and who they back for what all this stuff but it's all about plays out in the election and who they back for what, all this stuff. But it's all about the signal in the moment, right? That gives members cover who, Republicans who are on the fence about voting for boroughs even though he didn't win the caucus endorsement, we saw how that played out in the public,

gives them cover to say, all right, I'm going to go with Burroughs. I have something there to defend me when the primary wolves come and they will come. There will be a pretty significant primary next cycle. Maybe not as much, especially if school choice passes, not as much. There won't be, like Abbott probably will not be as involved, not least because he'll have his own reelection to worry about but this is this gave them cover and so that's why Fairley's flip was so significant and that required her to go out on a ledge on a limb right and she she backed Burroughs she has gotten a

lot of flash for a strong statement talking about rural Texas and yeah. But she's gotten a lot of flak for it from the more active Republican activists, right? So fast forward to now with this fight, it's clear, you know, one member backed the current leadership team, the other one did not. Can't be too surprised, I think, by how this has gone. But, you know, it's still pretty clear what's going on. And I'm told, I haven't seen any drop-off yet, but I'm told that some members are who signed on particularly members who are in the right flank of the Republican caucus considering dropping their name from signing from a co-author on Fairley's bill see if that

happens but that's the kind of behind-the- tussles, scuttlebutt that occurs. That's, um, you know, that's not to say it's going to tank her bill. I highly doubt that, but that can cause a ripple effect. Other, that can lead into, you know, let's say a, um, members deciding they want to kill a local calendar. You know, if these things stack up of them being pissed off enough to do that, each one of the components that contributed to that has cost it right now. The biggest one is going to be, uh, if members do kill local calendars,

which I'm hearing very well could happen. Um, the biggest one would be the rules fight and calling the question so early. Um, and that was, um, state rep Jared Patterson. Um, he called it an hour in and a lot of members didn't like that because they wanted a chance to amend things. An hour is not a long time for debate like this. Yep. It's very rapid. Yep.

Um, and so whether it was the right or wrong call, judging from us from the outside, doesn't really matter. Some people are pissed and they're gonna continue to be pissed about that. Now I should also mention, Patterson's one that's been talking about this no phones in school issue for a while as well. And so if, you know, Patterson's also chair

of the local and consent calendars. So that's- We should do a whole episode on just local and consent. A whole episode, okay. I could do a whole episode on L and C. Okay. Oh, it's so fun. We get the-

Might be even more fun this session. Oftentimes because L and C is just where folks go to wage their wars, right? So maybe it won't be on the floor of the house, but there are opportunities for members to have either speaking for the allotted amount of time to kick a bill off the calendar and bring it back to a regular floor calendar,

which for all intents and purposes can oftentimes kill the bill, signing on to a list to move bills off of legislation. It's a very retaliatory, it can be a very retaliatory place where folks have, members have a little bit more authority or leeway to be able to do, make these kinds of maneuvers and do so with a smaller contingency of folks with also smaller consequences in some ways. Now local bills are important to members for obvious

reasons they affect their districts very personally, very individually, but regardless, they're not like these big sweeping reforms. Typically, every once in a while, something weird makes it on LNC and you're like, why is that on local consent? Like it doesn't make any sense. But that's where a lot of these fights end up happening is on the LNC calendar.

Well, and one reason is that one member can kill a bill on the LNC calendar. Oh, I may have just said that. Did you say that they just have to speak for 10 minutes? Yeah. Well, I was busy looking that up. And it's not listening to you. It's okay, we sometimes we just talk to each other.

Well done, good job. We just like to say things an hour away on this podcast sometimes. I did it to you earlier. Yeah, you did. So I'm just repaying the favor. So. And yours was far more intrusive.

Mine went on for like three minutes and yours was about 10 seconds. So, no problem Bradley. Okay. Anyways. Yes, so there's the phone in schools bill fight. And we'll see if it plays out any further if this spills over into anything else.

But. But it's contentious, to say the least. Let's talk about another issue that's historically contentious in Texas, but I mean all over the country. This is tort reform, something we're very familiar with hearing a lot about just based on the advocacy groups that are very powerful and operate within Texas. We're talking TLR, TTLA, Texas Trial Lawyers Association Association and Texans for Lawsuit Reform. You know, they're certainly at odds.

That's the nature of the aims of these organizations. That is putting it very lightly. They hate each other. They absolutely hate each other. And there's a bill filed this session where this is highlighting all of these fractures. Yeah. So, State Senator Brent Haginbu has filed, I forget the name of the number, but it's a trucking bill. We saw in 21, I think it was 21, the debate over the trucking bill then, HB19, I think

that was a leach bill. The whole premise is trying to prevent these really large personal injury settlements, right? And both sides have their arguments on this. The trial lawyers say we're trying to help people who someone in a business has hurt. And some of these people have been hurt quite a bit. For example, charter communications,

the largest one I've ever heard of, I think it was a $10 billion settlement or a judgment. A technician for Charter Spectrum was setting up Wi-Fi at some woman's house and then later came back and killed her and the jury awarded a 10 billion dollar settlement to the family from, not settlement, judgment, from Charter Spectrum. Now, the other side of the argument is that that is an outrageous amount of money that has no basis in reality in terms of the cost for something like that happening. Now, what is the cost for a life? I have no idea. Nobody knows. You know, Bradley, I expected you to have the answers to these types of

sweeping moral questions. I may know a thing or two, but I don't know everything. So, um, so Brent Hagenbu has that. The, I'm still waiting on the version in the house to be filed. I haven't seen that yet, but overall, I think TLR, Texans for lawsuit reform, which was basically business interests that decided they needed to build up enough support in the legislature to, to counteract the Texas trial lawyers

association, which in the eighties, especially was really prevalent, really strong. So they started this in like either the late eighties or the early nineties, and they've just been at it ever since. And issue after issue going back and forth, I think it was oh three that they, um, they passed a constitutional amendment. I forget the number, proposition something, that allowed the legislature to set a cap on non-economic damages at some point. So they passed this and TLR has been trying to get that set ever since.

You know, their argument is that these businesses, the example they're using right now are trucking businesses are being pushed out of business because of these, not just if they're hit with one of these lawsuits, but when the lawsuit happens, the cost is uplifted through the insurance industry. And so all these truckers insurance premiums are rising significantly because the cost of these called nuclear verdicts. And, um, that's how insurance works. You mitigate risk by uplifting costs to the entire population.

Um, but you know, they're seeing premiums go from, I think the numbers that were shown to me were like two to three thousand a month to ten over ten thousand a month or something like that or significantly more than that maybe depending on you know the operator so TLR is going to try and in cap non-economic damages a couple interesting and of course the trial lawyers are going to fight that like hell. And generally right now, I'm sure it's not the case in every respect, but this is a pretty down the line partisan issue. It has become that. It wasn't that.

Republicans are on TLR's side, Democrats on TTLAs side. And like I said, I'm sure there there are exceptions but that is generally how it's developed so far. So if they go and try to set an economic cap or a cap on non-economic damages that requires a, normally to amend the constitution you have, you require a two-thirds vote, so that'd be 100 votes. Republicans have 88. But when they set this in place in 03 or whatever year it was, they said there was a compromise between the two sides. TLR wanted a majority vote, so 76. TTLA wanted two-thirds and said, all right, we'll split the difference. We'll go three-fifths So it only requires 90 votes in the house to set this

The Senate is probably gonna pass this and they can as we've talked before they can do whatever they want Because they have the super majority Republicans Republicans can do whatever they want But Here they need to get two Democratic votes in order to pass that. But that's not the only hurdle. Actually the main hurdle is probably committee. The Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee chaired by Jeff Leach who is very pro-TLR has been one of their biggest allies in the House for a while. However,

that is an 11-person committee. You got five Democrats. You got five very pro-TLR Republicans. And who's the swing vote, maybe? Marklehood. Marklehood is himself a trial lawyer, but he is a Republican. Also used to be a Democrat. Very interesting dynamics there. It's a lot of dynamics in one person. Yeah. He's just overflowing with dynamics. It's bursting out of him, the dynamics. So I think we're going to see a pretty significant tort reform fight, and we haven't seen that

significant tort reform fight and we haven't seen that since 21 on the trucking bill and you know the one that everyone talks about as the face of these nuclear verdicts is Thomas J. Henry you see his face everywhere you know our our friend and Kissing Marshalls yes our friend and sponsor of our event Adam Lowy is also prolific in the billboard area You're just killing it with the quotes right now. And he very much does not like TLR So this is going to be a fascinating fight to watch there's some pretty good history In the archives of like Texas Monthly as it has a couple really good pieces on the origin of this fight and how things developed also the 2003 amendment I think it was that year it's just fascinating to watch if you if you like these bloody bare-knuckle political brawls this is one this is one that's

gonna be a lot of fun and of course TLR has a long history that goes I think a hand in hand so much with what happened on the federal level with tort reform and it's definitely worth going and checking out and kind of doing some due diligence on because it's very very interesting. And every few sessions they're all big and usually TLR you know they'll have a pretty substantial base of support because as a Republican-led legislature and this typically is an issue that aligns with the Republicans, I remember like the blue tarp bill from a few sessions ago. It was like one of my first sessions. There's always something but

you just never know how big of a fight it will be and whether or not it'll be contentious enough to suck the oxygen out of the room. And this is what we've been talking about for months now saying, okay, great. We have new leadership, leadership but what are gonna be the big policy fights while they're shaping up? Yeah well another one I didn't mention, another wrinkle of this, Speaker of the House, Republican in the past, a pretty big ally to TLR, he's a trial lawyer. How's that playing if at all? Yeah if at all. I don't know. We shall see. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, well let's talk, speaking of federal and state level squabbles here, let's talk about Senate Bill 6 and the Trump administration and what's going on there behind the scenes. So Senate Bill 6 is the Senate's priority bill trying to establish more regulation on these large loads. And so the large loads are data centers, cryptocurrency miners, anything that comes in uses a lot of electricity. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas estimated last year they increased their 2030 load estimate by 40,000 megawatts from 110 to 150. It's a lot. It's a lot of power. One megawatt can power, I think the number is 200 homes during time of peak demand. Like how I have that down after all these years.

Well, I'm laughing because I think I had that down in like 2019 because the number of times you've written about this issue. 2019. Yeah, like I'm just saying a long time ago because you wrote about this issue. Well, maybe 2020 would be fair. That's when a lot of this started to bubble up. But regardless, this is an issue you've covered for so long now. Yeah.

And a line we've edited in your pieces hundreds of times. Yeah. So the growth, they're coming in and these data centers especially, but also the crypto miners. And they just require a lot of electricity. They also require a lot of water. and these data centers especially, but also the crypto miners. And they just require a lot of electricity. They also require a lot of water. So that's something to watch too

on the water side of things. But they, SB6 is an attempt to basically require these large loads to first of all provide notice and especially provide notice that they're going to be operating behind the meter which is having on-site generation that does not flow into the ERCOT market and does not pass through a utility meter you know it's like I mentioned C-drift and their SMR that will be behind the meter generation. They will be, they will not be paying money through the ERCOT market for electricity service once that's up and running, because they'll be using that. Now, when in times of high grid stress, and this is a feature of the grid, they can curtail their operations or even turn them off entirely and sell that electricity from the SMR back into the

market and they make a lot of money doing that. We've seen these Bitcoin miners do that because they're flexible. The thing is these data centers are not really flexible and the reason is that you know cloud runs on I don't know something whatever, whatever. I can't describe it. You know what I'm talking about. Cloud on your phone that has storage, you know, that has to go somewhere. Yeah. It's not just in the universe, you know.

In the clouds. It has to go somewhere. And so it goes to these data centers where you rent out space and they have to be going all the time. They're not flexible. So what do we do about that? Because that's a lot more electricity load that is coming to the state. And just one example of how load in 2023. The data

center that's looking to build there, the requested load is 828 megawatts, so more than double what's there already. That's a huge stress in the local area. So the data centers argue that these new regulations are would make it a lot harder for them to invest and be cost prohibitive to coming into Texas. The state officials, especially the senators, say we have to account for this somehow. So you guys have to, you know, put up or shut up basically. There's gonna be a huge fight over that up or shut up basically. There's gonna be a huge fight over that and there was a bit of a fight in the Daily Wire over this. One of the reporters there published a piece and quoted a couple different people, Vance Ginn, who you probably either have heard or will hear here on

this podcast sponsoring it from his thing but he they quoted him in this basically panning SP six saying it's bad policy we can't be inhibiting this economic growth they also quoted a Trump administration official who said anyone standing in the way of the golden age of American energy will regret road credit. So some insight into how this job works, you get a lot of pitches from people looking to present their side of the argument on something, especially policy. I guarantee you that someone in the data center side of things went to the Daily Wire and asked them to write this article. And that's normal, that happens all the time. It was pretty heavy-handed towards SB 6. But Lieutenant Governor Patrick responded in a comment and said,

as we go through the process of passing this bill, we're working with industry and stakeholders. Everybody knows Texas through the process of passing this bill, we're working with industry and stakeholders. Everybody knows Texas leads the nation in many fields, including emerging technologies. This will be no different in Texas will be number one for AI data centers and crypto. There's no other state that can even come close to us and that is our goal. But the political implications of this are Trump administration against the

Lieutenant Governor of Texas, who is a huge ally of President Trump. And I'm not sure, Patrick clearly saying he doesn't see it that way. But that's what they're trying to get at with this. And no idea if it derails anything. I don't think so. I think this is going to pass in some form or fashion. Again with all this stuff, question is what's in the details of the final version.

But, um, this is the point of session where we really see these special interests try and assert their, their opinion, you know, either kill a bill they ate or pass a bill they like, you know, we'll see that with TLR and the whole thing we just talked about. Um, but an interesting dynamic there with Trump v. Patrick, at least in some form or fashion. Truly more dynamics at play. So many dynamics. So many dynamics.

Teaming with dynamics. Well, before we get into some, even amid a legislative session, campaign updates, we're going to take our last ad break. Do you want insights on the policies that impact your wallet? Economists and fellow Texan Vance Gann here. Texans work hard for their money, but bad policies can take it away and risk future prosperity. On the Let P.L. Prosper show, I break down economic news that impacts your income, job, and

future in a way that you can understand. that impacts your income, job, and future in a way that you can understand. I also invite top voices in politics, policy, and economics to discuss solutions that unleash America's potential. As a former Trump White House chief economist and now policy entrepreneur at more than 20 influential organizations, I find my calling in driving forward policies that let people prosper. Get insights that can help you get ahead by subscribing to my Let People Prosper Show podcast, wherever you get your podcast. For more information, go to VanceGann.com.

God bless you and have a prosperous day. Man, that was another good one. Well done. Yeah, truly. Well, if it was yours, I'll say well done. Well, whoever did it was really, really great. I think we've beaten this joke to death because we did it on the weekly roundup too. I know.

I need to go with a new bit though so I don't get hate emails saying, you can't say mix it up because that happens for sure. Okay. Well, we have, like I said, campaign updates to chat through because, you know, despite it being in the heat of the legislative session and really the peak of everything going on in Austin, there are a lot of campaign updates to chat through specifically with a statewide position, and that is pretty not notable now, the comptroller Glenn Hager had been in, um, it'd been rumored

for a long time that he was in the running and not just in the running but like the top pick for the chancellor of the Texas A&M University system and last Friday that pick was finalized or when this comes out it'll have been two Fridays. That pick was finalized. Now of course that creates a domino effect and folks immediately release statements saying, hey, I want to run for this position. Count me in. I'm a candidate. So there's a lot to talk about here. And of course, a lot of Texans do not know who their comptroller is. I think that's

worth noting, but this is somebody who is the financial leader of the state. He's full titles comptroller of public accounts. A souped up accountant. A souped up accountant. That's good. I think whoever assumes the position after Comptroller Hager should make that a line on their business card. I agree. Okay. Well, what do you, why is this a big deal?

Obviously the Comptroller has their hand in all the finances of the state, but it is a lesser known statewide position, still a statewide position, but what does this mean? Why is this a big deal? Well from the position itself? Comptroller has been given a lot of different tasks The first and foremost is Economic and budget forecasting right? That's that's the base level requirements of the comptroller handled the finances But the legislature has added a bunch of other things to its plates constantly. And if this if HB3 passes or SB2, either of them, guess which agency is tasked with running the ESA

program, the Comptroller. So it's kind of a I back in end of last year when I interviewed Hager I kind of likened it to a Dumpster. They just throw everything they don't want in there. How do you feel about that? He was not too excited about that analogy but he did understand what I was getting at but they just throw. Maybe the responsibility scapegoat. That's too long. It's not succinct.

Well it's more accurate and less offensive than dumpster. Oh, no. So that's the significance of the position politically though. It's more significant. Um, it is a traditionally a pretty decent springboard to higher office. Bob Bullock was the comptroller famously and became Lieutenant governor. Kind of a big deal. Yeah.

I've read actually the other day that the reason he became so well known as comptroller was because he was the first one to start raiding businesses who were not paying their taxes. Oh my gosh. And so he would go to, he would go to a raid and call local news station and get them to show up with a camera and watch it and Then they would broadcast that so he did that all over the state and got a ton of earned media out of it That's like a different Kind of approach but similar Dan Patrick taking a page out of his book going to the lottery. Yeah

Yeah, you know slight it's different, but it's similar. Yeah So politically there's that. That's why it's desirable. And also it depends on your interests. If you're interested in financial side of things, of course that's gonna be what you're drawn to as opposed to let's say the Ag Commission. So there's that.

And the comptroller's reports are of course about the legislature basis, all of their budgeting, their finance, like that we wait for these reports from the Comptroller to know how the legislature might approach some things with the surplus will be, how they'll operate when it comes to line items in the budget. So and then, contemporarily, politically, the impact is that we now have a bit of a break in the dam at the top of the state ticket. You and I did that NFL draft-like version of the episode, when was that, April?

Smoke-filled room. Smoke-filled room. Yeah, last year. Yeah. And we picked who we thought would run for each for the governor Senate governor attorney general That's really wild. It's been an agriculture commission basically a year since we did that No, 11 months. The premise was that all four of those incumbents would go to the Trump administration. Guess what? None of them did So you throw that?

episode out Throw it right in the dumpster. See that's an appropriate use of the term. Thank you. Although the episode's actually really fun and you should listen to it. So naturally we got nothing right. I didn't really expect to though. And I got my Lieutenant Governor pick wrong because I had Hager as Lieutenant Governor

so that's just not gonna happen. Well you never know. Maybe one day. He's a young enough guy. But this was notable for a couple of reasons. First that Hager was no longer in the mix for any other state offices. And like you said, maybe that changes a couple of cycles from now, but for 2026 he's out of the picture and probably,

you know, maybe 2030, maybe not. He also has $10 dollars in the bank significantly more than almost anyone else vying for any of these kinds of positions basically more than anyone except Dan Patrick and Craig Abbott. So he he's out of the picture we saw two people jump in immediately railroad commissioner Chrissy Craddock and former state senator Donna He's out of the picture. We saw two people jump in immediately. Railroad Commissioner Chrissy Craddock and former state senator Donna Huffhines who of course ran for governor against Abbott in 22 and as I put it in my newsletter got boat-raised by the governor who has so much money. That's an uphill battle

of a challenge. It wasn't just him, like he was one of a few different challengers. Allen West was in the race. And they're not even small names, like these are very notable names next to him. It was the most significant primary that Abbott's ever had. And he still won by a lot. Absolutely. So those two have jumped in.

Both have been rumored to be eye in this office if Hager leaves. Both are now in the race and notable that, um, how finds it when he announced, he said, I'm committing $10 million to my campaign. Of course, is, um, pretty wealthy himself with the automotive dealership stuff up there and you know, he's, what's the ad say up there? Huffines, their car ad that's constant up in DFW? Huffines has it?

No. I don't know the slogan. I remember that being discussed during. I'm leaving you high and dry here, I don't know. What the heck. So anyway, both of them in their announcements, I thought it was notable that they, Health Finds especially was like we need to cut spending

and fine, we need to doge taxes. That's pretty popular saying right now. Craddock also kind of said that that something similar, not as explicit, but we need to safeguard our finances. You know, I think Hager would agree with that if it was on a political thing. But, you know, one thing he said constantly in this position is that he's just executing the tasks that the legislature gives him. You know, he's not, he can't cut spending. That's the legislature. You know, operating one of these programs, take chapter 313, he said constantly that I'm just, I can't deny these applications at my own whim.

He's not a policy maker. Right. So that is, it's pretty notable. Anything to add on that that I missed? I just think it's gonna be fun. I think it is very notable too because we have talked about, like you've already said, Hager was top of mind for a lot of folks when it comes to running for you know, a more prominent statewide elected office

governor, lieutenant governor, whatever it might be and him taking this position in some ways, at least for a little while, I think removes him from that you know, pool of folks that were looking at here and of course the governor and lieutenant governor have made it very clear that they intend to continue operating in their positions, but there's always that potential and he certainly was one that folks had their eye on for assuming higher office. So him taking this job, it's very unlikely that if there were, there was an opening that just came up randomly, that he would just jump in to a race.

Yes. And you know, he's going to have, but in five years race. Yes, and you know he's gonna have... But in five years, four years, six years, who knows? Yeah, you know I would say a Comptroller probably prepares you pretty well for running A&M because of how vast it is. There are eight state agencies, I think 13 school universities under it. It's a huge network. Not this similar to the Comptroller which has a ton of different, it's one of the largest state agencies, has a ton of different responsibilities and entities it oversees. So. For sure. So, Kranick and Huffins are in. Highly doubt they will be

the only ones in this race. particularly if it's the only opening. There's a lot of pent up angst down ballot. Members have been, not just members, but politicians across the board have been wanting to run for office, for higher office for years. office for higher office for years. And because Patrick and Abbott and Paxton until now, Hager have all been in these spots and are unmovable. They haven't been able to. Senators haven't been able to jump in for statewide office. Sid Miller is still there.

He's very difficult to beat. We saw James White try and take him out and Miller won by a ton. Yeah. and take them out and Miller won by a ton. So the obstacles at the top of the ticket are still mostly there but this kind of opens it a little bit so we might see a ton of people jump in. Some suspected people who are interested, I got word the Tan Parker has been asked by business community members to run for it. He is absolutely considering it. A couple other names that have constantly been talked about with this.

Kelly Hancock, Senator from North Richland Hills. Paul Bettencourt from Houston. Joan Huffman from Houston. Of those though, the only one that can't run from cover is Kelly Hancock, meaning he's on the ballot in 26. He can't run and keep his seat if he loses. He has to give up his seat because he can't run for both seats, both positions. Wildcard is Don Buckingham, current land commissioner. Basically meaning really fast that if you were to run, if Hancock were to run for comptroller and lose, he would have given up a

Senate seat and he's just out of a position. Because he can't run for two positions at the same time. Exactly. Whereas the others who would just return to the Senate. Right. Land Commissioner Don Buckingham has been talked about in relation to this. Um, people have debated what's, what's the, the most prestigious,

what's the best jumping point to that top echelon of statewide offices? Comptroller has been mentioned. Others, though, have done it from different positions. Like, I think Rick Perry was Ag Commissioner, right? When he became the Lieutenant Governor. So who knows? There's a lot more to come from this and that depending on what certain things happen, let's say Chrissy Craddock wins,

that opens a railroad commission spot. The down ballot implications are pretty broad and pretty wide. You could see a lot of change over down ballot because of various things that happen in this. So we shall see. We shall see exactly.

Right. Well, we are almost out of time, but we also want to mention the Paxton and Cornyn of it all because there's not really any news there. That's big. No one's decided. No one's run out and said, Hey, I'm going to run against the Senator by no one. I mean, Paxton himself, because that's who we're eyeing here. Attorney general. But if Paxton were to challenge Cornyn, which he has repeatedly hinted at for not hinted at, but referenced

would be even a better word for it. For months now, if he were to jump in, that would just cause another set of dominoes to fall. And that is a far more attractive position for many lawmakers and potential candidates in the state. So we'll keep an eye on that. But that is certainly something that Paxton has continued. He's not shied away from continuing to say, Oh, you know, make, make comments or slides at Cornyn and Cornyn is certainly has positioned himself in a very intentional way right now in Republican politics, specifically within the Trump administration. So we'll keep an eye on all those things, but keep an eye on that one. If, if Paxton is to run for US Senate, that would just cause a slew of

dominoes to fall. Yep. And right now he seems to be very much undecided on the question and maybe that changes. but last thing before we go I'll plug the TPI Rob just updated it on our website. Texas Partisan Index. The partisan leaning of every district in the state. In the state itself. We're talking Congress, we're talking Senate, we're talking House. Yep the state went from R56 in the 2020-2022 rating to R58 after 22 and 24. So overall it's an average of all the statewide election results in each district

over two cycles. So you have to account for a midterm and a general election. Just two very notable shifts. I'll do three. So CD28, that's Henry Coyar's seat, went from D54% to D51. HD74, that's Eddie Morales. He went from D53 to R52. 53 to R 52. So that is something Republicans are going to be eyeing just, they're going to be salivating over it. That's a big one.

Next cycle. That's a big one. And he's going to be in for battle pretty much regardless of who runs against him, but especially if they get a formidable candidate. And last one that I'll point out, HD144, that is Marian Perez in Houston. Her district went from D55% to D51. And she didn't, I don't think she had a Republican opponent last time around. And I think Trump did win her district.

So, obviously, who knows what next cycle is going to look like. Trump's not going to be in the district. So obviously who knows what next cycle is going to look like. Trump's not gonna be in the ballot. What does the top of the ticket in Texas determine? It will be on the ballot, but there is a pick certainly a pickup opportunity for Republicans in a few districts and just generally we saw almost every district, every Republican district get more Republican, every Democratic district get less Democratic. Is there staying power for that? Who knows?

But the notable part of it is I think the South Texas as a whole in that there are so many rumblings right now about certain members of the legislature specifically, not so much on the congressional level changing parties, but certainly conversation and rumors swirling about certain members of the legislature who may be considering a party switch. And we've already seen this happen. I mean, Representative Ryan Geehan is prime example there of somebody who followed that exact trend

and has been somebody very active now within the Republican caucus of the legislature. So we'll see what happens there, but this is just our way of confirming a lot of these very indicative trends that we're seeing post-election. Ryan Geehan, his name is popping up on some polling against Senator Zafferini. That would be a fascinating matchup. Think about you know six years saying Ryan Geehan then Democrat would run as a Republican against a Senator, Democrat, Democratic Senator, to Zafferini.

Life comes at you fast. Life comes at you fast. Sure does. But check out our TPI. It's a really helpful tool just to kind of gauge a lot of these districts, especially as we see a lot of conversation happen around, okay, this person might run for the seat, they're a big name, but can they win the district? Well, look at the partisan leaning.

Check out how many points that would take for them to actually win in a district that may not be politically amenable to their cause. Yeah, yeah, if you see a Republican announcing to challenge a Democratic incumbent, their partisan leaning starts with a D and a seven, they ain't winning. So don't give them your money. We're just saying this is not a place where we get financial advice but broad just give financial advice. Yeah I think that's pretty sound but yeah that person's going

nowhere because you can't win the district. That's fair. Just making the disclaimer that we are not financial experts. Yes. Do you account this as financial advice? Oh, Winston's making a run for it. Winston's been here quietly sitting at Brad's feet. No, he's not quiet. Yeah, he's running around.

He wants food. Well, on that note, folks, we appreciate you listening to our discussion as always. If you ever have a question for us, email editor at the Texan.news. Maybe we'll answer it on a future podcast. Yeah. We say that all the time and nobody ever does. So, yeah. So maybe show us some love this week and send us an email.

We appreciate it and we'll catch you next month.