The Texan Podcast - Interview: Mitch Little Talks GOP Primary Upheaval, Push for House Reform, School Choice

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Attorney Mitch Little, who served on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s defense team during his impeachment trial and then defeated incumbent Rep. Kronda Thimesch (R-Carrollton) in the March 5 primary election this year, sat down with The Texan’s senior reporter Brad Johnson.Little discussed the upheaval of the wide swathe of races like his that defeated incumbents, his commitment to the “Contract with Texas” demands for the next House speaker, and what he thinks the legislation for school choice will look like in the upcoming session.“I think [the voters] see the legislative process as deformed and dysfunctional, and the primary was really a referendum on that issue not so much Ken Paxton or even school choice, just the function of the legislative body that’s supposed to be deliberative and supposed to be the voice of the people,” said Little.Be sure to subscribe to The Texan for complete access to all of our content on state political news: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/****Thumbnail image from Texas Senate Media Services

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Texan News Podcast. I'm Senior Reporter Brad Johnson. With me today is Mitch Little, candidate for HD65, the Republican nominee for the Texas House. Mitch, how's it going? It's good. It's good. Better than I deserve, even. Well, you had quite the few months stretch, and now you're kind of in the dead zone for the moments. How have you been spending your time before your general election and then presumably the 2025 session? Yeah, so I've been spending as much time as I can doing my actual job, practicing law, spending time with my family and trying to get as much of that time back as I possibly can, and really making new friends.

I've spent a lot of time with people in our district who are in government, sitting down with them and saying, hey, I'm here, I want to be as helpful as I can, and meeting as many of my fellow legislators as I possibly can, too, just trying to get up to speed, understand the lay of the land and, and hopefully be effective starting day one. What's been the response from those various groups? You know, I'm sure you met with some lobbyists as well, you know, like that's just kind of the process, right. And you were,

you were among the group of challengers that, you know, took a, you were running against incumbents. And so obviously, you know, took a, you were running against incumbents. And so obviously, you know, that entails certain messaging and going against the establishments. What's the response been? Yeah, I was joking with my wife that I woke up on March 6th with a lot of new friends. I guess some of that's to be expected. I think you break those into different categories. The lobby, I think, at least in the people who I've spent time with, they're feeling the ground shift under their feet a little bit. They're unsure of what the world is going to be like in 2025. They know that there's going to be change. There's going to be, in fact, significant change. Most of

them probably concede that there's going to be a. There's going to be, in fact, significant change. Most of them probably concede that there's going to be a new speaker. So they're trying to understand the world that they exist in and how much it has changed and whether I'm going to be, they're trying to discern whether I'm going to be helpful or harmful to them and their needs. Generally, as far as local government is concerned, you know, you've got, my district stretches very long east-west. There are a lot of towns that are caught in my district. And I think mostly people are sitting on town council or you're a mayor in one of the towns

in House District 65. You're trying to figure out, is this person going to be a good counterpart to me? Are they going to be a good partner when it comes to legislation that might disrupt people's way of life in, say, Flower Mound or Double Oak or something along those lines? Everybody who is a Republican on the legislative side has just been unbelievably warm and kind and trying to do what they can to help us get up to speed and learn the ropes. You mentioned the ground shifting. Clearly, there was a massive bloodbath during the primary. Your race was one of them. Nine incumbents lost, eight more pushed to runoffs. What do you make of just what happened on March 5th? Yeah, I think it's a significant victory for the grassroots.

They overcame some disadvantages. If you take my race as an example, just one example of what happened on March 5th, our campaign was able to overcome the governor's involvement, able to overcome close to a million dollars from Texas for lawsuit reform. And primarily it wasn't driven by endorsements other than Ken Paxton, who was unbelievably helpful to me, but it was primarily from the bottom up. So groups like True Texas Project, Denton County Conservative Coalition, Red Wave, they kind of helped elevate our campaign all the way to victory on March 5th. So I think the takeaway is that voters aren't really accepting the programming from the establishment in a way that I think the establishment had hoped. I think they see the legislative process as deformed and dysfunctional, and the primary was really a referendum on that issue, not so much Ken Paxton or even School Choice, just the function of the legislative body that's supposed to be deliberative and supposed to be the voice of the people. They see it as not working and they're ready for something different.

You mentioned Abbott getting involved and backing your opponent, Representative Tomash. That was on school choice and obviously she voted for that. What did you make of Abbott's involvement and his involvement in the rest of these races? Yeah, so he seems to be intent on making this issue his legislative legacy. And he's put a lot of time, energy, effort, money into the process of trying to get that across the goal line. I think he has been a little bit more effective than maybe he had even anticipated. And so you have a conservative lurch in the legislature. You're going to have more conservative reps coming in. And so what is school choice now? Are we looking at this being the next, as the 2025 session being a continuation of the last special session? I think the answer to that is no. I think a lot of the new people who are coming in are going to look at the bill that ended the last special session and say, that bill just wasn't good enough. And so we're really starting from scratch with a lot more support for the school choice issue than maybe you finished the last special session with. So I think Governor Abbott was effective, maybe even more effective than he intended to be. If you take my race as

an example, I'm probably more solidly pro-choice than my opponent, but her last vote on that issue probably gained her Abbott's endorsement as opposed to his ire. You mean pro-school choice? Yes, for school choice. And so I just say on that, all's well that ends well. I think Governor Abbott will have a more conservative legislature to operate with behind in front of in 2025. As you said, the big question is, what is this bill going to look like? Have you thought about the policy itself in terms of, are there any guardrails or limitations you want to see, or you just want a fully-fledged universal school choice program? Well, it's interesting because, you know, at no point in the previous session did Governor Abbott tap the sign and say, hey, I said school choice for all. This is not school choice for all.

And it seemed like he was probably okay with some type of mediated outcome as you get to the end of the last special session I think school choice needs to start in a different place than 2023 ended I think we need to have a better bill that is going to impact more families I think one of the guard I think when you said guardrails, you're thinking as far as probably the high-stakes testing and what other people have called the accountability measures within school choice. When I talk to homeschool moms or I talk to private school parents, they go, this bill doesn't seem to be targeted at me. And what I mean is they don't want their kids

in high stakes testing. They don't want their kids in the middle of that. And they don't want the government to have control over the curriculum of private schools or homeschools or homeschool setup. So I think the bill is, in its most recent state, really doesn't touch on the things that the people at the grassroots want when they say school choice. They want to be able to take their tax money, and they want to be able to deploy it to the school of their choice. Very simple from their perspective, but the, I'll call it mediated outcome, has resulted in this adulterated bill where you've got people who want to have access to school choice but are now stuck in a regime that's done by government. It doesn't seem to

be scratching the itch for most people who want school choice. The kind of general consensus was last session, if anything was going to pass, it had to be tied to teacher pay raises and school funding increase. Do you think that's changed at all after these elections? Yeah, I think it has changed. And I think the kind of, how should I put this? The public education black pill on this is that, oh, we lost all the leverage we were going to have to be able to increase the per student allotment or get teacher pay raises because now our leverage in the form of our legislators that were more sympathetic to us in the legislature are gone. In reality, I think these are distinct issues. Do we still have a problem with public school finance? Yeah, you

talk to any superintendent in my district, Argyle ISD, Louisville ISD, their budget is in the red and they're looking at drawing from future funds to be able to finance their operations. That's not good. That's not good. But that each issue really needs to stand on its own, Brad.

We need to have public school systems that are well run, properly financed, and operating within a reasonable budget, and we need to have school choice. So how do we accomplish all those things? is by trying to tie them together using one to bribe the other. That makes no sense to me. Good policy should be able to stand on its own without attaching it to some other program that the other side doesn't want. So back to your race, it was one of the probably top five that got the most heated, I would say. You mentioned all the money coming in. The personal tie between you and Representative Tomas was a big factor in this and just how much of a tension it got. Why in your mind did it get so heated? Yeah, from my perspective, it wasn't heated. So if you ask my wife or my kids, they would have a different opinion. So let me just offer you a glimpse into that.

So when I'm getting calls from people who don't live in my district in Dallas, Allen, Salina, and they're seeing TV ads run about me with me, a picture of me in between Joe Biden and Beto O'Rourke, you know, people who know me laugh about that. People who don't know me very well are going, huh, who is this guy? My family sees that stuff as being very deceptive and upsetting. I understand it's part of the full contact game that we're in. Okay. And I have a lot of grace for people who are in politics, and I understand that's part of it. From my perspective, the race was not about so much the incumbent as a candidate. It was more about the symbolism or protecting incumbency writ large. So you saw Dave Phelan dump a ton of money into incumbent races, Texans for lawsuit reform, same thing, dumping a fortune into my race, a fortune into J.C. Jachon and Matt Morgan's race, and Reggie Smith and Shelley Luther, same thing. It was more about a referendum on incumbency itself than it was about Shelley Luther, Matt Morgan, or Mitch Little. And I think

that you had a lot of groups and powerful people who were intent on protecting the little fiefdom that they've carved out for themselves. And I think it had less to do with policy and more to do with control. I think voters are impatient with that, disinterested in it. They want the best policy they can get, and they want to know that their representative is representing them in the House and not the interest of some other nameless, faceless organization. So I kind of view the race for House District 65 as kind of a proxy battle in that regard. It was a proxy for the grassroots versus the incumbency

in the establishment you mentioned uh you know incumbent the incumbent protection bureau whatever you want to call it and yeah that didn't work out so great did it well we see you know we see take the tea party movement you know a lot of those guys who won back then became that uh it's just kind of from the outside can seem as like the natural progression of things how do you prevent that from from happening and becoming the case yeah it's like the reverse uh that image of like the troglodyte that becomes an adult standing human male uh it's kind of the reverse of that eventually you you start out as someone who's

principled, conservative, and you kind of degrade into a swamp creature over time. Frankly, Brad, there's a lot of evidence for that. And I think voters are sick of it. I think the representation in the House needs to be replenished periodically to prevent that from happening. I think that the reforms that we have proposed in the contract with Texas, Brad, if we're able to change leadership, we can fix the head of the problem that's sick, and that health should be communicated down to the rest of the body. What I mean is, if you take away from the speaker the ability to really control the legislative process almost on his own and disseminate political funds at will to the people that he has deemed useful, I think we will get better representation on the whole from each individual representative. So ultimately, when we say the swamp or the uniparty or whatever aphorism we want to use to describe the phenomenon that you're talking about, ultimately, it's

derivative of campaign finance and political power being centralized in one or a handful of people. Ultimately, a representative who starts out as principled says, I want to be effective. And they decide, oh, I have to conform to this type of person or this set of operating procedures

to be effective for the people in my district. That's wrong. Voters are sick of it. And they want a new day. And that's kind of where the contract with Texas is pointed. Encounter to that side of the argument is that governing is a lot more difficult and complicated than is imagined from outside. What's your take on that? And be more specific. Iverning is a totally different thing. And I think that what he was getting at was that it's a lot more difficult than just promising a policy and snapping your fingers and making it happen.

Yeah. I'll be honest with you. When I heard that, here's what I heard. So I understand what he said, but here's what I heard. What I heard was, I will capture you. Eventually, the people in charge, the people with power in the House, we will capture you. And then, in other words, that's cute.

I understand that you're campaigning on these things back home, but once you get here, I will deign to explain to you how things really work. And after you understand that, you'll be captured. And frankly, Brad, there's good evidence for that too. You look at what's going on in the national scene with Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson comes out of the chute. Oh, he's a conservative. He's not wealthy. He's not beholden.

And it's meet the new boss, same as the old boss. That's one of the things we're trying to prevent in the Texas House too. Ultimately, I think we'll have a change in leadership. How do you know he won't be the same or worse as his predecessor? These are things we're trying to guard against. I think I have some advantages over representatives in the past, and let me describe what I think those are. I think I'm going to have better friends. I think I'm going to have better friends in the House. And what I mean is a very hardened, determined set of conservatives who believe in

the reforms that we're espousing, that we spent a lot of time together working on. And the other advantage being, I think we've got an electorate who's boldened us. I tell people I'm the proverbial turtle on a fence post. You know I didn't get here by myself. So you look at the voters and the grassroots people who elevated us up, those are the people that I think are empowered and bold and want to see change. And they're paying attention like never before, too. We'll talk a bit about the Speaker's race and the contract with Texas in a minute. But before we get there, I want to ask you, but we had an exchange the morning after the election, and as far as I'm concerned, I love her and her family and want them to do well. The primary's over. I hope she'll support our campaign as we go on to November. I harbor no ill will, and I hope, frankly, that all the primary candidates feel the same way.

But I can't say for sure. You see enough op-eds that are coming out from various state reps or people who are giving interviews saying, you know, the voters just didn't understand and I'm a lot better than you think. I think the voters do get it. Okay. When you reach the House, you know, presumably you win in November, which you have a Democratic opponent, correct? I do. I do. Who do you see yourself aligning most with in the current scope of the Texas House? Is it the contract with Texas people?

Yeah, I think that's a good starting point. You look at the people that we got in a room to be able to articulate those reforms. I think those are people that we align with ideologically. But Brad, I think there are more people who I align with ideologically than are signers on the contract with Texas, I think primarily because we still have the runoffs hanging over people's head. So if I could fast forward to the day after the runoffs, I think you look at the Freedom Caucus, you look at members that I'm probably going to vote with most of the time. Cody Basut, Briscoe Cain, Ellen Troxler, Kerry Isaac, Valerie Swanson, Terry Leo Wilson, Ben Baumgartner, Richard Hayes. I think those people,

I'm probably going to be voting with them a lot of the time. They haven't signed the contract with Texas yet. That doesn't mean that they won't, and it doesn't mean that we're not going to agree on most things. I think we're going to have a very solid conservative voting block in the republican caucus and it's probably going to be the largest block of any oh at the end of the day so you i would say i i probably start with being aligned with the the signers but there are a whole bunch of other conservatives. Shelby Slauson is another good example. People that I'm probably going to be voting with most of the time. How did the contract with Texas develop? Yeah, so it wasn't any one person's brainchild. There was, if you look at the signers, if you look at the original signers of the contract with Texas, if you look at J.M. Lozano, Tony Tenderholt, Brian Harrison, Nate Schatzlein, Steve Toth, a lot of the primary winners like myself, Shelley Luther, Matt Morgan, we can just run down the entire list of them, Wes Verdell. We came together and we started to brainstorm and say,

what are the reforms that we would like to see in the House that we think would make it better? And after we got that list combined, we started to refine it, and then we started putting pen to paper. And as we put pen to paper, we went, hey, this would make, you know, remember Newt Gingrich's contract with America? This would make a good contract with Texas. And I think the voters will be able to look at it, and I think we'll be able to use it in the runoffs to try to achieve the same goal too. So that's why you've seen a lot of the people who are in runoffs, the conservatives like Andy Hopper, Carissa Richardson, Cheryl Bean, David Lowe,

who have jumped on and signed with the contract with Texas, because they see it for what it is, too. This is giving the voters a voice to say, hey, we're likely to have new leadership in the House. How do we want it to function? What do we want that new speaker to ascribe to? And so as it came together, fortunately, I think it came together quickly. And quickly in the sense that we were very united, very much on the same page, and it wasn't hard to put it all to paper. In this list that you guys put out, there's the big hits of no Democratic chairs, a GOP-only speaker speaker majority things like that are there any of the lower ticket items on this that you guys are more willing to give in on if required to get an acceptable speaker candidate

no and so when you see contract with texas it means contract with texas and so these are this is what we promise to our voters to espouse as we go in to vote on who the Speaker of the House is going to be from the Republican caucus. So I think there are probably some members in the Republican House who are going, yeah, they said these 12, but do they really mean it? Maybe we can peel off one or two of these things. Let me just be the first to say, no, that wasn't the reason that we drafted it. We didn't mean for it to be a first offer. We didn't mean for it to be something that we were going to negotiate on or a position we were going to start from. This is what we mean from our hearts. And so when we drafted it, we meant it. And the response has been very interesting, Brad.

When you talk to other reps who haven't signed it and who are interested in talking about it they go yeah I'm with you on a lot of this stuff there's just maybe one or two things that I'm it that's usually how the conversation goes you know there's one or two things that I think y'all should think about a little bit longer well we we invite people to into the discussion with us and to be able to help brainstorm other reforms but these are the ones that we think are appropriate and that the voters have called for we've had an unbelievable reception in our home districts about it people are fired up is the goal here to vote as a block in the speaker's race however that

turns out i i think that's more of i think that's more of a byproduct. The goal here is to generate the reforms. And so regardless of who the speaker is, I have no idea who the speaker will be. I don't think anyone does yet. But regardless of that, the goal is to enact the reforms so that we don't have an imperial speakership, so that we have a more representative, deliberative body. I've talked to a number of state reps, kind of, we'll call it off the record, and in those off-the-record conversations, it's very telling. Usually people have a story about how they've been bulldozed by the speaker and the speaker's leadership team.

And that's just not what the voters send us down to Austin to do. They send us down there to validly represent them in an effective way. And really, the leadership structure that's in place in the House has prevented that type of representation. They've created an incentive structure where the way that you get things done is by being loyal to the speaker and his cadre. And I don't think that's good for Texas. I think voters decided it wasn't. One of the top issues is, of course, banning Democratic chairs. At root, the reason that exists is to prevent, you know, like a Strauss-like coalition of a dozen Republicans going and joining with the entire Democratic coalition. Do you think the environment's changed such that that isn't a viable option anymore?

Is this still a possibility? It's always a possibility, right? I mean, I think you could find a Republican who says, all right, I've got my 11 people I'm going to ride with, and we're going to go to the Democrats and cut a deal. I mean, that could still happen. I just think that is such anathema to voters that you're going to take additional casualties in the next legislative or next election cycle if that's the road they decide to go down. Not only that, but you're going to have a very large hardened group of conservative Republicans in the House that are going to get out of bed every day to combat that leadership team. I think that's how the environment has changed. I think if you went back to Strauss where he came into leadership on the heels of and with the support of that Democratic caucus, there weren't enough people in the Republican caucus with a spine to go, no, I don't think so, and to really present an effective, hardened opposition team to Strauss. I think if somebody tried to do that in this legislature, I think it would be unspeakably foolish. I think they'd be setting themselves up for an obstructionist session.

The other factor, of course, is if Democrats feel themselves locked out of this process entirely, will there be another quorum break? Obviously, that has its own difficulties for them. You know, they spent a month in another state and eventually trickled their way back in. Is that something you guys feel like could happen or are concerned about? Yeah, I think that would be a super bad idea i think you'd be if if this goes the way i think it's going to go you're going to have a more effective uh republican governing speaker and i think there would be consequences that didn't exist in the previous quorum break and uh i think that i think they would end up regretting that. Ultimately, Brad, you know this, a lot of legislation comes through the Texas legislature

that has bipartisan support, that has red and blue votes on most bills. And I think we can still govern effectively together. We can still work together without this legacy leadership structure, meaning Democrats in chair positions on various committees. At least I look forward to doing that. How many more candidates do you expect to jump into the race. And you mentioned once we get to the runoff, the day after the runoff, a lot will probably become clear, but how many do you expect or think are going to throw their hat in the ring? Oh, there's going to be a bunch. I think there's going to be a bunch. Well, you already have one with Tom, Dr. Oliverson, I think he'll be a strong candidate. I think you're going to have a bunch more. And the reason being, you have to really define the problem when it comes to how are you going to elect a speaker.

I think you have the contract with Texas group that is really staunchly opposed to the existing leadership group and the people who are going to ride that thing all the way to the scene of the crash. And then you have a whole bunch of people in the middle who want to govern well, want to keep being effective state representatives and understand what the voters are saying. I think there will be a lot of potential candidates who will come into the race to try to bridge that gap and to court the Republicans who are really crying out for new and better leadership. I think you'll see a bunch. I'm sure you're aware of rumors of a bunch of people. You're probably even more so than I am. So I can probably think of five or six off the top of my head. When discussing the next speaker, a lot of people are kind of discounting

the idea that Phelan could, A, win his runoff and then maintain the majority. Do you see any path for him to do that? Should he, you know, beat David Covey on May 28th? Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think there are a lot of people right now who are saying, you know, even if he wins, he's not going to be speaker. I'll just say, I don't know. There are a lot of people in that middle group who are still a little bit afraid of how they would be treated if, for whatever reason, Phelan makes it out of his runoff and the leadership cadre survives. I think based on everything I've heard, I think it would be very difficult for Phelan to continue in the speakership, even if he is to survive the runoff, which in and of itself would be a significant challenge. How do you see these runoffs going? There's eight up for grabs.

I think they all have incumbents. They're not all of them, but yeah, eight incumbents and then a few open seats. How do you see them going? I think conservatives will be either seven of eight or eight of eight in these runoffs. What do you think? I mean, just based on probability, I don't see winning that much, but it could happen. We saw what happened on March 5th, and I don't think anybody fully expected how drastic of a recoil that was against incumbents. So who knows? Yeah, it's interesting that it's happening. That election day for the runoff is literally right after state convention.

We don't really know how much that's going to affect or impact it, but a lot of the hay will be in the barn by then. I mean, you'll have election, you'll have early voting having been concluded, go leading up to the convention. And then, yeah, we'll see how people mobilize the day after that. Yeah, it's a giant question of what turnout is going to be like, because there's also Memorial Day to think about. Who knows how that's going to affect things. So the last thing I want to end on is, should you win in November and take office next year? Other than these house reforms and a school choice, what kind of policy areas are you wanting to focus on? Yeah, legislative priorities first and so you look at you look at the things that were left on the table from the

previous session as a result of leadership or lack thereof election integrity a potential overhaul of how elections are done in our state i know some people have proposed some really brilliant ideas. I'm a lawyer, so I really haven't had an original idea in my entire life, but I can sure get behind some good ones. Overhaul of our legislative or overhaul of our election system, I think would be wonderful. The one thing that I talked about on the campaign trail I think is incredibly important is we'll call Chinese land ownership by the CCP. That bill came over from Lois Kohlkorst on China, Iran, Russia, North Korea. That should have passed. It died in state affairs.

That's something that we can accomplish together. School choice is obviously something that's going to happen it's going to it's going to be front of mind it may be on an emergency call but from my perspective the way that we accomplish that is with a better bill that really does scratch the for all itch that governor abbott sent out in his mandate essentially saying he he wanted to sign a bill for giving school choice for all. I think we're going to have ongoing encroachments on Second Amendment. I think if you happen to see what happened this week with what's going on with Title IX, you're going to see ongoing encroachments from the federal government on things like gender, DEI, stuff like that.

It's going to be a constant battle. This is not a one-off in Texas, so we're going to continue fighting that. Property taxes. If you saw what's going on with the lieutenant governor's interim charges, property taxes and the march toward elimination, we need to understand as a state, what's it going to take to have a future one day where we don't have property taxes? What's it going to cost us in terms of a sales tax or some type of consumptive tax to be able to get there? Can we wean ourselves off over time? Generally, I'm in favor, Brad, of making government smaller and lowering taxes for

the people who live in 65. And so there's nothing particular on my heart outside of the same things that Republicans want throughout our state. Well, the property tax elimination is a particularly hairy subject. The lieutenant governor made his position position known last year this can't be done at least the way things are right now and i think that's what the interim charges are going to uh kind of prove once the the numbers come out um but then you get to the question of every time a you know consumption tax swap has kind of been suggested it it pulls really poorly. And that's the Lieutenant Governor's position. So, you know, maybe we're just stuck on this path of having to combine homestead exemption and compression, or do you see any way to get off that?

Yeah, let's keep working on it. I think ultimately he's going to figure out the goal, as close as I can tell from the interim charge, to figure out ultimately he's going to figure out the goal as close as I can tell from the interim charge to figure out what it's going to cost us and where to eliminate property taxes. And ultimately we have to decide, is that a place where we're willing to go or not? Voters have told us they want to eliminate them. Okay, let's come up with a way to do it. Otherwise we're going to be stuck on this system where people are renting their property from the government indefinitely, which is not great. Then you add the X factor of cutting spending, which nobody really does. Yeah. Well, nobody has done yet. You look at the

growth of the state budget under Republican leadership in the last session, and it's something that's front of mind for voters. They're like, well, I thought we were the small government people. No, well, government, size of government keeps increasing. And you can't do that for very long if your intent is to lower taxes. You just can't. The math doesn't work. Anything else you want to add? No, it's wonderful. Thank you.

Thanks for joining us, Mitch. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for the visit.