The Texan Podcast - One More Time: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 24

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Join McKenzie and Brad in their final in-person episode of Smoke Filled Room as they reflect on the top stories from 2025, Brad's departure, and a look forward to 2026. 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.00:00 Intro01:11 Reflecting on the Past Year04:40 Lieutenant Governor's Influence and Future Speculations08:53 Speaker's Fight and Legislative Dynamics25:52 School Choice33:13 Property Taxes and Future Legislative Battles44:57 Political Landscape Shifts47:01 Democratic Strategies and Polls50:01 Republican Gains and Challenges58:05 Open Seats and Political Moves01:02:37 Legislative Dynamics and Future Outlook01:18:15 Reflections and Farewells

Well, howdy folks? It's McKenzie here with Brad in person for the last installment of smoke full of room. That's pretty surreal to say. It is. We're recording on your last day, Brad. Friday, December 12th. The day before your birthday, I do want the public to know. So if you're hearing this, you've certainly...

Oh, Rob's bringing Brad coffee. This is good. Yeah, there you go. Thank you, Rob. Thank you so much. So if you're listening to this, you've missed Brad's birthday. So that's the first order of business should be to text Brad right now. I apologize for forgetting his birthday.

Please don't do that. I'm asking you too. I think Brad would really appreciate it. But Brad, by now it's public that you are leaving the Texan and we'll announce at a later date what's next for you and we're excited for when that time comes. But we'll get more into a trip down memory lane later in the podcast. for the sake of both of our substance before we start blubbering yeah yeah yeah and uh start with

what we need to start with and wrap up with the tough stuff the fun stuff the tough stuff at the same time certainly but we're going to go through the uh 2025 top stories kind of a rundown through this last year which i was super tuned in for especially over the summer so i just want you know everyone to know i was super tuned in while on mat leave and uh and then we'll there's a reason this is the first in-person installment of the smoke filled room in a while in a little while. And thank you to our guests who joined Brad while I was out. I'm very appreciative. And then we'll go through maybe some look ahead, 26 type stuff as well. So it's been a wild year, certainly. It has. Yeah. It has. And I think you'll, you have a fourth reading coming out,

or it's already out. I need to remember my timelines here, but go read Brad's last fourth reading at the Texan to run through the last seven years of insanity in Texas politics because it really has been crazy. And I think that's, you say it's worth saying, even if it's always crazy in some regard. It has been an exceptionally wild ride the last seven years, I think, in the state. So even though And that coincidentally or not aligns with the timeline of the Texan. Yeah. So I've been here for all of it, or almost all of it. Yeah. So first reporter we ever hired. Indeed. Indeed. I remember, well, well, yeah, save for later. Yeah, save for later. Well, what do you want to start with? Which boat point?

Let's just recap the year. You know, it has been wild. And, you know, I've given a few talks since, you know, probably the end of the last special session. And my general message is, like, it did not go how I saw it going at the beginning. Yeah. There were a lot of things that popped up that I did not foresee, you know, skill in political maneuvering, avoiding. what we all thought was going to happen, issues that popped up that nobody really thought would get as much attention as they did. I'm thinking specifically the lieutenant governor's list of priorities was where kind of a lot of that started.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, the THC hemp thing was probably the biggest example. Yeah. But, you know, you look at the rest of his priorities and it looks like more of a legacy kind of slate rather than red meat conservators. And there were red meat conservative stuff in there, of course. But a lot of that had been done and accomplished from the Republican perspective. And when I saw his list of priorities before session or at the beginning of session, it looked like more of a legacy focus, you know, things like the dementia prevention research institute of Texas.

The movie fund. Whatever you think of that, you know, there's obviously a lot of criticism that's misuse of taxpayer dollars. When I saw that, I thought, that's something. if Dan Patrick does get it passed, that whenever he's retired, singing in his rocking chair, watching a movie with his grandkids, he can point to that and say, I did that. Which for all intents and purposes, he's running for re-election. He is. He's announced it.

That's what's happening. But regardless. I'm talking about one day. Whenever he retires. Yes. Because there were obviously, there's always been rumors. People have probably a lot of its wish casting that he's going to retire, step aside. But, you know, I heard some rumors right after session, and obviously those did not come true.

He is running for re-election, and he held the press conference. And the general theme of it was, I don't know how many times I have to tell you people I'm running for re-election. Sure enough, filing deadlines now passed and he is. So I don't think we should be totally surprised by that. But both he and Greg Abbott are coming to the end, close to the ends of their careers in the spots they're in, right? Does Greg Abbott run for higher office later on? Does he, you know, angle for a cabinet spot? Who knows?

Who knows what happens? but both of them, it's clear. Everybody knows it, whether it's next cycle, probably not even the one after that. It's going to come to an end. The dam's going to break. The thing we theorized in that one smoke-filled room episode from last year, none of which came through. Yeah, we're really good at what we have. Eventually, the dam will break at the top, and we will see those guys step aside,

and that's going to be the next fascinating chapter of Texas politics, seeing who takes over and how they change things. Yeah. You know, like, I was giving a talk yesterday at an education group. Brad's on the speaking circuit. We don't like to write about it. Hey, if you want to book me, give me a ring. And they were asking about the lieutenant governor and the look ahead.

And the biggest question with the lieutenant governor's position is what the person after Dan Patrick does. Are they going to manage the body in the same way? And I don't just mean with an iron fist. And he's really good at what he does. There's a reason he's the most powerful politician in the state. That naturally the lieutenant governor's spot is a more powerful spot than other states. But Patrick has also maximized that power.

And he'll tell you the biggest reason why was lowering the super majority threshold. He just says it constantly. He said it at our event when you were interviewing him. That's the most transformative thing he's done as lieutenant governor. But does whoever takes his spot after him, succeeds him, Are they able to maintain the kind of authority over the Senate that he has? Yeah. And, you know, senators clearly, you know, they still have some power.

But his is different, his regime is different than past lieutenant governors. Maybe Bob Bullock being the exception, right? That's what I was going to say. And do we end up getting a weaker personality as lieutenant governor, which then allows senators to take back more of the power that they used to have. Well, you could argue, too, that they still have that power. They're just not exercising it. So I think that's worth noting as well as that this power is seated to the current lieutenant governor

because the senators, that's just the environment that they're in. And there's this kind of like gentleman's agreement that this is how this is going to go. So do they still have that power? Absolutely. But a lot of what you're saying, the political power exercised by the lieutenant governor is not something that's enshrined in any rule, any constitution. it's not how that works. It's political. It's relational. It's how it works right now. It's assertive on his part. That's kind of how that is. And I think it's easy to forget that sometimes.

Certainly. Certainly. I'd also say quickly that, you know, our draft episode of Smokefield Room where we talked through who could run for open seats on the statewide ballot, I think it's worth noting that, you know, that was under the pretense that all those positions opened up at the same time. Who would we slot in? A lot of folks just want to run for higher office. And which one is open right now? Attorney General. And that's where a lot of this attention is going. So some of those names we talked about are running for that office. Just maybe not the office. We would have placed them in if we could wave a wand and open all the seats and see who slotted and where. A lot of folks just want to run for higher office.

For example, I think Mays Middleton was my governor pick. Totally. And here he is. He's running for AG. Absolutely. That's going to be a fascinating race to watch. I think the most interesting of any of them across the state, just the cast of characters in there.

Yeah. On Republican and Democratic side. You know, a lot of people are saying, oh, yeah, Nathan Johnson has it in the bag for the Democrats. I would give him the edge, but I don't think he has in the bag. And who knows which way things go. We'll talk about, look ahead in the next segment, but they're all positioning now. Yeah. Right?

And that will affect what happens next year. So, you know, I guess let's just start at the beginning of Session. What were your expectations coming in? How do you think it was going to go? I mean, the speaker's fight was all anyone was talking about. And it was... And we didn't know the result until the first day. No, and I think that that's rare for a speaker's fight.

Oh, yeah. I mean, we've written about that in talking through and all our reporting leading up to it and precedent times leading up to it. Like the novel approach that this was, like it was very unique that there was actually competitive speakers contest. And I don't think folks knew which way it was going to go. Specifically, you know, whether or not this is accurate, folks marketed burrows as the, you know, feeling adjacent candidate. And David Cook is the alternative, the reform candidate. And I think it was because of the primary results from last cycle, there was certainly more momentum on the

reform side than there would have been previously. And that was formidable, incredibly formidable. And there was this outside influence, whether or not, you know, you agree that it's outside whose constituents or whose, who should make the decision at the end of the day. That was a huge part of the entire debate, right? Should Texans or should the lawmakers, like how insulated should lawmakers be when choosing, you know, who leaves their own chamber? Is this an internal fight or is it not? And I think, but regardless, that outside pressure from citizens, activists, advocacy organizations, PACs, which we could talk about ad nauseum when we have. close to those episodes if you want to, played a huge role in how that, in Cook's momentum. And certainly Burrells, too, in his own way.

There's money being spent on both sides. But in terms of the grassroots support, whatever you qualify as grassroots, that played a very interesting role in this. And electoral pressure, primary conversations that was very notable. But then you watch, so in terms of what I expected, I really felt like it could go either way. I do think, in my mind, the weight was always a little bit behind Burroughs candidacy just because of the math. The math and the makeup of the chamber and how the House operates.

And the likelihood that most Democrats would choose him over Cook because they know that their chosen candidate. No Democrats going to win the speakership, right? Just the question of which Republican? Yes. And who courts them in a way that is that makes the most sense. Yes. And so we saw that play out in real time. And so that's where I kind of thought it would roll.

But watching the session play out, it was super notable that at the end of the session, there was a lot more unity among the Republican caucus than I think folks would have expected with how bloody and brutal that speaker fight was. It was horrible for all parties involved. And lawmakers would tell you that all day long. And they did. In hindsight, I think there was one turning point in the speaker's race more than anything else. Day of?

Is that what you're talking about? Well, it's related to Dave of. It's Alex Fairley coming out and saying that his $20 million pack is no longer going to be used to wait into fights as a referendum on House leadership. He initially came out and said that, and then he backed off. And he said in reporting since, and I've talked to him about it, he said that his conversations, he sat down and talked to him. the boroughs and those conversations did not go how he thought they were going to go. I.E. they went a lot better than he thought. And with that, members now had not just political cover, but financial cover, to stick their neck out and vote for a candidate who eventually won

with majority Democratic support, which throughout this entire thing, especially in the conservative activist world was the biggest issue. Are you winning the speakership with Democratic votes? And Burroughs did. I mean, it was a majority Democrat. And that set the expectation going in that this is going to be a tough road for him. Yep. And it was. Like, it required a lot of maintenance. Maintenance. Political maneuvering. A lot. And ground gaining. It wasn't just maintenance. It was ground gaining. Yep. And maintaining communication with the lieutenant governor, which then got the lieutenant governor on his side. Which was huge. Yes. And going Going into this, Burroughs knew that the top task for him was to make peace with the lieutenant

governor. Yeah. Because that, more than anything else, set the table for the demise of Phelan because the lieutenant governor being opposed to him then causes more chaos in the chamber because you have the two chambers at loggerheads and things aren't passing, right? Or at least not certain things, right? And so that was ultimately the downfall of Phelan. Burroughs came in, and he did the opposite.

They talked on the phone, if not every day, almost every day. They still talk. The breakfast came back. But that was just, that was not totally for show. But like them just calling each other up constantly, that was what laid the foundation for a better relationship. and eventually it turned the fire from lieutenant governor to speaker to the lieutenant governor to the governor and we'll talk more about the THC fight but I didn't see that one coming either but burroughs succeeded yeah and he had two two things primarily that allowed to do that that was one

the lieutenant governor making peace with him and then allowing Harrison represent Brian Harrison to isolate himself in his opposition to House leadership. Part of that for Burroughs was bringing members like Mitch Little in, giving them a seat of the table on significant issues. Mitch Little was one of the chief negotiators on bail reform, which the legislature finally passed. It wasn't just him, though. A.J. Lauderback didn't vote for the speaker. He was brought in.

Tony Tinderholt was talking with Burroughs constantly, and he just ran against Phelan. Yeah. in 23 for speakers. Which Phelan and Burroughs are two very different creatures. Like, we're not talking, but they alignment previously, right? Burroughs was one of Phelan. He's like lie lieutenants. They're certainly some adjacent.

Yes. The relationship there is solid. Yes. But they're very different legislators. Well, and. And Spell and acknowledged that. He's like, and this is part of being friendlier with Patrick is Burroughs is just more conservative personally than Phelan was.

Now, Phelan under his tutelage, they passed a lot of huge, remarkable conservative legislation and take the heartbeat act and the trigger ban. That's probably the most remarkable thing from a transformative perspective in the last many years. And of course, you've got to throw constitutional carry in there, a different kind of animal, but regardless, that passed under Phelan. Yep. And that was a product of feeling asserting it, right? That was not something that the Senate threw over to them. That whole other story there. Yeah, yeah. So, So, it feels like forever ago. So it was just, it was a masterful case of political maneuvering.

And it wasn't that going in, I thought, you know, Burroughs can't handle this because his reputation has always been one of the most formidable political operators. Is this even winnable at all? Or is he just on a time clock? And every speaker is on a time clock. It's just a question of how long, right? And how they get ousted. And Burroughs entered the session with his problem on the right flank, on his right flank,

the conservative, right-wing conservative Republicans, most of whom were freshmen. And then on the other side, you had a smaller group of Democrats who were wanting a more D.C. style way of governing the House. Then you had most members pull the lever for boroughs. Two rounds of voting. Yep, two rounds of voting. I think what was the final. It was 36, 59, I think it was the final tally. 36 Republicans, 59 Democrats, and the winning coalition.

But as this, and this shows a bit how politics can be a zero-sum game, as session went on in Burroughs' right flank was shored up in the way I just described, he starts losing members in the Democratic caucus. And the biggest hit to that was redistricting, right? And I first heard about redistricting in February. I'm told the first conversations occurred back in December. And a year ago. Yeah. Now, originally they wanted them to do it during regular session, but boroughs and the lieutenant governor and probably the governor too said we can't handle that right now things are so tense tense written contentious right now so let's put it off so they did get to special session

all the stuff we talked about so much on these podcasts played out and eventually what happened was what we all knew was going to happen really this map was going to stay in place for next year the new map the new map for next year and it is but a lot of stuff happened happened in the middle. A lot of unforced errors on the Republican side nearly tanked it. And now you have a map that is nominally supposed to gain Republicans five seats next year, but it's not that simple at all. So that was, even though I kind of, I knew something was coming on it, how it played out and everything that happened was surprising, including a two-week quorum break. So there's that.

The THC fight, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, this to me, the lieutenant governor is personally convicted on this, along with Charles Perry, Senator Charles Perry. They're the two biggest advocates, proponents of this. I think they are personally convicted on this issue. Now, everyone's going to have their opinion on whether that's right or wrong, who's correct on this policy fight. And clearly, the speaker was not opposed personally.

to the lieutenant governor's position. I think he said it in some interviews. Yeah. But he was not pushing it as much as lieutenant governor because the votes were not there in the same manner that they were there in the Senate. This wasn't an easy win. Win.

This wasn't a foregone conclusion. Which also goes to show Dan Patrick's influence in the Senate. I think if you have a different leader at the head of the Senate, it could be an entirely different result in that chamber. Much dice here. Even if it does get across the line, not as simple. I think it probably still would.

But you even had. Some Democrats advocating for this, right? Like Cesar Blanco was for this, and he was explaining it on the floor. Now, not all Democrats were supportive of it. But eventually, after a very lengthy veto period, the last minute, Abbott vetoes the bill. That was one of the craziest days this year in my mind, because the governor had been very reticent to say what he was going to do, and he was asked constantly at press conferences, at bill signings, at different. opportunities for press to pester him about this I can't imagine the inquiries that were coming into his office but when he made that veto happen it was and well I mean why this was so

notable and I think the aftermath and Dan Patrick's press conference after is really where this came to a head you very rarely see lieutenant governor and the governor at public odds the lieutenant governor is very calculated and careful about this and the governor does his thing. And it certainly, when Dan Patrick got up there and very emotionally responded to this veto, it was one of the wildest days. Like, we were all looking around in each other, like, is this happening? Is this real? Are we actually seeing what we're seeing right now? Unbelievable. Well, part of that was he felt betrayed and lied to. He said it in the press conference. Yes. He said that he asked the governor frequently throughout session about the bill,

and the governor told him, according to Patrick, don't worry about. your bill, it's fine. Then things get dragged on and dragged on and delayed, and I think you start to see Patrick realize what's coming. And I'm told pretty reliably that it was a massive, massive lobby effort that finally turned the governor to vetoing this. And he was clearly never totally on Team Patrick in relation to this issue. And he was pretty clearly torn about it. that's why he waited the last minute. And, you know, the governor was, there was a huge polling fight throughout that period. Anyone can make a poll that says what they wanted to say.

And we saw some of that. We saw, we saw, polling put out that showed the unfavorability of a THC ban among the broader populace. And then we saw it answered with polling that showed Republican voters support a ban more. And, you know, I think if I recall incorrectly in both instances, the questions asked were just flawed. You know, it's clearly asking the question that you want. Everything. Yes, absolutely. So, but that was all part of the public fight on this.

And we have, when push comes to shove on policy, you often get public fights of posturing. I think we're seeing it somewhat more now, or, least more intensely because of how much money is getting involved in these outside groups advocating for their position yeah right and I don't mean like hiring lobbyists on the inside I mean like buying advertising so on the tort reform fight both sides who are running ads during session on cable advocating for their position and against the opposite the opponents I I don't think that's existed before at least in the manner that it popped up.

And so specifically against acting lawmakers, too. Yeah. Right? Like, we're talking targeted districts. We're talking, Matt Shaheen. There's one, the first one from the Sands group that targeted a member that I recall was against Matt Shaheen in his district. And it was a counterpunch compared to what something Matt Sheen said, I said,

I forget exactly what it was on a Sunday show up there. but they punch back. And there was a lot of that. This session, there's a lot of that in the THC fight in redistricting after Republicans finally got their PR act together and started getting behind their own cause. Democrats had it from day one. They were very organized.

They were all against this. Of course. Of course. Why wouldn't they be? They should be. It was bad for their party. Right. But we are seeing these,

fights play out more and more in public and not just in press conferences. So that's another thing that caught my eye this year that I'm watching going forward as well. One thing that none of us expected was the flood in the hill country and how devastating that was. And we talked about that before. There were some internecine fights within the legislature over how to respond to that legislatively, and they eventually passed a couple bills. Or even Democrats criticizing Republican leadership, or specifically the governor, replacing that, you know, flood response stuff on the call with a bunch of other items that Democrats did not want to touch.

And instead of being an item alone that folks could rally around in, you know, a bipartisan type of way. Well, they wanted him to put, if they was going to do redistricting, put it on its own. proclamation, well, why would the governor do that? Because that ensures a quorum break, right? There's no leverage to keep them in town. Now they left town anyway and took the political hit over it. But there's always strategory at play here. And it's pretty obvious looking at the proclamations. So I didn't see that coming, and that was a tragedy, an absolute tragedy. and a lot of people stepped up and helped those communities

when, you know, such a rare and horrible catastrophe occurred. Yeah. So I guess the other thing we need to talk about is school choice. You know, that was big. Wild, too, that when we're talking about what we want to talk about today, we were going through items like big takeaways from this year and school choice was like fourth or fifth that we even thought of not because it wasn't huge but because one I think it feels like a long time ago and two so many other huge things ended up taking some of the

air out of the room especially toward you know the end of the session and um in obviously the special sessions school choice seems like that's forever ago that was locked and loaded even though it absolutely was not yeah it also happened earlier in session like beginning of April right right after the budget. And I think part of it is it did feel like the fight was had during the primary last year and the votes were there. They just needed to negotiate the version. And when would it be?

Like after the budget, that's a very notable part of the fight is that the budget was passed first. Try and get that out of the way. Make sure no. That uses the hostage. Yeah. Make sure nobody puts up a fight on that front before they get to school choice. And there were conversations all day about what that would look like. There were rumors about different amendments that were going to be added.

And, you know, the floor debate was fascinating in and of itself and told you everything about the dynamics of both Republican and the Democratic parties. But at the end of the day, the governor got his prized school choice item, ESA is across the finish line. It's amazing how many close calls there are in this world. Close calls in terms of how one thing that happened almost didn't happen or didn't happen the same way. Like, for example, David Cook almost had the speakership one the weekend before the vote. I know. I was next to someone who got a text that the votes were there and they were just waiting to go public. Well, when you were mentioning Alex Fairley when I was like, okay, are you thinking about the day of?

The moment I'm thinking of in regard to that, if we can backtrack for a second, is when his daughter, Caroline Fairley, a freshman, flipped her allegiance. And that was a huge moment and very indicative of where maybe that. portion of the Republican caucus that was incoming my land. But the reason I said Alex's flip himself is because Caroline flipping on the final day was just a continuation of that. Yep. Right. I think, obviously hindsight's 2020, but I think looking back, you can pretty clearly draw

a through line and you can draw an expectation. Yep. When that press release came out from Fairly, that his daughter would flip. And not just her, but others, too. But, yeah, the, oh, yeah, what I was going to say was on the close calls, so there was that, the David Cook almost having it. And then on School Choice, there very nearly was enough support for, what was that amendment, but put it on the constitutional ballot.

Let it go to the voters. Let it go to the voters. And the reason for that is there had been this matter. massive lobby fight, again in public, too, over this bill and getting it across the line finally. But there were a lot of Republicans, even on the right flank of the caucus, who had concerns and didn't like the bill generally, but were willing to, and realize politically that to not be on the bad side of the governor, they needed to plug their nose and vote for it. And there were two Republicans at the end of the day who voted against ESAs. And it was

you know, former Speaker Dade Feeleyn and Gary Van Dever and those are notable names and kind of unsurprising if you were to break it down in so many ways. But still, it shows you that there are a lot of Republicans who in another year would have voted against this proposal most likely and very publicly have opposed such proposals in the past who, like you said, plugged their nose and said, okay. Well, I mean, this issue goes back to boroughs and making nice with the St. Patrick, because this was one issue that Dave Feelein, of course. He wasn't outwardly opposed, but he was inwardly opposed. And we saw that when he voted the way he did, right? But when he was

speaker, he was not, you know, straight killing it, but he wasn't helping it either. And so Burroughs committed early getting ESAs across the line. And he knew he had to. In addition to, I think he is, he was converted on the issue. Like he came to believe. believe in it. He used to not be. He's from Lubbock, not a big place, right? There's this urban versus rural debate on this issue, or at least actually it's more rural versus suburban versus urban, right? So that was another, that kept the governor off his back and not just off his back, off his members' backs. Because then, as soon as that passed, it was guaranteed the governor was not going to go hell for leather, like he, in the coming cycle like he did last.

year. Certainly not in the same way. And we see that play out. The governor is back, it's back to kind of a more standard juxt position when it comes to endorsements in these races. He's back in the incumbents. And he's back in the more, I guess it depends on the race, but generally the more establishment-friendly type of Republican that he used to always back versus what happened last year. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, I mean, you go into the session thinking, yes, they're going to pass this, and they did. But it was dicier throughout the point A to point B than I thought it was going to be. And the day of, you know, we can look back and be like, yeah, it passed.

With the day of, there were so many questions about that referendum being a huge part of it. It's like, okay, is this going to get tacked on? I think there are the votes to get this tacked on where it would not just be, you know, enforced via a signature by the governor, but it would actually go to voters. That would have been a huge. And then you've got to spend all the money. advocating for or against this in a campaign. Yeah, like an actual campaign.

Yeah. And that never saw the latter day, but it was, it was a huge conversation. And there are just so many questions on the day of about how this would all go down. And we can look back and be like, yeah, that seems like forever ago. It was earlier in session and whatever, whatever. But it was certainly not baked, you know, from the get-go. And it kind of reminds me, different situation, but in terms of it being a bit of an afterthought. It reminds me of the Slayton expulsion in 23. I remember when we were doing

something like this that year, a recap, I'm like, holy cow, I forgot the Slate and expulsion happened. Yeah, yeah. Right? Because we had impeachment. We had the property tax fight. We had the school choice special sessions. We had the lead up to the primary and Abbott backing all these opponents. And you look back and you're like, wait a second. Wasn't a legislator expelled for the first time in a century? Unanimously? Unanimously. And it's, um, it feels like that in a way in terms of it surprisingly being a bit of an afterthought because of everything else that happened after that. Absolutely.

Yeah. Wild. And we'll see what the governor does this cycle. I mean, that's a whole other thing. Well, that's a 2026 conversation, but he's already outlined where his attention will be in these primaries. Well, and we see, this has happened already, so we can talk about it as a recap. But the table is set for a continuation of the fight that Patrick and Abbott had on THC except over property taxes. If you would have told us two years ago that it would be a lieutenant governor and the governor at odds over policy publicly, right?

I'm talking publicly. And not the lieutenant governor and whoever the speaker would be at that time. We would have been like, that's hilarious. And here we are. Yes. And, man, it's getting tense. This is compression. This is homestead exemption.

This is the classic slate. Now, they don't want to come out and elbow each other publicly, but there are hurt feelings on both sides of this over this issue. And we saw the governor when he announced for re-election, rolled out his five-point plan, and I must say, I was absolutely flabbergasted to see not just an appraisal cap on his list, but an appraisal cap that's lower than the thing that got torpedoed in 23. Dade Field and pushed for a 5% of praise of cap across the board. Greg Abbott, in his plan, is pushing for 3%. And whatever you think of the policy, politically, that seems risky. And unless you're willing to just use that as leverage, say, all right, you know, I'll get rid of that if you give me more of what I want over here.

Maybe that's a strategy. Might be a good strategy. But that thing destroyed the session. that caused the multiple special sessions. That caused things not passing at the end of the legislative regular session that probably would have otherwise because of the property tax fight. Major derailment. Yes. Patrick, Paul Vettincourt, the Senate have not backed off that.

They are focused on the homestead exemption. And so Abbott laid out this, I think it was a list of five things. And a lot of it's about putting more restrictions on local governments, whether it's in taxation or spending. But there is that appraisal cap piece, and he also wants to put on the constitutional amendment ballot a proposition to eliminate constitutionally school district property taxes, specifically the M&O rate.

So that is something Patrick has been generally critical of. He's the one guy that's been pouring cold water on the idea of eliminating property taxes, at least publicly and forthrightly. If you ask these legislators about it, they were like, yeah, I'd love to do it and eliminate property taxes. But they're like, what are we going to do financially? Because as Patrick says, just to eliminate the school taxes, and I think it's just the M&O rate, but it might be all of it. You'd need $40 billion of additional revenue, and that's something you have to continue to appropriate every session after session. Where's the state getting that money?

Well, they have to cut spending. Nobody wants cut spending. You know, the Texas budget, if we're going to compare it to the U.S. the federal budget, yeah, it's like as fiscally responsible and conservative as you can get. Yeah. But the year that we started doing this, the budget was like $250-ish billion. Now it's $338 billion. It's a massive increase.

A lot of that's from spending post-COVID because of all those factors. But that's a lot of money. And that's seven years, sure, but that's the legislature means every other year. So talk about a compounding increase there. It's not like they're increasing that each year. This is every other year that that increase is taking place. Well, and the state of Texas has a lot of expenses. You know, this state is booming economically.

But it's not just like fairy dust. You have to provide services that can match the additional footprint, whether it's people or businesses. Look at the water fight. There's a ton of businesses that are looking at Texas. and thinking, yeah, I'd love to go there. I love how there's no income tax. But am I going to have enough water? Or am I going to be charged super high bills for water use?

That's a case where the state has to spend money in order to compensate for all this growth. Electricity as well. You know, that's another massive issue of over the last, you know, six years, which for me has been, you know, a huge part of my cover. These kind of dry issues. We talked about at the beginning of session how infrastructure, water, and electricity, we're going to be three of the huge key points, this legislative session. And they will continue to be. And they're uninteresting. They're dry. Sure. But they're arguably more important than a lot of other things the legislature addresses. And it's the state that's growing like Texas, specifically in certain areas of the state.

Not only do you have to address these things, but it's becoming more and more urgent. And I think we heard more of this session than in previous sessions, at least the last few, statewide officials and lawmakers talking about, okay, yes, things are good now, but one day they won't be because that's how life works. What are we going to do when the surplus is not what it is now? What are we going to do when things change? We have to plan for that. And we will not always have this money to play around with and have pet projects, do what we wish with,

outline, you know, key priorities. That's not always going to be the case. And I think Texas can feel a little bit safe in that regard because there's a lot. history. At least we've been, you know, experiencing that kind of economic climate for a long time now, but it's not, it has not been that long. And I think lawmakers really tuned into that a little bit more this cycle talking about that in committee hearings and press conferences and it's top of mind. Yeah. And then on top of that, you know, on property taxes, whatever you do has to be sustainable financially. And let's say they took the whole surplus.

that they put, that they had this session, which was $24 billion, I think it was, something like that. Yeah. It wasn't as big as the $1.23, but it was still really big. I said they put the whole pot of that in there. Well, A, that doesn't even get you to eliminating school property taxes in terms of using it for compression. Excuse me, but B, that's a one-time expenditure. And if you don't have that money coming in again, then you're going to have to drop that out of the next budget and guess what? Rates are going to go back up, and then you're really going to have people

feeling the pain of a massive bill increase. These are the types of tough, very difficult tradeoffs that legislators have to make in addressing these issues, and especially property taxes. And then on top of that, you get in the legislature and you're beset by all kinds of interests. And yeah, it's really easy for whoever you are, whether you're an energy lobbyist, whether you're a conservative activist, whether you're a school teacher, it's really easy for you to say to a legislator, hey, you should only care about my issue, and this is all that matters, right? They're getting that from dozens of different angles.

And everybody else. And that's just on one issue, property taxes. Think about all the other stuff. So it's really difficult to make decisions on this. that are suitable to everyone, and their constituents are everybody. So you can't just say, well, I voted for you in the primary, therefore you've got to do what I say. When they get there, they're representing everyone in their district. And that doesn't mean that certain policy points are not better than other policy points, right?

And make that argument. But the reason stasis happens, and the status quo continues largely, is it's really difficult to an Act massive reform, and eliminating property taxes would be a massive, massive reform. And I will add, it would require a replacement to some degree of that revenue coming in, whether that's passing income tax, which would require unamending the Constitution, and then passing it, which will never happen, or increasing the sales tax. But I like to remind people, when that prospect gets brought up, in 2019, there was a a proposal to do a tax swap. I think it was one cent for one cent. One cent sales tax increase

for one cent by compression of local rates. It went down in flames. It didn't even get to a vote. It went down in flames so fast. So our voters can approve a 20 cent sales tax increase? Heck no. These are the problems that these officials have to deal with in reforming this issue. it's ultimately why we're kind of stuck between the lanes of what's been politically feasible, which is a fight over how much money goes into compression and how much money goes into a homestead exemption. Now the governor's trying to expand that with his policy slate, and maybe he has luck with it, maybe he doesn't. But the reason Patrick is so much behind a homestead exemption increase is because money that goes there goes further for that tax-based constituency, which are homeowners.

And part of his plan that he wants to do I didn't mention was lowering the age of getting a senior homestead exemption. And Patrick has prioritized that for years now, and his thinking is that not just the monetary thing that a dollar there goes further than a dollar in compression because it's a smaller tax base that you're reducing rates for, or reducing tax bills for. But philosophically, he sees homeownership as a societal good and wants to make it more, wants to make it easier for that to be done, be more available for more people. However, the counter to that would be, and it is going to be voiced, especially if we get to this policy fight in the session, is that by prioritizing older individuals, homeowners, make it harder for younger people to buy homes. And he is, he also wants to increase the standard homestead exemption, so that applies to everybody. But all of this is a question of trade-offs. Where do you put, where do you distribute the burden of the tax base, right? And that's why we're kind of tinkering at the margins, largely.

I mean, ground has been gained and made, but as far as like transformative change, not happening. Yeah. And I don't see it happening next session. And that's where we go back to the politics of this, because I think, again, the governor or lieutenant governor, this will be very interesting to see. One, how it's handled personally and interpersonally from both of them, but also policy-wise what we end up with at the end of the day, if anything, and how many special sessions that could result in. Like, there are so many questions in property taxes. You'd think, you know, this is something Republican, and Republicans and Democrats, frankly, talk about all the time, specifically Republicans. And you'd think there would be some unity.

And I think a lot of folks, when campaigns, these enrolls around, all they see in their ads, their TVs online, just ads about property taxes, everyone agrees. This is a problem. How do we address it? And especially with the ground gained at the federal level on immigration and the border, this is now the biggest issue, especially in Republicans. It just flips back and forth between these two. That's just how it goes. And with a different administration in the White House, we have a very different set of issues that will be talked about this primary cycle. But that doesn't make it any easier to actually solve the issue. No, of course not. Of course not. Well, you want to do a look ahead now? Let's do a look ahead. So top of the ticket, it changed up quite a bit in the last week.

What were your thoughts watching from the sidelines on this? It was wild. Well, we talked about it a little bit on the weekly roundup, but if you would have told me how the dominoes fell with Crockett and Allred, Eckhart, and V.C. I mean, V.C. was very interesting to me. This is sitting congressmen saying, hey, I'm actually going to run for Tarrant County Judge. Yeah. Which there is an argument to be made that that's a winnable for sure for a Democrat in Tarrant County.

And it definitely gives Democrats a better candidate, stronger candidate for that seat. Absolutely. And there's a lot to be said there. But still fascinating, kind of crazy. Of course, Republican Tim O'Hare currently holds that position. But I think a lot of folks after those announcements came down were just like, okay, what conversations happened behind the scenes for this all to happen at the very last minute? And conversations didn't have.

And how many feet were stepped on, feelings were hurt, like so much happened that I think Republicans were looking at this, which Republicans are unorganized too with these kinds of things. Like, oh, they should have gotten their, you know, their act together. It's like, okay, yeah, the easier so than done. Easier said than done. Come on. But still, that was, I think, the big story in my mind was, yeah, the wild and unorganized seemed nature of this and how huge these shifts were.

This wasn't just like, oh, I'm going to run for this other congressional seat because the maps changed. That's not what this was. It was insane. Yeah. Well, it... All read namely was... Yes. Very surprising.

Very surprising. We'd heard it the night before that it was going to happen. And it turned out to be true, of course. But this Crockett v. Tala Rico matchup is fascinating. I love watching the online discourse about it, too. It's very, like Democrats and comment sections, which is not real life, mind you. But it's interesting. You know, some will be like, oh.

I'm so glad Crockett's, and another would be like, Tala Rico is the only one who can win against, you know, a Republican. It's interesting. Well, it's also a difference in philosophy on path forward for Democrats and making next year competitive at the top of the ticket. Polling that came out today from Texas State University, and it's still early. So, like, I wouldn't put too much stock into the head-to-head numbers,

which was Crockett 51, Tala RICO 43, which actually, I think, is not that bad for Tala RICO. But in my mind, the most interesting question or questions that were asked shows those two paths in priority. One question was, which candidate do you think is more capable of mobilizing the base to turn out next year, the Democratic base? And Crockett was way up on that. On the flip side, the question was asked, which candidate essentially do you think expands the

tent more and brings in more crossover voters? Talarico was way up in that. Which way, Western man? Which way are you going? You really got to, you can pick one or the other. And, you know, maybe when push comes a shove, at Talariko's the nominee, he does a lot better job at pulling in or motivating the base than what this dynamic shows.

But this is how they're thinking about it right now, at least voters in the Democratic primary. They're placing these candidates into buckets. Yes. And those are the buckets they're being placed in. What did you think of Krockets? We haven't actually even talked about this personally. the ad that she rolled out with with the announcement.

I think it shows exactly what that question showed is that she is going for, she believes Democrats can win by mobilizing their base, which is to me a strange gamble given the fact that this is not a purple state. This is a red state. Now, it's not Oklahoma. This is not an R plus 20 state, but it is a Republican favorable state. R-58, yep. and she is betting the house on just turning people out.

Yeah. Because she is electric and a third rail and her entire campaign messaging is going to be anti-Trump. Not just anti-affordability problems caused by the, you know, allegedly caused by the Republican administration. It's specifically Trump. and that was enough to pull a lot of people out to vote that hadn't before at least four Democrats in 2018 and you know the question is can Democrats replicate that much and you know they went into last year thinking oh yeah we can do this because we can we can replicate 18 because Ted Cruz is on the ballot again well it's not the same Ted Cruz as 2018 but also it wasn't the same cycle

Trump was at the top of the ticket Republicans had a wave Now I think that was an anomaly of an election for Republicans I don't think we're going to see that again Not anytime soon But 2018 was also an anomaly for Democrats

So I think we're going to be somewhere in the middle And really for Democrats a successful cycle is not winning the U.S. Senate race It's making it at least somewhat competitive but also driving success down ballot. And if they can retake some of these battleground seats in the House, I think it's typed it out in my article.

Yeah, the looking forward article that either is going out soon after this or already has. I think there's three, maybe four. If they retake all those and they hold place a seat, that should be... We're talking state house for folks that... That should be a good cycle. Also, denying Republicans the five seats. Congressional map. And I think they will. I think it's going to be tough to get four. I don't think they'll get five. I think they've got, they certainly have two. Republicans have two

that they'll win. That's 32 in Dallas and nine in Houston. And we're talking about real 30,000 perspective quickly. When we talk about redistricting that happened in the legislature of these special sessions, it was specifically the congressional maps. And the Republicans aimed to get five new red seats to shore up a little bit more margin come these midterms with Trump in the White House, which historically are bad for the incumbent party, whoever's in the White House. So that was kind of the aim here. There are five seats outlined as, you know, flips. Yes. That could be, you know, newly Republican. How many of those seats do Republicans actually take? That's the question. I think probably three. I think they win 32 and nine pretty fairly easily. Those are

R-60s, both in the partisan rating, 35 is Dicier. That's R-55, and in a bad year that Democrats can win that. And I noticed filing deadline day, John Lira filed for that seat. And so that's not a nobody. That is actually a pretty good candidate for Democrats in that seat. Maybe he doesn't win the primary, but he's the only name that I recognized on that side of the ledger in that race. then you look at the two south texas districts and those are no way at all guarantees

you shouldn't even feel good about them if you're republicans for a couple of reasons first of all 34 don't know who the nominee is going to be it's looking like it might be mara flores again and we'll have for the third time a matchup between her and vicente Gonzalez uh but it's it's a democratic held district It's an R-52 balance on the partisan index, so still Republican-friendly slightly. They all are.

Right. But this is not a Republican-friendly cycle. Oh, you're right. Because they were all drawn as Trump plus 10, but that's not the same as average-out partisan leaning. So that one, maybe you give it slightly to Myra Flores or whoever the nominee is give the advantage. But in a bad year, that's going to go the other way. Just how bad it is the going to be a republicans? Does the bad year go all the way down there?

to the south part of the state does Because South Texas is still the biggest question And I think that's where Republicans And I don't, you know, they can't take South Texas for granted Just because they had these, they had these insane gains in 2024 Yeah Really, really, really notable But again, like you said, Trump was at the top of the ticket

It was a totally different opera Like it was entirely different In what we're seeing now Well, and then, you know, Republicans They were jumping for joy when Jasmine Crockett jumped in And there's a lot of Democrats that are really mad at her The Speaker Mike Johnson had some funny remarks too Like, this is all over the country, people are talking about this.

For example, I forget the exact wording, but I saw, say, Raphael and Chia make a snarky remark about her jumping in. Oh, interesting. And I just saw it, like, 40 minutes ago, but it was something along the lines of, does she only care about herself or something like that? So there's a lot of trepidation about the prospect of her being the top of the ticket. You know, I can already see the ads being run by Republicans. against Crockett in South Texas that show her comment in which she said called she said Hispanics in South Texas who voted for Trump have a slave mentality. Now, whether that's out of context or not doesn't matter because they're going to run the ads.

They can plaster it all over whatever they want. Yep, they're going to run the ads for sure. And then you'll, the biggest coup for Republicans in their mind is, if they can get her to actually be the nominee. They think they have a path to salvation in what is looking like a bad cycle for Republicans via her being the nominee. Now, maybe she wins it,

and she manages to assuage all those concerns and it's not a big issue, but I think it will be. Republicans are going to put all their eggs, just like they put a lot of their eggs in the boys and men's, in girls' sports issue last year against Colin.

all red they're going to do this for her on that yeah so that's a factor to watch and then the other congressional seat we haven't mentioned was henry quay ours that is still that where do we start with that one yeah bring me a presidential pardon uh i think we got started the way the map was drawn first which was it got bluer it went from d 51% to d53 so um now you have a situation where Donald Trump was pardoned, or not Donald Trump pardoned Henry Quayar, and clearly expected him to either not run for re-election or run as a Republican in exchange for it based on what Trump said on Twitter after a true social afterwards. But now you have a situation where not only has that district been made bluer, but the main point of ammunition against Quayar has been eliminated by the head of your own party. in the pardon. So that is a crazy race, and it'll be him versus Tano Tierra,

who is the former Webb County judge, a party flipper. The other race that is not part of the redistricting five, but is very much something that we should be watching, is the 15th congressional district, and that is Monica Dela Cruz, Republican incumbent, against Tano music star Bobby Polito. That is a seat. The Democrats really think they can flip.

That's a wild filing day situation that I think got overlooked maybe a little bit because of everything else that was going on. But it's wild that race. Yeah. Well, we already knew he was running, but he was the last person to file. That's the thing. And it's going to be fun to watch. Like, that one's going to be fun. And that is vulnerable for Republicans for the same reason that those other two seats in South Texas are.

Yeah. That one, though, is an R-55. TPI balance. So it's still favorable towards Republicans, but it is a different district. It was changed. Just like in 34, I think all of Hidalgo County was taken out, which hurts, which hurts Vicente Gonzalez. And then it was connected up into Nuesis County. But a lot of those Nuesis County exchange was, you know, Democratic voters. So Republicans are leaving a lot up to, to whether they continue the gains among Hispanics in South Texas. And given how the economy seems to be right now,

a lot of hesitation, a lot of trepidation about it, if we're in a situation eight, nine months from now where the economy's kind of at least starting to look like it's taking a nosedive, that is only good for Democrats at the ballot box and bad for Republicans. Yep. Especially in these middle, ground seats in South Texas.

What else we have to look ahead here for 2026? Let's talk open seats. This is a theme that I think is pretty interesting. 41 open seats across the state and federal levels. Some of it is people running for other office. Ken Paxton running for U.S. Senate, of course. Chip Roy running for Attorney General, Mays Middleton, Joan Huffman running for Attorney General. I wish we could talk about that Aege's race for 30 minutes.

It's fascinating. But there's a clear trend here. People don't like being in Congress, especially if you're a Republican who is staring down the barrel of a losing the majority next year. Not only is it unpleasant from a personal level where you have to be all the way across the country away from your family a lot. But it's harder to pass things. It's harder. We're continuing resolutions to fund the government constantly.

Probably it's going to be, we're going to have a lot of. lot more government shutdowns. At least that's the way it looks like it's going, unless there's a course correction. So it's personally unpleasant. Then it's politically unpleasant because so much power is centralized in the Speaker's Office. Committee chairs do not have the power they used to, and therefore committee members don't have the power they used to. The only influence you get, if you're just a run-of-the-mill member, is if you're willing to say outlandish things on TV. Yeah. And sometimes there's absolutely utility for that when it comes to political maneuvering,

but that's not the whole job. And we're seeing people get elected to Congress who think that's the whole job. And then those who don't have a stomach for it, not wanting to adopt it. And if they're at retirement age, why not step off side? Especially if you're going to be out of the majority next year, what's the point in sticking around? And so congressional wise, we see a lot of open seats there. In the legislature, we see a lot of open seats. More seats in the state Senate than we've seen in a while.

That's a lot of experience leaving. Yeah. You know, it's for various different reasons. Like Kelly Hancock got appointed to be acting comptroller. Brandon Creighton is now the Texas Tech Chancellor. If Joan Huffman were to win the primary, she will be the nominee for Attorney General and probably win that. People are moving on to different things. and that's going to bear consequences next session

when there's a lot of freshman and chairman. Yeah. Let's say John Huffman does win. She's the finance chair. That's huge. Who writes the budget? Yeah. Well, just a couple sessions ago, it was Huffman and Nelson.

They were the, you know, finance and state affairs. Those were the two that were at the helm of a lot of what the lieutenant governor was pushing through the Senate. And now there's the potential that both of them could be gone after this. I mean, we have the Secretary of State currently, you know, Jane Nelson is there and has been for a little while now. But regardless, that's a huge change in having those two ladies out of the Senate. I do also think going back to what you said about lifestyle and lawmakers and how they choose to run for different offices, I think people forget that a lot of times.

When you are, let's say you have a county judge who's considering running for something in Austin, that's a huge lifestyle change for somebody who's able to kind of just commute to work like a regular person in some way, shape, or form to the county offices. go do their job. Okay, now... At places they have an actual salary. Yes, absolutely. That's also a huge win, right? Or a county commissioner seat, something like that, that you are, you know, entrenched to locally.

Well, look at Tony Tenderholt, jumping from state rep back to the county commission. Absolutely. And he'll commute down to the office, assuming he wins, it's likely to, and that's how that will go. There's no six-month sprint, five-month sprint for the legislative session and special sessions and time away from family and renting an apartment in Austin and figuring how to bring your family down when you can. and navigate that whole thing. And that's just state level stuff. Let's talk about somebody who moves from the state level or at the local level to some sort of D.C., like a congressional seat.

That's a whole different ballgame. And you're basically moving your life in so many ways. But living kind of two lives, both here in Texas, because you should be in your district for a significant portion of the year, but also you're in D.C. vote. This is not some sort of like part-time legislature as it is in Texas. That lifestyle difference is huge. I think of somebody like Briscoe-Cain, you know, we're going from. from state rep and running for a congressional seat.

That's a huge change in lifestyle, especially for someone with the young family. Can people do it? They do it all the time. But is that a huge part of the conversation that happens in these families when they decide what they're going to do next or if they're going to run for something different?

Absolutely. Well, and then, you know, for the legislative side, it's becoming a situation where it's not a part-time legislature. We're in specials all the time, it seems. It's kind of like we have an election. year and we have a legislative year. It's not that six-month thing. Like, it's a legislative year and it's a campaign year. And if you're only making $7,200 a year plus whatever the per diems during

the session are, what's the, if it's no longer pleasant, what's the incentives to stay? Right. Now, there's the per diems there. You can use campaign funds to rent your apartment. Like, that's what campaign funds are there for is covering a lot of the costs that it takes to be a legislator. But it's not like you're making money doing this. And you're not pocketing it. Right. Or you shouldn't be. But no, you aren't pocketing it. right and the last couple cycles have been very grueling 21 they were in special session until I think October pretty much and there was the corn break so a lot of especially Democrats yeah a lot of Democrats were in D.C. for a month whatever you

think about their political move on that that is tough to do on it's tough on them it's tough on their families that's why there was such question about whether they do it again this year because it just happened. And not only were Republicans really pissed off about it, but Democrats were pissed off about it. So there's a lot of personal sacrifice here involved in these positions. And so when you get to the point where you've had enough, of course you're going to retire.

And now you have a lot of open seats. And I forget the exact number of state house seats, but it's going to be a really big, It's going to be a really big freshman class next year, maybe not quite as big as last year, because we won't see all of the upsets that we did last year in terms of beating incumbents. But we have all these retirements, and then you'll probably have a few incumbents like normal, maybe lose one or two, whoever it is, particularly if Democrats can flip some seats. but it's just becoming less and less pleasant to do the job

and more and more taxing on a personal level. And so that is a theme that is really marking next year. We don't have the referendum on House leadership, but we do have this. And another thing we do have, where we don't have an anti-incolvent speaker push, in the primaries, we do have a couple themes in terms of proxy fights.

And the two big ones, of course, casino gambling. We've already seen that play out in SD9. There was, what, $6 million spent in that race? That was Lee Wams-Gonz and John Huffman. John Huffman. Yep. Which was interesting to see after that race, Joan Huffman's polling numbers jumped in terms of initial, I think, initial ballot ID. So interesting. It had to be at least some spillover from John Huffman and all the money that was spent backing him in that race. I never did see a breakdown of the geographic side of it. But that's also worth noting is those television buys those ads that are going out to people's cell phone.

Like, it's not, they try and target as best they can for the district, but there's a lot of spillover into other areas where those people aren't even voters. Yep. So that, the casino gambling fight is going to continue. Adelson, Miriam Adelson, all the groups that are backing that general issue, they're trying to wait out Dan Patrick. But they can't just wait them out. They have to regain some ground that they lost.

because in 23, they actually had votes on the floor in the house, and one of them passed. I think it was the sports gambling one that passed the house. Yep. So they need to regain some of the ground and momentum to set the table for whenever Patrick does retire. And then that lieutenant governor's race, imagine how much money is going to be spent in that. Just by the casino interests alone. Yeah. Because they cannot have another situation where you have an entrenched lieutenant governor.

who isn't opposed to gambling, if they're ever going to want to get their thing across the line, right? And of course the governor is part of this, too. But Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is the one that's been the most publicly opposed. There was a development on that end, too, that's not good for the casino guys. Abbott backed off his previous tacit support for casino gambling resort expansion. And, you know, maybe that's just a response to the butt kicking that was done during the SD9 special. Maybe that's part of it.

But I think there's also growing concern about the consequences, the negative consequences. Yeah. Which SD-9, you also could throw in Trump as a huge factor in that race. It was not just casino gambling, right? I mean, Wams Gone's had the Trump endorsement. All the money was there for casino gambling, but that was not the only factor in that race. But it was one, absolutely. But it's worth mentioning that they were, you know.

Well, the reason that she had the Trump endorsement was Dan Patrick, and Dan Patrick knew that the casino interests were going to come for that seat. And so that's not the only reason that he picked her or whoever that person was going to be opposite John Huffman, but that is part of it. Yeah. You know, he doesn't want to lose this proxy fight. So that will continue. We'll see some isolated, I think, examples of that coming in. You know, H.D. 98, Armin Mazzani versus Fred Tate comes to mind for that, but that also comes to mind for another reason the thing I'll talk about after this.

the HG94, the Tenderholt seat, I think there will be a casino aspect of that. Jackie Schlegel against Cheryl Bean, but there are others in the race too, but those are generally the big ones. There's also other themes to that that we won't go into because it would take way too much time to adequately describe. But you're going to see this in multiple spots in the house. You'll also see the other proxy fight. that I'm watching most is the tort reform stuff. Marklehood. Marklehood, David MacArthur is the big one.

You know, after session, TLR put out that email that was really taking to task a bunch of Republicans in the legislature, including the Speaker. And the question was, after that, they had some shakeup after that. You had a couple board members leave. You had the Dick Trabolsi leave get asked to retire, basically,

and then now Ryan Patrick, son of Dan Patrick's coming in to be CEO of intake Dick Trubolese's position. But after session, the positioning looked to be like they were going to go into all-out war against a bunch of different people, which may or may not include the speaker. I think they have since moved away from that, and they're focusing instead on getting one scalp, and maybe not one scalp only, but more than anything else, one scalp, and that's Marklehood. The reason for that is he was the swing vote in the JCJ committee that his opposition to their original proposal is what forced them to water it down enough into a basically medical malpractice bill. Another fight during session we didn't talk about that took up so much of the legislative energy.

And they, TLR eventually lost a bunch of new Republican members voted against them and sided with Democrats. Interesting case of horseshoe theory there. And the other aspect of that is, you know, a lot of those new members who voted against or voted for the Moody Amendment that killed, that put the TLR bill in the grave, they were brought in in no small part thanks to TLR money based on the school choice. issue. So to some degree, TLR was an author of its own destruction in that specific instance. But they're also facing the headwinds of a changing Republican Party. And they are more than anybody else. I would say probably. Maybe like top three force responsible for moving Texas from blue to purple to red in terms of Republicans sweeping everything. They've been the financial backbone for many, many. Recent history.

Yes. And now they're finding themselves on the outs in conjunction with the general populist shift of the Republican Party. And that populist shift lends itself to the case of the personal injury attorneys. And it is kind of just speaking from a Republican Party perspective. It's like very, I mean, I say this very loosely, like the Bush to Trump transition in Texas Republican Party politics. And that's a national shift. That's right. It's very obvious in Texas because Bush, right. But it is, yeah, you're right, it's national.

There's also personal grudges here. You know, like a lot of the ill will towards TLR stems from whatever their involvement was, real or alleged, but perception is reality in these cases, whatever their involvement was in the Paxon impeachment. And they argue that they did not have anything to do with it. The other side argues that they very much did. and they'll never agree on that. But it is causing people to change their decision-making in these issues. And it's causing people who may have been otherwise friendly to TLR

not be friendly on the policy front. So that's going to play out in a few different races, but particularly Markle Hood. I just saw the tweet out yesterday. I couldn't believe seeing this. A Newsmax anchor just like took to task Markle Hood. calling him a liberal, which is funny because he was, you know, brought in as the anti-Steve-Alison Abbott-hand-pick candidate who, you know, nominally more conservative.

There'll be fights about that, but that was the juxtaposition they were using, and now he's getting called a liberal by the, by a Newsmax anchor who lives in D.C. or New York and it's never, my understanding, lived outside of New York, certainly never lived in Texas. But it looked like a campaign ad. Yeah, it was wild. You know? Like, I've never seen anything like that. You know, it's one thing to spotlight a crazy race, and it certainly is.

There's already lots of money being spent. But for a news anchor to jump in like that, especially one who's like, you know, if it was Chris Salcedo jumping in on this, who is on Newsmax, that wouldn't shock me as much because he's a, first of all, he's a Texas radio host. Right. And he gets himself involved in all these fights. He also, though, would not take that position. I don't think. I think Salcedo would be more on the other side, which is interesting. But anyway, it looks like a campaign ad.

There's a lot of money being spent behind the scenes in pushing these two agendas forward. And it's just really interesting. I think the most interesting factor of next cycle. Yeah. School choice not on the docket anymore. Nope. A little bit of a pivot to say the least. School choice, and then also no referent.

Right-wing referendum on House leadership. Paxon impeachment is part of that. Broadly speaking, that, you know, back to session, boroughs made a concerted effort to pass more Republican Party priorities than ever before, and they did, and they passed, like, 41 to 43. Which the Republican Party of Texas has been very vocal about. Yeah. And whether you care about them or not, like, they have a constituency,

and it's a very loud constituency, which gives them some power. So, Burroughs took care of that. Now, with redistricting and with that, he lost grounds among Democrats. And the question is, the question is no longer, really, can he win caucus? It's, are there a sizable number of Democrats who vote against him next cycle because of what happened, next session because of what happened this one? So, obviously, there's a lot to play in the elections next year, and who knows what the actual membership looks like? like who wins, who loses. But Burroughs' problem went from at the beginning of the year

to his right flank, now to his left flank. And that kind of further entrenches the thing that was antithetical to his candidacy and feelings before his, which was changing the way the House runs in terms of the power-sharing dynamic. And there was a lot of interests, especially on the Republican reform side, but also among Democrats, to go to more of a majority-man. minority governing system where you actually have, despite how much Gene Wu wants to say he's the minority leader, that doesn't really exist here.

Right. But they want to move to a situation where there is an actual minority leader, where the Democrats all caucus together rather than, you know, the leadership, yeah, splinter off. The leadership-friendly members stick with leadership. Which is so interesting because so much of the argument in speaker contests previously is that we're not like D.C. Yeah. And seeing that transition.

in rhetoric is fascinating. And that's a specific, like, rules-based conversation, which has a lot more to do with how things happen legislatively during the session than maybe a lot of the public knows about. But it's interesting. Well, it's something to watch for the election affecting the Speaker's race next time, not in outcome, but in what certain members do. Those South Texas guys, the reps down there,

they're going to be looking intently about. the signals from their election. You know, if they, if things swing back towards Democratic-friendly, where they have lost ground in the last couple cycles, thinking in their mind, this probably won't amount to all of their thinking, but it will play in, is do I have political cover to back a Republican speaker or, and are my constituents still trending more conservative? Yeah, these things will matter a lot in their districts and their primaries. And that will determine their vote for speaker.

And whether or not they're facing somebody in their own party challenging them. Yeah. The last thing to watch, we talked about it with property taxes, so I won't go into details, but it's just Abbott v. Patrick. How does that play in? Do we see them get involved in races against each other? What are the pressure points, the sticking points in session next time in 27? A lot to be determined there.

But right now, they're not on good terms. They might say so publicly. but they're both jockeying for position on their priorities and direction. And, you know, both of them seem like they're worried a lot about legacy. And they're both coming to the end of their careers in these spots generally at the same time. So, of course, if their priorities and what they think is a good legacy to have, if they butt up against each other, they're going. Who will emerge victorious?

Who is at least perceived as the victor? That will matter so much to these guys. So next year's going to be fun And, you know, we'll both be following it in different capacities Or at least not together anymore But yeah, been quite a ride No-oh, you're going to cry again, I could take it over more You know, I guess we'll talk about just how far we've come in Texan

And when we launched, I guess I need to correct myself From a couple of things I've said That you're not now the last person from the launch team, I have since learned that Holly was there at launch. I thought she started a couple weeks after launch. It's a couple weeks before. So, mea culpa, maya culpa, sorry, Holly. That's my bad.

She'll appreciate that. Yeah. But when we launched, you know, we were beset with accusations about being, you know, funded by nefarious forces. also we had a lot of confusion and people thought we were they heard her name and like oh the Daily Texan the UT paper yeah yeah then we knew who the heck we were which of course they didn't we were new yeah that's well done I said I've come a long way too in my personal so yeah it's been it's been awesome and you know thanks to first and foremost to Connie to Phil

for starting this thing. A lot of people have, particularly on the political right, have complained about the state of the media, and, you know, I have my own views about all of that. But a lot of people have complained and then just complained. Connie and Phil put their money where their mouth was, and they built something.

Yeah. And it's a huge testament to everyone who has worked here, how far we've come and how respected we are in the building. and it, you know, personally, the only thing I knew about Texas politics when I got here was Greg Abbott was governor. And now I know a heck of a lot more than that. But, you know, that's part and parcel of building something new and bringing talent in that maybe from unorthodox places. They didn't go to J schools and hire people that have always wanted to be reporters. I never knew I wanted to be a reporter. It was never in the cards for me. I didn't go to J school. But clearly it's

worked out, and it's my favorite job I've ever had. And just really thankful. Thankful for it all. Thankful to work with you for so many years. And it's just been a blessing. Yeah. Never thought. I never even been to Texas before I came here, and here I am, and here I stay. But do you know a little bit more than Greg Abbott being governor? Hopefully a lot more than just that. Yeah, and thanks to everyone I've met in this job outside the workplace. Like you can't, this entire job is relational. You can't do this job sitting in front of a computer all day, especially you can't do it well.

Absolutely. And it has been fun meeting everyone. in tech sludge community, whether it's reps, senators, big three, staffers, lobbyists, everybody, activists, it's all been an experience unlike anything else. And I was on the first day of session this year. I had Mary Lease with me and she was kind of my shadow all session and the strides she made She killed it. It was fun to watch.

Remarkable, especially for such a young woman and, like, being thrown into this world of craziness. She's been amazing to watch and build her career. But I was standing on the floor and covering the speaker vote. My favorite thing I've ever covered at this. I had, especially the timing. It's good to hear you say that because at the moment, when that was all going down,

You were stressed. Oh, yeah. But I was getting the big turning points that happens. Those were yours, yeah. Those were mine. Mine to put out, not my decisions to make. No. The access I had is thinking back about when nobody knew who the heck we were.

And when I called a constable down in Bear County and said, hey, is a constable, whatever your name is from Bexar County there? And he's like, you ain't from around here. boy, are you? I never made that mistake again. But I remember one time. Okay, keep going. But going from that to knowing how this was going to play out before it happened, generally, you know, you never know if there's a last minute surprise. But because I had been following it so much, because I had all the inside access, I knew about things before anybody else did. And then I got to witness it play out at eye level. Yeah. That is something I will always treasure. And, uh, I'm not going to have to stop doing it.

But that sticks with me. And that is a foundational moment for me at the Texan, for sure. Yeah. I think back, I mean, at the very beginning of the pod, I was going to mention the first time we ever talked was in an interview. I think I was screening you before you chatted with other folks here. And I remember it was a, I think it was a Zoom call, I want to say, something along those lines of his video.

And I remember just seeing you and your. room figuring out and you're like I'll move to Texas whenever tomorrow and I just think about how much of a blessing it is that the first reporter we hired turned out to be you and how your career has just taken off since then and just the value that you've brought to the company and I think so much of how we've chosen to operate like we had in our brains like a code of ethics of how we wanted to go about doing things we wanted to be above board we wanted to tell both sides of the story we wanted sources of any political stripe to trust us because we weren't going to go out and you know stab somebody in the back with information that they'd given us um we'd always be

forthright and so much of that has been instilled in the company because you were like 100% on board with that from day one and not only on board with it but instituting so much of how that would play out in story formation and sourcing and um and i think a lot of that's do all of it's do to Connie setting that standard. Saying this is how we're going to do things. Yeah. I've been burned and I hate it. And I hate this is the reputation of some of the press,

certainly not all, but a good portion of them. Obviously, Connie has her opinions on stuff, and she's very forthright about it. Yes. She's just go look at her Twitter feed. Totally. But she drew a couple bright lines in the sand from the beginning. First is that she is not involved in content.

Yep. A lot of stuff we publish. She doesn't know what publishes. Yeah, until it publish. Yeah. Until she reads it. on the website. She trusts us to handle that, those decisions.

And then the other thing is what you just mentioned. This is how we're going to do it. You are a reporter. You are not an opinion columnist. You keep your opinion out of it. You're not a gatekeeper. Not a gatekeeper. Everyone has access to you if they want it.

And also, that's how you do the job well. Yes. If you're only talking to one side, you only get part of the picture. And it's not just Republican Democrat. That's within Republican, the Republican caucus. That's within the Democratic caucus. That's inside the building, outside the building. You have to talk to as many people as you possibly can.

Otherwise, you don't know what's going on. Yeah. And if not only do you not do that, but you're just sitting at a computer reading Twitter, you can't do this job well. You can't. And I enjoy it. I enjoy that. I never viewed myself as particularly outgoing.

but certainly not, you know, a shut-in. Well, that's also something I think is worth saying about you, Bradley, is I look around. I think politics is one of the most difficult businesses to operate within and remain liked and respected in because it's so easy to, whether you mean to or not, step on toes or turn on somebody. And sometimes it's actually inadvertent,

and it just is a tough business to keep all your ducks in a row and remember the conversations you've had. But sometimes people do it on purpose. And I'm just so impressed and respect this so much about you, that you are respected by people all across the political spectrum. There are very few people, I can't even think of them, and maybe they'll email me after this and be like, screw Brad. But there are very few people, I think,

who would say that you are in any way, shape, or form against them in any professional capacity or personal capacity. Because you've very purposefully chosen to hear all sides of the story. To treat people like people, that's a huge part of, I think, what's lost in politics and everything's personal. It feels personal. It doesn't have to be, but it feels that way. And you've done an absolutely incredible job at navigating the relationships in this business. And that's resulted in you getting those kinds of scoops in a speaker's race and being as well-sourced as you are and as well-liked as you are, as much as I hate to admit it.

but it's true and um yeah i could go on and on um and the thought yeah well i said this on the weekly round up already but i'll reiterate it you know thank you to everybody who follows yeah who reads us who engages with us who listens through the podcast whether it's this one or any of the other ones and you know, thank you to you for everything. And thank you to Connie and Phil. The Texan's going to be in a different chapter. You know, when we've talked about this before,

the different chapters of the Texan, and we won't go into all those now because not all of them are fun to talk about. And this is a new one. And I have every confidence in y'all being able to hit the ground running right where we've been, pick up where we left off. The Texan brand is not going away, right?

Like, the standard is still the standard. And I am very lucky to have been a part of building an institution. And that's something very few people get to say in their lifetime. So, thank you. Bradley. Wild. Laira last day at the office, last podcast episode, it's happening. All good things come to an end

They do And we're rooting for you and cheering for you And I'm excited for what's next Thank you It means a lot What can I say that would be embarrassing To end on One time Brad asked me

If his cowboy boots should be tucked into his jeans Listen I'm a dang northerner We didn't wear cowboy boots Up there And so I truly had no idea How to wear them I did not tuck them into my jeans, though.

Because you texted me and asked. Well, yeah. That's what friends are for, right? But at that time, you'd been working for us maybe a month. Yeah. And I was like, who is this Ohioan who does not know how to wear cowboy boots? But I'm grateful to have been of service. We quickly became very close.

And I'm so grateful for that. And that part's not quite away anytime soon. I said it, but I said it in the email. But that's, I think, a big treasure for me and for Andrew Tiel. Like our little family is that how, like, dear you are to us. And, yeah, we're grateful for that. And that's not going away anytime soon. Right back at you.

Great. Good job. Okay. On that note. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying in Austin. And I won't announce what I'm doing here on this podcast, but pretty shortly after this publishes.

Time will tell. Things will happen. That's right. I'll probably thank you for everything. Thank you for everything. You know, you're welcome. Folks, thanks for listening to his final installment of smoke-filled room. I think we did pretty well.

We didn't blubbered as much as we... Well, we blubbered about as much as we thought we would, I think. But we maintained relative composure. It was a bit better than a week of the round-up, that's for sure. I think we... Because we got that out of our system. Yeah. So this is up...

Although I blubbered more this time, I think, because I had more to say, regardless. Folks, thanks for tuning in. As always, to the smoke-filled room. We appreciate your listener. your listenership, your engagement with us throughout the courses podcast. It means a lot to both of us. So thank you. And we'll catch you when we catch you. Thank you.