The Texan Podcast - Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows on Get Out the Vote 'Strike Force'

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows joined The Texan's Reporter Meridith Dyer to discuss his Speaker's Strike Force bus tour to get out the vote across the state, the biggest issues for Republicans campaigning in the leadup to November, what might feature in the 90th Legislative Session next year, and more.Listen to more interviews from The Texan wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, follow us and leave a review.

I'm Meredith Dyer reporter with the Texan, and I'm here today with Texas House Speaker, Dustin Burroughs in Lubbock, your hometown, born and raised, and you're kicking off the Strike Force tour. So you've already been pretty active on the campaign trail. I feel like whenever I turn on, it will open up X, I see a picture of you somewhere else in the state. So often with Governor Greg Abbott, campaigning for different Republican House members, what is going to be different about Strike Force? So this is what we used to do when I got my start in politics over 20 years ago. usually take Texans and go to other states. They didn't have enough Republicans and we'd try to help get out the vote. So, you know, most people are used to a bus rally where people come in a big rally and big thing. This is really a strike force. We're going to bring people to work

polls, block walk, phone bank, whatever's needed to make sure those last Republicans in each of our members districts are getting turned out and we're going to actually vote. So this is a tough election for Republicans. It's not a secret. As you're out there campaigning, what bills and legislation are you reminding them of from the past sessions to encourage them to continue voting for GOP candidates? Look, we're talking about our work on property taxes. We've done a lot there. There's more work to be done. But we're also contrasting it with where the Democrats voted to increase or have an income tax, a wealth transfer tax, a death tax. In fact, there's no tax that I think that they have met that they didn't want to impose on Texans. So when we talk about

affordability, we start with taxes. We're talking about health care costs. I've got a committee right there trying to bring price transparency and drive costs down. We're also talking about public safety. We just had a great hearing dealing with rogue DAs who are out there letting criminals off the hook and instead focusing on prosecuting our police officers, making Texans less safe. So most of those are kitchen table issues. I know that the Democrats have pushed that Republicans are still focusing too much on culture war issues that that needs to be over. What do you have to say to that the culture war is over? Well, of course they don't want to remind people of how woke and crazy they were over the last few years. I mean, you just met my three boys.

The idea that some teacher would be able to take them aside and talk to them about some of these issues or try to keep it from parents, families are not okay with that. They're tired of it. They want their children to go to school to learn, to read, to do arithmetic. They don't want to have propaganda shoved down their throats and we've continued to stop it. Texans are with us on there and the Democrats are trying to avoid the record on it. So about a quarter of your stop start, Tarrant County, Collin County area, typically Republican strongholds, but the Democrats have been really focusing on there. What do you attribute to this shift where they're kind of being attracted to those areas? So look, we took, you know,

the 30 districts that obviously or not maybe as solid Republican is the one we're hearing today in Lubbock or, you know, East Texas. And we wanted to make sure that all of those campaigns are running a full, robust campaign. We had a huge meeting with every Republican on June 2nd. In Austin, we went over it. We talked about how hard they needed to work. And right now, as I look at Republican House reps across the state and where they are in the polls, I feel very confident on the outcomes in November. But I don't want to just win with a thin margin. I want to bring all the Republicans back as possible. So a lot of the strike force stops also overlapped with the Democratic legislative campaign committee, ones that they were targeting. Did that affect your planning for this?

Maybe they knew where we were going and realized where they needed to come, but we certainly didn't take a look at what they're doing. We just have been focused since June 2nd on getting out talking to voters and making sure our candidates, they've been doing a fantastic job. They really have. I could not be more proud of the different House member who's gone out there. They've spent their summers block walking, holding town halls, talking to voters about real issues. And you might notice there's a star for each of them up and down the sides of the bus, and they've really done a great job. So from what you've seen on the campaign trail so far, what are kind of issues that are challenging to Republicans are you planning to address in the next couple of weeks?

I don't know if there's any issues that are challenging. It's just a story we have to tell. Whether it's affordability, which we've talked about taxes, health care issues, making sure that we try to drive down the cost of health care. We've got some great ideas, things I used to work on in 2017, that during the interim, or just public safety. Real issues that most Texans are very concerned about. So talking about property taxes, which is what everybody is talking about,

I listened to an interview that you did after your very first session recently. So it was 11 years ago. It was a while ago. You looked a little different. But you were talking about property taxes then. And so as you're campaigning for these Republican candidates, what are you telling voters to give them confidence that these Republicans will be able to ensure long-lasting property tax relief? Yeah.

One of the things that you never get to hear about is what property taxes would have been if we'd not put $51 billion into buying down the through compression and homestead. They would have obviously been much, much more significant. and we really have throttled the growth. Next session, we've got to focus on continuing to drive that down, if not fully eliminating the school maintenance and operation tax. So one of your slogans for, or the slogan is one mission, one party. And so there are two different property tax proposals put forth by the governor and lieutenant governor. We know this.

And you mentioned some of the aspects of them. If elected speaker, what do you see your role being to help bring that unity of one mission when it comes to property taxes? Yeah, so look, I mean, you both have two great ideas out there. We're going to figure this out. I'm a former Ways and Means Chair 2019. We did probably the most significant property tax reform, making sure the voters have an approval anytime a city or a county wants to go over 3.5% growth. I have some ideas that are different than those, the two plans that you've heard, but I think we're going to come together. I have a great relationship with the governor, lieutenant governor. They both care deeply about this issue. They're both committed to working together and getting this done.

and I think, you know, we're going to have a plan that everyone's going to be happy with. Can you share with us any of those ways that they differ? Well, I think it's too soon to say how it's going to land, but there's a lot of really good components of both plans. And we're going to get in a room. We're going to figure this out. But we will not leave next session without having a historic, big property tax relief and reformed session. How long and drawn out do you think that'll take?

Because we hear a lot of jokes about being there for a long time, a lot of special sessions. No special sessions. I'm calling it already. Okay, you heard it here first. I have one last question. You recently received the Cicero Courage Award this weekend. I'm just curious, what does courage look like to you in the 90th session? You know, I talked about this a little bit.

Very honored Joe Lonsdale presented it to me. The Cicero Institute's been doing a lot of really good work. It is people who get elected and actually want to do the job they're elected to do, representing. We've gotten into a form of government where people want to have mean tweets. They want to say, you know, snarky things and they get rewarded by a lot of likes. That's not legislating. You know, actually getting in there, rolling up your sleeve, accomplishing things and getting things done, that's what courage is. And I think there's a lot of House members, the tremendous overwhelming majority of them, they want to go there and represent their district.

They want to represent their values. They want to get things done for the state of Texas and not just try to look different by doing it. Okay. Speaker Burroughs, thank you so much. Thank you.