The Texan Podcast - Texas Primary Postmortem: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 1

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

In the first episode of The Texan's new "Smoke Filled Room" podcast, Senior Editor McKenzie DiLullo and Senior Reporter Brad Johnson discuss the aftermath of the landmark 2024 Texas Primary Election.They discuss the impact and effects of the endorsements from Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton amid the push for school choice and the repercussions of the impeachment saga, Speaker Dade Phelan being pulled to a runoff election, and how scandal surrounding the departure of Speaker Dennis Bonnen still echoes through Texas politics.Use the coupon code "SMOKEFILLEDROOM" to get 10% off any hat or shirt on The Texan's store: https://store.thetexan.news/Subscribe to The Texan for full access to all of our articles, newsletters, and podcasts: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/

So it's a very dynamic situation in which we did not see any Democrats cross over the line last session and vote in favor of school choice proposals. I think there's a world in which a couple would. It depends on what kind of guardrails and whatnot they put on it. If there are any, I don't know. Yeah, what kind of bracketing is involved. Yeah. And obviously, you know, Abbott's spiking the football on the success of this crusade. Okay, Brad, when you say spiking the football, what does that even mean?

You know Gronk when he scores a touchdown? Oh, it's like a celebration. Yes. Okay. Got it. I didn't think I'd have to explain something so simple. Anyway, there's our feuding for the episode. We've been so nice to each other.

All right. feuding for the episode. We've been so nice to each other. Hello everybody. Welcome to the Smoke-Filled Room podcast with myself, Brad Johnson, and the distinguished senior editor, Mackenzie, I almost called you Taylor. I almost deadnamed you. Mackenzie DeLulo. We have been tasked with, among a bunch of other offerings that we're bringing up at the Texan, to do a podcast that is at least in name about Texas politics. But really it's about us arguing. And when we say we've been tasked with it, we mean we've assigned this to ourselves. Yeah.

I don't know if you'd call it a labor of love. No. But at the time, it sounded fun. Yes. We'll see how much enjoyment we actually get out of this. This will be interesting. I mean, you've already dead named me, so. Right. Almost. So this, for our inaugural episode, we are going to talk about the primaries, the absolute bloodletting that it was in the Texas house. A bloodbath, as some distinguished reporters have. Yes. Some have been calling it that.

I'm not going to say I made fetch happen with that, but I made fetch happen. This is the fourth time this week that Brad has said that he made fetch happen. It's my top accomplishment of this five-year stretch. That's saying something. Yeah. Top accomplishment of this five-year stretch. I'd say it's up there. Yeah. So speaking of five-year stretch, relating to what happened in the Texas primary, we're going to talk about how it relates to the big scandal that happened when we first launched that you covered about Speaker Dennis Bonin, how it relates to what we saw happen in the results last week now.

Well, this is going out next on Tuesday. This will be two weeks ago. But it was momentous. And we'll get into a bunch of other themes. But first of all, let's get your take. Mack or Mackenzie, which one am I supposed to call you on this? Brad, again, you've already dead-named me. I supposed to call you on this? Again, you've already dead named me. I'll just call you Taylor.

Great. Perfect. Give me your thoughts on what happened. In the primary generally? Well, I think we talked about it a little bit on the weekly roundup, but here's I think the big takeaway and you specifically, I want to plug, forthreading in this, you are writing a newsletter as one of our new offerings

that will go through kind of in-depth your takes on some TexLedge capital events, issues going on at the time. And your first edition talked specifically about Bonnen and his speakership, as short-lived as it was, and how it relates to what happened in these last primaries. And I really had not thought about it in that way until you brought it up. And I think there's a lot to be said for that. The Texas House is always divided politically, even within the Republican Party. Democrats, when you are the minority party, when you're the Democratic Party,

and you're in a chamber ruled by Republicans, can tend to be, at least on the surface, a little bit more unity, right? You have to band together. You're all fighting against the same man. Republicans, it's so different. You're arguing over power. And I think this last cycle, we really saw a cycle in which these more moderate liberal centrists, however you want to define them, Republicans that have been the ire of Bonin's speakership that were more in line with Speaker Strauss, who was elected by all the Democrats in a small sect of the Republican, you know, the Republicans in the House back in the day,

really faced, yes, 12, really faced some ire, some electoral ire that they had been facing for a while, but succumbed to this time, a lot of them. So that was a big, that was a huge takeaway. And yes, like Bonin's, for those who don't know, we're going to start with this. We're going to go through all the primary. We're going to talk through the details of all sorts of things today. But we are starting with Bonin. And what this really relates to and how this all started, we're going to go back to 2019. This was after Speaker Joe Strauss retired and said, I'm not running for another term.

He was a five-term Texas House Speaker, I believe the longest serving in Texas history. He was there for a very long time. And he really was governing in an entirely different way than Republicans on the grassroots level and the mainstream level wanted him to, even though he was a Republican from San Antonio. And so when Bonin took over as speaker and did so with unbelievable support from folks all across the political spectrum. I think there was a lot of hope from Republicans that this would bring in and usher in a new era of Republican governance. Whatever that looks like. Everyone had different ideas of what that would look like. But that's really what was the hope by grassroots activists and Republicans in the House.

And, you know, the lieutenant governor and the governor, whoever else, right? The party everybody. It was all of it. Everybody. It was, you know, we're really waiting to see what was going to happen. Fast forward to after the legislative session, which goes from January through May, Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans at the time came forward and said, hey, I had a meeting with the speaker, which was wild to think about MQS meeting with the speaker at this time came forward and said, hey, I had a meeting with the speaker, which was wild to think

about MQS meeting with the speaker at this time. MQS is a grassroots activist now associated with Texas Scorecard, part of the Pale Horse Apparatus. And back then it was primarily Empower Texans. And he said, hey, I had a meeting with Dennis Bonin. And he gave me a list of 10 Republican House members. The Speaker's Republican. 10 Republican House members he wants me to target and my organization to target in the next cycle. And those were, I'll list them off for you, Steve Allison, Trent Ashby, Ernest Bales, Travis Clardy, Drew Darby, Kyle Casale, Stan Lambert, Tan Parker, John Rainey, and Phil Stevenson. And if you've paid any attention to the primary side of the cycle, a lot of those names are very familiar. Oh, yes.

So that's what came out. Eventually, fast forward, a lot of folks were skeptical of MQS saying, oh, yeah, sure, that happened. Very quickly, it became apparent that it was. A recording was released. Members in the House started to defect from support of the Speaker. And eventually it resulted, all of this drama resulted in the Speaker saying he would not run for re-election. And many House members, Republicans specifically, you know, revoking their support of the Speaker after he'd been elected by, you know, I think unanimously, I think it was unanimously.

And those 10 Republicans, I think this is important to remember, that Bonnen wanted to target, that you listed, were folks who had been in that same sect of the party that would align with Strauss, with Democrats, to say, hey, we're going to elect a speaker with a bunch of Democrats and a few Republicans. Bonin was very ardently against their membership in the House. And I think skeptical, too, as a new speaker of their support for him.

Yeah. And so a bit more background, this meeting came on the heels of, you know, it has many names. It's been called the Kumbaya session, the Purple session, derogatorily, the Super Bowl session, a session that focused on two pillars above everything else, property tax relief and school finance slash teacher pay raises. And the reason that that was focused on is what happened in the midterms in 2018. The absolute shellacking that Republicans took on a state level, you know, Beto almost winning, almost beating Cruz, but that causing a lot of ripple effects down ballot.

And having, you know, Democrats taking, flipping three seats in the Senate, I think it was, including two seats in the Senate, including, you know, Connie Burton's, our bosses, and then also 12 seats, I believe, in the House. And the Democrats were talking a big game about, you know, a blue wave, we're going to build on this. You know, 2020 is going to be even worse for Republicans. And so the response was among Republicans in the legislature was to focus on, quote, bread and butter kitchen table issues. And that's why they selected property tax relief and the school funding and finance issues. And throughout the session, at least this was my first session in Texas. I was airdropped in here in the middle of it, so it was a lot to get up to speed on.

But the impression I got, and let me know what you thought being here the entire time and having the background knowledge you do, the big three were not in the good graces of Michael Quinn Sullivan's sect of the right, right? Especially towards the end when the Purple Session allegations started coming out, accusations of, you know, killing conservative bills, things like that. But I don't think it started exactly like that. I think there was a lot, like you said, there was a lot of hope among all sides of the party that this was a new Republican era with Strauss out of the loop. What do you think made it devolve to where it was by the end of the session? Well, right off the bat, I do want to say, too, that I think there were those in leadership in the legislature, like you said, focusing on the bread and butter issues.

Their aim was to not alienate voters that they were scared would betray them the next cycle. Whereas, and then you had grassroots folks saying, if we govern conservatively and boldly, then we will kind of shore up our support and also show that we aren't scared. Like that, those were the two approaches. And when the first was taken, there was a lot of disdain from the grassroots portion and Republican primary voters. A base of the Republican Party was not pleased with that at all. And I think post-session, certainly, Bonin saw an opportunity to make sure that he would be able to have some conservative policy wins the next session if he could take these guys out and really lessen the threat to his speakership. And keep in mind what was on, you know, the front porch after the next election, the 2020 election, was redistricting. And if Republicans kept their majorities, they would be able, like what they did, they shored up all kinds of districts that were otherwise, you know, in the middle, up for grabs.

Or they made red districts more red. And basically in most of those 12 districts they lost in the House, just said, all right, Democrats, you can have them. We're going to focus on keeping our majority where we're at. So that's part of the decision-making that they were including in this. Just get to redistricting. Get past the 20 election without it being another bloodbath. And Republicans will keep what they have basically for the next decade. And I think it's easy for us now in covering Texas politics

to forget how precarious it seemed for Republicans at that time because we look at the political makeup of Texas after the Beto wave and everything else, like the losing 12 seats in the House, the two seats in the Senate that Republicans lost. I think it's easy for us to forget, like you're saying, redistricting, although it was on the line. Republicans had just lost so much in the legislature. And so it really was, I think that's when the narrative about Texas turning blue really ramped up. Media very much jumped on that narrative after the Beto wave when it was the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history up until that point. I don't know if it's been broken since, but it was an unbelievable cycle where Democrats were more invigorated than ever.

And I think we've seen some Democrats have success in Texas since because infrastructure was built during that time that had not been there before. So it's easy to look back at that now and be like, oh, my gosh, Republicans are fine in Texas. At that point, there was a lot of fear and scarcity and question about what would come next. Hindsight is 20-20. Always. So you covered back in your reporting days, you covered this situation, the Bonin tape. Tell us a bit about what that was like day to day as this slow drip of the recording came out. Gosh, it was wild.

And it was very much a, okay, how many spreadsheets do I need to have made to ensure? How do I know that? Yeah, exactly. Just to ensure I know who has said what, because it was always a math game where if Bonin was going to lose his support, OK, he's not going to be speaker anymore. And that was really the tipping point we were all waiting for was, OK, at what point have enough members kind of distanced themselves from Bonin where somebody new is going to come in? That's what we were watching. And would he not run for reelection? Would there be some sort of caucus move made by the Republicans to remove him? Like there were so many questions. So a lot of it was just keeping track all the time of different members. I cannot tell you how many tweet notifications I had on for like 150 people. Well, anything with the speakership,

it's all about the math. Yeah. You can, you have all these political themes coming in that affect it, but at root, it's about the math, whether they can get 76 members. You can theorize all day, but until you have the numbers, it doesn't mean anything. Right. So that's really what it came down to, and that was interesting because they kind of trickled out, and the usual suspects who were critical of Bonin after the quote-unquote Super Bowl session, Purple Session, whatever you want to call it, very quickly came out. You know, the Tinder holds, the Biedermanns, whoever, very quickly came out and said, hey, we are, you know, frustrated by this. We, you know, ask that the speaker step down.

And there were different kinds of statements that were put out, like some that were, I'm disappointed. And some that were straight up saying that the speaker should resign. Right. So that was a big temperature take as well. But that was a lot of it. And of course, people are sending you stuff all the time. Like, hey, don't miss this one. The statements come in. Like we started to get a little bit of momentum on that front. And it really was toward the eve of the recording being released. And after the recording being released, it was like a waterfall of statements and flurry of activity. And to recap what the quid pro quo was on this recording was the speaker to Michael Quinn Sullivan said, hey, here's a list of 10 moderate Republicans that you

should target with your political apparatus in Empower Texans. And if you do that and we can take some of these guys out, Texas scorecard will be given floor credentials in the House. And that was the essential deal. Which they had in the Senate and they did not have it for the House. Right. And so that was the deal that was approached. And basically Bonin said, you know, if I know you're frustrated with this session, but if we can essentially move the center of the GOP caucus rightward, then there will be a lot more leeway to go in terms of the votes on anything to just be more conservative generally in what's passed. And obviously MQS did not bite,

and he ended up doing this slow drip and taking out the speaker. Yeah. So how does this all relate? Why are we talking about this now? I think this is important to say. When you listen to that recording of Bonnen and MQS, so many of these names of members who had difficulty and are now in runoffs or are entirely defeated post-primary are named in this. Clardy is one that immediately comes to mind.

Bonnen said that Clardy is the ringleader of the opposition. We'd be thrilled to see someone else back in that district. While Tan Parker was too, which is so random. It's not for then, but it was, well, no, it was random then because for those who don't know, he then moved on to the Senate a couple of years later and is sitting senator now. But regardless, Clardy was one. Bales. Bales.

I mean, essentially the reason we're talking about this now is that of those 10 members, only three are left in the House. And so, you know, what Bonin was trying to do, you know, take the tactics out of it, the very poor look on doing this behind the scenes in a backdoor deal. Which it's easy to forget also how much, like, distrust the spread among members in the House. And I do think also it's worth saying that Burroughs was in that meeting, Dustin Burroughs, who at the time was the GOP caucus chair. He was the other member in the room other than MQS and Bonnen himself. And Burroughs was actively participating in that conversation and naming some names that Bonnen didn't. And he has been able to politically recover in kind of an unbelievable sense.

He's calendar's chair. Top lieutenants. Top lieutenants. And that's very notable as well. Yeah. So of these 10 that were named, the three that remain are Ashby, Darby, and Stan Lambert. And so each of those three had a primary this year. Ashby had a lesser one because

he did vote for Abbott's school choice plan or didn't vote to strip it from the omnibus back in November. So he avoided the Governor Abbott pro-school choice onslaught that almost all the rest of these members faced. Some of succumbing, like Allison and Bales. Darby and Lambert managed to outlast it. But it took a lot, and it was dicey for them, no doubt. And they had tighter races than probably they've ever had since they first ran for office. The two that— Or Bales was ousted.

Bales is no longer in the house. Yeah, did I say? I don't— I think I said— Anyway. Okay, regardless. Bales was ousted. Bales is no longer in the House. Yeah, did I say? I don't. I think I said. Anyway. Okay, regardless. Bales did lose. But Darby remains.

Yes, Darby remains. Then you have Tan Parker, who's now in the Senate, like you said. And then Phil Stevenson was defeated by Stan Kitzman in 22. And so basically, and this is the premise of why we're talking about this, what Bonnen tried to get then was accomplished or almost fully accomplished here after five years and millions of dollars from the governor. You have the Paxman impeachment playing a role in that as well. Although with this list, I think the school choice aspect was a bigger component. You know, you had other races like Krona-Timesh that was essentially a referendum on the Paxton

impeachment. But in this regard, I think it was more the Abbott school choice crusade that did it. And then you mentioned some of the, like the slow trickle of members dropping support for Bonin. This doesn't exactly dovetail with the election, but it did predate what we saw happen. The five House chairmen who jointly withdrew support for Bonin's speakership that kind of caused, pushed the snowball off the cliff and ended the bond and speakership. That's John Furlow, Dan Huberty, Lyle Larson, Chris Patty, and Fort Price are all gone now. They're all out of the legislature. And that may sound like peanuts, may sound like really inside baseball, but they are watching. You can see random tweets when each of them announced their retirement, one out of five, two out of five, three out of five. Then when Ford Price announced his retirement,

five out of five. People in the building are watching that. They know, they don't forget. Speaker Bonin doesn't forget. And so after this five years of him kind of being in the wilderness, going into the lobby, he started his own firm. Has certainly been a big part of behind-the-scenes conversations about some big policy fights in the last few sessions. Absolutely. He's still very much in the mix. He's just not the speaker. And not elected. Yeah. It's hard to see him not enjoying seeing the results come in a bit,

feeling a bit vindicated in terms of what his objective was. Obviously, there are a lot of misgivings about the way he went about it, but this is politics. It's a contact sport. And things like this, deals like this, maybe not quite as significant as this would have been, but stuff like this happens all the time. And I don't think it's – I think it's fair to say it wasn't entirely out of pocket, but just the players involved made it so big. Yeah.

And the fact that there was a recording of him saying this and then saying a bunch of other things that were distasteful. Distasteful. Absolutely. About Democrats, too. Like there was a lot in the recording about Democrats as well. Yep. So overall, when I saw these results come in, I was, you know, as the individual results were rolling and I was like, oh, there's another one. There's another one. That's what made me make the connection between what we just saw happen and the scandal that broke five years ago now. Yeah, absolutely.

And like you've already said, this is a byproduct of an unbelievable primary cycle. I think that's the understatement of the century, but it really was. Preceded by an insane political year. And it isn't that we are not in any way saying that Bonin's list has determined or contributed to these results. It's more of a byproduct of their political, these members' political values and stances

being at odds with the momentum of this cycle, right? This is not because they were on Bonin's list that they now are facing electoral difficulty. It just happens to coincide with the school choice referendum and Abbott's crusade against members who were anti-school choice. Like that's what we're talking about here. And I think it's also worth mentioning as well that these are members who during the Strauss era, for those who were in office, were very much at the right hand of the speaker. And so for then Bonnen to come in and say, these guys are not my people. I want you to target them.

That's pretty wild. And to give them free reign to do so is a pretty wild change up for these members who are so used to being part of leadership. And certainly not something they were used to. And I think it's easy for folks watching Texas politics at large to forget all the factions. And it's not just the Freedom Caucus or Freedom Caucus, like to the right of the Freedom Caucus members who have disagreements with the larger Republican body. The schisms in the Republican Party are wild. There are many. The factions are very much, we could go into a whole other podcast about the factions of just the Republican party members in the House. The Senate's so different

politically from the House in that way, now that there aren't schisms there. But when you have 150 members and 86 Republicans, and it's a power struggle with Democrats you have to take into consideration, it's just a politically complicated body. And now with these results, arguably, obviously we'll see what happens when we get to the legislature, but the center of the GOP caucus has moved right. It's absolutely fair to say that. Whether that results in effectiveness is a totally different question. Who knows? There are members that...

And what is effectiveness? Yeah, you're right. It's in the eye of the beholder. But there are members who campaign on the idea of gumming things up for Speaker Phelan, should he survive and be the speaker next session.

There's a whole contingent bigger than the Freedom Caucus now. Which is crazy whole contingent bigger than the Freedom Caucus now. Which is crazy to think about. And the Freedom Caucus was born during the Strauss years. And a lot of these members who were part of the original Freedom Caucus are very much no longer part of the Freedom Caucus and are lieutenants of the speaker now. They've been at least politically satisfied with the direction of the House

or they've been in office long enough for their perspectives to change, regardless, one of those two things has happened. And a lot of them stepped outside of the Freedom Caucus. Other members, a small handful, kind of said, hey, I'm not going to be part of the Freedom Caucus anymore because it's not conservative enough. It's not serving. They're not bomb-throwing enough.

Right. Like they did under Strauss. Exactly. So that's also a big part of it. But we should probably then just move on to the next part here, talking about those members and what this could mean for next session. After the primary, we saw a lot of members, like you said, who campaigned on saying, I'm willing to go up against the speaker on a variety of different issues or even run for speaker. Some of them have now won and will be in the House this next session. Yeah, I think when I tallied it up on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning after the election, it was they had reached 10 members that the exact number that you need, at least under the rules

right now, to challenge the ruling of the chair. And when I mentioned members campaigning on the idea of gumming things up, that's what I mean, being there to object to certain rulings. Now, it's also interesting that that's a House rule. It can be amended. It can be raised fairly easily with a majority. And so that's something to watch next session when we get to the rules fight, which is going to have a lot of different themes. Which happens in the first few days of session. Yeah. It's like the first order of business on the floor members take up. Do they, other than electing the speaker, of course.

Yes, yes. Do they raise that threshold to 25? Whatever number eclipses this new contingent. Which is nothing new to see leadership try and make the rules benefit them or kind of circumvent an issue they see within the body that they're leading. Right? That's nothing new to see a rules fight like that happen. Yeah.

So they have 10 right now. I believe the Freedom Caucus itself has eight-ish, I think. Most of them are new members, freshmen currently. They may get some more. It depends on what happens in these elections and in which freshman members they decide to bring in. But I think at the beginning of the 21 session, the Freedom Caucus had like 13, roughly.

A lot more, significantly more. Yeah. How many do they have now? Let me look look this up i thought it was like eight that was just offhand last time i looked this yeah um so you'll have that dynamic of the old freedom caucus that is not part of the state freedom caucus network that gets a lot of grief because of that and then the this new group that they may not go as far as you know taking the name freedom caucus but they're going to try and position themselves as the actual freedom caucus and so uh it's it's like the monty python bit about the People's Front of Judea,

the Judean People's Front. Oh, I totally get this reference. It's just political jockeying. And there's disagreements, like you said, among all the factions. In the House, it's herding cats, which was one of the names I was considering for my newsletter, but that got vetoed. Wait, who?

Did I veto it? I think you did, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so we were gonna call this podcast Not Germain or at least that was the vote in our Slack and then that got rejected by certain individuals with unchecked power in this here company. Daniel kept saying this isn't by democracy,

by method of democracy, this has been determined. The name has been determined. And then it was vetoed. It was. It was. Like Governor Abbott this past summer. Also, there are eight members of the Freedom Caucus. Okay, I was right.

I was right. At least right now. That's not including outgoing member Schaefer. Yeah. So that's going to be an interesting dynamic to watch. Then obviously you throw in the speakership. And the reason that things like Democratic chairs are even a factor in this because, well, there's two. There's the speakership. To prevent something like what got Strauss into power was, you know,

12 Republicans siphoning off with all the Democrats. The speaker, the last two speakers, Phelan and Bonin, avoided that by getting support from Democrats that then basically eliminated the possibility of this group of 12 going off with the Democratic caucus. And then you have the other reason that Dem chairs is really a thing. Republicans have 86 seats in the House. And depending on what happens in November, which there are a couple pickup opportunities, HD80's one.

I think they're pretty optimistic, bullish on that. And then HD70 in Collin County is potential, depending on how much of a campaign Steve Kennard, the Republican nominee, can mount up there. So there are pickup opportunities, but they're not getting close to 100. It's just not happening. And so because of that, to pass the budget, and to amend the Constitution, you've got to hit 100. So you need Democrats to play ball, at least some. So those are the two prevailing factors. There's a lot of talk about tradition in the House of nominating Democrats as chairs.

And that's an easy way out of describing this. But the real reason is the math. And no matter what you do, no matter how much people stomp their feet and throw fits about it, the math is the math. It's going to remain that way. And oddly enough, though, related to our Bonin conversation, taking these seven of these 10 members out now, that reduces the number of Republicans that at least presumably at the moment would be willing to side to align with Democrats and nominate their own speaker. So maybe this group of new challengers that got in unintentionally, I mean, they campaigned on opposing Democratic chairs, but maybe they unintentionally eliminated that, at least as a significant portion of the decision-making process. I don't know. Which is, to your point about the House,

the Senate is led by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who's elected by Texans. Yes. Not just one district. And not then elected by his fellow senators. He's not a senator. He's the lieutenant governor. And he's elected on a statewide basis.

So that's part of where the difference between the Senate and the House is as well, right? Where you have to balance just as in other chambers across the country and in DC as well, speakers chosen by their colleagues, their fellow members, and they represent a district, just like the other members of that chamber. They choose from among themselves. It makes it very politically difficult. And then you add how much centralization of power the current lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick has. Which speaking of rules changes. Yeah. rules changes, the Senate's had a lot of that. My first memory in the legislature when I moved here in 19 was not the Bonin thing. It was Dan Patrick threatening the nuclear option and reducing the supermajority level.

And then Cal Seliger standing up and giving his basically filibuster where eventually he relented. But, you know, that was the first memory I have of this legislature, and that's a very important rules change. And the reason he was able to do that, the reason he did it in the first place was because of the losses suffered in the chamber of those two seats, you said. And without reducing that, that would limit what it would give Democrats more power in affecting what they can actually consider on the floor. And so he basically blew up the supermajority and lowered it. And then I think he lowered it again in 21. But that's not really something, the numbers aren't there to do that in the House.

They just aren't. And that is another massive difference between the House and the Senate. Absolutely. So you found a tweet this week that was particularly interesting, considering all of these new members joining the House, that contingency of Republicans gaining more allies. Kind of tell us about what this hypothesis is. So it dovetails also with the Democratic chair issue, but it's an idea I hadn't heard so far, and maybe we see that coming up in the next session, but it's by Aaron Harris, a GOP activist.

He's a consultant. I think he at one point was chief for don buckingham in the senate before that it was um lance gooden but i'm thinking of the the activist group the election oh uh direct action direct action texas yeah so he's in and around texas circles constantly but the thread where he discussed bills being essentially buried in a committee that is chaired by a Democrat. And this discharge petition rule would require a bill to be moved in committee that it hasn't been assigned to within, you can pick your time period. He says 72 hours here. If a majority of the body sign on to the bill, I assume as co-author or co-sponsor. And so if that happens, it would be required that this bill move.

I'm not sure how much a bill with that much support actually does get stopped in committee. I'm sure it's happened. It happens quite more often than you think. But at least enough. The Biden bill would be a big one that I remember immediately, the 85th session. Yeah.

Enough for them to think of this rule change. And that would be an interesting, speaking of rules fight, that would be, other than just outright banning Democratic chairs, that would be kind of a half measure that if you can't, if the numbers aren't there to ban Dem chairs, that you could kind of accomplish the same thing or at least close to it. I'm not sure if the caucus is going to really push for this, but I think it is creative. And he said that Briscoe Cain, a Republican from Deer Park, has proposed this in previous sessions. But who knows if it gets movement. Yeah. But that would be an interesting take or an interesting deviation from the Democratic chair's argument that could potentially assuage some of those concerns from Republicans. And when we see the rules come out, there is a proposed set of changes by the author. I think last time it was Hunter, but I'm not sure who that's going to be this time. But they basically lay out proposed changes. And then members have a day or so to look at it, evaluate.

Then on the floor, they propose their amendments. So, you know, whoever the next speaker is, if it still stayed feeling, and he wants to try and avoid the Democratic chair vote, this could be, you know, a half measure of compromise that they slide into the leadership blessed version of the House rules session. So who knows? Always wild. I'm curious to see how the House rules will be ferried through the process this year after Smithy and impeachment and everything else. Well, last time the Democratic chair issue, that was a clever maneuver, I'd say. I mean, they put a provision in when everyone was none the wiser expecting this vote on the ban or the half ban of Democratic chair importance.

And they basically said, they put this provision in that said you can't use House resources for political purposes. That's not very well defined. That's kind approved the point of order and killed the, used that to kill the Democratic chair, ban amendments. And it worked. So they avoided this vote that if they, they probably would have passed. I mean, maybe not, but it at least would have been close and they avoided it. Yeah. And that caused a lot of this uproar that led into the primary. Absolutely.

Well, speaking of the primary then, I mean, the biggest race anybody was watching in the state, I think it's fair to say, was in House District 21. Speaker Phelan, speaking of the speaker, his district, challenged by David Covey, who was endorsed by Trump, had major support from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, surprising and unsurprising altogether entirely, both. And he's now in a runoff. It was a three-person race. Alicia Davis was the third candidate. And now we're seeing a lot of conversations behind the scenes among Democrats, among Republicans. We'll talk about both, about what this could mean for the House this coming session. So you tweeted out

this week a memo or an email from Democrat members kind of talking about some behind-the-scenes speaker conversations and a call that they had. What do we know about that call? So we know it happened on Monday morning. So if this is going on on Tuesday the previous Monday and caucus chair Trey Martinez Fisher organized it right after the primary results came in

and the purpose was to talk about their path forward going into the next session in the general election also so it wasn't all just session talk and speaker talk. I don't know everything that was said, but the general themes were, how do we strategize? How do we organize? I'm sure discussion about the speaker came up,

whether it's feeling explicitly or if it's potential alternatives, if he somehow loses, which is very much coin flip right now. I don't know how that's going to turn out. But, you know, Democrats, they're game planning how they're going to play their cards. Because they do have limited cards in their hand. They don't have a majority. But there are things that they can't avoid, that Republicans can't avoid, take the quorum bus. You know, that's a last measure.

That seems so long ago. Yeah. And this last four years has been insane. But that's something Republicans always have to contend with because they don't have a supermajority. Yeah. with because they don't have a supermajority. How much does that require? Does that get the Democrats as a caucus into the room with a seat at the table when picking a speaker? Probably gives them a significant amount, at least related to, compared with their minority status in the makeup of the House. So there was that. I don't know exactly everything that was said on the call, but the email laid out a whole

bunch. You can see it on my Twitter. A whole bunch of themes. They see an opportunity, basically, whether that's in the general election, which I'm not sure what those pickup opportunities would be. A couple. Maybe, what was it, 118 in Bexar County with John Lujan. It's a pretty dead even seat.

But that's just, you know, one or two seats we're talking. The bigger thing is when the session comes. Nothing that can really tilt the needle at all. Yeah. And why is this notable, right? Like, why is it notable that we have members of the House currently talking about how to strategize for a speaker fight? It's because they smell blood in the water, right? Phelan, as a sitting speaker, not outright winning,

despite having a ton of opposition to his candidacy this cycle. Regardless, a sitting speaker being forced into a runoff is wild. And the first time in decades that this has happened. And I believe we talked about it. The last time this happened was like in 72. Rayford Price, he was the only speaker, though, for a few months at that point. He lost to, he was a conservative Democrat. He was pushed to a runoff after redistricting.

So there's another difference between Phelan's case and this case. It was after redistricting. So the district itself was substantially different from the one he'd been running in. And then another sitting member, another sitting member moved into the district, this new one to run against him and defeated him in a runoff that went to a recount.

So entirely different circumstances, but regardless, I wouldn't say entirely different, but substantially different. Yes. And I think really shows how rare this is, right? This is wild. And so to have members behind the scenes, even Democrats who at times have been discontented with Phelan and at other times have been pleased with his speakership, circling the wagons.

And we had Republicans doing so even before primary day, which I think says even more about the situation the speaker finds himself in. If you have Republican members saying, hey, we need to start having these conversations and a feeling goes down, hey, maybe I'm willing to run for speaker. Or hey, would you be willing to run for speaker? That's huge. And the speaker no doubt knows about those conversations happening behind the scenes. Certainly. Certainly. And the speaker no doubt knows about those conversations happening behind the scenes. Certainly. Certainly. And there are also conversations happening about feeling surviving the election

and winning the speakership again. Like, it's all up in the air. Yeah. Who knows? Because other members have said, hey, he'll win the runoff. He'll be fine. He'll be speaker again next session. Yeah.

I mean, in the heat of the moment following a primary, everyone, to your smelling blood in the water example, emotions get heated. Yeah. And people think that this X thing because Y didn't happen is going to happen. It may end up happening. It may not. We may have a feel in a speaker next session. He may not even be a member.

It's too early. Yes. But it is being discussed. Absolutely. Breaking news from the heart of the Lone Star State. Exclusively for listeners of the Smoke-Filled Room podcast. You can now use the coupon code smoke-filled room one word all caps to save 10 on any hat or shirt on the texan store by visiting

store.thetexan.news get a come and take it t-shirt featuring the iconic gonzalez flag a remember the alamo hat and more once get 10% off any hat or shirt by visiting store.thetexan.news and using the coupon code smokefilledroom. Now back to your regular scheduled programming. And we're back after a break because the camera, the expensive

camera we decided to purchase to do these things, these kinds of things, filming these podcasts overheated. That's what you get with South Korean handwork. I assume that's where it was made. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't. Are we keeping this in? Absolutely. Then there you go. I don't know where Canon, oh it's Sony.

Yeah, it is South Korean. We do not have Canon, we have Sony, Bradley. Gosh. Sheesh. I was not a PlayStation kid, I was an Xbox kid. Did you have a Nintendo DS? Did we talk about this? Yeah, I did. I had a Nintendo DS Lite. It was pink.

I was very off-tangent, but my friends and I were at the bar the other day, and we were naming. Shocker. We were guessing the most sold video games of all time. And guess what was, I think it was around 15 or 20. Like ranked 15th or 20th? Yeah. In all-time sales.

Like Star Wars. Lego Star Wars. No. Nintendogs. Yep. We were floored by that. Nintendogs was such a good game. Well, think of how many Nintendogs are starving right now.

I was just about to. And dirty. And unbathed. Yeah. And frankly dead, probably. Probably. And on that note, we'll go back to our topic. The speakership in Texas politics following this primary.

Brother. Well, we stopped kind of talking about what members are saying, the general numbers. Which we kind of talked about vaguely. But let's say that the speakership here in the House does change this next session, that there's a shakeup. How many Republicans, give us a number, would need to side with Democrats in order to elect a speaker if the makeup remained what it is now? If it remains the same, I think it's 12. Okay. 86 members. I think I'm doing the math correctly on that. I think you're doing great. I was never great at math in school, which is why I could never be in the legislature. I can't count. I just can't. But you have a lot of spreadsheets

that help you. That I do. That I do. Now, that is subject to change, obviously, with whatever happens in November, if Republicans take a seat or two, or if Democrats take a seat or two. Yeah. Who knows? But... What about a dozen? I think it's around a dozen, which is, I think, the same amount that... It is the same amount that Strauss yeah secured his speakership with so and if trends

continue to be what they have been for midterms presidential cycles this should be a pretty good cycle for Republicans with the Democrat in the White House yeah Texas being what it is love to see the Trump and Biden aspect is a little bit do you think it's closer to 2020 or 2016 well in terms of the overarching environment yeah politically i don't think it's like either i really don't wow what a cop out no i don't i think it's entirely different what would you say i don't have an answer yeah i don't think it's like either i think it's so different i think the candidates or who appear to be the candidates at this point who are guaranteed to be the candidates at this point i think it's a very um it'll just be very interesting to see how turnout is

specifically turnout turnout turnout but really i i'm fascinated to see we We have two very, very old candidates with very, who have weathered horrible approval ratings during the time that they were both in office, both have been in office. It's just a very weird, it's a very weird cycle. I wonder if you would have liked that. I suppose you're right. Thank you. Thank you. Overall, though, I don't think this is going to be a 2018 cycle. There's no Beto mania on the ballot. Ted Cruz is back on the ballot. And Allred is certainly a formidable candidate.

I mean, they're taking him seriously. The attack ads are already out there. So if he wasn't worth hitting, they wouldn't be hitting him. But he's been fundraising quite well, but not like Beto did. Which was astronomical, to be fair. I mean, it would be unfair, I think, as a Democrat to ask All Red to raise that kind of money. It's just not doable. And, you know, that was a unique cycle where Republican incumbent in the White House, the midterm right after he was elected, very unpopular among independents and obviously Democrats, right?

But that was just kind of like a perfect storm that led to this blue wave that led to a lot of pickups that Democrats still have today in both chambers, especially the House. I think that SD-10 is now back to Republican held. But yeah, I guess you're right. It's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah. But on that note, let's also talk about dynamics with Patrick and Phelan. I think this is a really big deal.

Like we mentioned earlier, Phelan has certainly drawn the ire of the Lieutenant Governor. The Lieutenant Governor has been very vocally aggressive toward the Speaker, and the Speaker certainly has fired right back. The Lieutenant Governor just called on him to drop out of the race.

Oh, I didn't even know that. Yeah, because Alicia Davis, the third place finisher in the race, endorsed Covey, which was not surprising. No, and that's typically how it works. If you have an incumbent who's facing formidable challengers, more than one, the other one usually endorses the other challenger that remains. So that's pretty normal. Also, he's not going to drop out. The dissident speaker of the House.

But still, that's the rhetoric that we're working with this cycle. And it really started with property taxes, led into impeachment. There's been a lot, even throughout session, things really got heated. So we were not surprised to see the lieutenant governor really go after the speaker vocally in these ways. It ramped up over time. He stopped short of blatantly endorsing the speaker, but has run ads, excuse me, yes, against the speaker, but has run ads against the speaker, has paid for all sorts of things in the district to support Covey. So, but then he's did blatantly endorse Covey. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

It went from him, the lieutenant governor saying, I might have some things to say, but I'm not going to get involved in house races. And this is December. Yeah. Right after the fourth special session. The big press conference. Yeah. And just in that press conference, he railed against Phelan for all the number of reasons that he frequently cites. But he said, I'm not going to get involved in house races.

I just might have something to say. Right. Well, that hasn't held true. Yeah. He has jumped headlong into multiple races, including the speakers and especially the speakers. Which tradition in the legislature usually dictates that the leader of a given chamber does not dip their toes much into races affecting the other chamber, right?

So the speaker doesn't usually come forward and endorse or campaign against senators, vice versa for the lieutenant governor and House races. It's not typical. That's not been the case at all this cycle. Not that the speaker has gotten involved in any Senate races, but the lieutenant governor certainly has gotten involved in a lot of House races. But what if Phelan wins? Like what if Phelan returns to the House after Patrick, who has very vocally campaigned against Phelan, given money, campaigned against incumbents that he thinks are anti-school choice like Abbott, right? Like all these things. And impeachment is a whole other factor in this that isn't talked about as much, but it is a huge factor in this fight. What happens? What's the dynamic between

Patrick and Phelan? How do they, how do they govern? I think nothing happens next session. You know, and I think that that's generally, generally the, the feeling in the building should, you know,

the, it's not expected right now is the outcome among many people, but it could be in an odd way, like the Occam's razor explanation, the simplest explanation holds true, the feeling keeps its seat, holds speakership. If that does happen, I mean, the tension, the feud, the vitriol between these two is so large that we'd have even more gridlock, which someone argues a great thing. You know, others, probably everyone on the Republican side with, you know, majority in

both chambers would argue it's not at the moment. But I don't see much happening, much of any significance if both of them are back. And obviously Patrick will be back, Phelan, if he's back. What incentive, especially after the lieutenant governor got involved in his race, Dan Patrick is putting his cards on the table. He is going all in to get Phelan out. And if it doesn't work, what incentive does the speaker have to work with Patrick? I mean, these are human beings.

Yes. Who have grudges. Yes. And these are two of the grudgest individuals, at least between each other. The grudgest. In the legislature. Yes.

And so, you know, Lieutenant Governor said my good faith with Phelan is broken last session. Well, you know, Lieutenant Governor said he wasn't going to endorse in any race, let alone the— so not only going after the Speaker, he's going after his majority, too. I mean, I'm sure the Speaker would say he's much more tight-lipped, but I'm sure he'd say the same thing. Yeah. So not a lot I don't think is going to happen. The lieutenant governor at the very beginning of the legislative session sat down with us at our event

and talked about how he was not willing to say anything really negative about the speaker going into the session and was like, hey, hands off, let's let the session speak for itself. Let's see where the House ends up politically, what legislation they pass, what policy priorities they lay out. And then we'll have a discussion about how my relationship with the Speaker is, basically. And this was on the heels of the previous session, where constitutional carry repricing were the two big issues that- The two hand grenades thrown across the rotunda to each other. Yes, absolutely. It was not nearly as loud or vocally aggressive toward each other as they are this last session. But, you know, the lieutenant governor's rhetoric was, hey, I'm going versus his position that places him in a much stronger position because he's popularly elected.

Provided you win, of course. Right. But. And the Senate had at the time one Democratic chair. The Senate did not draw ire of grassroots conservatives in the same way the House did. And Lieutenant Governor Patrick basically was like, hey, this is John Whitmireire he's the dean of the senate he's been here for he pulled the tradition card yes and um he's chair of the criminal justice committee in the senate which his argument also was you don't see big red meat policy fights happening in that committee right

like that happens in state affairs that happens happens in other committees. So that was the argument. And a lot of folks in the grassroots circles don't really have, they have not had that much of a problem with that. Now, Whitmire, of course, is now outside of the Senate. He's mayor of Houston. We'll see what happens. But it will be interesting. Yeah, the dean is the, oh, the chair of the committee. I don't know. I think it's Pete Flores. Sounds right. I may be wrong about that. But then impeachment happened. The lieutenant governor was very quiet about the entire impeachment proceeding come May,

as it was very quickly becoming an issue the Senate would have to address. He was very quiet about it until after the trial in the Senate happened and he came forward and made a very impassioned, fiery speech about the haste and irresponsibility of the House in sending impeachment, the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton over to the Senate for trial, lambasting the speaker at the crux of his speech. And they'd already had it out over the summer, over property taxes. Yes. That was a knock-down, drag-out fight. And this took it up another level. And impeachment was not discussed at those press conferences. The lieutenant governor and the senators, very tight-lipped.

Gag order. They took it seriously. They didn't say anything. Who knows what was happening behind the scenes. But publicly, quiet. As soon as it was over, game on. It happened very, very quickly. So I don't know.

I don't know what happens. I think voters have a very forgiving attention span when it comes to different issues. You've seen that with Governor Abbott and how he's regarded by grassroots folks these days over the border, over school choice, whatever that is. I also am very curious about school choice, right? If we have an entirely new slate of house members who are very pro school choice coming into the house, Phelan has historically given a lot of ground to folks on those kind of red meat issues when there's enough support behind them. Yeah. School choice, he basically said, I'm keeping my hands off it. You guys do it, figure it out. Yeah. So what would that mean if the

makeup of the House is different this session, right? And that's an issue the Lieutenant Governor has lambasted the House over so there would be less political ambition on the Speaker's part, perhaps, to pass something like that. But his members might want it more than they did last cycle. That would be a very interesting dynamic.

And you know the Governor is going to go hell for leather over that because that's his. The governor has kept his hands out of the speaker's race. And, you know, talk about putting all your cards on the table. Abbott did that with these primaries. You know, if he hadn't flipped the seats that he did, and by the way, I think they're like two seats away from a majority support for, in terms of the vote that happened, to strip the ESAs.

So who knows what the then version of this school choice education omnibus, whatever, is at the next session. That may sway things, numbers a bit. But in terms of the vote we had in November, I think the governor is two seats away from having a majority. And we have a bunch of runoffs where we could yield two seats pretty easily. But also there were members who were kind of on the fence. They weren't like Bales or Clardy or Darby who said, heck no, I'm not, under no circumstance am I voting for this. There were members that-

Rogers. Rogers was another one like that. Members that were on the fence that ultimately came down against it or for stripping the provision, but that were very much part of the negotiations and- In the discussion. In discussion. Open to it in some way. Yeah.

Right? So maybe they have it right now. It's certainly possible. It probably depends on the format of whatever we see, but... But it's easy to forget how dynamic the school choice vote could be depending on the proposal and what exactly is on the table, what it's tied to, what the rhetoric is at the time, how school funding is factored into that whole discussion.

Teacher pay. Teacher pay. So it's a very dynamic situation in which we did not see any Democrats cross over the line last session and vote in favor of school choice proposals. I think there's a world in which a couple would. It depends on what kind of guardrails and whatnot they put on it. If there are any, I don't know. Yeah, what kind of bracketing is involved. Obviously, Abbott's spiking the football on the success of this crusade. Okay, Brad, when you say spiking the football, what does that even mean?

You know Gronk when he scores a touchdown? Oh, it's like a celebration. Yes. Yes. Okay. Got it. I didn't think I'd have to explain something so simple. Anyway, there's our feuding for the episode. We've been so nice to each other. Can we just talk about it?

Ed is obviously, you know, he says his advisors himself even are saying, you know, the job's not done. We still have these runoffs to go. But they're feeling very good. And what they did worked. races like hg 121 in bear county the emphasis was not on school choice or parental empowerment however it's packaged by the governor and those supporting it the messaging came on border security now all's fair in politics right like mark lehood ended up winning by quite a landslide. Yeah. Defeated Steve Allison. That's really what matters. That's the outcome. But, you know, there are there is a contention that while the voters, maybe they wouldn't say it as brashly, but were fooled in terms of what this guy, what LaHood was about. I don't know if that would hold up to scrutiny, but the messaging was heavily border security because that's, when you look at all the polling, that's the top issue.

And it became a race of who can out border security the other one. And LaHood won. Abbott and all, and the Club for Growth money that came in and the afc victory fund and all that absolutely played a role probably a pretty big one i'd say uh just the sheer amount of money that came into some of these races is astronomical but um you know that's the contention from i would say that those on the losing side of this fight at least for now this primary fight who knows where they end up in the policy fight to come but But then, you know, they have the counter argument that a lot of these anti-voucher members justified their vote saying, oh, it'd create vouchers paid for by public dollars for illegal immigrants. That was the big messaging we saw in the last month, particularly.

Yeah. And, you know, it's kind of a clever end around of the issue, turning it into a board security issue. And, you know, it's probably true because there was a court ruling in the 70s that said Texas public schools had to pay for education for illegal immigrants. You couldn't say, no, we're not paying for this. So yeah, if you pass a voucher system, education savings account system, you would have to open that up in eligibility for illegal immigrants. Or address it legislatively. Although that may not stand up to constitutional scrutiny because of this previous ruling. Who knows? But regardless, that was not the message that was sold when the vote happened.

There was nothing about border security or illegal immigrants receiving funding that I recall during that marathon debate on the floor. As usual, politics, they're going to pick and choose their little kernels of truth that they then extrapolate to make their message. And they look at polling. Absolutely. They look at their little polls. They decide what's important. Both sides do it.

Both sides do. 100%. And that's where I think the dynamic between Patrick and Phelan will be particularly fascinating. It will be really, really fascinating. And Abbott putting the foot on the gas for that will be huge. We talked so much leading up to the primary about, okay, Paxton, Abbott, Paxton, school choice, impeachment, how does it all fit in together? And those were the two big, I would say motivators, maybe not the most marketed or sold points in the primary. I think

impeachment kind of took a backseat in that way on mailers, ads, et cetera. Still certainly part of the discussion, but not in the way school choice and the border were particularly. But the motivators for candidates entering races, school choice and impeachment. And school choice is where the money was. It's where a lot of the money was. There was no money, almost no money from impeachment, at least not compared to what we saw come in from AFC and Club for Growth and Abbott. Yeah, absolutely. But how, I mean, we talked about this leading up to the primaries, okay, which one's going to be more important to voters? How effective, when you look back at the

Attorney General's involvement in these races, and he was very quick to endorse candidates. He was at the front lines of these primaries very quickly, either rallying, issuing endorsements, et cetera. He was not as much of a financial contributor to campaigns. And I think in large part that has to do with the legal fees post impeachment. There are millions and millions of dollars. He also just doesn't have as much money as Abbott does. A hundred percent. So there were a lot of factors in that part of it. But how effective do you think Paxton, his involvement, the Trump factor? Because I think Trump and Paxton together, a lot of the support for those two men mirrors, like they mirror each other.

And a lot of folks who are very vocally supportive of Paxton are very vocally supportive of Trump. Walk me through your perspective on the Paxton of it all. Well, if you put them up head to head, Abbott versus Paxton, school choice, presumably school choice versus impeachment, Abbott won a lot. Now, Abbott endorsed more incumbents. Abbott actually put money behind his candidates. I don't think that's a knock against Abbott in terms of his effectiveness in this race. It's just a factor. It's part of the deal.

Paxton had a wildly worse record against Abbott. Now, I don't think he cares. In the races in which Paxton endorsed somebody that Abbott didn't and vice versa. Right. That's what we're talking about here. Right. They endorsed opposing candidates. Not all of Paxton's endorsements, not all that Abbott didn't and vice versa. Right. That's what we're talking about here. Right. They endorsed opposing candidates.

Not all of Paxton's endorsements, not all of Abbott's endorsements, just the ones in which they were opposed. And they were on the same side in a number. Yeah. I don't know how many, but. A decent amount. Yeah, right. But I think Paxton will not care about that head-to-head record

because he notched two very big wins, especially three, if you count the speaker getting pushed to a runoff, which was a whole amalgamation of issues. That wasn't just Paxton, but he was absolutely a part of that. The Mitch Little-Kronen-Timmish race, I think that's one that Paxton absolutely puts a feather in his cap on. Mitch Little being part of his legal team throughout the Senate impeachment trial, a very notable one at that, the forefront of a lot of the big momentsto-head. That was one of his victories because Abbott backed Temesh who had voted not to strip ESAs

and voted with him on the school choice issue. Which was Abbott's lone issue. Right, that was his only issue. Which Paxton's, I think, was kind of impeachment too. Yeah, I remember he said on a podcast when asked about this dynamic, Abbott's more focused on one issue. I'm focused on a broader set of issues which

he's focused on impeachment and retribution for it um i mean that's just what it is and he's going on a revenge tour even though he bristles at the term that's what it was and he notched very big wins on that with the Speaker and the HG65 race. But then he might even argue that the biggest victory was sweeping the court of criminal appeals races. Unbelievable that that was one of the cornerstones of the whole primary were court of appeals races. Yeah. And two of the three were not close at all. No.

Now, I'd argue, especially on something like that, where nobody knows what that is. I mean, most of them don't even know. Most voters probably have a vague idea of what the Texas Supreme Court is. But how does it relate to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is just as powerful, but on criminal issues? It's just not an issue that penetrates very well in terms of voters' understanding, consciousness, and interest, frankly. But Trump endorsements came in for that, and I think those were huge.

And it flipped the—it's, I'm sure, flipped the script on the Michelle Slaughter race. That was a lot closer. She was the one that wrote the Stevens opinion that has drawn a lot of criticism from Paxton and his allies over it stripping his ability to prosecute election fraud, illegal voting, I think. And so that was, of those three wins, Paxton is going to be very happy with how he performed. And rightfully so, I'd say. Those are massive wins for him from a purely political standpoint.

I don't see him really being disappointed about what happened. And he certainly didn't sound like it the next morning on Mark Davis' radio show. Totally. And those members that we were talking about earlier, the 10 or so that are the non-freedom caucus, like however you wanted to find those members, they're all very supportive of Paxton. And a lot of members were added to that contingency. So they're able to challenge the ruling of the chair, et cetera, et cetera, based on whatever the rules are decided the session but according to the rules now at the house they could wield more significant power if they band together and continue to be united in the way that they've said they want to be during the session and those are all very uh vocal can paxton allies oh yeah in addition to i think they're all for school choice as well so like

what you got that's where what's so interesting like like Abbott, Paxton, Patrick fall aligned in some ways and not in others in these primaries. And Abbott has been very intentional in keeping his hands out of the speaker's race. He's been very intentional in endorsing folks based on the school choice issue alone. Last cycle, even when he started to speak very freely about his intention to pass school choice somehow in Texas, received a lot of flack for endorsing members who were not pro-school choice like Rogers. The cycle that was not the case at all. It's very consistent in how he went about his endorsements. And he's been very intentional in not engaging in some of this Paxton feeling drama that's been going on. Now, they're big issues. So drama might minimize how big of a deal this is politically.

But Abbott has very intentionally kept his hands out of it. And one reason that Abbott backed all these incumbents, even if their opponents were pro-school choice instead of just staying out, is that he wants those members to—he promised them, I'll back you if you vote with me on this. So he doesn't want to renege and then risk them winning and then all of a sudden saying, well, you didn't back me, so why would I vote with you on this? So he's trying to solidify his majority. And check all the boxes he needs to. Right.

Yeah. So, you know, even in races where you had two pro-school choice candidates and many of these runoffs, at least the ones with the Abbott-backed incumbents, that's the case. And that's the reason that he's actively getting involved for the incumbents in this primary. Yeah. Well, wow, Brad, we've been talking for a long time. Did we hit everything? We hit everything.

Well, then we'd like to have another podcast a month from now. Yeah, we can been talking for a long time. Did we hit everything? We hit everything. Well, then we don't have to have another podcast a month from now. Yeah, we can probably just do one and done. That kind of defeats the purpose of this continuous line of argument. Yes. Although it wasn't even a line of argument. I think we were pretty helpful to each other. We'll see how that continues. I don't know if it will.

Well, this was fun. It was. I hope our listeners enjoyed it. It was fun to go deeper. Primary post-mortem. Yeah, primary post-mortem. That's the title. It should be.

That's what I have in the document. I don't know if you, you know, looked. I didn't read that. Oh, brother. But hopefully our listeners enjoyed it. It was nice to go deep on stuff rather than just these quick five minute segments we do and weekly roundup. And going forward, that's what we want this pod to be. We want to even go back and look at previous things that have happened in

Texas political history, um, like the Bonin scandal, whatever it might be and kind of go in depth on this kind of stuff. It's always fascinating. Hopefully it's found useful. Yeah, absolutely. Well, folks, thanks for listening. Brad, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me.

You hosted this one. I'm contractually obligated, apparently. Lord in heaven. You kind of hosted this one, so thanks for having me on. That's true. So why are you taking my sign-off? I don't know. I just naturally do that.

Brad, you sign off. You're doing a really good job. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time.