 Good afternoon. My name is Jason Embry and I am a board member here at the LBJ Future Forum and want to thank all of you for joining us here for our conversation the aftermath discussing the midterms. The Future Forum is an organization that brings together individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and points of view to discuss local, statewide, and national topics that affect us today. Our goal is to create civil, informed, and bipartisan discussions, which is needed now more than ever. The Future Forum's events are made possible by our incredible members and sponsors, including Texas Monthly, Carbock Brewing, Austin Wine Merchant, and Joe Cook's catering. If you are not a member, I strongly encourage you to sign up before you leave. We've also left information on your tables. Upcoming events will cover Austin housing, the legislative session, which will start in January, and women in leadership. I'm very excited to begin today's discussion focusing on the recent elections and the political trends that we're seeing. Please keep in mind there will be time for questions at the end of the panel and I want to also, on behalf of the Future Forum board, give a special thanks to our panel, especially our elected officials who took time out of their very busy schedules to be here. I think we have on stage two of the really smartest, most energetic young leaders in the legislature who I think are going to provide a lot of insight and I'm very glad to have not only them, but all of our experts who are here today who are going to lead us through this discussion and with that I will turn it over to Karina Kling, our anchor for Capital Tonight from Spectral News to introduce our guests and moderate the discussion. Thank you, Jason, and there are some jokes going around about whether or not it's the smartest, and I guess we'll find out, no. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. I just wanted to go ahead and introduce the panel next to me is Alexa Udara. She's a reporter for the Texas Tribune where she covers demographics, voting rights, and politics with a focus on the state's growing Hispanic population. Next to her is Representative Eric Johnson. He's a Dallas Democrat who's represented the people of District 100 since 2010. You nailed it. He's vice chair of the redistricting committee, serves on ways and means, and was a Democratic candidate for Texas House Speaker. More on that in a little bit. And Representative Jeff Leach is a Republican from Plano and has represented the people of District 67 since 2013. He serves as vice chair of the Urban Affairs Committee and describes himself as a constitutional conservative. And Jim Henson probably needs no introduction in this crowd, but is the director of the Texas Politics Project here at the University of Texas. He founded and co-directs the UT Texas Tribune poll and is a lecturer in the government department and a regular go to for news media on Texas politics, government, everything else. You see them on our program a lot. So again, please welcome all of the panelists. So as said, this discussion is called the aftermath discussing the 2018 midterm. So I thought, what better way to start with some post-election tweets? And these come from two of our panelists, Representative Leach. You tweeted shortly after the election, Texas Republicans, we indeed got a wake up call this week and we have two choices. We can push snooze and go back to sleep or we can wake up, put our feet on the floor and work diligently to address the issues that matter most to Texans. I choose the latter, hashtag refuse to snooze. I like that. I did make that up. I promise I did. You made that up. The refuse to snooze. Yes, that's the first hashtag that I've actually maybe don't trend. Representative Johnson, you wrote woke this morning to the reality that hashtag Texas, hashtag Democrats gained 12 seats in the Texas House largely due to a cubby bust in Dallas, which changed the Dallas County House delegation that I chair from seven Texas Democrats in seven Texas GOP in 2017 to 12 days and two hours in 2019. So I think it's probably fair to say you can both agree that Democrats had a pretty good night on November 6th. What was the driving factor? Representative Johnson, I'll start with you. Do you think this was strictly Beto mania Trump backlash? Or do you think that there is a changing tide here in Texas? I think the first thing we can agree on is that a representative Leach is more succinct than I am in his tweets. That's for sure. Yet you have the better hashtag for sure. Well, I think there are a couple of very few things that happen in politics like anything else. Any other natural phenomena are just, you know, univariate in terms of what caused it. I mean, there are probably several things going on, but certainly having a very charismatic, very hardworking, I would say, you know, maybe once in a generation type of candidate. Beto or Rourke at the top of the ticket certainly played a factor, played a role and it was a major factor in energizing parts of the democratic base that I believe have been in Texas for a long time, but have not necessarily believed that we could win and have hit that proverbial snooze button a long time ago and have been asleep. They existed, but they were asleep. And I think Beto helped wake them up. And so that had downbound effects. I think you saw in the Texas legislature in particular and in Dallas, that was the epicenter of where I think you saw this activity. Beto spent a considerable amount of time in the Dallas area. At one point, I actually joked with some of my friends that I'm not sure if he's moved from El Paso to Dallas, if he lives here or what? Because he was having more events in Dallas and was there more than I was some week. So I really was impressed with the campaign he put together and it showed. And what it showed in the result of it was what I call that Covey bus was we went from a delegation that had seven Republicans and seven Democrats in Dallas County to one that has 12 Democrats and only two Republicans. One of those two Republicans actually is only ahead the races headed to a recount because he only won by 200 votes or so. So it's pretty extraordinary. And so I'm going to say Beto was the primary factor, but there were others. Yeah. I mean, Representative Leitch, what's your take on that? But also, I mean, as he's saying, woke up a lot of Democrats. Do they are Republicans concerned that they, you know, to coin a phrase, stay woke? Well, look, it was a wake up call. I use that term because that's what it was for Republicans. And and I hope that part of my tweet was that we have two choices. We can go back to sleep and do what we've always done, or we can focus on the issues that matter to Texans. And elections are clarifying moments for policymakers of all political stripes for Republicans and Democrats. We are able to put the polls aside, the prognostications, the predictions aside and look at the results of the elections and get a good, clear glimpse of what the people of Texas, our voters, our constituents want us to do. Looking forward for Republicans, my hope is and my strong belief is that if we focus on those issues that are important to Texans, public education, transportation, property tax reform, passing a budget that's smart, that's funding the programs of state government, the agencies of state government in a way that are smart and effective. If we do those things, I believe that in 2020, Republicans can and Democrats, depending on how the votes line up in the legislature, can go back home and take credit for a good session. My hope and my strong desire and what I'm going to be working on is to ensure that the Texas legislature focuses on those big issues that Texans want us to be focusing on. Yeah, and I want to get into more of that, Jim. I'll ask you this and just to kind of follow up on what they're saying. But just in terms of the changing tide in Texas, do you think that that's happening or do you think that this was a one time thing? Well, I think we don't know. I think there's a real human factor here. On one hand, clearly all the things that both the representatives have been talking about were at play. The O'Rourke campaign tapped into something latent, but also it articulated for the Democrats relatively nicely what the national environment was. And so I think, you know, I'm sure Alex is going to tell you, Alex has been on this demographic beat and has done great work on this. You know, we've been talking about demographic shifts in Texas, I think, in a kind of simple way for a long time that was always disappointed. The demographics themselves were not going to drive political change. That was going to happen in a context. And I thought, I think we're beginning to see some of that here. And clearly, you know, I wrote something not too long ago about how this is the stirring of a more two party competitive Texas. And I think that is what we're seeing, what the pace of that is, what it looks like, what the terms of that competition are, I think are going to depend on what elected officials like these two gentlemen and many others decide to do, both what they do in the process in the next session, who decides to run for what next time. And I think critically what the issue agenda is. I think we've been seeing an interesting convergence in the last, you know, week 10 days, certainly since the election and certainly it came out in the day-to-mob, the speaker's race, that public education, exactly the list you've used, public education, transportation, property tax, how we're going to fund government. That's a pretty clear articulation from both sides of the aisle. And with a little bit more overlap than I've seen in a while, frankly, the question is, will that last? And those are human decisions that will be made by these folks and by the folks that are out there doing the politics. And that's what this is going to depend on in terms of how the aftermath shapes up. And we can talk about that. Yeah, Alexa, as Jim mentioned, we saw a big shift for Democrats winning in the suburbs. Republicans still dominating rural areas. You wrote an article recently, I know with several other people from the Tribune, but are titled our Texas suburbs slipping away from Republicans. Are they? I mean, so I think the baseline of this is that Democrats did better this year because the electorate was closer to a presidential year than a midterm year. So across the board, that's going to bring them up. But then on top of that, you see some of these suburban strongholds that have been read for a very long time. But if you look at the margins of victory over time, they've actually been decreasing steadily. You saw sort of a bigger dip in the Obama years that went back up when you elected Governor Greg Abbott. But that's really been exacerbated in the Trump era. And I don't think that's going to change much. I mean, you saw Harris County was sort of this, you know, the biggest battleground in the state. And now I think it's fair to say it's solidly blue. I don't really see that going back into Republicans control. And that's extended all the way into Fort Bend, which again was a huge swing in 2016. And I think the question was what will happen there? And it was an even bigger swing toward Democrats. I think it's, we're calling it a battleground for now, but it's also hard to see those areas going back to Republican control. The suburbs in central Texas and in the Dallas area are a little bit different. They're much more likely to be white. But I think that's really interesting to see how the Democrats were able to sort of crack open central Texas, which has been gerrymandered quite a bit, but they were able to crack open those suburban counties north and south of Travis County, where you really have a lot of people from Austin moving out because they just can't afford to live here. And so the demographic change over time, yes, we have Hispanics becoming of age to vote and becoming more engaged, but you also have the suburbs changing over time in a way that favors Democrats. Yeah, Representative Leitch, how does your party recover in the suburbs in the cities? How do you move forward with this? Well, we focus on good policy. That's what we do. And I don't think that my voters want me focused on the 2020 elections right now. My voters want me focused on the legislative session, which convenes in how many days? January 8th. Too soon. Yeah, January 8th. In less than two months. Right. That's what my voters, and I'm not punting on your question. Seriously. And in fact, I'm going back home, flying back home after this. I have a speech back in the district tonight to a pretty large Republican club. And the speech is going to be focused on what happened last week, what happened in the elections, and how do we prepare for 2020? My point is going to be very simple. My statement is going to be very simple. That look, we have to deliver on the promises that we made to our people. If Republicans and Democrats, but you asked the question about Republicans, if Republicans, if our party under our governor, Lieutenant Governor, and who's very likely to be our speaker, Representative Dennis Bonin, if we can deliver results for public education, if we can pump more funds into public education, make sure it gets to the right places, if we can invest in transportation, if we can provide substantive real property tax relief and reform, continue to invest in transportation, do the things, address the healthcare situation in Texas, continue to make sure our economy remains strong. If we do those things, I believe very strongly that 2020 election will take care of itself. So I'm focused on the policy and on achieving results. Representative Johnson, what about Democrats in rural areas? Well, I've had a lot of thoughts over a long time about what the future of the Democratic Party in rural Texas, and not just really, I've thought about this on a national level, it's kind of the same question that's been going on throughout the South. How are Democrats going to win back? And I say win back because I think most people in this room probably know, Texas was once a one-party state the other direction, was once a solidly Democratic state, and rural Texas was once the basis, really, of the Texas Democratic Party strength, and it's not that way anymore. It's sort of similar to what my colleague here said in reverse. It's difficult to campaign against results. It's difficult to campaign. The worst thing a political party can find, the worst situation you can find yourself in from a political standpoint is when the other party is actually delivering results and actually performing. When you start to get a lot of the distracting social issues talked about a lot by elected officials, it's usually because we're not doing the business of governing very well, so we have to change the subject to something to get people motivated. But when government is working well, when your roads are great and your commute times go down, and when your schools are performing, and you're like, hey, I don't have to write a check to St. Stephen's to send my kid to prep school, I can send him to my neighborhood public school and get a great education, people like that, and they tend not to vote out the folks who are delivering those results. I think we're going to have to do the same thing in rural Texas that you're talking about doing in your areas. We're going to have to show that Democrats have ideas that work well and will bring results for rural Texas. I think that the mentality in rural Texas is probably no different than any place else. They want to know what you're going to do for them. I think that really what both parties going into this next session, I want to just touch on something you said, our saying that's reassuring to me is that that's what this session hopefully is going to be about. Hopefully we have gotten past a little bit, some of the re-tourcizing on the red meat, social stuff to distract from not being able to perform, and we will actually be able to deliver for you property tax reform and school finance reform. That's what I'm hoping for. I want to ask you all about that in just a second, but I know none of you, well, maybe don't want to talk about 2020 anymore, but it's fun, so one more question. Sure, why not? We're here to have fun. Representative Leitch, do you want President Trump to be the nominee in 2020? To what my friend just said, and I think it's so true, that policy is so important, and I agree so strongly with a lot of what we're seeing in terms of policy in Washington. I do. I support the Tax Reform Act. I like some of his judicial appointments, the regulations that have been scaled back. I think we've seen and we're seeing results of some of the policies that have been put in place in this administration. Having said that, I detest very strongly some of the rhetoric that we're seeing, and this, I've never seen it this divided in our country. I'm not my younger guy. I'm actually not that young. We're not that young. You know, if we look, we just take care of ourselves. This division, this division, a house divided against itself cannot stand, and it's okay for us to fight and argue and debate and disagree in Washington or in Austin or in our own communities. But I'm very concerned about the future of this country in terms of the divisiveness we're seeing from Washington. I know I'm not punting on your question. So that's a baby? He's going to be at the top of our ballot. My hope is that between now and then, some of the tweets will stop, some of the rhetoric will stop. Right. He could use you on Twitter. Yeah, so, but if he's on the ballot, I absolutely will support him. I'll support the policies. Absolutely. Representative Johnson, who do you want to see as the Democratic nominee? Wow, we're going to have a very large field. A very large field. I mean, for all the reasons everyone in this room who are tuned to politics can, you know, can understand and can think through. I mean, it's from our side, it looks like a tremendous opportunity to restore a tone to that office that we believe most Americans, and I think it's borne out by a lot of data, want. So I think from the Democratic standpoint, it's just going to be, for my lifetime, I don't think we'll have ever seen the number of candidates, quality candidates who are going to line up for this opportunity to run against Mr. Trump. So who would I like to see? I'd like to see someone who checks several boxes, but some of the most important are, I really do believe it needs to be someone who can speak to the growing millennial and young generation. That is our, that's our future as a party. I think we need to double down on that investment. Doesn't mean we necessarily need to nominate one of them. There will be some that step forward. I mean, I know a couple personally who are considering jumping in whose names have been put on most people's list, Jason Kander, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Jason Kander, there's some 30-somethings who are seriously looking at that, but the point is, I think it needs to be someone who can excite that generation. We cannot have any lag and enthusiasm going into 2020. And of course, there's a very obvious person hanging out there now that was not a name that anyone would have necessarily said a year ago, but Congressman O'Rourke is a real potential draw to that demographic. And either slot on a ticket could be very, very appealing. So someone like him and any number of sitting U.S. senators or former or current governors would be fine choices. And as a member of the DNC, I'm not going to necessarily say a name of someone that I prefer over the others. I'm going to look at all of them, but I will be casting my vote in that process for who I think will be the best person. But right now, I think it looks very good for us. We have a lot of good choices. Jim, that's a good segue to you, because you recently wrote that Beto should run for Senate in 2020. He could win. Do you think he should run for Senate as opposed to- Well, I mean, I wrote that in a way not, I mean, certainly not even in a way. I wrote that not as a partisan, but as kind of looking at the discussion of Ben O'Rourke being in the presidential field versus being in the Senate field. And to my mind, if he's going to run again, I was at least one person in this room who vociferously disagreed with this on Facebook. So we'll wait for the Q&A, John. But look, I mean, and this is not in the big frame that you're talking about, but to my mind, what really motivated my thinking about that was your first question, is what does this mean for the future of Texas? And it seems to me that one of the things that's been really distinctive about Texas history is how rarely we've had a truly competitive political system in the state. We had a long period for historical reasons of democratic rule with a lot of political conflict contained in the Democratic Party. We've had a shorter, not quite as decisive, but still pretty clear period of one party dominance by the Republican Party. I think if Beto O'Rourke was to run again, challenge John Cornyn in 2020, whether Cornyn decided to stay in the race or get out, it would further a more competitive party system. And I think that, I mean, I sort of reject and don't believe in the fantasy, I think it's a fantasy that Texas is never going to turn blue. I think it's not in the state's DNA anymore. I think it's not in the fundamentals. I think it's not what we're looking at. I think the future of Texas is much more likely to look, and this is a bad time to say this, akin to Florida than to California. But in terms of just party competition and the dynamic, I think that's much more likely. And I frankly think as a person who asserts a pretty strong degree of non-partisanship in the way I look at these things, I think it's good for the state. Alex, I'll let you weigh in on that, but just with what they're saying, we've kind of talked about some of the red areas getting redder, blue getting bluer, or this mix of everything involved, but they've hinted at this, but what do you think it means for Texas governing for this next legislative session, but beyond that, too? I mean, I think one of the takeaways from the election was that this whole idea of Texas is in the red state, Texas is in the blue state, it's a non-voting state, it's a faulty argument to begin with because you obviously are what you vote. But I think it shows that Texas can change, but I think what's important is timing. And we're going into a legislative session, it's the last one right before the next round of redistricting, and so looking ahead about, if you're going to have six months to make this a better state for people to live in and use that to then run in 2020, what can the parties do to convince those voters to stay with them in 2020 because that's really the election that counts for future governing in the state. That's the long-term election that counts when you think about coming back in 2021 and redrawing those districts. And so I don't, I mean, I think everyone's sort of kumbaya at the moment in the house and everyone's really happy about having a new leader that lots of people are getting behind, but it's hard for me to believe that we live in a world in which the social issues that dominated last legislative session are going away. Maybe they won't suck the legislative air out of the room again, but it's hard to believe that those are going away and that it won't just be a divisive legislative session in the way we saw last time. Jim, with Governor Abbott did so much better than a lot of the other statewide candidates, aside from Senator Cruz put him aside, but why do you think that is? What do you think that spells, again, just for governing here in Texas? Well, I think it's another one of those questions that has multiple answers. One, you know, Governor Abbott has done a good job of, to my mind, occupying the institutional space of being governor in a way that enables him to benefit both from his real strong support among Republican partisans, extremely popular among Republican partisans. And though there's a lot of partisan structure in his job approval numbers, he's not, you know, you compare his Democratic numbers to Senator Cruz's numbers as a real difference. I mean, he's not acceptable as too strong a word, but, you know, Democrats don't go out and want to, you know, frankly, you know, burn him in effigy the way they kind of want to Ted Cruz to be just to be straight about it. I mean, he's, you know, and I think part of that is the way that he has governed. I mean, the governor's office enables you to be the figurehead in Texas. It gives you enormous symbolic political advantages and the governor has been very good at taking advantage of that and he's done a good job in the right moments. I mean, it was, you know, I mean, he, you know, he was very present in the natural disasters and the calamities that we've had in the state. I think his reviews, I mean, it's hard even for a partisan to go, oh, look at that guy, you know, being there on the ground and the flooding, what a jerk. I mean, it's just not going to happen. And he's been very good at that, I think. What you just identified about Governor Abbott is what I fear would be Congressional Roark's problem in a 2020 race against John Cornyn. Yeah. I thought John Cornyn is a much more difficult target to articulate a clear clash and a dichotomy between candidates that I think is so crucial when you're trying to unseat a U.S. Senator and I think just as a quick aside, that is the biggest structural barrier to running against Cornyn is that he is not easily vilifiable the way Ted Cruz is and that's a hard, that's already a hard mountain to climb to unseat a Senator to begin with, but one who's not really distinguished themselves for being particularly bad is, makes that mountain even more, that incredible speed. No, I think that's a factor. I think, you know, we could, I mean, one thing I would say, just a slight response, which is that, you know, but the problem is he will have Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and between now and then, he'll have to make some decisions in the Senate about the degree to which he is close to or distances himself from the president and that's, that's tricky. I mean, as we've seen, I think. What I do think what's interesting about Election Night is that if you looked at the margins in a place like Williamson County, you had O'Rourke win the district, Abbott held onto it pretty easily, but then you had Ken Paxton, the Attorney General, lose it and so it was it was pretty fascinating to see that people were actually going down the ballot and making informed decisions about who they were choosing in each race and I don't know that we've seen that to that extent in previous elections. I think we're gonna have to look, there's some data, but we haven't had a chance to crunch a lot of this data yet. There's some ballot roll-off to assess there too and I, you know, I've eyeballed it by roll-off, I mean, people that just quit voting is a room that's gonna know what roll-off is, but. Sure. I suspect some of that is in there and I also suspect that at least based on the polling going in, independents who we usually don't pay a ton of attention to because they're sort of non-attentive and true independents are not numerous enough in a lopsided election to really worry about, independents split in interesting ways that we usually don't pay attention to, I suspect. Kind of brings up another point and maybe it's too early to get into this, but I mean, this was the last time around for straight ticket voting. So what do you think that spells then for the future if people are being more informed and going through and actually picking them or how much do you think that was a factor this time around? Representative Johnson? You don't get a policy like that by accident so someone thought about this and someone probably didn't think of this in the absence of any data of some sort or information of some sort. Probably wasn't just a gut instinct because it was too structural of a change that was potentially too determinative of too many important outcomes for it not to have been thought through and so what I have to assume is that this is what the calculus was. Statewide it's going to hurt Republicans somewhat to lose the straight ticket advantage but the Republicans I think at the time when they thought of this idea felt like their cushion was sufficient to be able to give up a couple of points statewide and that would be okay. I think what they had in mind was what it would do in counties like mine they were thinking Dallas and Harris and counties like that where that ballot drop-off that you might get from the loss of the straight ticket could actually unseat several Democrats who are running countywide and I can tell you I didn't realize how county judge to me because I'm a creature of government and love government is such an important job to me it's such a big deal I mean we have legislators who leave on purpose to go and become county commissioners and county judges but on a six page ballot in Dallas County when you see where county judge is it blows your mind you realize how it is buried on page five of six after like all of your federals all of your states and then your count then all your state district judges and then all your county actual courted law judges you get that county judge race way down there it will be difficult for Democrats who are accustomed to enjoying that straight ticket balance in counties like Dallas to get elected in close contests going forward in 2020 so I think that's what the calculation was they were gonna the Republicans were gonna give up a little bit of the statewide advantage but they might start picking off local Democrats and key counties like Dallas and Harris because of the loss of the straight ticket Representative Leach I'll let you respond I mean what's the thinking behind this for Republicans well I was a bit surprised on the floor of the Texas House that night when we voted on that bill I think it was House Bill 25 by Representative Simmons who unfortunately one of my dearest friends in the world he unfortunately lost his election last week it was interesting on the floor that night how partisan it was Republicans generally supported it I'm not sure there was a single Democrat who voted for the bill don't quote me on that I could be wrong by a few votes but what we want the objective is to have a more informed voter and to ensure that and for those of you that don't know you can still straight ticket vote but you have to go through that we did away with one punch voting so you can't go in and pick Republican or Democrat you have to go through each race as Eric just said I think that's a good thing for both parties it's going to create some challenges for us in our campaigns right because now we have to go actually kind of not retrain our voters right but communicate to our voters how important it is to go down ballot to that county judge race and also just a logistical issue we're going to face wait times at polls oh yeah we're going to have to to look into that this session how do we address wait times at polls because even this year with turnout as high as it was even with one punch voting wait times were through the roof that's a that's a challenge we do not want to make it harder for people to to go to the polls see a line and say well I'm not going to go vote we want people to be informed and we want them to feel like they could come vote quickly relatively quickly so getting back on just in terms of governing Representative Leitch I mean you mentioned somebody who lost but your race was very close how do you think that changes your stance on governing and seeing some of you know with the freedom caucus with some of the Tea Party aligned members you know my all I can do is focus on on Jeff Leitch I can't worry about other members what they're doing what they're saying that includes our president our senator our governor my job is to vigorously advocate for the 190,000 people I represent in Collin County since the end of last session and I think for a lot of us Republicans and Democrats conservatives and liberals last session was very frustrating it was a it was a mess of a session for a number of reasons and so when we went back home my focus was to go on a listening tour of my district to go and spend time with my constituents knocking on thousands of doors meeting with educators I'm literally about to wrap up an education tour of my district visiting every single public school nearly 50 public schools in my district meeting with law enforcement parents and what I'm hearing is like I said earlier the issues that are important to my voters are very clear and I am not going to I don't want to assume that I got caught up in the blue wave the Beto wave if you will but I do not believe that my district district 67 is as close as this recent election showed so what I've got to go do is to go win the trust of voters who may not have voted for me this time but may have in past elections and the way I'm going to do that is to achieve results this legislative session I think we're going to do that you've kind of mentioned this too but do you see a lot of divisive issues coming forth this time around like we saw last session well I mean look the legislature by its very nature is or at least maybe taking precedent yeah right I mean it's like watching you know hot dogs get made you enjoy the end product but you don't really want to watch the process right and so I think what I'm hearing now in my conversations with colleagues on both sides of the aisles people are ready to get back to work we all have to deliver for our districts I don't care if it's district 100 or district 67 blue or red we've got to deliver and I think you see a sense of collegiality I'm very glad I know you were running running for speaker I thought we were going to meet today to talk about my support for Eric Johnson the speaker just a couple days late but uh leads a couple days late this is a good guy right here we agree on a lot more than we disagree on and I've been in his district he's been in mind we're working together on some things and and so I believe I'm glad the speakers race it's not behind us there's still still some things that could happen before January but I believe strongly that Dennis Bonham is going to be our speaker he's going to do a great job he's got bipartisan support we're ready to get to work and the device of issues sure there will be some but I don't think they're going to be the focus I really don't you guys have all helped segue into other things Representative Johnson you ran for speaker and pulled your name out when it looked like Representative Bonham had the votes to do this what do you think this means for Democrats because you were a big advocate for how much say they could have in this especially with the pickups what do I think the the possible election of Dennis Bonham the speaker means for the Democrats or that's what makes them clear yeah with Bonham if he is as it looks like will be speaker what do you think that means for Democrats in the House well I think unless the Democrats were going to to elect or be able to form a coalition with the Republicans who elect a Democrat and that would have been me in this case because I was the only Democrat who ran I think we were going to be in this situation one way or the other like we I was either going to be the speaker or we were going to be working with a Republican speaker so what this is going to now boil down to is all of us figuring out and we're and it's going to be a process for everyone Democrat and Republican figuring out what our new speaker if that is going to be Representative Bonham it appears that it's going to be what his a agenda is going to be he's already given us an indication that school finances is on it but that's that's one topic we'll see what the other topics are we don't know yet and then we'll have to see what his governing style is going to be I think it's an interesting speaker politics and the whole speaker dynamic for those of us who who really love the institution and love history the Texas House of Representatives is just a fascinating institution and that office is a fascinating office and I'm not comparing it to the presidency in any other way than than what I'm about to say and that is it's the kind of job because we've instilled so much power in it in Texas where it really does reveal what kind of person you've got once you get that gavel because the power is just enormous and so I'm hoping and I think that those of us who have supported Dennis are hoping that he rises to this occasion and is a leader that Texas needs right now to focus on like we've been talking about the things that I know the voters want us to be focused on but it remains to be seen it's it's something that that office gives everyone who holds an opportunity to rise to it or to crumble underneath the weight of that responsibility and you know throughout history if you studied our history we've had speakers who've gone both directions people who've gotten that gavel and that gavel has proven too heavy for them and it's all and it's been a him every time up to this point hopefully someday soon it'll be a she but up to now it's been a him that gavels as people have crushed themselves underneath the weight and some people have risen to the occasion and and really done very well and I'm hopeful that Dennis does very well I'm always very careful with what I say on air or anywhere but I think all of us would probably say that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick Dennis Bonnan are very strong willed and not afraid to speak their mind I mean how do you see Jim this dynamic playing out between the two of them well honestly as I was sitting here being a panelist instead of a moderator I was just thinking about a way that and you've helped me enormously I could just ask these guys my sense of this and I've spent a lot of time just because of where I've been in the last week with I've been around a lot of members and a lot of people that are obsessed with what has happened at a couple of professional conferences I would wonder I mean I think one of the impressions out there that's underlying your question and I'll say it on air I guess is that one of the things that Dennis Bonnan brought to the table that helped them helped him build a coalition across different factions in the Republican Party across party lines is that he was seen as an able and willing defender of the House as a body against you know vis-a-vis in the in the perpetual competition and contention with the Senate would I would I be correct in that? Yeah I get your point and I agree I agree I I think that look the Senate and the House have to work together one of the problems last session was we had a very dysfunctional relationship I don't want to place all the blame on on the Speaker or the Lieutenant Governor or the Governor we bear some responsibility in that as well I believe that Representative Bonnan and Lieutenant Governor Patrick are going to work well together look at the statement they put out yesterday and and again if we focus on the big priorities for instance you cannot provide property tax relief without addressing school finance that's right and you cannot address school finance without talking about property taxes and last session we just did this all session our chamber had a very different idea than what the Senate had but now we're seeing Senators and Representatives and the Senate Governor and the new Speaker talk and communicate that's a good thing for Republicans and Democrats and for the people were elected to serve so I think it's going to work out well well let's all let you in on this too just in terms of you know the divide that we saw last time around versus the people that we all think are going to be well Bonnan we know Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick but just the the dynamics between the two of them yeah I mean I think maybe even the three of them with Abbott sure well I think Bonnan in a lot of ways checked off the boxes for a majority of you know at least the folks that have signed on in his support there were people who were happy with Joe Strauss he was in his leadership team and so he had that going for them with them there were people who wanted someone who was a bit more conservative than Joe Strauss and I think it's fair to say that Dennis Bonnan is to the right of him and then there were people who wanted for someone to stand up for the House that's not to say that Joe Strauss didn't because I think that was clear at the end of the last session that he did but in a lot of ways he checked off those boxes what I think is sort of unclear at this point is how much of the Dennis Bonnan that was will remain once he's speaker if he's speaker and going up against Dan Patrick I mean I think from as a journalist you know we'd love to see people fighting because it makes for great copy but let me get them let me find out and now I know that's true but when you think about when you think about the session as the six-month period in which folks at the Capitol have an opportunity to make Texas a better place for people like the ones in this audience you know I think it's sort of it's too soon to say that it'll be sort of happy go lucky once things get moving yeah I think at the end of the day it was just awesome to see how many people came out and how many people were engaged this last time around with voter turnout and everybody coming to the poll so hopefully that continues with that I think it's probably I don't know what time it is but about time we've got questions from the audience perfect you're right there Stegra's got it thank you as someone who teaches about Texas government and US government I have a sort of a political sciencey type question going back to your discussions of the electoral issues it appeared that we were seeing a suburban realignment both here in Texas and then the US House of Representatives where the suburbs were shifting towards towards the Democrats in this election is that something that I guess particularly for Jim but for anyone else who wants to comment is that something that you think is a permanent change that we're seeing or is it a temporary reaction against Trump and the and what and is attitude towards women and his rhetoric and so forth so yeah permanent temporary some combination somewhere in between what do you think well I mean I think couple things one in the well overall we're still kind of looking at stuff but I think you know but I think that it's a trend line I think Alexis exactly right I mean nobody should be surprised that if we saw a big surgeon turnout and particularly and that you know and don't forget the surgeon turnout was in both parties that's right right and but that it was you know it was obviously at the top of the ticket it was disproportionately Democratic that that was gonna be an that was gonna definitely amplify these trend lines that have already been there I don't you know I think that trend line continues I think it probably recedes a little bit I think that part of what was going on here is two things one there's regional variations I think in the same way that we tend to make to overgeneralize about ethnic groups particularly Latinos we can overgeneralize about the suburbs too not all suburbs are the same I mean they reflect some of the urban the character of their urban of the urban areas that their satellites of I think we need to look more carefully at that and then second I think redistricting we're talking we're talking a lot prospectively about the stakes of redistricting moving forward which is important but I think we should pause a moment and look at these suburban results in some of these districts and see how some of the areas where Republicans had difficulties where you know I was having an exchange with Michael Lee who I'm sure much more you know most of you know is at the Brennan Center now but was in Texas for a long time on Twitter tie it all together about how some of those districts what you're seeing is a very ambitious and I don't mean that in a judgmental way but there was a very ambitious redistricting in 2011 that maximized Republican representation in districts and I think we should not be surprised that those some of those districts that redistricting map they're just getting exhausted I mean you look at a place like Plano where you've had 10% you had 10% population increase in Plano between 2010 and 2017 in a lot of these areas particularly these areas were in the two seats where the Congress the party in Congress change Colbertson and Sessions those are really rapid growth areas it's inevitable that those maps are going to become kind of exhausted and the partisan assumptions are going to shift that probably amplifies our expectation on the side of well look everything's changed exit polls show you know kind of a 50-50 split in a lot of those areas that's a movement you know in the at the governor's level of about six seven points that's big it's enough to change some things at the district level but I wouldn't begin to pronounce all suburbs democratic by a long shot yeah and one of the things that I saw throughout the campaign in Collin County and I represent Plano is in our own neighborhood and Becky and I's own neighborhood one of the strongest Republican precincts in the entire county you could drive the streets in fact our next door neighbor had three yard signs in her yard Greg Abbott Jeff Leach and Beto O'Rourke I hope you have a picture of that so for and so so that I asked my I said what is this what does this mean I'm not sure we know actually what that means something tells me that that voter went in and maybe last minute did a straight ticket Democrat ticket just because there the numbers would bear out that that person did actually not cross pollinate their ticket because it was a down ballot influence all the way down and number two we saw a poll came out this week that with a shocking number that surprised me pleasantly that I don't know the exact number 65% maybe of people who've moved here from California voted for Cruz over Beto it's a CNN exit poll I'm skeptical okay well yeah if it's from CNN fake news why say that no but you know so so so so political scientists pollsters consultants need to look at all of these numbers and tell us what does this mean for the future of Texas I don't think it's a blue wave I don't think it's a red tsunami I think it's it is what it is and we're gonna be left to figure it out the one thing I'll add and I'll keep it short is I agree with what Jim said that some of this is going to recede I don't think Republicans have lost all of the suburbs but I do think that when you think about redistricting and drawing maps that are supposed to last 10 years in a state like Texas the biggest drop in population is going to be among white people and those are more likely to be Republican voters and where you're gonna see that the most is in the suburbs where you're going to see that change and that drop the most is going to be in places like Dallas County and it's surrounding areas and so you know you have a place like Dallas County where Republicans ran out of white voters and so they cut their margins really thin and that's part of why you saw a lot of those districts flip to blue this time around and I think you know I've talked to enough sort of folks who are crunching the numbers to know that the next round of redistricting is going to be pretty tough for Republicans to draw as many safe districts if they are depending solely on white voters I had a two parter so Jim is your purple shirt and your purple socks indicative of the way things are going in Texas good you know I go for I strive for message consistency Dan Patrick had a big effect on the way things happened in the last session and you touched upon him and so forth and the Senate a little bit I wanted to know in light of all the right wing social crazy conservative stuff that happened in the just to put it mildly to uh in the last session do you foresee that that's going to come up again in the fashion that it did last time representative leech I'll let you take that oh I let me let me put it you talking about the bathroom bill all right yeah well that's a I mean look you can you can call them and with all all due respect you know the the the abortion issue the the the life issue choice what that's for for a lot of Texans polling would say that's actually not a crazy right wing issue there's a lot of people who care very deeply about it from both sides there are Democrats in the Texas legislature that are very pro-life and and that have voted for the pro-life bills with respect to the bathroom bill that was really the lightning rod last session let me just say this very very quickly I mentioned earlier that I've visited with thousands of constituents over the past 18 months law enforcement educators parents students themselves constituents and do you know how many people have told me that the bathroom bill is a big priority for them next session yeah zero it will probably be filed I assume that it might come up but it's it's I don't think it should be a priority for the Texas legislature this session I mean that group of folks that you're talking about we're also the ones who in the last legislative session came out and said we don't this isn't a priority for us well before we went into session that was when president then president Obama issued that directive I mean it was kind of a right during the Republican convention in Dallas and so it was a big issue for a lot of our primary voters I sense that work we're focusing more on property tax reform now and school finance and on those those bigger issues that we should focus on I want to split the difference between the two positions that well implied there anyway which is that one of the things we saw and why there's something that you know embedded in that question is an interesting point which is that we asked about the saliency of regulating access to bathrooms in as neutral a way as we could you know going into this you know well before it really became the issue that it became and found what you found which is that there was not a lot of interest in the issue not very many people thought it was important but as it became and it was in the wake of the Obama administration actions but as some elements of the leadership I mean we need to say what it was is a lieutenant governor began to talk about it a lot it increased in salience among among partisans and so that's where I think leadership and the question of what how you're going to define the agenda and what people are talking about in leadership positions really matters I mean you know we you guys are elected to listen to the voters but we also know that leadership figures what they say also shapes priorities and so a big factor is going to be you know when what people choose to emphasize thank you for your question I just interested in the likelihood of maybe having some redistricting reform next in this upcoming session like Arizona like California some other states have moved towards ask the the vice chair representative Johnson we'll get on about how I think I heard you about five times on the floor last session this committee has never even met so I'll let everybody on the inside joke I was the vice chair of the redistricting committee last session it did not meet one time I've repeatedly asked for the committee to meet it had bills that were referred to it including some that I had written and several that dealt with this issue that dealt with alternatives to legislative redistricting and a meeting of the committee never occurred even once we had a lawsuit decided by a panel of federal judges that actually gave us an opportunity to go in and and do something or at least to talk about the implications of the lawsuit we didn't we didn't meet so the inside joke is that basically I was this vice chair of this a very important committee that had very important work to do it couldn't get it to meet and I was I started a countdown clock you know on the on Twitter about how long how many days had gone on where this committee hadn't hadn't met and I tried to make an issue with the fact that you know the way our legislative committees work is that you know you get a chair of a committee you get a committee staff you get an office so this committee was fully staffed like every other committee of the legislature taxpayer money was going to paying a committee staff it had office space in the capital and did not meet one time so I made a big issue that never went anywhere but I have already prefiled a bill dealing with one aspect there's there are several aspects of of redistricting and and that we need to talk about and one of them that I filed a bill on deals with where we count incarcerated folks for the purposes of of the census for the purposes of drawing legislative districts just just to give her by a quick primer on what that's about I mean we have about enough incarcerated individuals in Texas to constitute an entire legislative district of their own we have about 190,000 incarcerated folks that's a problem but but they're incarcerated in places that are not where they're from and they interestingly enough count where they're incarcerated so they're artificially boosting up the population of the places where they're located which are primarily West Texas and places like that and they're under counting in districts like mine frankly where a lot of the folks who are incarcerated in our state are from so I have a piece of legislation that would that would deal with that but I'm hopeful but not necessarily confident that we will have a different result this session but you know I'm going to continue to push and and see if we can deal with that and the bills that will inevitably be filed I'm sure there are already some that would actually look at forming a a non-partisan commission to look at redistricting that way and there's some other different takes on that concept but we'll see we'll see if we talk about it at a minimum the committee probably has to start meeting during the interim between the conclusion of this upcoming session and the next one to start dealing with the redistricting of the next session so whoever is put on this committee is not going to be able to get a pass on not dealing with this issue at all because I think they're going to have to start the process of holding hearings and dealing with redistricting even during the interim between this session and the next I believe Representative Donna Howard has already filed a redistricting commission maybe some others too I actually completely agree with what he just said absolutely I will say the redistricting committee might have to meet because HD 90 needs to be redrawn as part of the litigation that wrapped up earlier this year and then that bill needs to be filed within the first 45 days of session so if it goes through the redistricting commission you'd at least have one committee meeting yeah if I'm on it I may have talked my way out out of the vice chairmanship he did he did but that's going to free up your twitter it is I didn't plan on speaking but you both made reference on numerous occasions to the suburbs and to property tax reform as well as to school finance reform I'm one of those council members that live in the suburbs live in Flugerville so we're not some extreme liberal institution but it's definitely had significant changes since we did in our last census as well regarding that aspect I just came from a form text peninsula form TML form across the state and we're speaking specifically about how we dread when you guys go ahead and you go down to the capital and you have those six months regarding issues and concerns what's going to come out of that in particular which was interesting to find was just like what was great to see which amongst both of you is that you're seeing some uniform regarding some pragmatic issues that you need to address everyone liberal, conservative black, white, Hispanic whatever you thought about we all agreed that local control is local control and so when we hear issues regarding property tax you know issues and concerns we have no qualms with them actually going ahead being addressed but there's also issues regarding just like you said representative about good roads good schools and how do you address those issues so if you're my question to both of you is this is that if you're speaking about true property tax reform in the state of Texas are you a company that with money that will go back to local municipalities they'll pay for roads they'll pay for these school districts so it doesn't just fall back into burden on us who have to explain to our citizens yeah the reason why your property taxes is the way it is is because we're not getting funding or support at the capital the answer the very short answer is property Texans of all political stripes from all parts of this state are crying out for property tax relief when my property taxes are going up eight, nine percent per year but my income is only going up one to two percent per year if that or I may be on a fixed income that's a problem that the cities the school districts and the legislators should do this on collaborate on because we have to deliver property tax relief and reform and there's no reason that we shouldn't be able to work together on that I don't think it's going to be a two point five percent cap I would vote for that I would accept that I don't think it's going to be that but I do think it should be lower than what it is now and so I also want you to be able to hire police and fire and build roads and repair pipelines and do all the things you need to do as a city let's work together on it instead of fighting against each other long discussion we could have about this I'm on ways and means and I have a background in municipal finance so I could go into this for a long, long time I'll just suffice it to say right now I oppose revenue caps I don't like the concept because I understand the flexibility that local governments need to be able to address the unique needs of their citizens on a whole range of issues I also understand that the largest part of your property tax bill is your school property tax portion and then of course and you said this correctly although you will start to get some you'll start to get some variance amongst members once I get to the second part of this we agree that school finances is a critical part of and a critical portion of any real property tax reform because it's such a significant part of what we pay property taxes for the issue though is we have to confront the issue head on at some point and everyone's going to have to jump into one camp or another on this it's the second part of the discussion that people don't want to necessarily tackle right now and even our public school finance commission hasn't really tackled which is do we want to put more money into the system or not people talk about the relative share of public education that the state's paying versus the locals are paying because we kind of all know that we where that needle has been headed for a while and that it's going in the wrong direction from the perspective of you know where the divide lines between the local portion and the state portion but the question really that we're going to have to get to is are you in it revenue increase supporter or are you not in other words do you want to put more money into public education than we're putting in no matter how we divide up who's paying for it because in the end and here's the sort of the I'm going to give you the punch line in the end it all comes from the people because that's how we pay for government whether you call it a a local property tax or you call it a sales tax where we ultimately all pay it but they all have different policy implications so we're going to have to make a decision about whether we want to put more money into the system after we've made the decision about and I'll say this I'm one of the most conservative proudly one of the most conservative members in the Texas House I think based on any ranking I think it was like 10th okay at 150 proud of that and I will say right here right now publicly what I've said before is that we absolutely should put more money into public education no question about it and and my education tour to nearly 50 public schools has reinforced that we also have to take care of our retired teachers and take care of health care and I don't know if the camps are going to be as maybe maybe monumentally or clearly divided as they were last session I think there's generally a the governor has said so publicly as well now whether we can get it done in a legislative session is another question but I think there is a desire on the side our side of the aisle to do just that and if we do so you'll see your property taxes reform this will be our last question Jim I won't ask the question I was going to ask because of chair Johnson actually made my argument to you on Facebook but what I did want to ask you all about is do you think if the Republicans statewide run what I'll call more of the traditional or more temperate Republican candidates like Governor Abbott like Comptroller Hager like George P. Bush as opposed to the ones that are a little bit more stridently confrontationally conservative like Attorney General Paxton like Lieutenant Governor Patrick is that going to help the blue waves receding in the suburbs and what I'll call formerly or historically upscale Republican enclaves in the cities you know I think that's the conventional wisdom John and I'm not my honest opinion is I'm not sure because I think we still haven't figured out what the sorting actually looked like in this last election I mean I think there's some intuitive sense to that but you know as I kind of implied in my you know response about why Governor Governor Abbott ran better there's a lot of reasons that there I don't think we quite have sorted out for the differential turnout and the differential votes for at those different levels of office ideology is one of them but there are some others as well I would say this I'm going to answer this question in a very different way I would say if I were I'm going to take your question and pretend like I was actually a consultant to Republican's trying to interpret what this election means and what we need to do if we want to continue to be competitive we want to continue our dominance of the state this is what my hunch is is what actually is going on and again I don't have the data yet crunched to do it certainly if you don't have it I don't but here's what I really think I would advise I'd say look I think that the takeaway from this election is this there's a distinction between the Texas electorate and the Texas voting age population those are two different things I think the Texas electorate skews Republican the electorate today frozen today skews Republican I think the Texas population voting age skews Democratic and as people are moved from the category of being a member of the population but not part of the electorate into the electorate you will continue to see a slow or maybe not so slow march towards more election results like what we saw on Tuesday whether you like it or not whether you think it's a good thing or not I think that's the actual political science answer is election nights like Tuesday are going to become more common than less if I'm a Republican consultant then I have to huddle my people and say guys gals here's what we've got to consider we've got to start considering general election consequences of our policies we can't we can no longer just be obsessed with primary ramifications of our policies things like bathroom bills and things like that are the old way of thinking when all we had to care about was a Republican primary but now that general elections are actually relevant those kind of policies have we have to not only not put them out there we have to try to get people to forget we ever did them and we need to move towards issues that work for us in the general election and I would spend all of my time as a Republican crafting electoral strategies around winning general elections because they're about to become more relevant for you and Matt Shaheen and all the guys up in Collin County that were talking about I believe that this is actually becoming the new normal what we saw on Tuesday I believe that yep I don't disagree well writing him a check for his Republican it will become a new normal if Republicans refuse to for instance if I refuse to communicate with millennials right now because they're voting overwhelmingly Democrat or if I refuse to reach out to and listen to suburban women if I refuse to I mean the Hispanic population in Texas many polls suggest this should be a natural base for the Republican Party and we've kind of stiff armed them with the way we communicate and we've got to do a better job of communicating and listening and delivering results Texas is a great place to live we are doing really well we don't have a whole lot to be ashamed of in terms of our results we've done a pretty poor job of communicating that to the people and we got to do better I think we'll end on that great conversation get some applause to all of the panelists great to see you thank you so much