Ken Wink, PhD, public administration professor at UT Tyler shares his assessment of the current session of the Texas Legislature.
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Mike Landess: For UT Tyler Radio, 99.7 K V U T. I’m Mike Landess. The Texas Legislature saw 7,385 bills and resolutions filed in the last session for the 88th session. Some think the number will go even higher. Of course, not all of those bills get referred to committee in the House and Senate. Here to catch us up on the priorities that have been set out for this session is UT Tyler Political Science Professor, Dr. Ken Wink.
Ken Wink: Thank you, Mike. Good to be here.
Mike Landess: More than the nearly 7,400 bills from last session being filed. That’s daunting.
Ken Wink: It’s a lot to do in a short period of time, for sure. Well, they’re not gonna do ’em all.
Mike Landess: Obviously. That’s exactly right. Well, tell us about those priorities.
Ken Wink: The governor laid out some things in his state of the state address, I believe, back in January, and interestingly enough, the lieutenant governor in sending his priorities, sent out a list back in February and said, these are the 30 or 31 bills we are going to pass. We “are going to pass. Going to pass.” OK, so I look for those things that are on the governor’s and the lieutenant governor’s list as strong possibilities. And so, those are the things I’ve been focusing on for the last few days.
Mike Landess: Give us a rundown of what some of those are.
Ken Wink: Well, there’s property tax relief; that’s almost certainly going to happen. I think what’s interesting this year is that the Senate has a version, and the House has a different version, so they’re literally fighting each other to figure out which one is the Property Tax Relief Bill. But I think probably the Senate’s version is going to get done. It has to do with homestead exemptions, and there is talk about, and I think, you know, going back to the crime splurge all over the country, and the fact that in some cities, it appears that D.A.’s and judges are not really locking people up for the minor things anymore, to the frustration of folks. There’s at least one bill and probably two that are going to address removing judges who refused to follow Texas law, if you can imagine that. And also, I think in the Senate version, there’s a reference to removing district attorneys who refused to follow Texas law. So, I thought that was an interesting state involvement in local affairs. The governor and the lieutenant governor are both interested in also increasing prison terms for gun-related violence.
Mike Landess: Right. Mandatory 10 year terms. That’s been a pretty big deal. I think we will see a bill on that. Less sexy, but interesting to me, has been talk of creating a new business specialty court. It has some positive aspects to it. Maybe some negatives as well. But that is a possibility. What would that be?
Ken Wink: So you’re gonna be amazed at this, Mike, but this is a case where Gov. Abbott has drawn on an example set by Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware. Would you have imagined such a thing? Not even Delaware has created a chancery court for essentially lawsuits involving only businesses where a business is suing another business. A supplier is suing somebody or, whatever, not an individual suing a business, or individuals suing one another. That is simply handled in that sort of a specialized court, and the idea is to get those kinds of suits out of the regular court system. So, criminal proceedings, lawsuits between individuals, can go through faster, but on the other hand, of course, it fast tracks the business lawsuits as well. And some have suggested that’s really a two-tier system of government where the businesses are getting priority by being able to get through theirs faster.
Mike Landess: Well, it’s also interesting, too. I mean, what would you have, directed verdicts? Who would be the jury of their peers?
Ken Wink: Basically, the judges would be involved in deciding who wins and who loses. And get this, the judges would be appointed by the governor. So as you well know, and many of our listeners may well know as well, all the judges in our state court system are, including our two Supreme Courts, by the way, are elected by the public, so these would be judges who are not elected by the people, but appointed by the governor. That raised some eyebrows as well.
Mike Landess: Now, in the just released February UT Tyler poll, the issue of casino gambling in Texas came up. There was an overall favorable reaction among the 1,200+ voters poll. You think we’re on our way to seeing casino gambling in Texas this time around?
Ken Wink: Yeah, it’s hard to say, you know, there are strong lobbies in favor of it. People, I think, you know, this used to be a pretty big moral issue a generation ago. I think people are not as upset by these ideas today as maybe they were 20 years ago. And you can always point to Louisiana as as being an example, and you won’t have to drive to Shreveport. And, we can keep money in the state. I think there will be some voters that it will be a big deal. but we’ll just have to see.
Mike Landess: So, some final thoughts? Any kind of a wrap up as you look at the legislature this session?
Ken Wink: I’m interested to see the property tax issues as well as COVID mandates. There is likely to be some legislation that affects to the extent to which businesses can require masks, and also the extent to which local governments can require masks or vaccines. And so, if you look at the property tax relief and you look at the COVID mandate relief, it really is a case of the state, one could argue, really looking closely and being heavily involved in what many would say are local government affairs. So the current leadership is not afraid to exercise state control in getting local governments to do what they think is the right thing to do. Others might say, “So what if Houston is different from Tyler is different from El Paso? These are local government decisions that should be made.”
Mike Landess: I was just thinking about the situation we’ve seen recently in Tyler where a number of school administrators have come together to say, “Hey, this voucher thing is not the greatest deal for the the local school districts. We already need money. And now we’re talking about taking money and giving it in this voucher school choice.”
Ken Wink: An interesting dynamic — there are good arguments both ways on this issue. You can see the arguments both ways, but one of the interesting opponents of changing the way we currently do it is in fact rural school districts, which desperately need the money and are in red parts of our state. You know what I’m saying? The rural republican areas do not want this changed, so it will be interesting to see what happens regard regarding that.
Mike Landess: Our guest has been UT Tyler Political Science Professor, Dr. Ken Wink. To hear this interview again, or to share it, you can go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio 99.7 KVUT.