Democrats have been the minority party in the Texas Legislature for more than two decades. While they continue to introduce and pass bills and even chair the occasional committee, Texas Monthly senior editor Michael Hardy says the long-running minority status
It鈥檚 even led some Democrats to side with Republicans when it comes to controversial legislation.
Hardy joined Texas Standard to discuss. Listen to the story above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Being in the minority is not exactly new for Texas Democrats, but you write that you鈥檝e picked up on something different in this session. What do you mean?
Michael Hardy: Well, I spoke to a number of Democratic political consultants and they told me that this session is unusual in just how extreme the Republican majority has been in pushing legislation and just how many Democrats are defecting to sign on and vote for that legislation. You know, a significant number of Democrats supported the school book ban prohibiting what Republicans called 鈥渟exually-explicit materials鈥� in schools. They supported a ban on gender-affirming care for people under 18 years of age. They鈥檝e supported bills that would give corporate tax breaks to big corporations. And the list just goes on and on.
Well, now, as you talked with Democrats in the Legislature, what did they have to say as pushback or did they push back?
Well, I spoke to Democrats in the Legislature who both supported and opposed these bills. The ones who supported the bills said that they were simply voting their conscience. And so they didn鈥檛 have a problem with breaking from their party to support them. You know, I also spoke to Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who is the chair of the House Democratic Caucus 鈥� he鈥檚 the leader of the Democrats in the House. And he said there really wasn鈥檛 much he could do to compel his members to vote with the party. 鈥淎ll we can do is try to persuade them, and it doesn鈥檛 always work.鈥�
Some of these bills, like one to allow the state to remove a local district attorney who deprioritizes prosecuting certain offenses, or that measure that neuters local initiatives passed by cities 鈥� you know, we鈥檙e talking about sort of preemption bills 鈥� have you heard from Lege members about why they鈥檝e supported those sorts of bills? Do they consider, I mean, 鈥渧oting your conscience?鈥� This seems like more a matter of issues of broader state policy.
It does. Most of the Democratic legislators who supported those bills did not agree to speak with me. And it鈥檚 unclear why so many of them are supporting these Republican measures, especially the ones, as you mentioned, that would allow the state to remove local DAs. And House Bill 2127, which is some people call the 鈥渟uper preemption bill鈥� that allows the state to just overturn a lot of local ordinances. So it鈥檚 not clear whether the Democrats have cut some sort of deal with Republicans to pass these bills or whether they genuinely believe these are good bills.
I guess that鈥檚 the question, right? I mean, in the old days, people often didn鈥檛 vote strictly along party lines, and that was the way politics was done. You would try to extract some concessions from your colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Is there any indication that these Democrats who are voting with Republicans are getting such concessions?
Well, in some cases, they鈥檙e only agreeing to vote for the Republican bill after certain amendments are added. So, in effect, they鈥檙e saying 鈥渨e鈥檒l vote for your bill if you allow my amendment in.鈥� And Republicans have been open to that on occasion 鈥� on other occasions, have not allowed the amendments. You know, then there鈥檚 some cases where, you know, Trey Martinez Fischer, the Democratic House chair, said very forthrightly to me that he agreed to support a bill reauthorizing this massive corporate tax break in exchange for the Republican leadership agreeing to take up some alternative energy bills. So there鈥檚 definitely horse trading going on.
Are there any political consequences for this? Do you have a sense that rank and file voters know what鈥檚 happening at the Lege with their Democratic representatives? Or how do you see this all sort of shaking down?
The Democratic consultants that I spoke to said most voters are not aware of these kind of horse trading, bill-by-bill, issues. But they did tell me that when you have a divided caucus like this among Democrats, it makes it harder for the party to make an argument for why they鈥檙e better than the Republicans and for them to draw distinctions. You know, 鈥渨e鈥檙e the good guys, you鈥檙e the bad guys.鈥� Well, it doesn鈥檛 really work when, you know, a third of your caucus is voting for what you鈥檙e declaring to be these bad bills.
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