Abbott and Patrick Leave Texans
Wondering Who They Can Believe

Capitol Inside
Decmeber 1, 2022

It's starting to look and feel a lot like Christmas in the Lone Star State with lawmakers playing Santa Claus and making promises including some they will honor and others they know they're never going to keep. With the debut of December on Thursday, Texans will be getting an earful of everything they want to hear from the leaders and lawmakers who they elected in the general election last month.

The problem is the people never really know what to believe anymore in Texas - and that's especially true when their top two leaders keep contradicting each other the way Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor have been doing on the two biggest issues that the Legislature will tackle in 2023 as far as the general public is concerned.

1. The Texas Power Grid

The Republican governor promised the citizens of Texas this year that the grid is more reliable and resillient than ever. But the bureaucrats who operate and oversee the grid admitted this week that they can't say for sure that it will survive the bitter cold of winter even though the Republican governor has guaranteed it. Now a bipartisan group of Texas senators wants the Public Utility Commission to back off a market redesign that's been under way by Abbott appointees on the grounds that it's inadequate. Six Republicans and three Democrats spelled out their grievances in letter from the Senate Business & Commerce Committee to regulators on Thursday.

"TX needs to build new dispatchable energy resources for when the grid is stressed in extreme weather/higher energy use," GOP State Senator Charles Schwertner wrote as the panel's chairman. "Unfortunately, PUC's current market design proposal falls short of this fundamental goal. Let’s work together this session to get it right for Texans."

Patrick doesn't see the grid through the same rosy-tinted lens as Abbott - and instead of gambling with another round of band-aids like those that lawmakers applied in the immediate wake of a deadly freeze in 2021 - he has a plan to actually fix without the need for Polyanna rhetoric. Patrick revealed on Wednesday that he sees a substantial increase in natural gas production as the key to the grid's long-term health to ensure that Texas has an ample supply of electricity socked away in reserves to prevent future crashes.

Patrick said the grid would be among his two highest priorities for the 2023 regular session when he wants lawmakers to approve the financial incentives that he says the state will need to get a proliferation of gas plants under way. While Abbott might think this is overkill for a power grid that's stronger than ever, he could see it as a win-win if keeps the lights on and makes a lot of money for the GOP's biggest donors who ply their trade in the oil patch. Patrick appears to be set on this idea whether the state's top leader likes it or not.

2. Property Tax Relief

The Republican governor has promised for months to spend 50 percent of a $27 billion surplus on a biennial push to reduce local property taxes. But Patrick poured water on the Abbott proposal when he said on Wednesday that the state won't be pouring that much into property tax cuts next year despite the fact that he has this issue in the crowning spot on his new priority list.

Texans who don't know who to believe on property taxes can trust Patrick on this as the legislative leader who's crafted and controlled the Legislature's agendas in the three most recent regular sessions of four in his job as the Texas Senate president. While the House has been the safety net, filter and burial ground for some of Patrick's pet bills, Abbott has shown no interest in a confrontation with Patrick since the two clashed on a prekindergarten plan that had been the governor's signature achievement in their first sessions in their current posts in 2015. Patrick will be confident that Abbott will go along on taxes, the grid and his other designated priorities for 2023.

Based on the Legislature's experience in the GOP era, Texas residents who've been around a while have watched property taxes go up every time their leaders and legislators have voted to cut them. This is destined to happen as long as Texas does not have income tax. They can simply delay the inevitable with a chunk from the surplus.

3. Border Security & Law Enforcement

Abbott and Patrick have portrayed themselves as unabashed allies of law enforcement while touting a new prohibition against police defunding as their evidence. But Abbott, Patrick and the other Republicans in Austin have routinely ignored the police on life-and-death issues like gun restrictions. And while they've passed bills to keep cities and counties from cutting law enforcement pay - they haven't proposed to spend any amount of the record surplus on higher salaries for the local police who risk their lives every day and are paid less than any other group of professionals.

But Patrick has pitched his support behind a pay boost for county sheriffs as one of his 21 foremost priorities for the upcoming session. Patrick is taking aim at other local officials, however, with a proposal that would give voters the ability to recall district attorneys and judges without extending the new right to state leaders and lawmakers like himself.

The Republicans have been on the same page as well on the separate but related issue of border security. None have questioned Abbott's claims on the border security offensive Operation Lone Star. The governor says the border mission is successfully securing the border in the Biden administration's absence at the same time he's contradicted himself with a declaration that Texas is being invaded from Mexico in a way that prompted the invoking of constitutional war powers.

4. Miscellaneous - Vouchers, Tenure, Critical Race Theory etc.

There have been no apparent rifts among the Republicans up to now on some of Patrick's other designated priorities that we will be exploring here as they unfold.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

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