Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick backs limiting powers for replacement | Dallas News Live

Well, unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick lost his bid for re-election in last week's midterm election. Well, now he is urging Republicans in the Texas Senate to limit the powers of the Democrat who beat him, Vicki Goodwin. Monday on the Mark Davis Radio Show, Patrick, who lost the race by nearly 600,000 votes, said Republicans should use their majority to change Senate rules. Now that could leave Goodwin less say over who leads committees and which bills get votes. So now I want to bring in Jessica Huesman. She is the editorial director at Vote Beat. That is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom that covers election administration and voting access. Jessica, thank you for being here. For people who don't follow Texas politics closely, explain what makes the lieutenant governor so powerful in our state. Sure, of course, I think on the merits, the Texas Lieutenant Governor is among the most powerful Lieutenant Governors in the entire country. He has an outsized stay in which legislation gets to the floor, which committees senators are assigned to. This role really does run the Senate and that is unique in Texas to other states. Okay, so realistically, what powers could they actually take away from Vicky Goodwin? You know, I think that Dan Patrick has been for years attempting to sort of consolidate power for Republicans in the Senate. So it used to be, for example, that if the Senate voted as a two-thirds majority, or it used to not be that they had to exceed a two-thirds majority in order to vote a piece of legislation onto the floor. Now they do, and that really takes a lot of power away from the minority. And so I think it's important to understand that the Senate is The lieutenant governor is quite powerful, but a lot of that power rests in the rules that this body has written for itself and the way that it would prefer to work, right? And so all of these rules over time have made Republican power in the Senate far more concentrated, and I think we would see them do even more of that, increase the threshold. To bring a bill to the floor without the consent of the Lieutenant Governor, for example. To remove some of the authority the Lieutenant Governor has for making committee assignments. There are a lot of different directions that they could go with this. So let's talk about the Constitution because that is more difficult to change. So what powers does she keep under that, that they might not be able to tinker with? So I think the roles that you just to put this in layman's terms for the audience that may not have read Texas's Constitution, which is just incredibly large and multilayered, you know, they she would retain the sort of. Things that we generally associate with the lieutenant governor, that sort of vice presidential vibe that the lieutenant governor in most other states have. She would retain some control over the Senate. She would continue to be the head of the Senate. But the way that that power is apportioned on a daily basis and the decision she might get to make with that authority could change under the rules as they're written by the Senate. So Lieutenant Governor Patrick is billing this as protecting the conservative majority. Are Republican senators lining up behind him? Any others in the GOP that have come out since he made these remarks and said they support it? Has been so interesting to watch because the answer is kind of no, I think that we have seen some Republican senators express generalized support for retaining Republican control of the Senate. But as far as I know, not a single one has come out and outright said, yes, I am in favor of the plans that Dan Patrick is introducing. That doesn't mean that they aren't. I think that the Republicans probably haven't figured out exactly what they want to do, Which makes it difficult for the Republicans to sort of. Sort of get out ahead of Dan Patrick and proactively say what they'd prefer. I remember John McCain famously saying, reaching across the aisle and I think that so many Americans are just plain frustrated with the fact that Republican, Democrat, they don't work together, but yet they're doing the business and conducting the business of the people. So here's a good one. What about Republican senators? What might reasons would they have to keep The lieutenant governor's powers in place. I mean, we don't necessarily have to line up against her. We don't know. And I think that if the Republicans have taken the extraordinary losses that they suffered on election day to heart, there may be a few that want to go in a different direction, that do not want to begin this sort of new era. Even if they believe it to be temporary in Texas politics in such a way, I think that the juxtaposition between the way that Dan Patrick is talking and a few Republican leaders are talking about sort of. Taking authority despite losing by 600,000 votes, that does not sit well with a lot of Texans. And I think that if Republicans are seriously looking at the reasons for their losses, they may go in a different direction. And if you compare that To the way that Vicky Goodwin or Gina Hinojosa has decided to approach their transition where they have put Republicans on their transition team. It really couldn't be more stark. And so I think it's going to be up to the individual senators to decide what sort of what sort of, you know. I don't think that it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that the public, the streets are saying that it appears like Lieutenant Governor Patrick is being a sore loser here when, you know, the people clearly spoke on election night. And now I'm going to try and do this on my way out to keep her from doing certain things. I do wonder if senators take away, say, power to pick a committee chair. What does that change with the bills trying to get a hearing on the floor? For specific legislation, I mean, property taxes, vouchers, things like that. That's such a good question. And those committee assignments are really crucial to this, right? So the committee is a necessary first step for advancing legislation. And so if legislation does not get assigned to a committee, it is effectively dead. There are ways to revive it. They are difficult. And the Democrats would still not have a majority in the Senate. And some of the existing rules make it difficult for the minority already to introduce legislation And so if that becomes more difficult, you know, we we We could see whole pieces of legislation being squashed prior to their ever getting full consideration on the floor. So has the Texas Senate ever changed its rules in this way following an election? Is there precedent here? There is not, at least not in the last four decades. Republicans have had majority control of Texas for such a long time. And so the changes that we've seen in the last few years have been Republicans attempting To sort of Unify their efforts in the Senate and retain control and push the minority down. And so the efforts Dan Patrick has undertaken in the last five years, for example, have been about ensuring that the Republican majority in that body has a much. Bigger say in the daily activities of the floor than the Democrats. And so those are the changes we have been seeing. Certainly removing even more is certainly a part of that pattern. But I don't think that anything that we have seen in the last decade or so comes close to. The types of changes that Dan Patrick is trying to make now. So you mentioned this in one of your previous answers about that bipartisan transition team. Where does she have room to negotiate with Republicans? I mean, they're all gonna have to work together. She was elected like it or not. She was elected like it or not, and I will say that Dan Patrick has not questioned that, right? We have seen sort of a striking lack of accusations about voter fraud or election tampering, which have been ubiquitous in recent years. Those have gone away, and what we're really focused on is, yeah, we lost, but now we're going to change the rules, like you said earlier in this segment. And I think that Vicki Goodman's power right now is really... A political, it's political power. It is negotiating behind the scenes with these Republicans to convince them not to do this and to set a better standard for bipartisanship in the state. And I think time will tell whether or not those conversations take place or they're effective. I think certainly she has an excellent. basis for making claims like that, that the Texas voters want something new and Republicans thwart that at their own peril. Jessica Huseman, the editorial director at Vote Beat. Appreciate you being here. Thanks for dropping by. Thank you so much.