From Cape You news in Austin you're
watching Texas this week with Ashley Good O
good Sunday morning.
The big story in Texas politics this week,
state lawmakers passed the largest
property tax cut in Texas history.
We'll have more on that in just a minute.
But first, let's look at some
other stories making headlines
in Texas politics. State Senator
Roland Gutierrez is entering
the race for US Senator.
I'm running against Ted Cruz because
everything that we've seen in this state.
Has been nothing but taking care of
rich people. Why the poor people?
The working class gets screwed over,
the Democrat says.
The mass shooting at Robb Elementary
School that left 19 students and their
two teachers dead prompted his run.
He'll now face fellow Democrat Congressman
Colin Allred in the March 2024 primary.
Another big name is joining the prosecution
team in the impeachment trial of
suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton,
former Supreme Court Justice Harriet O'Neill.
O'Neill retired from the court in 2010
and now has her own law practice.
She'll work alongside attorneys
**** de Guerin and Rusty Harden,
who were hired by the Texas House of
Representatives to prosecute Paxton.
Crews are installing a floating marine
barrier made of buoys in the Rio Grande
River at the Texas, Mexico border.
The governor shared these photos
on social media of the buoys
and razor wire and Eagle Pass.
Our sister station in San Antonio got a
behind the scenes look at the installation.
Governor Greg Abbott says the
barrier will be a deterrent,
stopping migrants from even
trying to cross into Texas.
But critics,
including Congressman Joaquin Castro,
says the buoys are drowning
devices that will create a
bigger humanitarian crisis.
On Thursday, the Texas House and
Senate passed the largest property
tax cut in the state's history.
The $18 billion plan reduces
the school maintenance and
operations tax rate by 10.7 cents.
If voters approve,
it will increase the homestead exemption
to $100,000 and for three years put a
20% cap on the taxable value of all
other property valued at $5,000,000 or less.
It double s the franchise tax
exemption to $2.47 million,
eliminating that tax for
67,000 Texas small businesses.
And with voter approval,
adds three elected positions to
appraisal boards in counties with
populations of 75,000 or more.
Lawmakers say the plan will save the
average homeowner around $1200 a year.
It took months of back and forth to
get a bill to the governor's death,
and while the plan passed
with overwhelming support,
it was not without some pushback.
Scott Braddock,
editor of Harvey Kronberg's
The Quorum Report,
joined me to break it all down.
So First things first,
historic property tax relief
reaction to the bill.
I had a veteran of television news
tell me to never do this on TV,
but I'm going to historic. They said.
He said never use air quotes on TV,
but but we hear that every two and
four years in Texas that there's
historic property tax relief.
There's been some historic reform.
You remember that in 2019?
That was when the governor was giving
his speeches saying that we're going
to fix property taxes in Texas.
Sounded like they were going
to do it forever.
But here we are in 2023 and they
wrestled with this For how long?
For seven months.
Look, I'll give them some credit.
People are going to see some real
relief over the next two years.
And I think for the average homeowner,
Senator Paul Betancourt is
the point man on taxes.
For Lieutenant Governor Patrick,
he said something like an
average of $1300.00 for for a
homeowner or something like that.
But it's going to vary,
of course from place to place.
You have $100,000 homestead exemption.
That Texas voters will vote on and
probably pass that with about 90% approval.
That's the history of elections like that.
And then you have tax compression which
the governor was saying he wanted that,
but he was saying he wanted only that,
right.
And then he retreated from that position
and they're doing something that's
a little complicated on appraisals,
but that addresses what the speaker has
been talking about for the entire session
and then couple of special sessions.
So everybody's getting some
of what they want,
but I would say it's been portrayed
in some media as just one of those
compromises where everybody gets something
and people had to give stuff up.
But the governor really lost here.
This is the first time,
and you know,
you've been covering these guys a long time.
Abbott and Patrick have never
really had a fight like this in
public on a public policy question.
And the governor's the only one who
was saying all or nothing, right?
He, he wanted only tax compression,
which most people around the state,
and you know,
those of us who do this for a living,
we still have to.
Learn about that right of it.
It's not, it's not a well known thing,
but a homestead exemption,
that's easy for people to understand.
The Lieutenant governor had
the politics of this right.
And the Lieutenant governor all along said,
yeah, we'll do some tax compression,
but we're going to have the homestead
exemption at $100,000 and he was
not going to give up on that.
And as my publisher,
Harvey Kronberg wrote at quorumreport.com,
you have a Lieutenant governor
who has no problem.
Shooting legislative hostages,
you know, he will you know take out a
bill if he thinks he needs to do that.
The governor was vetoing all
those bills trying to, you know,
put some pressure on the lawmakers.
But if Patrick,
you know,
doesn't care about shooting the hostages,
why would he care if the governor
shot some and he didn't, right.
Patrick said that Patrick said that
the governor trying to pressure the
lawmakers that he said it was a big
nothing burger that that didn't work.
So. They came to this agreement
and people are going to see relief
for at least the next two years.
And then of course,
the legislature is going to
have to address this again.
Let's talk about how it got passed.
You know, it flew through the Senate,
no problems as we expected because again,
this was largely a lot of the things
that the Senate wanted in the House.
Democrats were really trying to add some
things to this bill to change this bill up.
And they were just getting shot
down and it just drug on for hours.
It did. And that was kind of
a surprise to even people who
watch the legislature closely.
And including myself,
I thought, they're going to
come in and vote and go home.
They're so tired.
They don't want to be here anymore.
But the Democrats are
trying to make the point,
and they're they're seizing on
something that I think has really
broken through with average Texans.
They're trying to make the point that
teachers are not getting anything,
at least so far in this legislative session.
And the reason that I think it's
broken through with folks is I hear
from folks all the time who say,
hey, Scott,
is this true that the state of Texas
has more money than it's ever had
and teachers did not get a pay raise?
And I say, yeah, that that's right.
And then they want to know how
that could possibly happen.
Of course,
it is probably going to be the case
that the Lieutenant governor and
the governor and the governor has
said a version of this that they
want to use teacher pay raises
as a bargaining chip to try to
pass a school voucher or school
choice initiative later this year.
And based on comments from
the governor's office,
we expect that to happen,
that battle to play out after the
impeachment trial of Ken Paxton,
which is supposed to start in
the beginning of September.
You know, I also want to hone in on
something that the Democrats were
kind of set on and that was renters.
You know, the Republican lawmakers who
are behind this bill will tell you, oh,
the savings are going to trickle down to
renters and it's a competitive market.
And so if those savings don't trickle down,
renters can move that.
Really. If nothing else,
it shows that they're a bit out
of touch with how how people can
move around this state and the
ability to move around this. You
can tell that the Lieutenant
governor has probably not rented
since maybe the 70s or the 80s.
It's been a it's been a little while for him.
He said in an interview just the other day.
That just just what you just said,
oh, they're going to suddenly be
places that have a month free rent
or two months free rent and then the
place down the street has to do that,
It sounds like, I think for people who
do rent and live paycheck to paycheck.
That's going to sound like a stand
up comedy act or something that
that that's not the real world.
And of course,
I mean there were not only were
there attempts to try to make sure
that some of that does trickle down,
but there was also an attempt to
just try to give some transparency
to renters such that the people who
are that they're renting from would
have to let them know what they were
saving on their on their taxes because
of this legislation that was offered
by a Democrat from North Texas.
And that was not successful either.
Yeah, You know, how do then
Republicans take this home to we
have a state where about 41 percent,
40% of the the people in the state rent.
How do you take this home and say
it's a win to those constituents?
Renters typically don't vote in
the same way that homeowners do,
not in the same numbers.
You know, you get the government that you
choose and this is the one that we've got.
You know, it's mostly those folks
who are who are homeowners are
going to be the most active voters.
One of the places that that has changed,
at least the political dynamic has changed.
Is in the suburbs where now you have
more people who are at least open to
voting for Democrats who are homeowners.
And that's why you have these
battles in the suburbs between
Republicans and Democrats for some
of these Texas House seats.
And I think that's going to continue on this.
But I do think that this is,
it's sort of like a giant Band-Aid
politically what has happened with the
property tax situation because we'll
go through the next election cycle.
Where people will be seeing
the results of this,
quote UN quote historic property tax relief.
But then when you get to the next
election cycle, 2 years from now,
four years from now,
six years from now,
folks might not even remember
that this happened.
You can read more about the plan and
find answers to your questions about
how it will impact you at kv.com.
That's Texas this week.