From Cape You News in Austin,
you're watching Texas this weekh
Ashley Good, oh good Sunday mor.
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang is
on a mission to reform America's democracy,
and he has his sights set on Te.
More on that in just a minute.
But first, today is the last day Governor
Greg Abbott can sign or veto bills passed
in the regular legislative sess.
And he's making good on threatso
veto bills over property tax re.
Let's get to the three things yu
need to know in Texas politics.
During a bill signing ceremony on Wednesday,
Governor Abbott threatened to va
significant number of bills unless lawmakers
reach a compromise on property tax relief.
And he's making good on the thr,
vetoing dozens of bills,
writing the same thing
in the veto statements.
This is the veto statement
for Senate Bill 1080,
which would have created a mitigation
program for the Lost Pines Groundwater
Conservation District, Abbott writes.
While creating a plan is import,
it's quote simply not as importt
as cutting property taxes.
Adding lawmakers can reconsidere
legislation in a future special session
after property tax relief is pa.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick blasted the
vetoes during a Dallas news conference,
saying the power of the veto shd
only be used to stop bad policy.
It's
not a very good image
to veto bills for no reason other than he
didn't get the property tax bill he wants.
The securities fraud trial for
suspended Texas Attorney General
Ken Paxton will remain in Houst.
The Texas Court of Criminal Apps
settled that fight Wednesday
after Paxton's attorneys tried o
move the case to Collin County,
where Paxton lives.
In 2015, a grand jury indicted Paxton
on 3 counts for allegedly defrag
tech startup investors in 2011 y
not telling them he was being pd
by the company to promote its s.
Paxton faces up to 99 years in prison.
No word on when the trial could begin.
Texas added Los Angeles,
CA to the list of Democratled cs
where the state is busing migra.
The governor announced the firss
arrived in the city Wednesday n.
Since April 2022 Texas.
Has bust more than 21,000 migras
to cities across the country.
The governor says the voluntary
trips are an effort to relieve
stress on Texas border communit.
Former Democratic presidential candidate
Andrew Yang is helping to lead a
movement to create a new political party,
the Forward Party.
Rather than focusing on traditil
Republican or Democratic ideolo,
the party's candidates will
focus on each community's values
and results based solutions.
Yang joined me to talk about why
he believes Texas is a great ple
for the party to make its mark.
We are kicking off
the Texas Forward Party,
Texas forwardparty.org.
It's a new up the middle political party,
not left or right, but forward,
which is where most Texans and
most Americans want to go.
Talk to us about the formation
of the Forward Party.
What really led you to do this?
Well, here in Texas
there are a lot of people who fl
like they're left out political.
And that's true in most of the country.
We have a two party system that
is increasingly dysfunctional,
unrepresentative and polarizing.
We don't want to be turned agait
our friends and family and and
other people in our community.
We want to get things done.
And so you, you and and some other folk
thought leaders formed this par.
You know, there are thoughts abt
other parties that have tried to start,
movements that have tried to start in
the past and have been unsucces.
What makes you feel like
this will be different?
We're just a lot cooler than everyone
else this direction. You know,
so I'm a numbers guy and an operator.
Turns out that 43% of the local races in
Texas are uncontested or uncompetitive.
And if you look at it,
it's not like Democrats are heag
to rural parts of Texas and rung
candidates and trying to win.
This state has been carved up into blue
zones and red zones like most of the country,
If there's anything the parties can agree on,
it's to avoid competition.
And that's what we want to chane
with the forward party.
But the path is very, very clea.
At this point,
2/3 of Americans want another option and
49% of Americans say they're independence
when you look at.
What you will have to compete wh
in order to get candidates to rn
rural parts of the state particularly,
you know, that's a challenge,
particularly for Democrats
because Texas is so reliably re.
So how do you think you're going
to go about recruiting folk to n
in those smaller cities? Well,
the truth is that if you ran as a Democrat
in a lot of those areas, you would lose.
But if you run as forward party,
then people have never heard of that,
so they don't know whether to love or hate
it, so they might have to listen to you.
And maybe they might have some
frustrations with the person whs
been in office that has not had a real
challenge in years and years and years.
The same is true in reverse, to.
Like there are parts of the state where
maybe a Democrat is sat unchallenged for
a while because it's like a blue Oasis,
I think. And.
And there might be someone who wants to
provide common sense policies and a more
moderate approach in that environment
to the thought process
that of the forward party.
Is it more of a moderate what
you would call a common sense?
You know, when we think about hw
polarizing both sides can be,
you feel like this is
the party in the middle.
Well, we're practical,
we're non ideological.
It could be that the practical solutions
don't fall neatly on this left,
right spectrum and we're trying to reconnect.
People to our representatives,
and then give the people what they want,
whatever that means.
It could be something generally
thought of as down the middle,
but it could be something else.
And that's what we need to establish,
because right now you have a
system where we don't matter.
You have a system where it's jut
this ideological back and forth
and our communities unfortunate,
are left behind.
But with no political ideology,
how do you feel as though peopln
really align to the party itsel?
Or is that the idea you want fok
to align to the person instead?
Well, what? We want
candidates to be able to express themselves.
We have this thriving grassroots
movement here in Texas.
If you go to texasforwardparty.,
you'll meet the executive
committee and all these people.
And we want Texans to establish.
What the platform should be for
Texas instead of having some top down
approach from me or anyone else.
It's an interesting way to look at things.
You guys actually consider Texao
be a battleground state. Why is that?
Well, it's a very important state and it
is one of our focus battleground states,
but it is in essence A1 party re
state and that is not unusual.
It turns out that 75% of the country.
Is one party rule where one pary
controls all branches of govern.
So we have something of a faux 2 party
system in Texas and a lot of the country
where you have one dominant par.
And then if you have a problem h
them and you know right now the
minority party is on the outside
looking in because of the structures.
And the same could be true and
reverse in a place like Califor.
So we are the pro dynamism pro competition
party on either side of the spectrum.
This idea of moving forward,
rather than left or right,
is something you explored in your book.
Tell us a little bit about that.
So I ran for president,
and what I determined is that or
current political system is not meant
to deliver solutions on climate change,
education, homelessness,
poverty, which is what I ran on.
And so I had to grapple with the facts.
Look, if you still want to
combat poverty, which I do,
it turns out that reforming our democracy.
Is the first major step.
And there are folks I'm workingh
who were climate change activists who
realize that our political systs
not going to deliver on climate change
unless you reform our democracy.
This is the argument that Ford s
to make and deliver is like, lo,
no matter what you care about,
this system is not going to deliver it.
And that we have to reform the system itself.
Because right now you have a 94%
incumbent reelection rate in Congress,
even though our approval rating
of Congress is like 20%.
So the feedback mechanism is br.
We have to rebuild the feedback mechanism
to have any chance to move forw.
So that would be elections, rig?
Yeah, that'd be elections.
But this is the the thing.
It's like the customary messagea
young person would be something like, hey,
get out and vote, become more active.
And young people have checked
out because they've realized
that a lot of these contexts,
their votes don't matter.
The the country's been carved up into blue
and red zones and it's a foregone conclusion.
Who's going to win by the time you show up?
If you go to rural Texas and say, hey,
vote, but, you know, vote Democratic,
it's not going to make a differ.
You go to to a place in Austin
and you know who's going to win.
The Democrats have already figured it out.
So we have to shake this up to
a point where there's genuine
competition and appetite for che
can actually be satisfied,
because right now you're just being set up
to get more and more frustrated and angry,
not not at the system,
but at each other.
That's like the the dangerousne.
Of the polarization that's just
rising and rising.
So when we talk about reforming
the democracy, what are the ways
that you want to see that done?
Yes. So if there's something that I'd
love for people to take from th,
it's instant runoff for ranked choice voting,
which makes it so that you can
run and not spoil anything.
You can rank a couple of candidates and it
ends up supporting positive candidates.
It discourages trashing each
other because if I trash you th.
We both look kind of bad.
And then candidate #3 benefits.
So if you had nonpartisan
primaries and rank choice votin,
it improves the incentives.
Right now, the incentives are ty
and keep the base off of your b.
And this is true in both parties
where you think that my job as n
elected representative is to ple
51% of my constituents. It's no.
It's just to please the 10 to 1.
Of the most ideological voters
that vote in my party's base,
and that's why we're getting
pulled to the sides.
If you had nonpartisan primaries
and rank choice voting,
it actually gives most of us what we want.
You can learn more about the fod
party in this story on kview.co.
That's Texas this week.