In the August 24 episode, Congresswoman Julie Johnson reveals how some lawmakers may divvy up offices now that Republicans have passed the redistricting map in Texas. State Rep. John McQueeney tells us what punishment Republicans are considering for the Democrats who left the state. And Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert discusses their $5 billion budget and possible layoffs.
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Straight ahead, those new congressional maps pose tough choices for Texas Democrats. Congresswoman Julie Johnson's seat becomes heavily Republican. Mark Veasey's district moves to Dallas, so who will now run for what? A question we have for the congresswoman. Republican. State Rep John McQueeney on the tense debate over those new maps, how personal it felt at times and what kind of punishment he would support for the Democrats who broke quorum.
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Congressman Chip Roy, he's changing the Republican race for Texas Attorney general. And Dallas's new city manager defends her budget and eliminating positions, but does it really lower property taxes? Kimberly buys her Tolbert from her office at City Hall. Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley starts now. I'm Jason Whiteley. What a week in politics.
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We do begin though with some of the top political headlines you might have missed over the last few days. Congressman Chip Roy, he wants to be the next Texas Attorney general and his candidacy immediately shakes up the Republican race for this position. Roy once worked for Paxton and became a critic of him. Chip Roy is part of the House Freedom Caucus in DC. He has even clashed with Trump on some issues and now joins Aaron Reitz and state senators Maize Middleton and Joan Huffman in the Republican race for AG.
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Governor Greg Abbott wants the legislature to consider punishment for the Democrats who broke quorum. Abbott added that to the list of items that lawmakers can consider during the second special legislative session. The governor said he wants the legislature to ensure that rogue lawmakers cannot hijack the important business of Texas during a legislative session by fleeing the state, end quote. And we are watching to see whether there'll be any fallout in Tarrant County from that county cutting more than 100 voting locations.
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These cuts are for the constitutional amendments election in November. There were 330 voting locations. Now there will be 214. Commissioners say low turnout is the reason. The county anticipates these cuts will save more than a million dollars. Let's begin right now though with the new congressional maps in Texas. Democrats face some tough choices. There are fewer congressional seats they can win in South Texas and Austin, Houston, and DFW.
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Congresswoman Julie Johnson's seat is now heavy Republican Mark Vey's seat. It moves to Dallas, so who will now run for what? We begin this morning with the congresswoman and what she had to say about that on a new episode of Ytics. Your district is now heavy Republican. It will be in these new maps here. Are you going to run again for 32? I will
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be running for Congress. I haven't made a decision at this point exactly which seat I'm going to run for, but Um, I'm taking a hard look at 33. Um, the vast majority of my existing 32 district is in the new 33, and those are the, the question is, what is your district? Is it the number or is it the people you represent? And the vast amount of the people I represent in my current congressional seat are in the new congressional district
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33. Tell us the background here because currently 33, uh, is represented by Mark Veasey, an incumbent also a friend of yours, so. Do you, do you talk to him? I talk to Mark all the time. Well, I know, but I mean, hey, I'm gonna run for this seat. Are you running for it too? I mean how does that work in the background,
< spk_1 - 00:03:22.6540000 >
you know, Mark and I are going to sort it out. You know, we both are good Democrats who recognize that there's more at stake than either one of our individual congressional seats. Um, I do not see a situation where Mark and I primary each other.
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That was my next question whether you run against him.
< spk_1 - 00:03:38.5740000 >
Uh, I will not run against Mark By, you know, so. So you know we'll see um we're just gonna you know Mark and I have figured out we are grown adults who have a lot going on, who care about democratic politics who care about the future of our country neither one of us, uh, see the value in wasting millions of dollars on a contested primary. Uh, for a congressional seat, it's more what's going on right now is more than either one of us.
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We're, we are grown adults and who are dear friends who respect the hell out of each other, and we will figure it out. But, but
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voters will see you on a ballot in 26.
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That is my expectation.
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Yeah. What other options are there if it's not the Mark Vey district?
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Well, there's always 24, uh, Beth Van Dyne's seat, um. You know, I've represented a significant portion of that in the state legislature. A good part, you know, part of 32 got put into 24 as well, um, hers
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isn't as strong as or as safe of a Republican district because they had to spread those voters out. That's right. Her,
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her district is, is much more competitive. 24 is a much more competitive seat than the new 32, um, and. And it's more geographically compact, um, you know, a good, a good portion of it is in Dallas County. It's my strength of support is here in Dallas County. When
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Governor Abbott signs these maps, uh, into law here, the Democrats have any. Real legal steps they can take.
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Well, in my opinion, it's a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act. I mean,
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but that takes years to to to go through in court
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doesn't it? Well, maybe you know they've had a court case that's been pending for years that has proceeded through the down in El Paso. Uh, the judge has the ability to issue an injunction and prohibit these maps from going into effect. Um, that's certainly within their legal authority to do that. Uh, we'll see if they do or not, you know, and I think that was kind of another one of the processes was to get up for the quorum break was to give enough time.
< spk_1 - 00:05:37.5050000 >
Time for lawyers to get the appropriate motions filed in court and let the judicial process um cook a little bit and that was another goal that they achieved. Yeah.
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If President Trump helps broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, does he deserve a Nobel Peace Prize? We covered a lot with the congresswoman. This brand new episode of Y'tics out right now. Language warning on this one too, in case you have little ones around. You can still download this episode wherever you get your podcasts, or you can watch it on our free plus app that you can download right there on your smart TV. All right, let's bring in the roundtable now to talk about the politics of this and why is there a lot of politics?
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Bud Kennedy is here from the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I am Metro with us from the Texas Tribune and Natalie Haddad, political reporter at WFAA in Dallas. But. Start with you, uh, what, what's gonna happen with, with Julie Johnson and Mark Veasey? What do you expect to unfold here?
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Well, I, you know, you have 3 Democrats here. I think you have to first you have to see what does Jasmine do if Jasmine considers, you know, running for, uh, you know, stepping up and running for Senate, which she's the 2nd best known, most powerful Democrat in the state right now after Be O'Rourke. If she decides to step up, then that leaves seats for the other two Democrats. If not, then you know either Julia or. Mark Vay might consider something else. Julie mentioned the Beth Van Dyne seat.
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She also might have considered, uh, District 6, but that has been redrawn during the, the interim when the Republicans, uh, you know, strengthened some seats. They put Navarro County into Jake Elsey's district and made that stronger. Do you
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expect anyone to sit out though in North Texas? We have Jasmine Crockett, Julie Johnson, Mark Veasey, who sits out if
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anybody? Well, I, you know, I don't think we know. I think we need to see first, uh, you know, I think Jasmine runs for her seat and. If if everything falls into place, and I think then you know Julie is the one who has to find a chair, but it's a question. In this musical chairs of of uh who's gonna leave her a chair
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and I and these legal cases take years to litigate as you well know here the Democrats have a shot of stopping this in the courts? Yeah,
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it's an open question, uh, as Representative, uh, Johnson mentioned, you know, uh, legal action, the court case involving, you know, uh, the case over the 2020 redistricting is was was still kind of in court and was still to be resolved. So these are, uh, long, you know, process. too and maybe there's a temporary restraining order, maybe not. They don't know, but it's going to be, it's the legal the legal process is going to be long and involved, and they've got to start planning for the election.
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So that's going to be a very difficult process. Yes,
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the clock is ticking here too, but Natalie, when you zoom out here, how far does this set Texas Democrats back what Republicans have done here?
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You know, a part of me wants believes that this is not going to. Anything new to Texas Democrats, they have been on an uphill battle for more than 3 decades now, so I think more than anything this isn't gonna be a logistics thing for them. It's gonna be almost an emotional thing. It's going to be, well, who am I going to run against? Am I going to run against them at all? What district am I going to choose this time and what does that mean for my, well, I guess my current colleague in Congress
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and fielding candidates too perhaps in the future too. Alright guys, thanks for that. A lot more ahead here including this. When we come back, how will Texas Republicans punish the Democrats who broke quorum? Republican state rep John McQueeney from Fort Worth is up next, and the first black woman to ever run Dallas City Hall, City manager Kimberly Bezer Tolbert defends her budget and her priorities when Inside Texas politics returns.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. This week, the legislature will likely consider whether to punish Democrats who broke quorum. That's the latest ad to this second special legislative session. Our next guest is on the redistricting committee in the House, State Rep John McQueeney, a Republican from Fort Worth. Representative, welcome to the program. Governor Abbott's letting lawmakers consider punishment for the democratic quorum breakers.
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Is this something you think that that should be in statute should be in law or something the House should deal with with rule changes?
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I, I think everything should be on the table, Jason. I think that rule changes are necessary, but it may need to be in statute, and I honestly don't think that the minority party should be able to stop the work of the government. So, I'm in the camp of everything's on the table. I think that there are rules existing rules that we are going to need to enforce and enact, and I think we need to look at things moving forward so that we don't have the same problem in the future.
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What kind of punishment would you support? I've heard everything from, you know, revoking parking spots to maybe some budgets to. Uh, you know, getting rid of vice chair positions, what would you support? What's on the table?
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I think that the biggest thing that you're seeing a lot of support for that I also support is an impact to seniority because seniority has so many different levels of importance committee assignments, it's gonna start impacting Democrats if they have to lose seniority. So I'm a supporter of Changing the rules, maybe statutorily changing the rules so that we handle that so that seniority is impacted for people. If they're not here representing, they're not here working, they're not representing their constituents, they shouldn't be given the credit for, for doing so with their seniority ranking, in my opinion.
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Debate on the congressional maps the other day, it got tense. It felt personal at times. Was it in your opinion? Could, could you tell?
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It was more personal than I thought it was going to be. Um, this is my first experience with redistricting. I've gotten feedback from others that they said this wasn't as intense as it has been in the past. I think there's an element when you do a overall redistricting that impacts Texas districts, you know, for our, for our seats as well as congressional districts, it gets a little bit more personal, so maybe that was part of it. Some of the feedback that we got from the other side of the aisle, though, uh, certainly was personal, and I don't, I don't necessarily believe that it's all true.
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I think some of it was rhetoric, you know, the Democrats left the state when we were trying to work through this. Um, you know, I think Texas leveled the playing field. The new maps that we approved and voted on yesterday, um, they had 5 Republican leaning congressional seats. We believe that they're legal, we believe that they're fair. Um. And it's candidly what other states have been doing. Other blue states have been doing this for decades, and Texas is leveling the playing field.
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Democrats are threatening to to take this to court, take the maps to court, looking perhaps for a TRO, uh, to stop these maps from actually being implemented here. Are you concerned that these might not be implemented by the, uh, March primary?
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No, I'm not concerned about it. I think we did the process correctly. I think we followed it by the letter of the law. We were fair. I believe it's legal. The Supreme Court has given us the ability to do so. Uh, they've made it very clear that you can draw these maps based on partisan performance, and that's what was done. So, no, I am fully expecting a lawsuit. I assume it'll happen within the next couple of days, uh, once the bill gets signed into law, but am I concerned about it standing up in court? Absolutely not.
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Representative, good to see you. I appreciate you making the time for us.
< spk_6 - 00:12:31.0100000 >
Absolutely, anytime. Thanks a bunch, Jason.
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All right, turning now to Dallas City Hall, next month, City council considers a brand new budget $5.2 billion. This will eliminates some positions and it lowers the tax rate, but will it really reduce property taxes? Dea Wall sat down with the city manager Kimberly Bezer Tolbert in her fourth floor office at Dallas City Hall.
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Kim, welcome. Thanks for sitting down with
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me. Absolutely, thank you.
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So you started at Dallas City Hall as an intern. Yes. What has the journey been like to go from an intern at City Hall to now the city manager, first black woman to be? Yes,
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it's a full circle moment. Um, I, I came into this building into City Hall over 30 years ago and was hired by the first woman city manager for the city of Dallas and it's, I smile, uh, because I know that this didn't happen overnight, that journey has not been a journey that has been all paved roads. There have been the bumps and the roadblocks. There have been the potholes, um, but it's been a journey that I would do all over again.
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You are over the budget. The budget is your specialty. Uh, one of the biggest things you do, it is budget season. Uh, we got our first little sneak peek not too long ago. Um, the budget you presented to council eliminates 282 positions, adds 277, most of them under the police department, right? Um, you know the question that's coming, who's gonna lose their job?
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It's not about adding new positions to the budget. I think in the past, uh, adding positions did not necessarily solve problems, and we're trying to solve and address some of those unique challenges that we have and so we do believe that even with some of those positions that are impacted in the budget, uh, that there will be opportunities to move into some of those.
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Areas where we know vacancies still exist having the additional capacity in the police department, our residents have asked us to do that and and and going forward, um, we will continue to challenge ourselves year over year and how we look at our positions, the ways that we need to make sure that we are delivering and we're bringing about the type of change that I know that this community is asking us we've got to work smarter.
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Uh, we've got to utilize technology and a lot of what you see in this budget is allowing for us to leverage those opportunities to get out of some of the manual processes and so there's going to be those types of impact but not to the detriment of the city.
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Another headline, Kim is gonna be the budget you presented it lowers the tax rate but we know yesterday's price is never today's price, right? So prices continue to go up. Will taxpayers, homeowners see a decrease in that in that tax bill?
< spk_8 - 00:15:14.7990000 >
They'll see a decrease. Um, last year's decrease is a bigger, is a bigger one, but we also understood that as we balanced the budget and because of the way the Senate bill, um, two was designed we had to be under a certain cap on our reappraised, uh, value, uh, and so we're actually under that cap where the the cap is 3.
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5% we're at 3.4% so really there was not an automatic reduction in the property tax that we had to take but we still provided that because we believe that it's important to continue to provide that relief for our for our homeowners so some depending on the value of their property might see might be a bigger one some it might be you know more of a minimal um.
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Um, decrease, but it is a way for us to continue to show that we're listening and we wanna do everything that we can as we continue to work on the ways we deliver services we want to do it in a way that when we can provide that relief that we absolutely make that a part of what what we include in our in our budget year over year so I'm excited about it. I'll see what council does.
< spk_7 - 00:16:18.7390000 >
Kim, thanks so much
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for joining us. Thank you so very much for having me.
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The round table is ready when we come back. This is Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley. All right, time now for Reporters Roundtable to put the headlines in perspective. Bud, Ian, and Natalie all back with us here. And Ian, let's start with you. Congressman Chip Roy announced he's running for Texas Attorney General. He likely has the highest name identification. How does his entry change the race?
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I think that's exactly right in talking about name recognition, recent polling showed, you know, up to 70% of potential voters may not know who's already in the race and not haven't identified with the candidate yet. And so Chip Roy certainly enters that, uh, you know, that his, his name recognition is super strong. What's gonna be interesting for. Roy is of course his history with Ken Paxton and even at times butting heads with President Trump or at least not being on the same page, you know, does he get that Trump endorsement? That's going to be pretty key in this race.
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And Natalie, this is already a crowded race with two state senators in there, Aaron Reitz, who worked for the DOJ and worked for Paxton, just like Um, Chip Roy did, yeah,
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I, you know, I think to Ian's point, I think Chip Roy is going to have to really take advantage of the name recognition he has, uh, especially, you know, he's butted heads with Paxton, of course we already know about that issue and then President Trump, he is known for, or rather Chip Roy is known for not wanting to vote for these big spending bills and so that has ruffled his feathers surely. So I think Chip Roy is going to have to worry less about Paxton's thumb and.
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More about the golden hand that President Trump seems to have, I think that's who he's going to have to really lean into to try and get ahead in
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this race. Well, that's my next question, then did Chip Roy and Aaron Reichs, did they seek the same MAA
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voter? Well, Chip Roy has to somehow reach and win back some of the Pakistan voters who don't like the fact that he was against Paxton, that he thought Paxton should step down. I think that Joan Huffman will have a lot of the corn. Voters and so Chip Roy has to be able to win from both everything in this primary is gonna be seen through Cornyn against Paxton and all the way down the line is gonna be, are you a Cornyn candidate or are you a Paxton candidate and either you're for or against Ken Paxton that's the way it's all gonna be filtered
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and, and I let's uh shift off and talk about the, the, uh, the quorum break that the Democrats had. They, I think for the first time in, in all three of these they actually got something done in 2003. They, they, they caved at the end. John Whitmire came back to Houston. Uh, we know what happened in 2021, uh, but now they've, the Democrats here have gotten California to actually take steps. What would you say, you know, that that they actually got out of this then they accomplished.
< spk_4 - 00:18:53.6400000 >
Yeah, yeah, the most obvious, uh, element of this is just kind of the national attention that they drew from their walkout, uh, and it, it just resonated with a lot of, uh, uh, Democrats and supporters across the country and obviously California. I mean it also set the stage too for some legal preparations too. Um, they were talking with lawyers throughout this and that helped, you know, kind of set the stage for the legal battle as well so they can point to some wins, but also, you know, they came back to a state where Republicans were pretty united as well and pretty angry about the walkout.
< spk_0 - 00:19:23.3190000 >
Yeah, and Republicans clearly had the votes and, and they won in the end, at least on this one here, but let's talk about the sleepover. In the House chamber there, Nicole Collier, a Democrat from Fort Worth, why was she the only one
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who did this? I think it was spontaneous. I don't think that anyone else had thought of it. She had two days, but Nicole is a lawyer. She's chaired criminal justice, you know, I think that she looked at it. She had her suitcase. She'd just gotten back from traveling and she didn't like the idea of having an escort everywhere she went and all the other Democrats just thought, OK, well I get to, to at least, you know. Go home, but I think she just said, no, I'll stay right here
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and it made for a good moment, Natalie, but are you surprised nobody else joined in?
< spk_5 - 00:20:03.2120000 >
I'm surprised, you know, to Bud's point, actually, I think it's a don't know what you don't know kind of situation, and I thought it was very telling when we saw representatives like Mala Plaza from Collin County rip up the permission slip and say Nicole Collier was right. And so you know politicians are not one to stray away from a photo op. I do think it was much more than that where. They said, you know, this was something maybe we should have thought of too and joined her,
< spk_0 - 00:20:26.4530000 >
it seems like that indeed, but let me ask you about Tarrant County eliminating more than 100 voting locations here. This is for the November election. It's a low turnout election, but, but how does eliminating these locations help either party? Well,
< spk_3 - 00:20:38.7340000 >
this is a really tiny election and so I'm not as upset about the number of election day seats, boxes as I am about early voting. They tried to cut early voting 4 years ago. They had 44 early voting boxes. They tried to cut it to 22, uh, you know, there were only 2 boxes in all of central Fort Worth. There happened to be a lot of Democrats there, but, uh, uh, that they either had to go upstairs in the county office building or out to the office in these, uh, you know, remote industrial park. Uh, it was a terrible situation.
< spk_3 - 00:21:08.0560000 >
Fortunately, even the Republicans on the court, you know, Manny and Matt came in and put some of those, uh, voting places back in. People to vote early, 3/4 of this election will be early vote.
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And last thing, just a few seconds here, is this a precursor to 26, do you think what Tarrant County does with voting
< spk_3 - 00:21:22.7670000 >
location? I think Tarrant County, uh, we have a judge that wants to run on the fact that he's saving money. He wanted to show that he was saving money and he will continue to want to save money even though there's nobody out there saying, gosh, I think we have too many places to vote. All
< spk_0 - 00:21:35.7380000 >
right guys, thanks so much. We appreciate that. Thank you for watching as well. We're back again next week to take you inside Texas politics. We hope to see you then. Take care.