AUSTIN — Optimism heading into this year’s legislative session in the GOP was pretty high.
All of the state’s top Republican leaders had won re-election by healthy margins. The legislature ran a record surplus. And lawmakers agreed that Texans would see steep rebates on their property taxes.
At the end of the session, Attorney General Ken Paxton was fired. A $17 billion property tax cut package was dead. And the so-called Big Three — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan — were engaged in a rare public political fight with no end in sight.
The infighting has exposed deep cracks in the veneer of Republican-dominated Texas political leadership. Political experts told The Dallas Morning News that the remarkable outburst is a symptom of one-party rule.
Political points
“When one party rules the governing structure for a long time, you start to see the internal rot,” said Jim Henson of the University of Texas-Austin, who directs the Texas Politics Project.
Disagreements over how to implement a proposed property tax cut have led to the clash with Patrick on one side and Abbott on the other. Each has competing plans to do so.
Abbott favors a broad approach that spreads the relief among all owners. Patrick, meanwhile, has a similar plan, but wants about 30 percent of the cut to go toward relief for homeowners alone.
Phelan and the House approved Abbott’s plan less than 24 hours after the governor demanded that both chambers stay in Austin until the property tax cut was addressed. Patrick and the Senate passed a plan similar to the one they favored when the regular session ended.
As a result, both Abbott and Patrick have taken to social media to publicize their differences. The back-and-forth has been frequent and fierce, as Abbott has touted the fact that his plan is backed by dozens of business groups, while Patrick continued to sell his plan Friday as the best tax cut for homeowners.
With the chamber in adjournment, there may be no more negotiations between the two chambers for now. Patrick has shown no sign that he is willing to budge, and Abbott said Friday at an event at a conservative think tank in Austin that he would call lawmakers in Austin as often as necessary to pass his plan.
And while their political feud continues, Paxton’s impending impeachment trial looms.
Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at SMU, said the current state of the Texas GOP reminded him a lot of high speed. He called Paxton’s impeachment “an absolutely unprecedented eruption” in the GOP that is only exacerbated by Phelan’s alliance with Abbott against Patrick’s tax plan.
Although Patrick appears to be isolated, Jillson said he maintains the lead. Patrick has thrown more jabs at Abbott, including questioning the governor’s understanding of the legislative process over Abbott’s demand to pass a tax plan “solely” to his liking.
“Abbott has more at stake here as things exist today,” Jillson said. “Patrick can afford to let issues go undecided, while Abbott is more likely to be held accountable for work not done.”
Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, sees the confrontation the same way.
“Neither Phelan nor Abbott will be able to provide Texans with property tax relief without Lt. Gov. Patrick’s support, and the Lt. Governor is in a stronger position,” Jones said.
“His proposal benefits average Texans far more than the Phelan-Abbott plan,” he added.
Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston said ideological divisions within the Texas GOP are not uncommon. But emerging on fiscal policy was a “new dynamic.”
Abbott made the property tax cut one of his emergency items for the Legislature this year and has spent a lot of political capital promoting that promise. His other major public campaign on his proposal to allow parents to use taxpayer money for private school tuition also failed.
“The governor has drawn a line and he expects the party to come to his aid, and if they don’t, he’s going to be very vocal about it,” Rottinghaus said. “That seems to be what we’re seeing right now.”
Both Rottinghaus and Jones said Abbott and Patrick tend to be more aligned. GOP infighting generally centers on conflicts between the more conservative Senate and the House, where many hardline Republican proposals die.
It was no different this year with Patrick ending the session lamenting the death of Senate bills that included a mandate for the Ten Commandments to be in public school classrooms, a ban on Chinese citizens owning property types in Texas and the completion of polling stations throughout the county.
But the fight against tax policy has united Phelan and Abbott and left Patrick isolated
“They effectively gave the Senate and the lieutenant governor a take-it-or-leave-it decision on their proposal,” Jones said.
