Dan Patrick Gives Senate Committees Some Marching Orders

This week in Texas politics with the Texas Tribune

By Rhonda FanningNovember 1, 2019 3:55 pm,

It’s time for the week that was in Texas politics with Alex Samuels, political reporter for The Texas Tribune.

This week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick set out a list of interim charges for members of the Senate. Patrick asked various Senate committees to look into the issues before the next legislative session, which begins in January 2021, Samuels says.

“He charged two Texas Senate committees to look [at] vaping and the health crisis that’s been going on there,” Samuels says. “He also asked them to look into property tax reform laws, ways to ‘protect the lives of the unborn’ and studying how local governments use tax dollars to lobby the state government.”

Last month, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro announced he would drop out of the presidential race if his campaign couldn’t raise $800,000 by midnight Oct. 31.

Friday morning Castro announced he had met the fundraising goal and is now focusing on qualifying for the next debates in November and December. Currently he does not meet the polling criteria to qualify for either debate.

“He’s been polling in low single digits ever since he entered the race in January,” Samuels says. “He needs to poll at 3% at least to make the November debate stage, which is sort of a lofty goal for this campaign.”

There has been speculation in the media that Castro might be interested in joining Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign as her vice presidential running mate, Samuels says.

“That could be a potential ticket in 2020 just because they are such good friends on the trail,” Samuels says. “They’ve never really gone after one another during debates and they just seem really friendly.

 

Written by Antonio Cueto.