Texas political news this week encompassed all three branches of state government – with announcements out of the Governor’s Mansion, unknowns about the next speaker of the House, and a new Texas Supreme Court chief justice.
James Barragán, who covers state politics for The Texas Tribune, dropped by the Texas Standard to tell us more.
This interview was edited lightly for length and clarity.
Texas Standard: Let’s talk about Gov. Greg Abbott this week ordering the Texas Department of Public Safety to beef up anti-terrorism efforts after the deadly New Orleans New Year’s attack. What are the details there?
James Barragán: Well, this is a response, of course, to what happened in New Orleans. And he really wants to beef up security. He said he wants to beef up the connections between federal, local and state agencies so that they’re communicating, making sure to flag any potentially harmful forces, and beefing up the anti-terrorism task forces.
A lot of these are things that are already in place. But he is also trying to do one new thing, which is to track potentially dangerous people crossing the [U.S.-Mexico] border who may have terrorist beliefs or want to create these attacks. This is a longstanding Republican concern.
We should note that that wasn’t a factor in the New Orleans attack, but obviously something that Republicans, including Governor Abbott, have been pushing hard for in recent years.
Let’s turn to the upcoming legislative session. Attorney General Ken Paxton is apparently on tour calling for Republican Texas House members to back a certain prospective candidate for House speaker. Tell us more about that.
This is the thing we’ve been talking about for the last month: who’s going to be the speaker of the Texas House and whether it’s going to be Dustin Burrows of Lubbock or David Cook of Mansfield.
They’re both Republicans, but it seems like the right wing of the party is behind David Cook. And that’s what General Paxton was out there trying to convince voters to urge their state lawmakers, ‘Hey, stick with the Republican caucus pick, David Cook.’
It’s really, really unclear who it’s going to be on Tuesday. And so we’re watching very closely. But they’re putting all the pressure on these lawmakers. They really want them to stick with Cook. And we’ll find out on Tuesday who it’s going to be.
» MORE: Less than a week before the 89th Legislature, how’s the speaker’s race looking?
Finally, a new chief justice was named to the Texas Supreme Court this week. Tell us more about Justice Jimmy Blacklock.
Blacklock will replace outgoing Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, who’s retiring because he hit that mandatory age limit of 75. Blacklock comes in already having been on the Supreme Court.
He’s a close ally of Governor Abbott. He used to work for Abbott, worked with him at the attorney general’s office, defended the voter ID legislation, fought against Obamacare, fought about abortion. He’s a very, very conservative judge.
And he’s still relatively young. I think when he got appointed in 2017 to the court, he was 38. So a relatively young judge. He’ll be around for a while if he keeps winning his elections.
