During week 2 of the second Texas Legislative special called session, the two Republican-led warring chambers do not seem any closer on a compromise on two markedly different tax reform proposals.

Fair to say, on top of impeachment articles and expulsions, the environment at the Texas Capitol in Austin is mix of acrimonious and paralyzed. It’s a fine opportunity for a rival faction — for example, Texas Democrats — to step in and at least act as the adults in the room. And they tried this week, with a press conference dedicated to their tax reform proposal which purports to offer renters some much-needed relief as rates keep rising.

Enter: Rep. John Bryant, the face of this effort. We thought he looked familiar. North Texas voters may remember the 76-year-old’s previous stints. According to a Texas Monthly article and interview with Bryant, he was first elected to the Texas House in 1974, before winning a seat in Congress where he served from 1982-97. That’s a long time, followed by a long pause. Enough to give us some sage perspective on what has changed since the post-LBJ era.

Like most interviews, there were hits and misses.

Bryant came back to Austin, he said, because he believed the 2021 protests in D.C. to postpone the certification of the presidential election results amounted to an “authoritarian” insurrection. Aside from that bit of lefty Populist outrage, his gray hair, well-pressed true blue suit, and general talking of the talk leaves one with the impression that the Democrats might actually have a workable plan.

Alas, Bryant said the Democrats of the Friendship State have a problem: their “muscle memory” does not recall a time when they were in the majority. They’ve gotten overly philosophical over the past three decades without a statewide victory or any sense of realpolitik.

“The eighty-eighth session was a continuation of a lack of strategy, a lack of organization, a lack of willingness to sacrifice personal agendas in favor of working as a voting bloc,” said Bryant in the Texas Monthly article, which casted him as a pragmatic Texas Democrat of the Bob Bullock mold (if you know you know). While he may be an “old white guy” confused for the more pragmatic and middle-of-the-road breed of Democrat who used to inhabit the Texas Capitol, Bryant is up there among the Top 20 most-liberal legislators according to this analysis.

That grilling Bullock was once known for, Bryant said, is a rare commodity these days. He pointed to anemic verbal exchanges on the floor, near-unanimous floor and committee votes, and a general lack of courage on display.

TM: You think debate and dissent was much more robust back then?

JB: Oh, my gosh. Much more. It was real freewheeling on the floor and in committee as well. It was nothing like now, in terms of the stultification of debate as a result of not trying to offend anyone in power so you can get a little bill passed. […] What a bunch of sheep; I’ve never seen anything like it. I had a lobbyist in my office, a former senator. He says, “When I was down here before, a senator was a big deal, he was independent, he might do this, he might do that, you never knew. Everyone was very deferential [to the senators].” Now it’s just go along to get along, Democrats included. The Senate voted thirty-one to nothing on the budget. Are there no differences between Democrats and Republicans on the budget? Thirty-one to nothing on the property tax deal, too, and same way with the education funding.

While refusing to assail his colleagues for an over-focus on “culture war” issues (a term he balked at, calling those issues important) he employed the usual Democrat of lobby rankings — that Texas ranks low in mental health, “gun safety,” ad nauseum, according to trade associations and interest groups with a penchant of spending other people’s money.

As much as Democrats are fond of these state-per-state rankings, Republicans are concerned with ratings of another kind: those appearing in legislative scorecards. Bryant said organizations backed by “megabillionaires in this state” have pulled the strings so tightly on GOP members that they are reluctant to engage in the back-and-forth the Legislature of yore was known for. To wit, legislative Democrats in the Lone Star State can still be effective in restoring a culture of hearty disagreement and rigorous analysis to the state capitol.

From the hip. Here’s where Bryant’s logic hits a pink granite wall: Those most loyal to conservative scorecard-issuing operations are the ones more likely to challenge the chamber’s leadership, bird-dog budget amendments, grill nominees, and debate the committee reports before they hit the floor.

Take for example the Texas House Freedom Caucus and their perennial offering of a doomed Speaker candidate. It’s the legislators who rank lower on the billionaire-backed scorecards who tend to be the most “sheepish” in debate, all while cracking the whip administratively (or succumbing to that whip).

So which is it, Rep. Bryant?

True, and as you said “we’ve never had anything like those days” when it comes to the sheer number of lobbyists and organizations involved. But let’s not pretend they never existed.

Texas Monthly editorialized that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (“a former radio shock jock once known for getting an on-air vasectomy and where even serious lawmakers spend much of their time talking about drag queens and sexy books at the school library,” the article said) represents the kind of clownish behavior that the allegedly more stentorian Democratic regime of the 1970s simply did not have. We all know that’s a load of hogwash, and according to TM’s own estimation. Take a look at any of the Best and Worst lists from any decade.

Having roamed the halls for a decade or two, this writer can easily say the stories from previous decades pale in comparison to today’s more PC reputation. Need we mention a famed margarita mixing machine in a stairwell closet on the House side? Yes, the drinking, the smoking, the carousing, and (shamefully) the harassment was much amplified in those alleged salad days of near-universal Democratic rule, back when men were men, women were women, the big divide was urban versus rural, and the alcohol flowed as freely downtown as it ever has. Why, you could even break quorum and not be arrested!

Yet reading through the Best and Worst lists, it would seem that conservative Democrats — some of whom switched parties during the Reagan Era and into the ’90s — were the usual laughingstock. Why do we suppose that is?

For starters, American politics — yes, even in Texas — has been on a Progressive trajectory since around the turn of the Century (the 20th, that is). For about a century government has grown and grown and grown. Even under Republican rule the state capitol complex recently completed a massive expansion of state office buildings on the north side. Only recently have we even begun to see the track shift to the right, with state income in Texas finally exceeding expenditures around the 2015 session.

As much as Democrats complain about a turn to the radical right, that’s simply not the case. What did “fiscal conservatives” do with the $33 billion surplus this year (California had a deficit about that large, by the way)? A lot of that will be determined by which (if any) tax reform plan passes, but most of it is being spent. Gov. Greg Abbott at least put his foot down and demanded half go to tax relief.

Half. Not a total refund.

Is Texas fiscally moderate but socially as “far-right” as the media says? Consider that school choice was fumbled yet again. Wins on abortion, religious freedom, and traditional sexual values were made possible largely through the federal judiciary. Immigration is a mess as it has been. And in 2021 Texas joined a large majority of states that allowed open carry of firearms. So not a bastion of moral conservatism, either.

We’ll buy that there’s a lack of personal courage under the pink dome. That have a lot to do with increased media (mainstream and social) scrutiny, money politics, and grassroots activism than we used to see back when Texas was sleepier and largely rural. And maybe also moral decay, the breakdown of the family, and all that unmeasurable stuff. Back in the day you could get away with “fightin’ words” that would lead you to be censured today. Hides were thicker.

But by no means do we buy Bryant’s accusation that the influence of “megabillionaires” has stultified debate or silenced the Members. If anything, it has turbo-charged the rhetoric and grassroots participation (and to the annoyance of many capitol staffers answering the phones). Safe to say, the average Joe is more informed than ever before, and maybe that’s what has the established order zipping lips.

Here’s another thing to consider: If Texas is on the gradual track toward actually reducing the size and scope of government, and soon passing what Abbott is touting as “the biggest tax cut in history,” then you can believe there’s going to be a larger opposition attempting to stop it. No, not Texas Democrats alone but anyone from any party who doesn’t share that lower-case “l” libertarian philosophy. That would make for a super-majority scared witless of a massive sea change on the horizon, not the D versus R prize-fight Bryant has in mind.

Could the ratcheting-down on vigorous debate be big government’s last stand before we start to head truly rightward? The next John Bryant might could tell us before the turn of the next century. It may take that long to get there.