AUSTIN, Texas — In eight years as arguably the most conservative “Big Two” in Texas history, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have achieved an uneasy peace. The two Republican leaders rarely clash in public and they’ve increasingly avoided conflict by doubling down on the unique — and quite different — duties the state Constitution prescribes for them.
Abbott glad-hands with corporate titans as the state’s economic-development cheerleader and has a closet full of khaki first-responder shirts with Texas seals as pocket insignias, for his travels as disaster-response leader. Patrick immerses himself in details of legislation and micromanages the Senate as the Capitol’s policy wonk in chief.
Some have likened them to an old married couple who, lacking personal rapport and affection, spend as much time as possible in separate wings of the house. But lieutenant governor is a more powerful position in Texas than in almost any other state, making tensions all but inevitable.
And when the Legislature comes to town, as it does starting Tuesday, Abbott and Patrick are likely to jostle over who’s the agenda-setter with the best vision for the state – and, not incidentally, a game plan for keeping the state GOP in power for another generation.
“I would classify them as political ‘frenemies,’” said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. “They’re not enemies, not friends. They’re a hybrid. … You wouldn’t see them buying a time-share together – they’re not personally close, even if politically, they generally are on the same page.”
The relationship is important because the Legislature “is a sensitive organism,” and its work product suffers if the majority party is riven by dissent and infighting, Rottinghaus observed. “The party needs to have at least a modicum of unity” to get things done, he said.
In this year’s session, there’s much they’ll agree on. The two are likely to concur that the state should devote a sizable chunk of its $27 billion surplus to cut school property taxes, while holding back many billions in reserve, in case of recession.
If the past is any guide, the two top leaders may differ privately on how to rank-order some “one-time investments,” such as winning voter approval to use surplus money to build or renovate more mental hospitals versus replenishing flood-mitigation and water-supply funds.
But, just as likely, they may resolve those behind closed doors, in consultation with the House, and not air any such differences in public. Much of the outline of the two-year state budget is decided upon in the fall before a session, in little-noticed joint budget hearings conducted mostly by staff members, not politicians.
Neither Abbott nor Patrick agreed to be interviewed. In public remarks over the years, they’ve swapped nothing but compliments.
“We are a great team,” Patrick told reporters five years ago, at a news conference he called to quash speculation he might run against Abbott in 2018. “I’m not running against Greg Abbott, not in ‘18, not ever.”
Patrick added, “We work well together. We agree 96%, 97% of the time – I can’t even name the 3% we don’t.”
Last month, when asked if he and Abbott were at odds over electricity-grid fixes, Patrick downplayed the conflict.
“Let’s not start the session, since you’re covering the Capitol, trying to divide the governor and I because we are on the same page on almost all these issues,” he said in a session-preview conversation that aired on Austin’s KXAN-TV on Jan. 1.
So powerful are Abbott and Patrick, though, that Republicans at the Texas Capitol won’t discuss the two men’s relationship, for fear of offending either.
On Jan. 17, Abbott and Patrick will begin their third terms in a joint oath-taking ceremony and inaugural celebration.
‘Not a huge amount of friction’
There won’t be much daylight between Abbott and Patrick, experts said, on law-and-order items such as cash bail restrictions and the GOP’s newly retooled priority, “parental empowerment.” It encompasses old aspirations such as school vouchers, a longtime Patrick goal that Abbott has begun to help push, and newer concerns about classroom instruction on race and sex – plus, whether prurient, age-inappropriate material is in school library books.
“There’s really in the end not a huge amount of friction because they don’t really disagree on the overall goal, and if Patrick can make a convincing case that a majority of the Republican base is aligned where Patrick is at, he usually can bring Abbott over, more often than not,” Rice University professor Mark Jones said.
In the run-up to the session, the biggest looming divide appeared to be on whether more work to assure the reliability of the state’s main electric grid is near the top of the agenda. On Nov. 30, Patrick hinted he might force an overtime special session in the summer if he’s not satisfied that lawmakers have created the correct incentives for rapid construction of several natural gas-fired generating plants. Abbott declared success, noting bills passed in 2021.
Dave Carney, Abbott’s top political strategist, called it “a made-up controversy,” ginned up by reporters eager to highlight any Abbott-Patrick clash, when actually the two veteran officeholders collaborate well.
“There’s no conflict there,” Carney said, referring to safeguarding a flow of electrons for a fast-growing Texas population, no matter the weather. “The governor wants our grid to be the best grid for the 21st century. … There’s a bunch of ideas on what legislators and others want to do. We’ll see how that’s resolved but they agree. They want to grow the grid. It’s just a matter of how.”
Abbott and Patrick are likely to find common ground this year in pushing for endowment funds for state universities such as Texas Tech and the University of Houston, which do not receive money from the Permanent University Fund, and for more improvements in mental health and Child Protective Services, Carney said.
Unlike many other lieutenant governors, Texas’ No. 2 officeholder wields a lot of clout. As is true in just 17 other states, Texas’ lieutenant governor is elected independently. Not only does the lieutenant governor preside over the Texas Senate, he (no woman has held the office) also picks committees and committee chiefs, and assigns bills to committees.
Houston’s Rottinghaus, who has analyzed the position in the 45 states that have a lieutenant governor, said Texas’ is among the top three strongest, along with lieutenant governors in Vermont and Washington.
Drafters of the 1876 Texas Constitution, wary of a powerful governor of the sort imposed by the victorious Union forces after the Civil War, intentionally weakened the office of governor and strengthened the lieutenant governor.
“They wanted there to be separate power bases so that they would compete politically and the better ideas, the stronger leader would win,” Rottinghaus said.
‘Lighting the fuse’
A lack of term limits has allowed the last two governors, Abbott and Rick Perry, to enhance that office’s punch, by serving far longer than used to be the norm – and thereby gaining complete control over state agencies formerly overseen by boards that had members appointed by multiple governors.
Still, Patrick, a former TV sports reporter and radio talk show host from Houston, has fortified his position. He broke with tradition by taking sides in Republican primaries to get the senators he preferred seated. He pushed through rules changes to diminish Democrats’ leverage, such as a rule that dated to the 1940s that required two-thirds of the 31-member body to agree before a bill could be debated on the floor. Because he appears on Fox News regularly, and can play the bully at times in news conferences, the most staunchly conservative wing of the Texas GOP reveres Patrick as a stand-up guy. Few grasp how, inside the Senate, he’s a listener and dealmaker.
Patrick was the first former senator to become lieutenant governor in more than half a century. Admirers say that proved invaluable because he learned how to nudge and cajole members of the upper chamber, who can be prickly and proud: Each represents almost 1 million people, more than U.S. House members do.
Abbott, though no stranger to Fox News, never served in the Legislature. The former judge is more selective about thrusting himself into public controversies.
“Abbott has a more wizened and deliberate approach, whereas Patrick has a more vocal and aggressive approach,” Rottinghaus said. “While Abbott contemplates the blast radius of a decision, Patrick is busy lighting the fuse.”
The two leaders have displayed strains, such as over a 2017 bill to prescribe which bathrooms transgender Texans could use. While Patrick was the sole GOP leader to originally demand passage of the bathroom bill, after several months, Abbott reluctantly embraced the legislation, though Big Tech and Fortune 500 CEOs strongly denounced it.
In 2019, Patrick was the only top GOP leader to demand an across-the-board pay raise for teachers as part of a school-finance overhaul. He prevailed, though House leaders and Abbott preferred merit-based raises. Two years later, when Patrick used his close relationship with former President Donald Trump to demand passage of a bill paving the way for county audits of the 2020 election, the House and Abbott offered up only partial audits.
During their first terms, after Abbott and Patrick cruised to huge wins in 2014, there were rumblings Patrick might challenge Abbott in a GOP primary for governor.
Former Speaker Dennis Bonnen said he doubted the accuracy of such talk.
“I’ve never seen any proof of that,” he said. “Now, I’m not going to tell you that on top of their weekly breakfast (during session), they want to have dinner three nights a week. But they certainly know how to work together.”
Bonnen, a Lake Jackson Republican, attributes their détente to acceptance of difference.
“Their personalities actually complement each other well — in what makes one feel good doesn’t bother the other,” Bonnen said. “They’re comfortable with how each other operates (and) letting the other operate in the way they’re most successful; and they’re different, and that’s what makes it work.”
Rice’s Jones said some strains could surface this year. Abbott’s allegiance to the business community remains strong. It might make the governor more reluctant than Patrick to see legislation pass that would punish employers who pay for women to obtain abortions out of state, or a bill to outlaw doctors administering puberty blockers and other gender-affirming health care to transgender youths, Jones said.
Likewise, Patrick might cling to “conservative principles” longer than Abbott, and oppose a relaxation of the state’s near total abortion ban to allow exceptions for rape and incest, and stop a move to let voters decide on casino gambling, the professor said.
“They’re definitely not like a dynamic duo, an active partnership in which, say, where one goes, the other goes,” Jones said. “They’re more sort of operating independently but with the same broader overall goals. They’re not Batman and Robin. But they are effectively working for the same goal.”
