John Bryant survived a Democratic primary, a primary run-off, and a brand-new opponent in the general election. (His original opponent won the GOP primary but was found to be ineligible to run.)
It was a surprise to many that he was even running after the incumbent, John Turner, announced he wouldn’t seek another term. Bryant was a state representative between 1974 and 1982. He went to Washington D.C. in 1983 to represent Texas’ 5th Congressional District, a seat he held until 1997. After an unsuccessful run for Senate in 1996, Bryant would wait nearly three decades before running for another seat.
He decided to run for a job that pays roughly $7,000 a year and (so far) has promised at least three special sessions after lawmakers didn’t deliver on Gov. Greg Abbott’s priorities of property tax reform and school vouchers.
But Bryant ended the regular session as one of the most influential and experienced freshmen in the state legislature, one who wasn’t unafraid to be at the center of rigorous debates despite being a member of the minority party.
Most freshmen say they’re not expected to make waves. U.S. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, said that when she was a freshman state representative, the orientation included an admonishment to listen and learn.
“We were told as freshmen in the state house that we were to be seen and not heard,” she said. T
hat memo didn’t resonate with her, and it apparently didn’t resonate with Bryant, either. Maybe because he was immediately treated as a senior who took a gap year. (Or 30.) He became known as the muscle for the Democratic caucus in the House, wielding points of order like a guy who had been there before, championing causes in a way that is exclusive to those who represent fairly safely Democratic districts.
He also had a better office than most freshmen, thanks to his previous seniority. He had better committee assignments, including the House Committee on Appropriations, which is responsible for making the budget.
“In the House, a lot of what happens on the floor can seem silly if you don’t know why they’re doing it. You may tune in and see people talking about nothing at 2 p.m., and not realize they’re making a sophisticated play to kill a bill at midnight,” writer Christopher Hooks said in a Reddit ask me anything session held by the editors of Texas Monthly after the magazine announced its Best and Worst Legislators list. Bryant was named one of the state’s best lawmakers. The magazine said that although Bryant is 76, “it’s a Sylvester Stallone 76—not, say, a Donald Trump 76. He’s come out of retirement, he’s back in shape, and now he’s whipping up on the youngsters.”
Hooks conceded that some might think that Bryant’s points of order and discourse at the mic “may have seemed like an old guy without a clue.”
“But Bryant was almost universally respected among staffers and other folks at the Lege for his willingness to mess with folks, powerful folks,” Hooks said. “Those groans you hear are not uncommon when someone tries to delay the process, but they don’t mean the groaners don’t respect it. Some of those points of order—an attempt to kill a bill on procedural grounds—were authored by him. But others were given to him by other members who were unwilling or unable to pay the price for bringing them themselves. It was often pretty brave.”
The Texas House Progressive Caucus also named him its member of the year.
Shortly after sine die, we talked to Bryant about the regular session, and his general impression of how politics has changed since his first time at the Texas Capitol almost 50 years ago. It has been edited for length and clarity.
People who are nerds about the state legislature and people who rarely follow it both seem to think that this year’s session was especially dysfunctional. Are they correct?
No question. I mean, how could you—with a $33 million surplus and $27 billion in the Rainy Day Fund—adjourn without dealing with the No. 1 task of the state government, which is public education, and then the No. 2 demand from the public, which was property tax relief? You adjourn without that, and then argue about it in a special session.
I think it comes down to this. Ideologically obsessed people cannot govern. They focus on their ideology—which in this case is White christian nationalism—and they’re trying their best to disempower every other point of view. So they come up with a fictitious rationale for limiting voting rights in the last session. And they come up with a fictitious story about LGBTQ people, in particular trans kids.
And even with gun control: they brought up a bill to specifically prohibit—not that anybody was trying to do it—a merchant code being established for guns. There’s a merchant code for anything you buy with a credit card, a washing machine, whatever. But for some reason, there isn’t one for guns.
After the massacre in Uvalde and certainly after Allen, it seemed like if there was ever going to be public support for even the most modest of gun violence legislation to pass, this was it.
Speaking of ideologically obsessed people can’t govern, there was absolutely no action on guns. Not even modest changes like increasing the age for possessing an assault rifle from 19 to 21. We couldn’t even get that.
That bill never went up for debate and it took public shaming to get it out of committee. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like if someone like state Rep. Jeff Leach, whose district includes Allen, had took the lead on serious gun control, it could’ve been done. Was some of that talk on the floor posturing?
I think it was entirely posturing. Their Republican primary base, they’re afraid of it because it has too many people who are ideologically obsessed about guns. And to not even be able to raise the age for purchasing an assault rifle from 19 to 21—this is extremism.
It wouldn’t have stopped Allen, but it could’ve stopped Uvalde.
Yes, but that’s one policy. We were trying to pass ‘red flag’ laws, and a series of policies—all of which the public supports, and all very, very modest. But they have some meaning to them. You couldn’t even pass something as simple, uncomplicated, and uncontroversial as saying that a 19-year-old can’t buy an assault rifle. That’s not much progress, but it’s something.
House Bill 2127 significantly limits the ordinances local governments can pass. I almost got this impression that it felt like Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio were being punished for having more progressive policies than the state’s.
You said it. This extremism has resulted in depriving local citizens of having anything to say about policies that are essential to their daily lives, including neighborhood issues and a whole series of things. We managed to stop a few of them, but the worst of them passed. Basically, it’s the greatest transfer of power away from the public and into the hands of a few people in Austin that we’ve ever seen. It’s never been done before, and one must ask, what is behind the desire to do this?
It was punitive. This handful of people that want to control our state do not want cities acting in their own interests. They do not want any city making policies that get in the way of their ideological and financial objectives. There’s an authoritarian spirit behind all of this that is forcing all the diverse areas of the state to conform to a White, ideologically right-wing group that wants to bring back the old days where they control everything.
Those words would’ve sounded extreme a few sessions ago, but it’s White christian nationalism being imposed on the rest of the state by a small group of ideologically right-wing people. This is not traditional conservatism.
It seems like the same group of people who said that discussions about race and sexuality should be something parents decide to do with their children at home, privately, are also some of the champions of things that insert religion into public schools, like prayer and displaying the 10 Commandments. Why is there a disconnect?
It all comes back to trying to force conformity with narrow, right-wing ideology. So you have chaplains in the schools that passed. Instead of librarians, you have these committees set up to examine the books in the libraries. You have chaplains in the schools without any language about whether they’re qualified or not. And vouchers go hand-in-hand with all of that, because vouchers are a way to undermine the public school system, which teaches, basically, community.
“It’s the greatest transfer of power away from the public and into the hands of a few people in Austin that we’ve ever seen.”
State Rep. John Bryant
No one argues that private schools can successfully educate five and a half million kids. There aren’t anywhere near enough classrooms. Even if you combine every type of private school out there, you can’t do that. This is just a way to drain money from public schools.
How do you fight that? It’s a priority of the governor, and he’s made it clear that he’ll keep calling special sessions until some form of vouchers or education savings accounts passes.
We just ended the session without increasing funding for public education, even though for 10 years there has been no increase in the amount of money going to our independent school districts. All of the increases in public education funding have gone to charter schools.
Now, I presented that figure to (TEA Commissioner) Mike Morath in hearings, and he admitted it. There was nothing he could do; I was using his figures when I asked the question.
So there’s been no increase in state funding to independent school districts in 10 years, in spite of rampant inflation and a seven-and-a-half percent increase in the student population. Twelve percent of our teachers quit in the last 12 months, and Dallas ISD was desperately trying to find a thousand teachers before August last year. Those vacancies happened partly because there was no increase in teacher pay.
So vouchers are quite obviously an effort to undermine public education to create an argument for school choice.
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