Inside Texas Politics: Greg Abbott interview

TEXAS, USA — As Governor Greg Abbott seeks to persuade voters to ship him again to Austin for a 3rd time period, the Republican can rattle off an extended record of main conservative accomplishments throughout his tenure, from permitting Texans to hold firearms with no allow to a whole ban on abortion.  

And each points are taking part in an outsized function within the race for Governor and the Republican incumbent not too long ago sat down for a one-on-one interview with Jason Whitely to debate them and lots of others.

At least one distinguished conservative, state Senator Robert Nichols, not too long ago stated he would vote so as to add an exception for rape to Texas’ abortion regulation.

The Governor wouldn’t reply particularly whether or not he’d help a future exception for rape or incest, however he did inform us one thing that should be addressed is defining what it means to protect a mother’s life.

“And there’s been too many allegations that have been made about ways in which the lives of the mother are not being protected, and so, that must be clarified,” Governor Abbott stated on Inside Texas Politics.  “We want to see if there are ways that we can make sure that the lives of both the mother and the baby can be protected.  That’s our focus.”

Abbott particularly talked about docs not caring for some ladies with ectopic pregnancies and a few instances of miscarriage.  But he says remedies for each are authorized beneath the state’s abortion regulation.

Our skyrocketing property taxes and what could be accomplished to carry them down is one other topic taking on a number of oxygen on the marketing campaign path.

Governor Abbott says lawmakers have added properly over $10 Billion in further funding for colleges since 2019.  That, he claims, has helped to barely decrease the varsity portion of the tax price in counties all through the state. 

But that’s not been the case in Tarrant County generally and Fort Worth ISD particularly. 

That district informed us that the state contributed 45% of the funding the district wanted to function in 2015.  By 2020, the district says that determine had dropped to 30%.  And for this 12 months, the determine is 27%.

When we requested him if the funding system will ever get again to parity, the place the state offers half and property homeowners present half, the Governor informed us his final objective is to remove the upkeep and operation part of the varsity district property tax invoice.

He says he would accomplish this via a property tax discount fund that already exists within the state of Texas. 

“Any time we have any session where we have any surplus, I want to continue to put money into that fund to reduce property taxes on an ongoing basis until that maintenance and operation component of school property taxes is completely eliminated,” stated Abbott.

With the present surplus we’re having fun with, as an illustration, the Governor says he would use at the very least $13.5 Billion of it to additional purchase down property tax charges.

The aftermath of the Uvalde bloodbath continues to tug down the Governor’s approval scores. 

Our latest ballot, “Texas Decides,” a research of probably Texas voters and a joint effort between the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation (THPF) and Tegna Texas stations WFAA, KHOU, KENS and KVUE, discovered that 37% of Texans had a much less favorable view of Governor Abbott after the tragedy.  33% stated that they had a much less favorable view of the Texas Department of Public Safety, which had 91 troopers on scene that day.

We asked the Governor if he would fireplace Steve McCraw, the company’s director.

“Any hiring or firing decision will be based upon the evidence.  And we’ve got to get to the evidence, get to the bottom of exactly what happened to see who is accountable and why they did wrong,” Governor Abbott informed us.

In phrases of the race itself, our ballot additionally discovered Governor Abbott main Democrat Beto O’Rourke by 7% (51% to 44%) amongst probably voters.  Among most certainly (virtually sure) voters, the lead grows to 10% (53% – 43%).  1% of voters in each classes (probably/most certainly) says they’ll vote for Libertarian Mark Tippetts and Green Party candidate Delilah Barrios.

The election might be held November 8.  Early voting begins October 24. 

Governor Abbott mentioned many different subjects in our extensive ranging interview, together with whether or not he has any Presidential ambitions if he wins re-election. Listen to the Republican’s full Inside Texas Politics interview to study extra.