Why the wary alliance of Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick is now approaching open hostility

AUSTIN — During their two-terms-plus tenures as the top elected officials in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have maintained a wary alliance in which the governor has always been careful not to allow the second in command to lay sole claim to the Republicans' conservative base.

But Tuesday's late-night back-and-forth between the high-profile leaders over how to cut property taxes undermines the carefully crafted message that GOP leaders can be counted on to be on the same page on most of the important issues facing the state, several observers say.

"The lieutenant governor and the governor have been frenemies for a long time," said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor and author. "They are work colleagues, but they're not close. And in this case, I think the governor got fed up with the lieutenant governor trying to dictate the terms of yet another special session."

The rift was laid bare when Abbott ordered lawmakers back to work one day after the 2023 legislative session ended with no plan to deliver the promised $12 billion to $15 billion in property tax relief. Patrick's Senate swiftly approved its tax plan Tuesday and sent it to the House.

House Speaker Dade Phelan then told his chamber the House would not even consider the Senate measure because it contained features beyond the narrow scope of what Abbott said he expected lawmakers to do. The House then passed its own plan and abruptly ended what was supposed to be a 30-day session about six hours after it had been gaveled.

Abbott quickly embraced the House plan, saying it provided the larger tax cut and that he was eager to sign it into law. That put Patrick and the Senate in a "take it or leave it" position, and the lieutenant governor made no effort to silence his displeasure.

More: Texas House rejects Senate tax plan, OKs its own and ends its part in special session

Patrick issued a statement saying Abbott, despite his more than 25 years in public office, was "misinformed about the roles of the executive and legislative branches of government." And he reminded the governor and the speaker, with added emphasis in his written statement, that "for any bill to pass, it must go through both the House AND the Senate."

He amplified that message Wednesday afternoon.

"If the House thinks after abandoning the Capitol, and walking out on the Special Session, the Senate is going to pass their 'take it or leave it' property tax bill without a homestead exemption, they are mistaken," he said in a tweet.

Abbott said he'll happily call both chambers back to work.

"No matter how many special sessions it takes I'll sign a law that provides the largest property tax cut in the history of Texas," the governor said on Twitter. "My plan does the most to cut your property taxes."

In lobbing the volley at the governor just before 9 p.m. Tuesday, Patrick opened a two-front intraparty war in the course of 11 hours. The lieutenant governor began his day at a friendly question-and-answer session with a former staff member who now works for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, about two blocks south of the Capitol.

Patrick used the forum to castigate Phelan for allowing Democrats to use the House's rules to stall or stop many of the GOP-backed initiatives sent over from the Senate.

Patrick, a practiced showman who rose to political fame as a conservative talk radio host, called Phelan a poor communicator. And he made the unsubtle observation that the property tax cut being advanced by Phelan might be advantageous to the speaker's private business dealings.

Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Dallas' Southern Methodist University and a 40-year student of the Texas Capitol, said Patrick was probably correct when he said the Senate plan did not improperly stray from the confines of Abbott's special session call. But, he added, Abbott has the larger megaphone and is better positioned to marshal the attention of ordinary Texans.

More: Cutting taxes is politically popular. So why are Texas leaders fighting about it?

"When the lieutenant governor says something to people, to the state, they don't necessarily hear it," Jillson said. "When the governor says something, they do."

Jillson also described the public bickering by the two well-known Republicans as "a mess" that has caught the attention of national political watchers and operatives.

"I have gotten several — not to overstate it, but several — interview requests from national (news outlets) wanting to know whether the Republican Party in Texas is cracking up and breaking apart," he said. "And I say, 'No, I don't think that's necessarily so.' But at the moment, it looks like it might be."

Matt Angle, a veteran Texas Democratic strategist, said that if the dustup is just now gaining national traction, it's probably been more apparent to the people who live in the state.

"It's more and more becoming apparent to your average voter out there that Republicans aren't really governing with the well-being of Texans in mind," Angle said. "It's all about their political posturing and positioning for their next race or next ambition, or how to hold power."

But, Angle said, for that narrative to fully take root, his party must do a better job of exploiting it.

"It's incumbent upon Democrats to tell that story better than we've been telling it," he said. "And I'm a little frustrated, frankly, that as Democrats, I'm not sure that we have shone a bright enough light on Republican dysfunction throughout this session."

Texas GOP operative Matt Mackowiak said that neither Abbott, Patrick nor Phelan can afford the political price of not cutting taxes at a time when the state is bathing in a $33 billion budget surplus. That alone will likely put all three on the same page sooner than later, he said.

"It's a bad look only if it doesn't get done," Mackowiak said. "I don't think the average person is going to care about how the sausage gets made. They want to make sure there's sausage at the end of the day."

Rottinghaus said that early in the relationship, there might have been some concern by Abbott that Patrick might one day challenge him for the governorship. Now that each has been reelected twice, that appears less likely.

"I've never really thought that it was ever going to be the case that they'd run against each other," Rottinghaus said. "That's not the way that their rivalry is."

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: 'Frenemies' Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick openly spar over property tax cut