Texas Tribune Fest Welcomes Ideas of All Kinds, Speakers From Both Parties

  Before the start of many of the sessions at the 2024Texas TribuneFestival, a short video starring the impossibly handsome, and oh, so very Texan actor Glen Powell warmly warned attendees that they would likely hear ideas they didn’t agree with. After all, the annual fall festival has for years made it a point to present speakers from both major parties, and from a variety of racial, ethnic, religious and social backgrounds.

Engaging with ideas outside of an attendee’s comfort zone, according to Powell in the clip, was “the point.”

And make no mistake about it, the first hour of the Friday programming provided a stress test of sorts for the movie star’s Hallmark-worthy sentiment.

At 9 a.m. that day, polarizing Republican House nominees from North Texas, Mitch Little and Shelley Luther, started the day in a panel entitled “If We Were in Charge.” It was an interesting title in that Republicans are very much in charge when it comes to the happenings inside the Capitol, but since Little and Luther haven’t been sworn in just yet, we’ll let it slide. For an hour in front of a packed conference room, the panelists dwelled on what they say is wrong in Austin. Another panelist, Rep. Brian Harrison of Waxahachie, deemed the 2023 Legislative session as “the most liberal legislative session in Texas history.”

It’s safe to say that Powell’s video message was already paying dividends. Unlike later festival events with Democratic personalities, there were no cheers, hoots or hollers directed toward the trio of GOP personalities on the stage Friday morning. But, hey, there weren’t any boos and/or hisses to be heard either, so there’s that.

And speaking of differing ideas, 30 minutes after Little and Luther’s panel discussion began, state Rep. Jeff Leach began his session with Democrat state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso.

A topic that was brought up a number of times throughout various events over the weekend was the ongoing Republican civil war in Texas, or as Democratic Houston state Sen. Carol Alvarado called it during a Friday afternoon session, “Republican on Republican crime.” So, yes, while Leach and Moody represented the two parties on one stage, it’s the image of Leach speaking in one room while Little was in another at the same event that was intriguing.

Leach was one of the Republican representatives who voted to impeach Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton in 2023. He and the AG had been neighbors in Collin County and longtime friends prior to last summer. Little raised his statewide profile when he served as one of Paxton’s defense attorney’s during the impeachment proceedings. When Little announced his House campaign to unseat conservative Kronda Thimesch, Leach took to Twitter to note that he and others like to call the new candidate “Little Mitch.”

Perhaps Leach wouldn’t have sent that tweet last year had he seen Powell’s video first, but on Friday morning, he seemed more open to aisle-crossing than Little, Luther or Harrison did.

Speaking during a panel on criminal justice, Leach and Moody talked about their combined efforts to advocate for freeing convicted murderer Melissa Lucio from death row, and of their friendship. Yes, friendship.

“We don’t have to hate each other,” Leach said, before adding that criminal justice is “a cool area” where bipartisan agreement happens more often than the average person may realize.

“And I’m not going to apologize for that,” Leach said.

“What he said,” Moody added as applause scattered through the room.

As the festival progressed, two impending events clearly loomed large over the proceedings: the presidential election in November and the next state legislative session scheduled for January.

Around lunchtime on Friday, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, made national headlines from the festival when she endorsed Democrat Colin Allred over Republican Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate, and announced that she and her father would be voting for Kamala Harris for president in November.

The showdown between Harris and former President Donald Trump was a focal point of the conversation between The Atlantic writer and New York Times-bestselling author Mark Leibovich and former Joe Biden press secretary Jenn Psaki, for example. Other panel discussions included what media outlets have done right and not-so-right when it comes to covering Trump and President Joe Biden in 2024 as well as what the future of voting rights looks like.

But back to the GOP in-fighting around here. The impending legislative session was the main topic for Friday’s “The Senate Next Time” panel, with Alvarado,Dallas Democratic Sen. Nathan Johnson, Weatherford Republican Sen. Phil King and Midland Republican Sen. Kevin Sparks. There was some good-natured ribbing about where one panelist “might be misled” on an issue, but even King noted that the relationship between the House and Senate, both dominated by Republicans, is “the most difficult it’s ever been.”

Johnson and Alvarado were asked about their roles in Texas lawmaking, but for King and Sparks, their comments on finding middle ground with colleagues were more geared more toward other Republicans than Democrats.

A Saturday session entitled “We the Texans: Breaking the Cycle” offered up yet another chance for onlookers and even panelists to, again, put Powell’s video message into practice. Discussing how to reduce and perhaps prevent school mass shootings, the Democrat Moody was joined by Jesse Rizzo, an uncle of one of the children killed during the 2022 Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, and A.J. DeAndrea, a former SWAT officer who had been among the first to respond to the Columbine school shooting in 1999. Since then, DeAndrea has become a top active shooter preparedness trainer for law enforcement agencies around the world.

During the discussion, the conversation inevitably made its way to gun laws. People seated in the tent on Congress Avenue where many of the Saturday events were held, shook their heads quietly when DeAndrea showed his Second Amendment true colors. Moody and Rizzo had voiced their ongoing support for raising the legal age to buy automatic weapons from 18 to 21, when DeAndrea echoed the automatic response that many 2A proponents often stand firm on: if an 18-year-old can be sent to war, why can’t they “protect themselves” when they get home from being in the military. When pressed on the many obvious holes in that argument by audience members, DeAndrea persisted, noting that the Second Amendment tells him he can have an automatic rifle, so therefore, it is his right to have one.

Even though some gasps could be detected in these moments, things indeed stayed civil, if not downright respectful. DeAndrea never challenged the audience or his fellow panelists unnecessarily, nor did anyone not sharing his views use the occasion to lash out or overtly raise the temperature of the space.

It wasn’t all tense tongue-holding and somber head-shaking, though. Saturday’s schedule was bookended by Dallas-centric live podcast tapings with the two highest-profile Dallas politicians in Congress today. Colin Allred and Jasmine Crockett might’ve been sitting in Austin venues, but they were clearly enjoying the home field advantage.

For the most part, Allred stuck to his “I’m not Ted Cruz” campaign scriptas he was interviewed by the Bulwark’s Tim Miller inside the Paramount Theatre on Saturday morning. He did speak somewhat lovingly about politicians with “true conservative” values, as opposed to, he said, his opponent Ted Cruz.

Crockett, on the other hand, during her Saturday afternoon interview for the women-centric The Amendment podcast, shot from the hip in her signature fashion, taking humorous pokes at U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green and Donald Trump, among others. It likely didn’t matter what either politician said, as cheers, applause and all other forms of raucous approval met their every syllable.

And again, the very notion of listening to others with different ideas at the Texas Tribune Festival was on display just about everywhere, even outside of the panels, podcasts and programmed discussions. It seems that the audience had really taken pretty boy Powell’s words to heart.

“So, do you think Colin Allred can really win,” one woman asked two others standing in line with her in front of the Paramount Theatre just before the podcast interview. “No, I really don’t think so,” one of the women replied, and the other remarked, “You know, I really do think he can, and will, actually.”

The woman who posed the question thought for a moment before replying, “Huh. Now that’s interesting.”