Yesterday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced a plan to continue the deployment of the Texas National Guard at the border through May to the tune of $12 million. This focus on border security was readily apparent in the GOP Primary, and given the limited ability of Texas' state government to deal with immigration outright due the Federal Government's primacy in this domain, it's not surprising to see what looked like the entire Senate Republican Caucus standing arm-in-arm behind Lt. Gov. Patrick during his press conference.

Whether or not increasing Texas' commitment to border security using the Guard is a sound policy decision is an open question, but the politics of yesterday's announcement could not be clearer. In the October 2014 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, 37 percent of Republicans expressed the opinion that border security was the most important problem facing the state while another 26 percent cited immigration.

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Given this opinion climate and the rhetoric readily apparent during primary season, there was little question as to whether the Lieutenant Governor would propose something to address border security. The only question was how long he would wait to do so. Again, his options are necessarily limited due to immigration's domain as a federal issue, but continuing the deployment of the National Guard is certainly a popular choice, at least in the short run. In that same poll, we asked Texans whether they supported or opposed the border deployment (and you'll have to remember that at the time this question was asked, there was still an on-going discussion about whether or not this was an appropriate response given that the impetus for the deployment was the influx of unaccompanied minors). Republicans expressed overwhelming support for deployment (93 percent overall, and 69 percent strong support). Among Tea Party Republicans, 97 percent expressed support, 78 percent strongly. Those kind of numbers are almost unheard of on any policy of substance, so it's hard to image the Lieutenant Governor proposing anything other than continued deployment.

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Speaker Straus has indicated some initial skepticism to Patrick's proposal, if for no other reason than the fact that the governor has not yet weighed in; but in the current environment, this seems like a slam dunk for any politician catering to the Republican electorate in Texas. The only question is whether over time, as the price tag for deployment creeps up, that same electorate's preference for fiscal restraint enters into the border security equation.