@ScholasticsFTW I believe the funding pressure was definitely felt at UT-Austin. But it also seems that pressure was placed on the admissions office from non-legislators too: namely prominent donors, alumni, etc. UT Austin probably felt more pressure than private schools.
But I guess that all schools to some extent or another, even the wealthy private ones, have a pressure for fund-raising. So getting a call from the President’s office about an important candidate is certainly something that the admissions office pays attention to.
It still seems like that the admissions office at UT Austin acted largely independently, except in the cases where a student from the hold list was provisionally rejected. Here it seems that influence from the President and/or Deans could make a difference in preventing an outright denial.