The Texan Podcast - A Panel on Urban vs. Rural Differences — The Texan's 89th Session Kickoff

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

At The Texan’s 89th Session Kickoff event, Reps. Donna Howard (D-Austin), Shelby Slawson (R-Stephenville), and Mano DeAyala (R-Houston) joined reporter Holly Hansen for a discussion on the urban-rural divide and its impact on policymaking.Listen to more interviews from our 89th Session Kickoff wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.

Well good morning and welcome to our next panel where we are going to discuss some of the urban and rural divide issues in the state legislature. Texas actually has the largest rural population of any state in the nation. We also have the second largest urban population of any state in the nation. We're second only to California. But about seven in ten Texans live in what we call the urban triangle. That's that triangle between Dallas and San Antonio and Houston. And there are actually more people living in Harris County than live in all of the rural areas combined. So we have a really unique kind of combination going on in Texas, but of course Texas is unique in so many ways.

But as we try to solve some of the policy issues, whether it's healthcare, education, infrastructure and so forth, sometimes we have a conflict between the needs of the rural communities and the urban communities, and we're going to talk a little bit today about, you know, how we resolve those issues. We have also sometimes speculated that perhaps the urban-rural divide in the Texas legislature is more significant than the party divide between Democrats and Republicans. So we'll explore that a little bit as well. So today's panel, we have some folks from all over the state. Immediately here to my left, we have Representative Shelby Slauson, who is from one of the smaller

rural districts. I think your county is what, about 45,000 people, if that's correct. And then of course, Donna Howard, who is from Austin, Travis County, a little bit more in between there, in comparison to Houston, Harris County, where Representative Mano de Ayala represents Harris County with nearly 5 million people and the largest urban center in the state of Texas. So welcome to our panelists today. So what we're going to start with is just kind of a general question, spinning off that whole idea of this urban-rural divide.

And I'd like to know where you see it most consistently in our policy debates. And do you think it is more of a factor than the partisan divide in the state legislature? So we'll start with Representative Slauson. Thank you, and thank you so much for having us here this morning. I notice that I'm outnumbered by the urbans in here. So that's the subtle messaging, right? No, there isn't a rural urban divide for us and sometimes it does transcend partisan boundaries um I come from north central Texas I represent four counties up there that span

about 3,000 square miles my first session one of my colleagues from Harris County was not this one but another was telling me you know he could be out working with constituents and call home and say, put a pizza in the oven and he could be home by the time it was coming out of the oven, you know, not as long as there wasn't traffic. And I thought, man, the VFD would be called at my house because it'd all be on fire by then. But that's an example also of one of the ways that we're different. We depend on resources out in rural areas like our VFDs that are often different from professional fire departments in urban areas.

And it's not that we have a different need for protection of our citizens and our structures. It's just how we meet those needs differs greatly because of the resources that we have available to us. Well I would first off suggest that there's a greater divide between the House and the Senate than between urban and rural but that's just me. Certainly there are differences as Shelby pointed out I mean the obvious geographical differences are there there I think about things like transportation and transit and the needs of an urban area that are not necessarily there for a rural community and yet state decisions have to be made about how money is expended and it's hard to look at a bunch of

money going to a particular areas but not to your area. I think that's an issue. Land use, huge issues for rural communities who have to deal with urban needs for energy and so forth but wanting to cross their property. So absolutely, there are some challenges I think that we have to face. But I would suggest, as we saw with the voucher legislation, that sometimes urban and rural can come together around certain issues. So it's not a black and white thing. I think the real crux of this is that we recognize that Texas, as you pointed out, is a great big state, and we have a lot of different needs, and one size does not fit all, and it's very hard to

figure out how to have a centralized state government that tries to impose a one-size-fits-all across our state. I still am a firm believer in local control and local government being closest to the people and being able to make the best decisions for their communities. I think they've hit a lot of the key issues, but I want to go back to geography just a minute. She was talking about four counties. We have other representatives with seven, eight, nine counties. My district is about 13 miles by five miles. It's a rectangle.

And, again, we represent the same number of people, roughly. And our needs are very different. Our issues are very different. They have different water issues than we have. They have different infrastructure issues than we have. They have different health care issues than we have. The important thing is for us to become educated in areas that are not in our backyard and likewise again Harris County City Houston it is the largest economic engine if you take all of the the big eight metropolitan areas, that's about 76% of our GDP, and it's the state's GDP. And in 22-23, just the growth in jobs and GDP accounted for about 82-83%.

So it's, you know, you have to be considerate and understand what the needs are there, because you know what, we can walk and chew gum. And I think that's about information and getting to know each other. and understand what the needs are there because, you know what, we can walk and chew gum. And I think that's about information and getting to know each other. Very good. Did you want to add something to that? No, you were good. Okay. We're going to start with one of the topics that is on everybody's mind.

Of course, you know, we're talking about school choice, and I'm going to direct this question to Representative Slauson. This is a very fraught debate, a lot of tensions here, but one of the narrative talking points that has come up in this is that the rural communities are opposed to school choice for a variety of reasons. But you've been supportive of some of these proposals. And so my question for you is, is that really a myth that it's, you know, the rural communities hate school choice? Or is there more nuance?

You know, what is really coming out of the rural communities when we're talking about these ESAs or whatever school choice programs are being proposed? That's a great question. We are so proud of our public schools in rural Texas. Our identities in our communities are often wrapped around that school. I'm a product of Stephenville ISD. That's where my girls are today learning. And yet, as proud as we are, we have concerns about what opportunities kids have in other parts of the state.

So even back in March of 2024, in our primary cycle, we saw just over 76% of our voters voting for an ESA proposal. And that's two years after we'd had that identical ballot measure that had also passed. And that's, in my district it was like 28 000 people that showed up to vote for that so it was not an inconsequential number of people weighing in um there's the devil is in the details and that's what i hear consistently everywhere i go in district is wanting to make sure that our public schools are still able to function the way that we expect them to while providing opportunities for families who want to make another

decision to be able to do that there are some key hallmarks in a bill that we're looking for the next time one comes out there were important things last time a funding floor was very important for the rural district. As you know, that bill was a combination of public school funding and ESA's last time. Haven't seen the House bill yet, unless it was filed since we walked our happy selves down here. So I don't know what it'll look like this go around, but there are some things that my district has a very sharp eye for and will be looking for. So you think some of those objections can be overcome and as far as the the concerns of these rural communities when they say you know

this is going to really decimate our our local public school system? I think the unknown is the most difficult thing when we don't know what is that bill going to look like it's it's um it's very concerning so once we have a draft in front of us and we can start evaluating what impact does this have on the four counties out in north central Texas and the 31 ISDs that I represent, then we can start identifying where the places are that we might want to see changes made to it or amendments or bracketing or whatever we may need to do to ensure that we help not harm. All right, moving over to Representative Howard,

you've done so much work advocating for healthcare access across the state and when we look at healthcare access, there are some really significant differences in what can be delivered in a rural setting versus an urban setting. So, you know, where do you see some one size fits all solutions? And where do you see some differentiation based on that population density and just the availability of resources and facilities in some of the rural areas. What do you see there? Before I answer your question, I just got a message a while ago that the fiscal note has come out on Senate Bill 2

and that it's projected in the next biennium that the cost for vouchers would be $6 billion, just FYI. So cost definitely goes up, but healthcare. Huge challenges, not only in our rural areas, but particularly in our rural areas. I focus a lot on women's healthcare, and the fact is that over half of the counties in Texas, our rural healthcare desert, have no providers, have no facilities. When women get pregnant, need health care, need even eventually a delivery, there's no place to go without traveling hundreds of miles to access care.

And what that oftentimes means is that they don't seek care that they need. They don't get the care that they need. They're not monitored with their potentially pregnant-related complications, which means the outcomes are such that we have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity in the country. So we know that a lot of our rural hospitals have had to close and that a lot of that even when they're open they've had to shut down their labor and delivery units because those are the most expensive units to have. So what do we do about that? Well

there there was a recent study done that was led by Texas A&M's rural program that involved about 40 different organizations that tried to analyze this and come up with some recommendations of how we could address it. And we are in the process of going through that and trying to come up with legislation that we think will help address some of that. But part of it has to do with reimbursement rates. You know, right now we have a hard time attracting physicians because our medication reimbursement rates are so low, and the legislature sets those. And right now, I don't know what the current number is. The last number I saw was that only about 30 percent of the physicians in Texas are willing to take Medicaid patients because they can't cover their costs. We also have had session after session efforts to expand full practice authority to advanced practice nurses.

That has not been successful. Many of us believe that that could have an impact on increasing the number of providers in the rural communities. There is a little bit of movement happening this time, some discussions about coming up with some compromise, and maybe we will see some effort there, but really it's about getting the providers there, making sure that we're investing in our tuition reimbursement programs, making sure that we're including rotations of our physicians and others into rural communities where they might find that it's a place they want to live and raise a family and stay. So a lot of it has to do with getting the providers there,

getting the facilities there. Last session, the legislature appropriated funding for four mobile, I think it was four, no, seven, I'm sorry, seven mobile health clinics to be able to take health care into the rural communities. And this budget that's been proposed recently increases that by three so that we can go into even more communities. So looking at any innovative thing that we can do, because we've got to make sure that we provide access to health care to all Texans, no matter where they live, and the geographic barriers have been really significant so that's what I would say about that okay before I pick on representative Diallo I just want to fully disclose I also live in Harris County so you know I share some of your joy and burdens of living in the state's most populous county.

But so many times we see Harris County sometimes as exhibited as the poster child for bad behavior when we are at some of these committee hearings. And, you know, sometimes session we passed a state law that forced Harris County to abandon their elections administrator and return to elections management to some elected officials. So we see some of these things happening. Is this a fair way to manage what's happening in Harris County? How far does the state go in intervening in some of these behaviors and are they really cognizant of the special challenges of being in such a populous County good question if I can get back

to it I want to focus just real quick and I will answer that because I was on the elections committee last last session so I'm I'm knee-deep in that issue but I want to get into the the school choice uh issue that we talked about um the district my district has a bunch of private schools some of the finest in the state some parochial some others just a whole host of them in charters and and and and that sort of thing and if not within the district it's within five miles of the district so our public schools some others just a whole host of them in charters and in in that sort of thing and if not within the district it's within five miles of the district so our public schools have been if you want to use the word competing competing with

private schools especially with with families who can afford it for for a long long time and it is my firm belief that it has made our public schools better. So I say that because some of my colleagues in very rural areas that may not have a private school or very, very few or very, very targeted and limited, now there are a whole lot of issues. I'm talking very generally basic. There are special needs. There's a whole lot of nuanced issues that we've got to work through and deal with but I say that because you know districts like

mine we're not concerned as much with that because that is the school districts as much as other areas because we see it it's not foreign it's not new it's not something that you know you haven't seen or dealt with. So I just wanted to make that distinction because that's some of the, I think, the differences that we have with some of my rural colleagues that they don't see kind of what we see. So put that aside for a moment. Back to the joke I made in elections committee is we have 254 counties and Harris County sucked up about 80% of the oxygen in our committee. Let's start with the premise of this.

It's the largest by far county in the state. It's the third largest in the country. And Houston is soon to be the third largest city in the country so start there you know we talked about too big to fail with banks our elections in Harris County it's just too big to fail it can't go wrong and we've had with election administrators too many mishaps objective these are not disputed. These are objective mishaps. Put the culpability on mistake, error, whatever you want to do. I heard that. But the problem is it was a problem. What we did, and that is going back to what we had done for decades before and just six years prior,

is give that power to the elected person that the people elected. And fortunately, that person was someone who had done it for many years before. And so far, knock on wood, we've had much improvement in Harris County. So that problem needed some fixing. This was a fix. I commend Senator Benton Court for leading the fight on that because our elections in Harris County have been much improved.

We're not running out of paper and all that stuff. So anyways, I hope that answered your question. That was great. I am going to. May I just briefly? This is a perfect example of a topical area that distinguishes rural and urban. I have election administrators who are very concerned about moving away from a countywide voting system to precinct level because we lack just the people to man the polls.

And they're very concerned that if those bills move forward, that we find a way to bracket and protect our smaller counties to be able to continue to conduct our elections. And that's what exactly you're talking about, the Harris County incubator of ideas and the real-life consequences out in rural Texas. And let me just say, I mean, that's, to me, why we can't have one-size-fits-all to a lot of the policies that we try to impose across the entire state

based on a particular community's needs. It's not appropriate. It doesn't work for all of Texas. And I think what y'all just mentioned points that out very clearly. Well, and let's follow up with that, because there have been some proposals that have been suggested for statewide rules regarding elections, one of which is having hand counted paper ballots. From Harris County's perspective, how do you respond? How do you explain, and for those who don't know, explain what the problem is, if you can.

It's not obvious. If you want election results anytime soon, going solely to paper ballots, I think, is a disservice to the state. That's my personal preference. Having the paper and machines, you've got belts and suspenders, and you've got accountability. And I think what Harris County has 2.4 million registered voters, as far as we know at this point. So it's, you know, a special challenge

there. You brought up the countywide voting centers. We also have countywide voting centers, but another proposal is returning to that precinct level voting. So you have to report to your precinct. Again, you know, is this impractical for a county your size? And you're also saying in the rural areas, it could be a problem because of the staffing challenges that you have, which we have staffing challenges also in Harris County. So, okay. All right, we'll move along. I'll come back to you, Dayella, in a few minutes on a couple of other questions for Harris County. But I want to go to Representative Slauson and talk a little bit about the infrastructure challenges. I know that we're going to talk in another panel session about water challenges. I don't know if that's an

issue for your area, but, you know, we also look in our part of the state in the southeast, you know, flood mitigation. And a lot of the projects that need to be created to comply or combat these issues, they come with a pretty high price tag. So you've got, you know, Liberty County versus Harris County. And, you know, what kind of tax base do they have to locally fund things um i was do you pronounce it arath county where you're from erath county versus tarrant county for example um do you think that state lawmakers are doing enough to support those kinds of projects in the rural areas do they need to do more do you need to make make a better case to the rest of the state that those kinds of things need to be funded? Water is a is a issue that should unite all of us concerns across the board, urban, rural, especially as our population grows.

I think one of the ways that our concerns are different in rural Texas is as we see developments, they're usually in our extraterritorial jurisdictions and these developments are then dropping wells and we've got to make sure that we're spaced appropriately so that none of the wells are failing and that doesn't always happen with with development and we have some perhaps not so scrupulous developers that have been partitioning off land without adequate water resources and then we have landowners that are unfamiliar with how Texas works and they're very frustrated to discover they can't just drop a well or the the county's not gonna curb and pave roads out to where they're at but water is absolutely should be a focus issue of

this session I don't know exactly what the right answers are at a statewide level I do think that we need to invest more resources in it because it's one of the core functions of government that I think that we should be focusing on absolutely yes I'm I'm recalling for, to give you an example of urban and rural recognition of the issue around water. Going back to probably 2007, after I was pretty much first here, there was a debate on the floor about water from East Texas, a reservoir there, Dallas area, wanting to tap into that water and bring it to Dallas. And I clearly remember listening to the debate on the floor

and having those from the Dallas area talk about their needs for water, and a particular East Texas rep getting up there and saying, you know, you guys want to water your lawns? My people understand where the water comes from, and we know when to turn the faucet off. And it was like, wow, aha, I get it. And I do think that we can have these conversations and recognize the needs across all urban suburban rural areas and right now Texas as a whole is has severe water issues whether it's in the urban area or the rural area the aging infrastructure that has to be addressed

the pipes that have to be replaced getting water transmitted from one part of the state to another part of the state, desalination, all kinds of things that we need to be doing. And I think Senator Perry should be applauded for how he's put a lot of this together. There's more things I'd like to see in that, but the fact is we're looking at it on a statewide basis and it affects all of us.

And I wanna say about the funding of it, it's gonna be billions and billions and billions of dollars over years that we have to invest in this if we want to have water in the future that we need for our drinking water, for our communities, but we also need for our businesses. We need it for energy. The energy grid is dependent upon water. So what I have proposed, and I have filed a bill, is to look at our economic stabilization fund, which is also called the Rainy Day Fund. In this case, maybe we'll call it the Drought Fund.

But it is about to hit the cap. And so in this session, in this biennium that we're coming up upon and getting a budget for, we will no longer be able to transfer certain amounts of dollars into the Rainy Day Fund. It will fall back into GR, where we have a spending cap, by the way. What I have proposed is we take any of that excess funding

that would spill over out of the ESF and create a water fund similar to our state highway fund. It is projected that this November, I don't know if the comptroller talked about this in his panel, but this November, I think it's about a half a billion dollars that will spill back. In the next two years, it's about $2.5 billion each of those years. We could put that money into a fund, seed it with other money, too, as well.

I'd like to see even more of the ESF be used on this because this is what the Rainy Day Fund is supposed to be for. One-time investments in infrastructure. The rating houses look at that. So however we end up doing it, we have got to find a huge source of revenue that we can count on to continually be there and to continue to get more funding, just like the State Highway Fund does, if we want to have the infrastructure we need to support the economy that we we are counting on here in this state add to that so kind of putting a nerve in the rural how we can come together on this issue a little bit more the city of Houston city Houston water which which supplies more than just a city of Houston loses a significant percentage I've heard a number I don't want to throw false

numbers out there but it's a bunch because our infrastructure has been neglected past administrations have not not it, kept up, and what has needed to be done there. The point is Houston, relative to the state, doesn't have a water shortage, relative to other parts of the state. And in fact, if we don't waste this water like we're doing right now, if we go in and get some help and get this infrastructure fixed, we can take some of this water and help our brethren in the west side of the state. So how do we do that? Those are kind of bold ideas.

And what makes sense? What is a win-win for the state and the city to do that to help Texas? It seems to me like that's some of the lower hanging fruit of the overall water problems that we're having in the state. So that being one, how can urban and rural work together that's one way that's that's a great answer okay let's let's go back and talk a little bit about Harris County again and Harris County has some peculiar institutions if you will some unique structures for example Harris County has the only remaining County Department of

Education in the entire state even though the ISDs run the schools it has developed some purposes that keep it going and it collects tax revenues we also have the only County managed flood control district in the state the only one that's delineated by those county lines and is operated by appointees of the Harris County Commissioner's Court. Lawmakers have in the past tried to abolish that Department of Education. I believe there is still a proposal that is coming back this session to look at ways to restructure that flood control district. Is this an area where state lawmakers need to better scrutinize what's happening in Harris

County and perhaps some of the other urban counties? Or is this a matter of local control where Harris County is saying, okay, you urban counties, you don't understand our needs in this you know very population dense area and a lot of different concerns from what you might have in Stephenville so what would you say about those I've been hearing about the Harris County School District being eliminated done away with whatever the language is for many many years and then there's always an argument coming back, yes, but they do this in this special group of students. And I'm just figuring out, where does efficiency come? Is that the efficient way to do that? If it's not, let's find a more efficient way.

I don't have that answer sitting here today. I'll have it tomorrow, though, if you let me come back. But you're right about the the Harris County flood control district it's no surprise to anyone in here Harris County floods often and badly sometimes Harvey is still in our rearview mirror which affected my district considerably so I am very keen on making sure that we do what we need to do in this specific urban area, again this engine of our economy, to make sure that we take care of these devastating flooding issues. The flood control

district is what we have in place right now. What I would like to see happen and what we're in discussions to see if there's an appetite for that is to broaden it geographically because water doesn't know county lines it goes through them and and if we can broaden that and have a more regional approach to to flooding I think that'd be better for all of us now I will say this the feds need to get involved especially in and around west side of houston because we need to get the attics and barker reservoirs repaired updated and being able to do more than than they have done here in in the last few big storms very good A FEW BIG STORMS. VERY GOOD. REPRESENTATIVE HOWARD, I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU THE FIRST BAT AT THIS KIND OF HOT POTATO, IF YOU WILL.

GREAT. WITH OUR NEW SPEAKER, NEWLY ELECTED, AND SOME HEIGHTENED TENSIONS IN THE HOUSE AS WE SPEAK. HOPEFULLY THINGS WILL SMOOTH OUT A LITTLE BIT. BUT HE'S A SPEAKER FROM A RURAL PART OF THE STATE. DO YOU THINK THAT A NEW DATE house as we speak. Hopefully things will smooth out a little bit. But he's a speaker from a rural part of the state. Do you think that a new dynamic will emerge under this speaker regarding that urban-rural divide? Do you think that he could have a role in kind of bringing that together? What do you see happening there with the new dynamics I actually think that that is possible that we might see more movement in that

direction I just had a conversation with him a couple of days ago about energy and about the fact that Lubbock it has a muni Austin has a muni we have that in common we may have some different things around it, but there's a lot of things that we can find that we could work on together that we share. Certainly, I think it'll help as a speaker. He is there to work with all 149 other reps and to help us be successful in whatever way.

It doesn't mean that he doesn't have his partisan goals and agenda, but he also is elected by us to work with all of us. And I think that will help those of us that represent urban areas in our conversations with the speaker as well as the opposite, vice versa, to build better understanding there. And I think as the speaker who will try to build consensus around things so that we can be successful in implementing policies that are gonna help all Texans,

that as someone who comes from a more rural area, he will be able to help us bring all of those ideas to the table more. We talked also about rural health care in our meeting. And though Lubbock itself has more providers and has access to health care, he talked about the surrounding counties that do not and that come into Lubbock to get the care that they need so I mean I think there is this possibility of dialogue where we can find more understanding amongst ourselves I'm gonna be hopeful about it anyway

so speaker Burroughs has been speaker for 10 days, 11 days, something like that. My takeaway so far is a tremendous work ethic, and also someone that has an understanding of the institution of the House that you don't really appreciate until you've sat in that chair. Not in the speaker chair but it's in the house I thought I understood it before I was elected I had no idea so first and foremost you know what I see is a tremendous work ethic and an availability accessibility go see him anytime you want go talk to him

anytime you want his doors open those are two really good signs so i'm very optimistic for this session i'll tag in on that i love that somebody from rural texas is at the is at the speaker's dais um because we do have a different set of issues out there i know one of one of the things that we deal with every single year are wildfires and the sharing of resources across our counties with our VFDs scrambling in every single direction. And up in the Panhandle, as you all know, last year there was a massive fire up there. And the issues that develop out of that and the solutions that we're searching for are very important to the communities that I serve. So having somebody who understands agriculture, who understands not just the water issues, our energy resources out in our area, and the law enforcement and the VFDs are such a critical component to those. So I do very much

love that there's someone in that chair who understands those things that are important to my people absolutely well we have just a few more minutes so what i wanted to finish up with is give you each an opportunity to say what you'd like for your colleagues to know about your specific district as we get into the policy debates of this session we'll start with representative Diallo well West Houston the energy corridor I think that's the first thing that stands out it is a very diverse district like I said it's small geographically but it is from voting population it's it's slightly leaning Republican but it's so it's a very

diverse group both ethnically and politically so it's it's just a kind of that melting pot I guess of of our state it represented in that district so that district is is also a community of families that like to come back and raise their children their children there where they grew up. My children went to the same schools that I went to. Melissa and I went to. It's that kind of a community. But our needs, again, are more urban like we've been talking about all day,

but our needs are really more we're looking at infrastructure, we're looking at flooding, we're looking at public safety, we're looking at reduction in property taxes. There are so many people now retiring that are getting taxed out of their homes. They feel like they're running it from the government. It's still happening. We have a little more work to do with our county and our city in making sure that we're not overtaxing our citizens. You know, those and a number of other things, but I think those are the main basic things.

We see some of the border issues, not because we're a border district, but because we receive a lot of folks that are coming in through the border. So we see it from that standpoint. And again, that plays into public safety and other things so hopefully those things have been improved and continue to be improved this last session this next session in the coming years representative Howard what about your district what do we need to know about Well, I represent Austin, also Westlake and Rollingwood. But I guess the main message is to recognize the tremendous contributions that the Austin area provides to our economy, to our state,

and let us have some local decision-making without making us Washington DC of Texas. The fact is that the electoral process works and I'll give you an example. I was on the Eanes School Board in the 90s when Eanes was facing the dilemma of whether or not to open a second high school. And of the seven school board members, six of us had done the research on it and felt that it would be better to have a second high school, academically, socially, but we had just won the state football championship. The community didn't like what we were proposing. And the three of us that were up for election the next time were ousted. We were fired. And new people brought in who wanted to go the direction that the larger

part of our community wanted to go. If you look at what's happening in Austin, right, and that's the way it should have worked. If you look at what's happening in Austin now in terms of affordability, in terms of what's being done to ensure that we have more opportunities for housing. The current city council is making decisions that the previous council was not willing to make. Whether you like that or not, that's what the community voted on, and it's moving forward. Obviously my point being that I know people love to bash on Austin, but Austin is one of the leading economic drivers of our state. Austin is a hub for technology.

There's tech obviously in other parts of the state, but a hub for technology. It is becoming a hub for life sciences. It's got one of the largest global investments in technology of any part of the country, much less the state. People are here because they like what Austin has to offer. They like what we're doing. We as local community citizens vote on what we're doing we as local community citizens vote on what we're doing and we want to be able to continue to do that with the state not and not have a state interfere with our decisions because some people don't happen to like them that's what I would say and representative Slauson is our only rural representative I'm in today I love being on these panels and learning other things about colleagues

and about EANS ISD, Steenville High School, state football champs, 93, 94, 98, 99. Not that we're still counting there, but I know good and well if I were to stand up and say, hey, let's add another high school,

they would have my bags packed for me before I could even get back up there today. So I appreciate that perspective on it. The part of the state I come from, love God, serve others. We are communities driven by a belief that we should first and foremost serve our creator to the dictates of our own conscience. We should invest in our families and in our neighbors and we serve in

our communities and when you show up in whatever group whether we're providing meals or working in schools you see overlapping volunteers because that's who we have and everybody digs in and everybody puts in the sweat equity out there i just have the fortune of getting to put in the sweat equity down here for a little while every other year. But I think overall, those are things that unite us. I am grateful to get to do this job. I am mindful of the responsibility that comes along with it,

and I look forward to working with my colleagues this session for productive good work so that when we go back home, our constituents feel like we've left it better than we found it. Thank you. Isn't it so Texas that we had a policy discussion that inevitably brought up football in some respect.

That's just amazing as a non-native. Well, thank you so much to our panelists. We appreciate your time and appreciate what you do and appreciate your voices for your community. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you all for joining us today and stick around. Our next panel is on, oh boy, legislative dynamics. So it should be a lot of fun and we'll see you in a few minutes.