The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - December 4, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy folks, today is Wednesday, December 4th, and you're listening to the Texans Daily Rundown. I'm the Texans Assistant Editor Rob Lausches, and here is the rundown of today's news in Texas politics. First up, business as usual is over in the Texas house, according to Mike Toomey, the new chief of staff for Speaker Dade Phelan. Toomey told a gathering of lobbyists at a Wednesday panel put on by the Professional Advocacy Association of Texas, quote, all the things you remember about how the house works, throw it out. He continued, quote, it's going to start really fast. No good bill for the state of Texas is going to die because we ran out of time. It's going to be a whole new Texas House. Phelan, who is seeking his third term as Speaker, is in a fight for re-election after a tumultuous two years on the policy and politics fronts. He faces GOP Reform Group candidate Representative

Starting point is 00:00:57 David Cook as the primary opposition right now. The Texas House Republican Caucus will convene on Saturday to select its endorsed candidate for Speaker, but Phelan is pushing ahead as if he already knows he will be Speaker again next session, with Toomey's hiring as a testament to that. Phelan has already begun announcing or implementing changes to usual operations in the House, the far slower chamber of the two given that it has 150 members and the Republicans have no supermajority, unlike the Texas Senate. Next, Texas filed a brief with the Supreme Court of the United States on November 26th, requesting that it uphold state law requiring pornography websites to use age verification

Starting point is 00:01:36 measures to prevent the exposure of sexual material to minors. SCOTUS will hear arguments from Texas on January 15th of next year. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been exchanging blows with multiple pornography companies since the passage of House Bill 1181 in 2023, which requires websites that intentionally publish sexual material harmful to minors to verify the user's identity through digital identification or a third-party system that uses government-issued identification or else be subject to fines and penalties. The pornography platforms, including Pornhub, alleged that implementation of HB 1181 would be a violation of the First

Starting point is 00:02:16 Amendment and filed a lawsuit with adult entertainment advocacy group the Free Speech Coalition against the state of Texas. FSC asked that the U.S. District Court of Texas' Austin Division deem the law unconstitutional and unenforceable. Last but not least, a massage establishment in Austin has been issued a six-month emergency closure order by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation due to suspected human trafficking activity. JT Spa in Austin reportedly had three specific indicators of human trafficking that TDLR inspectors found upon visiting. Two employees living on site, one employee providing massage services who was not a licensed masseuse,

Starting point is 00:02:58 and other items prohibited at a massage facility undisclosed by TDLR. TDLR received a complaint in October from someone who had briefly visited the spa and complained that they left the establishment when an employee offered sexual services while providing a massage. TDLR noted, quote, the complainant provided information they'd found online on an illicit massage website that specifically mentioned the employee who'd made the offer of sexual services. The emergency order was made possible by State Representative Ben Bumgarner's House Bill 3579, legislation that allows for the closure of massage locations if either TDLR or law enforcement

Starting point is 00:03:37 suspects the establishment of human trafficking. Thanks for listening. To support The Texan, please be sure to visit thetexan.news and subscribe to get full access to all of our articles, newsletters, and podcasts.

The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - December 4, 2024

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