The Texan Podcast - Map Musings and THC Talk: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 19

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

In this episode of Smoke Filled Room, Brad Johnson and Cameron Abrams discuss the Texas House Select Committee's recent vote on a proposed congressional redistricting map, providing in-depth analysis of the partisan implications and shifts in key districts. They also explore the intense debates surrounding the proposed THC ban in Texas, including the stances of Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Patrick, and what we can expect from the House's forthcoming discussions. Additionally, the episode touches upon disaster response policy following recent flooding in Kerrville.Listen to more Smoke Filled Room podcasts from our team wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.

Hello everybody, this is Brad Johnson, senior reporter here at The Texan with Cameron Abrams. Cameron, happy Saturday morning. I know, it's exciting. We're rarely here in the office on a weekend, but the special session makes for special days. And today is one of those days. It does. And you know, as they say, Saturday is for the boys.

And that's why we're here. This is just Diet Coke in my cup here. Maybe after we get past noon, we'll see what happens. Hey, you can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning. So yeah, this is definitely water and not any kind of, you know, clear water. This is not a life advice podcast. No. I mean, clearly look at us.

We're sitting here on a Saturday morning at work during a special session. So yeah, don't make our decisions. No. Don't do it. No. But this is Smoke-Filled Room podcast. We're, like we said, recording this on Saturday. The Texas House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting just voted out HB4 the proposed congressional map. We're going to talk about that quite a bit

And then we're going to talk the rest of session other issues THC that you've been following quite a bit just a 89-1 rundown basically, a status update on where we're at. Obviously this is the podcast that Mackenzie and I normally do, but she is out of commission. She had her duties have shifted. She has higher priorities than this nonsensical podcast. So we are picking up the slack and the next couple of iterations we're gonna have a couple of guests on,

do things a little differently, but gotta fill the void until Mackenzie returns. So with that, let's get to it. So yesterday on Friday there was a really lengthy hearing and 15 hours a lot of public testimony on the proposed map that was filed on Wednesday and then this morning the committee met in a formal meeting and voted it out 12-6 along party lines. There were three Democrats not in attendance. It wouldn't have changed the outcome. It would have just increased the number of votes against. And clearly, as redistricting

is, this is a partisan issue. I was thinking about this the other day. This is the only thing that I've seen in my time in Texas politics that has actually united both individual parties. You know Texas is, this is not just politics across the board in America, when you have a two-party system you're gonna have internal fights, particularly in a state that is dominated by one party, where a lot of the decisions are made by that one party because they can, because they have the votes to do essentially what they want, that's the case here. And then you have minority party scrapping to figure out how they

want to be form opposition. Well, this makes it real easy. It's a clear red, blue dividing line. Yeah. There's no policy nuances here. It's pure partisan power. Yeah. Well, we've been hearing that more clearly in the last few days from Republicans

on the committee saying this is about politics more than anything. And I think that's one of the more interesting things about this is there's been lots of accusations about racism or this or that. But of accusations about racism or this or that, but we've seen people say, no, this is about politics. And that's what it's purely about. And I don't know about you, but I think it'd be worth going through the map a little bit and seeing where these lines are being drawn right now. So why don't we go into that?

And until we get to the last, Democrats been, anyone opposed, progressives, And until you said last, the Democrats been anyone opposed, progressives, Democrats, whoever it is, it's been a lot of time trying to build the case that it's not just about partisanship. So we'll talk about that more in a bit, you know, the hearing. But as for the map, Chairman Todd Hunter filed HP4 on Wednesday. It changes the lines for all but one congressional district. However, most are generally the same you know is where you have these significant changes are Five seats Republicans project to gain five Although there's some nuance to that

in the they projected in five in the next election under this this proposal and they projected to gain five in the next election under this proposal. And the areas that changed significantly were South Texas. We talked previously about those are the two easiest gets for Republicans in terms of looking at redistricting what the strategy is going to be. Although they made an interesting decision on it. Then we saw a district in Dallas get pulled east. That's Julie Johnson's 32nd district, made a Republican seat. In conjunction with that, we saw Mark Vesey's blue district pulled almost entirely.

I think it barely touches into Tarrant County, but most of it is now in Dallas County, whereas the current district he has kind of stretches from a hub in Dallas County and a hub in Fort Worth. And so now both he and Jasmine Crockett are centered almost entirely in Crockett's instance, I think entirely in Dallas County. Okay. So that was the move there. Then down in Houston, we saw things shift around quite a bit. We talked to, if you listen to the weekly roundup, we talked about this, but ran through these somewhat, um, the 18th congressional district, which is currently vacant, was pulled down south and made closer to its historic lines

that the district existed under when Barbara Jordan occupied the seat. They took Al Green's Congressional District 9 and moved it and then pulled it east into East Harris County, La Port area to get those Republican, strong Republican voting populations and they also took some from the second congressional district which is the Crenshaw's and now that's a Republican seat. At least projected based on these results. In South Texas they kind of took some from Tony Gonzales's 23rd congressional district and pulled the the 28th congressional district down out of San Antonio the San Antonio suburbs okay and they made 28th the 20th congressional district a Trump plus 10.

However, if you look at the TPI, our TPI, the district actually moved two points to the left. Now what they're banking on here, Republicans, is that the continued Hispanic shift in South Texas will continue and that they will get the seat because of inertia. Yeah and I on that point I came across a tweet the other day that was showing the trends of these And in 2008, D plus 35, 2012, D plus 38, 2016, D plus 40, but 2020, D plus 22, 2024, D plus two. So a huge shift over the past, you know, almost 20 years here to the right, which is clearly driven by Donald Trump. And so, at least as the foremost factor, right?

Yeah. And I, I, I, yeah. Well, I have a lot of questions about that because, uh, what do you, I, I don't want to take us too off track from the map, but, um, just what, what do you think is causing this shift? Because the shift is what is preceding the justifications for redrawing the map. And so what is causing the shift? You mentioned Trump, you mentioned the border. One is a person, one is an issue. So is it mainly the person Trump or is it the issues that are driving people? From what you've been able to gather, what is it?

Both and, I think. Okay. You know, you've seen the border become just the biggest issue, particularly in Republican politics, but it expands beyond that. It's not just a Republican issue, which is why Republicans have performed so well. It's also why you saw Democrats moving to the middle on the border when they were running in Texas last year, calling all red chiefs among them, you know. So there's that factor. You know, that's the day-to-day, on-the-ground, what's happening in my community factor, right? You've also seen the Democratic Party in their shift towards

the more ideological party. We've talked about this before, you know, Republicans are becoming more coalitional, Democrats are becoming more ideological, whereas it used to be reversed. I wouldn't say that's totally complete yet, but we're seeing that movement. And with that, But we're seeing that movement. And with that, you have more conservative Hispanics that are just not as enthusiastic about the driving forces of the base of the Democratic Party, the progressive base, I should say. And there's just a tension there.

And it makes sense that you're going to see some, not all, because the valley,, Texas is not It can be read and in certain circumstances. It is like Trump the Trump election but if you look at the composite score of the 28th congressional district It's it's a lean blue. Mm-hmm. So it takes a while for these voting trends to shift and become permanent. Yeah, so like in the 28th district, who represents the 28th? Henry Cuellar.

Henry Cuellar. Would you say he's a moderate, Dan? Absolutely. Right? And so you could get people in the 28th district being a Trump voter and then a Quayar voter. Absolutely. Right? And so with how Republicans are drawing these lines for this new congressional map, they're banking on that continued shift where in the next election, when Trump is not on the ballot, where in the next election, when Trump is not on the ballot,

that whoever is the Republican candidate, they'll continue voting Republican in the presidential election, hopefully drawing them over to the right on the congressional ticket as well, right? That's the bet. Okay. Yeah, now, you know, I asked Cody Vassut, chair of the committee after the hearing, if

he thinks this map is sufficient to get all five of those seats. And he said he thinks so, but it's going to be on Republicans to campaign and provide the right messaging to get those voters. You know, the other factor is, definitely Trump's not going to be on the ballot again. You know, the immigration issue, the border issue is not going away. That's going to remain. And so you know that kind of load-bearing poll is not disappearing. But the Trump name ID on the ballot is. You know unless they repeal whatever constitutional amendment that was that prevents you know three terms for presidents, which Trump has suggested, he's not gonna be on the ballot.

Well, and what will be interesting too is because it seems as though with Trump being the candidate, he brought out a lot of people who were disaffected voters, people who didn't actually go and vote, went to the polls because of Trump. So will they continue coming out when Trump's not on the ballot? Well in the past we've seen that not happen. Yeah. At least you know there are always counter examples right, but broadly speaking you know when the 2018 kind of blue wave happened, those Trump voters, it was particularly prevalent in where I'm from the Midwest, that had gone for Trump didn't show up because they're not, they're Trump voters, they're not Republicans.

Yeah. Right? So that's why I think Vasut's comments about messaging is so important. Energizing those people to get out and to the polls when Trump is not on the ballot, right? And so going back to the map a little bit, we talked a bit on the weekly roundup about some of the more shocking, crazy things you saw on the map, one of them being the more shocking crazy things you saw on the map, one of them being the Great Kassar element of that. Remind us what happened with Great Kassar's district and we'll get into it. So if you look at Great Kassar's current district, he's an Austin resident. He was a city councilman in Austin, a very prevalent activist before then. His current district, after the 2021 redraw, was basically made for him.

It connects Austin to a chunk of San Antonio suburbs, and it's connected by a half-mile strip running up I-35. It looks ridiculous. Yeah. You know when you hear complaints about absurd, you know, gerrymandering, that fits. However, and I learned this in the hearing yesterday, that was the result of a past court ruling that found, I think that you had to preserve the 35th congressional district as a Hispanic interest district. I don't know if that means it had to be Hispanic majority or Hispanic plurality but the voting block

had to be sufficient enough that the court deemed Hispanics could have the primary say in who their congressman was from that district. Okay. What they're doing here is moving it south and actually I've heard people who watch this know a lot more than I do about this who have expressed from the Republican side, who have expressed concern about that one in particular, and then I think maybe slightly one in Harris County, that expressed concern that that might be the kind of chink in the armor of this map legally speaking. Because what they do is they pull it down

entirely out of Austin and they connect, you know, wider exurbs of San Antonio with, I think, Hispanic suburbs of San Antonio. And I think they said under the CVAP that is one of the Hispanic majority districts. But you know, when you get in these legal fights, there's all kinds of nuances that I'm not privy to. Right. But additionally, Hillary Hicklin made this point frequently in the hearing on Friday that that ridiculous, you know, kind of barbell looking district is gone and they have made it more compact and and by doing so also keep it county focus where they're not they're not splitting counties as many you know when you have the thing

running down all the way that runs through three different counties right right this only has, it's not splitting counties like that. You've got a partial bear and then you've got, I forget the county name to it, four I think it was that I saw other counties that are part of the district. And so that moved from heavily democratic, like D7, this was the biggest mover partisan wise, if I remember correctly. D70 was the partisan breakdown of our RTPI under the current amount and now it's R55. So it moved a massive amount. Wow. And that's one of the gains that Republicans expect to pick up. You know, maybe they don't. You know, they have

such a bad midterm, which is entirely possible, that they only pick up, you know, maybe they don't. Maybe they have such a bad midterm, which is entirely possible, that they only pick up two or three of these seats. That's possible. We'll just have to see on that. Yeah, well, I think the political implications with the reconfiguring of Great Kassar's district is he could be matched up with Lloyd Doggett. So in your mind, what is the future there? Is it going to be Kassar versus Doggett? Is one of them going to drop out? Because both, one being a veteran of the Congress, another one, Kassar being the leader of the Progressive Caucus in

Congress. So these are two huge names and they're gonna be potentially fighting out for this one district. What do you see happening there? I think if this map passes we'll see them fighting it out in the primary. I mean what other option do they have? Doggett has been around for a very long time, but he showed no interest in retiring and he has decades of name ID. Yeah, but one of the interesting things I think is there's been lots of energy from the progressive base about wanting to make the party younger and get fresh faces in there or retain the the the younger congressmen that they have and trying to bring in a new generation of politician and so will

dogged feel the pressure from the base or in those who have been appointed or elected to positions within the Texas Democratic Party, the party that runs these elections and helps with fundraising and things. Is he going to get pressure to move on and step down and give Kassar the runway to victory in this district. I think that'll be an interesting thing to kind of monitor. I'm sure there will be some pressure for that, but keep in mind, Doggett was the first one that came out and said Joe Biden needs to drop out of the race. Right. And so he's been willing to buck the party establishment on certain things as is Kassar, right? progressive caucus chair

but dogged said told reporters on Friday I think that he Has filed for reelection and he hasn't talked to Kassar about what they're gonna do. He's focused right now on killing this map yeah, but I to Kassar about what they're gonna do. He's focused right now on killing this map. But I don't see any sign of him backing down right now. And I think for the moment we are barreling towards a Kassar V dogged primary. And that'll be fascinating to watch. Another thing about this map I wanted to ask you about is because they redrew part of Jasmine Crockett's district, right? What did it...run us

through what they did with Jasmine Crockett's district because there's some interesting politics that you can read into why they did that. Yeah, so I believe they made it a black majority district. It depends on which numbers you're looking at. So there's a few, when you're talking about redistricting, there's, you know, the voting age population called the VAP. And obviously that is, well, first of all, there's the population, which includes people that aren't eligible to vote. Both as young people and as, I believe, people here who are here either legally but not a citizen or here illegally. Which is a whole other bag. Right.

Then you have the voting age population, which is a smaller group of people, but still pretty broad. All it does is take out the people who are not, who are below 18 in age. And then you have the primary consideration here, which is the CVAP, the Citizen Voting Age population. And so that's the number that all of, that was used constantly during the hearing. I believe under the CVAP, CD30 is black majority. Just barely about 51 point some string of numbers. Crockett, when she was in the committee, she started talking about how economic engines were taken out of her district. And she cited specifically the two airports. I think

there were a couple others but those were the two main ones that were that were frequently cited. And I looked at the map just before this and the Dallas Lovefield Airport did not go from Crockett's district to a red district. It went to Mark Veasey's new district. So they took that portion of what is currently Crockett's district and put it into the 33rd congressional district. Okay. You know there was talk about trying to pair those two, make them run against each other in a primary just like they're doing with Doggett and Kassar the math just didn't work yeah it would prove to be too complicated I guess and you know

probably running afoul of some legal problems yeah right so that was what they were is that what you had in mind or was there something else you well cuz from my understanding is in the redraw of Crocus district It made it more of a Democratic stronghold. Is that correct? Yeah, they made it slightly more democratic It was already very heavily democratic. Yeah, but they moved it but it further secured it as a stronghold and the reason why I bring this up is because How we were mentioning earlier the political messaging side of this, where Republicans are going to have to push really hard to get people to the polls to vote Republican so they can secure these five seats.

And I bring this up in the context of Jasmine Crockett because she has made herself a fixture of the democratic party. she has made herself a fixture of the Democratic Party. And I think the, providing some analysis of this, Republicans want Crockett to be the face of the Republican Party because she is so polarized. Yeah, we saw polling put out by the NRSC that was you know sneakily done that showed her I think top of the field. Yeah. In the potential Democratic Senate

US Senate field because but that's because exactly what you're saying Republicans see her as an ideal candidate to run against. Yeah well they see her as as an ideal candidate to run against. Yeah, well, they see her as as an ideal candidate to run against and the progressive base loves her and Republicans hate her and she is constantly put on the mainstream Republican news television shows so she has incredible name ID both left and right and so I think it's interesting to see that Republicans like okay if we can highlight this polarizing figure that maybe that we know Republicans dislike and maybe independent and moderate

voters are gonna be pushing away from those sort of more ideological positions that would drive those voters to the right. It doesn't matter if they're in their, they're in Jasmin Crockett's district or not. I'm just saying on a broader messaging platform, say this is what Democrats are putting up as their ideal candidate. candidate, we have, you know, you might be in a, like a D plus, you know, three, four, five district, but you can vote Republican because we're putting up a moderate person to combat some of these more ideological positions the Democrats are putting at the forefront with someone like Jasmine Crockett.

Well, I will say, the way you were describing that sounds oddly familiar to something that happened 10 years ago, where the national media apparatus and the Democratic Party and all of its subsidiaries and arms really wanted to see someone by the name of Donald Trump be the Republican Party nominee because they believed he was easiest to beat. Yeah. And look where that went. So be careful what you wish for Republicans, I should say, on that. Well, this would lead us into a larger discussion that might take us away from our topic we're discussing today.

But is there anything else about this map? We touched on a lot already. Do you want to transition to what happened in the hearing today? Last thing I'll say about it is Republicans repeatedly said during this, Todd Hunter, author of the bill, chief among them, that under this plan majority black districts go from zero to two. I believe, so Crockett's one, I believe the other one is the 18th congressional district that moves. And then Hispanic majority districts go from seven to nine, I believe was the numbers he said. It increases, you know, and they're saying, well, we can't have run afoul of

Well, we can't have run afoul of Voting Rights Act requirements, which we'll get on more on the court case stuff because we were going to talk about that. But we can't be running afoul of that because the number of minority-majority districts has increased. That's their case. That's their case. But let's go into a little bit of the hearing that happened today, Saturday, they were recording. What were some of your big takeaways? Because there was lots of back and forth that was going on between the lawmakers.

Give us a rundown about some of that back and forth, what was going on. So the hearing today was really just a continued, really a cap off of what happened yesterday, not just procedurally in the vote, but Democrats gave their closing condemnation speeches, very critical, very critical of it, which of course, right, they're on the losing end of this. Why wouldn't they be critical? And they, so I would say today the discussion wasn't so interesting, at least at this hearing, the new hearing today, but the hearing that went into the early morning, this morning, yesterday into like 1 20 in the morning, that was fascinating. There was a lot of argument back and forth.

First of all, Todd Hunter in laying out the bill stressed this was about partisan considerations, political considerations, meaning we drew the lines where we thought Republicans would gain more seats. And that's that. Throw out the DOJ letter about racist lines. This is about political power. Yeah. You know, that's at root with all what redistricting ever is. Now, historically it has gotten off into you know racial considerations, racial lines. Now I will say you know in recent history the reason is that

minorities have voted heavily Democratic. Yeah. And so by extension I guess by making by trying to reduce democratic voting you know democratic power in office and increase Republican you reduce the seats that are decided by these minority groups you know it's a it's a zero-sum game here that you can't get more congressional seats until the next census. You have 38. That's what you have. And so, you know, Democrats were trying to make the case that, okay, you say political

consideration, but you're reading off all these statistics about minority, majority districts increasing. How can you say that racial considerations weren't at play? And what was the response? I mean, the Republican framing had been that the political consideration was up here, any racial consideration was down here as an ancillary product of the political consideration. Yeah. Well, because, you know, you listen to something like the war room with Bannon or whatever. Do you listen to that?

I don't think I listen to that. Clips come across my ex timeline. But what I'm getting at is that the base that has been voting for Trump has been multiracial working-class coalitions. Yes. And I think that is a real interesting factor in all this is that the average Republican voter can't just be a sketch of an old white man anymore. Yeah. It's, it's Latinos, it's, it's, it's blacks, it's, it's everything, you know, and so I

think taking that into consideration when trying to discuss this map has to be at the forefront. Well that was stated multiple times in the hearing that Carl Tepper, Katrina Pearson both made this point that both Hispanics voted for Trump. Pearson said 55%. I don't know off the top of my head if that's accurate or not, but that was the assertion made. Certainly Hispanic men went for Trump. Definitely. By a pretty big margin.

Yeah. And then black men went from pretty low, maybe low single digits support for Trump to 20%. So far from a majority, but a significant increase. So that goes to... Well, I was going to say, I think the divide is less along racial lines now, not as pronounced along racial lines now, but it's more of a gender and class divide, wasn't anything, you know, we're seeing women are voting for the Democrat party, but then we're also seeing the split where, especially in the 2024 election, that high

income individuals were voting Democrat as well. And so it's sort of the, the shifting party allegiances over the past decade, uh, with Trump in office, that's why it's so interesting because it's like these maps are being drawn for future elections when Trump is not going to be on the ballot. So what is going to happen with these, to happen with these districts when they're making predictions that they're going to be swinging Republican, but are these Republican voters that have come out over the past 10 years been because they're Republicans or because they're Trump voters? Can I go on a rant about the DOJ letter? Go ahead. So let's state, stipulate first that there's

there's no requirement, there's no basis needed to redraw maps. The Republicans or the legislature can redraw the congressional maps if they so choose. There's nothing stopping them. Now that's a different question whether they should, right? But the DOJ letter was, in my view, and I've had some, I've talked to some people that disagree with my assessment, and that's fine, I take their points, but I still see this as an unforced error by the administration, politically, because in, not only in, in putting this letter out and asserting that there are some racially gerrymandered districts that should be adjusted to fit new precedent, which is the Pettaway decision in Galveston that we've talked about on multiple podcasts now,

because coalition districts are no longer, as legal precedent currently exists, you are no longer need to maintain coalitional districts in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act because it is in part deemed that Hispanics and blacks are no longer voting the same way. And so you're not preserving a political minority by keeping a coalition district. They're just too different. So there's no point. So, that was the basis of this letter

to try and provide political cover to do this in a legal manner. But you don't need it. If you want to redraw the maps, you can draw the maps. And I just see this as a, because Republicans are getting bashed over the head, and rightfully so, in these committee hearings, constantly, because of this DOJ letter. I have people texting me on the inside about this, just being so pissed about the, quote, that damn DOJ letter. because it's an unnecessary headache

that they are having to sit through because you have the DOJ coming in and contradicting that now there's a bit of nuance when you get into the weeds on it but they are contradicting the state's position broadly speaking of the 20 current 2021 maps, that they were drawn race blind, that it was political consideration. So by getting cute with this, in my view, they have caused themselves an unnecessary headache in this process. And it keeps getting beaten over the head with them. So however, I will say on the other side of this, the DOJ letter did not precipitate this special.

Okay. I can tell you that for a fact. I put a timeline, a tweet out, this has been talked about redistricting on the grounds of the pet. No, it doesn't, that's not the same as the justification behind the, made in the DOJ letter not precipitating this, right? Different things. In February, talk starts in Texas about redrawing congressional maps.

I can tell you that for a fact. I know that because I heard it. It didn't develop during regular session, probably because you have a new speaker who has a hard enough time on his hands with a tough majority after being elected by a majority of Democrats in his coalition, having to navigate a new relationship with the lieutenant governor who had previously been combative with the previous speaker. So too much to deal with in too little time, they put it off. In May, early May, I get a call saying the White House

is pushing for a map, for a redraw of the congressional map for the exact reason that we all know exists now because they're worried about their the election next year. That was early May. On June 9th, the New York Times reported that and it became more widely known. That's June 9th. July 7th is when the DOJ letter was sent to Governor

Abbott and Attorney General Paxson. Two days later, Governor Abbott sets the call. Now, he also tries to get cute with it and give political cover because he cites the DOJ letter in the proclamation. So, you know, both sides have a point to make here on this thing, but the letter itself did not precipitate the special session or the redraw effort. That had been discussed long before, frankly, ever since the Pedaway ruling happened. Because that is enough of a departure from Right. So, because that is enough of a departure from then current legal precedent on map drawing that a huge door was opened politically for Republicans specifically. So that's the timeline on that.

I see it as an unforced error. I get others who think maybe not, you know, maybe there's a legal argument here trying to set that as legal precedent going forward. But politically speaking, and that's the way I'm viewing it in this, and I'm watching Republicans getting bludgeoned with it over and over again in the hearing, I think it wasn't probably necessary. Yeah, well, what are the implications of this DOJ letter, really? Is it just an advisory opinion? Does it hold any legal precedence with

a letter like this? It's an advisory. It's a memo, basically. It's a memo. It only matters insofar as it precipitated an action that followed. Democrats say it did. It did not. The letter itself did not, but that doesn't mean the underlying thinking behind it did not, right? But in reality, so what I'm trying to get at is it's just words on a piece of paper. Right. It's not a legal opinion. It's a very informal legal opinion, basically. It's a very informal legal opinion, basically. And so it has no import, legally speaking, other than if it had a cause and effect, right? And that'll be debated in court when this thing gets sued.

It will get sued. But the House author, the committee chair, the Senate committee chair have all said it had no impact on them moving forward with redistricting. That's a good legal answer, right? Yeah. They're about to get deposed in this whatever case that happens. Yeah. But yeah, it's weedy, but ultimately they could do this and we're going to do this whether a letter was written down and sent to the state or not. What else, was there anything else from the hearing that went into the wee hours of the

night that happened again this morning? Was there anything else that really jumped out at you that you think people should know about? Yes, I think you have to talk about how lopsided these hearings were in public testimony. Democrats were very organized. They got their base out and got them out in very strong numbers. It was, one of the members said today, 100 to one, 100 against one to one, four throughout the three field hearings. That's what it looks like when I'm watching. Yeah, and Republicans tried to get a more of a presence there

on Friday for the hearing, for the bill actual actual hearing and they got more than they had but they had crumbs before so it wasn't like a that much of an increase you know and you mean you did have you had some people voicing support for it but overwhelmingly it was against and I think that speaks more than anything to how well Democrats mobilized on this because think about redistricting I was talking with the buddy mine last night to the big issues and we'll talk about the other one in a bit to the big issues of the special are redistricting and THC obviously the other one one, disaster flooding, is there, but that's a different kind of thing. The two polarizing issues are those two, the biggest ones. The difference between those is, though, THC penetrates to more average people as a political issue. And we're seeing a lot of

opposition to that from the public. Look at polls, look at testimony. Now, if they say you don't have testimony for it, you do. But in my view here, in watching this, that is a more salient political issue for the average person than redistricting is. Most people have no idea, first of all, who their congressman is. Second of all, where the lines are drawn. They have no idea if they go from one congressional district to another, and that even depends on if they vote, right?

We have voter turnout is, let's say, an average of 50%. Half the people registered to vote turn out to vote. Now, a presidential election that goes up, a midterm election that goes down, right? But that's a... we're talking about a subset of a subset of a subset of the population that actually cares about this issue. Look on the Republican side, it was heavy activists, GOP chairs that came and testified for it. You know, one guy that they had first was Chaplain Rich Stoglin, who kind of went viral in the Arlington hearing. But he himself is an activist.

He's very involved. He runs the Frederick Douglass Republicans of Tarrant County Yeah, so we're not talking about Joe Schmoe on the street who wants to you know Smoke a joint getting pissed off the state's gonna stop that from happening This this is a very insider political issue now, that's not to say it doesn't affect people it absolutely does because not to say it doesn't affect people, it absolutely does, because the whole point of this is for the Republican Party to try and preserve a majority that is currently very slim in the US House after the election next year and keep

the Democratic Party from taking it. That causes a whole ripple effect on policies, right? Yeah. But as an issue itself, redistricting is very in the weeds. It's very, you know, insider-y, which I like. I like this stuff. This is fun to follow. But I am not an average voter. No. But isn't it just known historically that Democrats are great at the ground game and they know how to mobilize voters. They have, they know how to contact people, get them to testify and things like that. It's just, it's relatively new to have these grassroots conservative right-wing sort of organizations have as much influence as they do. So is it just the apparatus, the grassroots apparatus is

just showing how much power they have right now by getting people to testify against congressional redistricting? Is that just what this is representing or is this people that are actually upset about what's happening? Oh, well, I think they're actually upset. They're just, they're the base. They're the active base, activists, right? So they're more involved. They're following this stuff day to day,

and they're absolutely angry at this, primarily because it means they will have fewer members of Congress who agree with them from their state representing them in the delegation, if it comes to fruition, right? So I see it as legit. Okay, okay. Well, because I think what's interesting, So I see it as legit. OK. OK. Well, because I think what's interesting,

because like you mentioned, congressional redistricting isn't something that people are thinking about all the time. It's something that they think about when it comes up on a special session. You know, something, these more cultural issues, whether it's gender stuff or THC or things like that, that's constantly in the news. They're always thinking about that,

always debating it with their friends and family or listening to their favorite podcasts talk about it. But what they're listening to isn't talking about congressional redistricting unless it becomes an issue. And so many people, at least maybe you can tell me I'm right or wrong, are just getting energized about this because it's happening right now.

And so they're still a bit uninformed about the implications of things, maybe the historical precedent for many of these things, they're just learning about it. And so they are getting fired up to come up. So maybe they are authentic in their opposition, but it's still an issue for many of the people testifying that they're just learning about. Do you think I'm right in my view of things like that? I think most of the people coming to testify are not just learning about redistricting as a concept itself.

I think they know what it is. Known about it for a while. They know generally the implications that there will be fewer Democratic members of Congress. When you delve further into it, how many people know the Pettibway precedent? How many people we saw? Yeah. You know, Jasmine Crockett said she had not read the Padaway precedent.

Right. But she had read summaries, she said. When you get further down into weeds on it, and the technicalities and the legal ins and outs, yeah, of course you're going to have, most of these people have no idea about that. Which is, you know, different from being an elected official because that stuff does and should affect your decision making. Just as the current status of the Voting Rights Act should affect, I don't even mean the Pettoway precedent, but the stuff that's still intact under current law, just as that should determine, should affect how you draw

a map and where you draw the lines. Yeah. Well, and I think that's an interesting thing to discuss is how, you know, we get fired up about all this insider-y stuff on issues like this. But with all the nuances that go on with the Voter Rights Act, with how congressional redistricting is done, there's been lots of changes that have happened over the past few decades with this and we're getting the Supreme Court is even going to be taking up an expansion of a case that deals with congressional redistricting that could shake up the entire thing. It's kind of like a ped away on steroids.

There's a Louisiana case that's before the court currently and they just issued that could shake up the entire thing. It's kind of like, you know, pet away on steroids. Yeah. There's a Louisiana case that's before the court currently, and they just issued a certified question, I think it was, that expands their evaluation of this to whether mandating the preservation of majority black and majority Hispanic districts along racial lines is necessary under the Voting Rights Act.

I don't know the full extent of VRA, so I don't know if this would throw the entire thing out, but as far as these purposes that we're talking about in preserving these minority districts, it would throw the whole thing out. We already have a halfway done with the Pettdaway decision, and this may, if it goes the way Republicans might foresee with a conservative leaning court, it could toss the rest of that out. Yeah. Which opens the door for more.

Maybe we're back in 27 redistricting after that. Yeah. Well, that's why I think this is so interesting is because we're seeing so many arguments that are based on the current construction of the Voter Rights Act and Let's say the Supreme Court does away with the majority of what is currently precedent Those arguments that have been made over the course of these hearings get thrown out as well. And so, and that brings us back to this DOJ letter saying that these lines were racist. Well, if the Supreme Court makes a decision that race doesn't play a factor in the congressional redistricting lines being

redrawn, what does that mean going forward for future lawsuits and then for future congressional redistricting after they're gonna be doing this again, obviously. So it just throws everything out the window. There might still be some points progressives, Democrats wanna make in the current lawsuit going on in El Paso that's on pause because of this,

but a bunch of that was about illegitimate racial line drawing. And if that section of the VRA gets tossed by SCOTUS, it's very likely that this current Texas case against the current MAPS is tossed as well. And that's possible. Who knows? The court can make a ruling where they carve out a little bit here and preserve this part here, it's possible.

Who knows what they do. But we're seeing case law move more and more towards just the plain fact that this is pure partisanship. And the basis for that is we're seeing voting trends among minorities change. Yeah. That is the basis by which Republicans are doing this. Well, and this gets us all the way back to what we're,

we started our discussion with, with some of the comments from Cody Vasut about how this, once the map is redrawn, it comes down to how Republicans are gonna message to the people in these new districts about getting out to the polls and voting Republican and so if it's not about racial minorities voting for certain candidates because of racial preferences and lines should be drawn that way if that's thrown out out and the only determining factor is the

partisan nature of that voter, then it comes down to getting people to vote either Republican or Democrat. Yeah and Republicans might turn out to be effective at that next cycle. They might literally fail at it. It is certainly possible. Yeah, another thing that was talked about a lot in this hearing. So last week I put out a breakdown as you know, we saw California and I think New York ramp up their discussion of adjusting their maps in response to Texas, which may happen, although those states it's a lot more difficult. First of all, because they've had independent redistricting commissions like

from what I understand Newsom's current maneuver is to have a statewide ballot initiative that would Somehow get around that in this one single time and allow the legislature to redraw the map before the time for the next cycle So I don't know where that's gonna go. It might be a bluff. It might entirely be a bluff. Also, I don't know what is it a 50 plus 1 vote you have to get or you gotta get two-thirds on that. Not sure. However, the partisan leaning of California is D62. That's not two-thirds. Related to that, this thing I tweeted out of this chart, it's if they are able to redraw, they've already gerrymandered very efficiently so You know, California's partisan leaning is D62. They possess 82% of the congressional delegation.

Illinois is even more effective. D56, they control 82%. And so we saw Republicans use those numbers, because Texas is R58 and 65 percent of the congressional delegation. Part of that was because in 21 Republicans chose to lean more on incumbent protection than going for competitive seats that they could increase their majority on. But I saw Cody Vassut in the hearing or the press conference after cited this. David Spiller read out off these numbers word for word when he was reading them. Like, wait a second, I recognize that.

This is the justification, the political justification, presented by Republicans. The state's getting redder, our congressional maps should reflect that. And oddly enough, that is the same general line of argument that was made in 2003 when Republicans took the state and then redrew the congressional maps to go from a Democratic majority congressional delegation to a Republican majority congressional delegation. Obviously, this wouldn't change hands, but it is increasing their hold on the congressional delegation commensurate with, in their view, what other states are doing in their respective boundaries. other states are doing in their respective boundaries. So, um, it's fascinating. We, it's just so interesting.

And the political fallout from all this is going to be, um, fascinating to watch. And I, I think the messaging portion on this that, uh, the suit hits on, um, is something that I pay attention to a lot. And the shifting partisan nature of the electorate is something I pay attention to. Like what causes that? What is causing that? Is it the parties have shifted their policy preferences? Is that what is driving people or is it the messaging itself?

It seems as though not even Republican, but quote unquote conservative influencers on social media, on X, on podcasts, whatever it is seem to dominate. Is that what is driving people to the right? Just the digital messaging from people who have more right-leaning views. And what are the Democrats going to do about that? We've seen they're going to be pumping millions and millions of dollars into messaging campaigns, both at the national and state level, but also on organizing more social media campaigns with influencers and trying to position themselves as a cultural force, not just a political force as well. So we're in a very dynamic moment really with with party politics across the country and it definitely here in the state and You know, it's just fun to be able to

See it all happen to be able to write about it and talk about it. Yeah. Yeah Most fun I've had of this job is covering the speaker's race. This is up there I don't know if it's number two, but it is, it's up there. This is, this is a fun fight to follow. Cause there's just so many moving parts to it and you can go as wide or as deep on it as you want, but both, both of those matter. Yep. Right. So yeah, it's really interesting.

Procedurally from here, the calendars committee will have met on Sunday, where this is going out Monday. So we'll have met on Sunday to set a day to put this on the floor. It's either gonna be Monday or Tuesday. Probably Tuesday, it's what I'm hearing. We'll see by the time this comes out, if I'm correct on that. And then it will go to the floor.

It'll be, I'm sure, long drawn out days on the floor debating this. We'll probably see a bunch of amendments from Democrats. Maybe we see one or two from Republicans trying to adjust certain things. I don't see any appetite for that. I think they all just want to move forward with this or they're happy enough with it.

But maybe something comes up, right? Maybe something's pointed out. So go to the floor, pass there, go over to the Senate, Senate will do its thing in probably a very quick pace, and then that'll be out of the way. They'll be able to then move on to all these other issues, unless we see a corn break. And who knows if

that maybe by the time this goes out a corn break is happening Democrats are on a plane somewhere so mad just at the misfortune but then it'll be in lawsuit it'll be be sued as soon as Governor Abbott signs it. Yeah. Cameron, let's talk a bit THC. Where do you see the lay of the land? Once we get past redistricting, which has already been a massive fight, where do you see the lay of the land and having to navigate for the legislature to decide something on this? Because everyone wants to do something. Everyone wants to do something. But they can't agree on what it is. Exactly. And the the Senate led by Dan Patrick, they're pretty secure on on the ban. They're not moving on a ban. They've passed a ban.

It's already through the Senate. So we're waiting to see what the House is going to do. And I've already given you your props. You predicted it correctly because you had that insider knowledge. But the house, they followed the exact same bill language as the Senate, which will give them the runway to make adjustments that they want to. So we could see changes to the type of products, the THC ratio, dosage levels, whatever it is. We're gonna see all that in the House, I predict. We're gonna, we'll get some interesting conversations

in committee once that happens. We haven't seen a committee hearing for the, the house THC ban, but once it hits the floor is when we'll see all the amendments come out. And it seems like there's more energy. Well, it doesn't seem there is lots of much more energy on the house side of things to make changes to the bill. We've seen a number of House members say publicly that they were, well they lauded Abbott for vetoing SB 3, they've been vocally against a full-out ban.

Who's this? In the House. Some in the House. Dade Phelan, Briscoe Cain, Brian Harrison. Interesting bed flows. Right. Yeah. Briscoe Cain who came out against Dade Phelan, his speaker called for him to be ousted as the speaker replaced. Harrison obviously has maintained opposition to feeling. Yeah. It's just these these policy issues, whereas redistricting is pure down the middle political party, these policy issues you can have crossover. For sure. And we're gonna, we're definitely gonna see that in the House. In the Senate, we saw some of that before they had their third reading vote. We saw Nathan Johnson and Molly Cook have a press conference.

Nathan Johnson was saying, oh, I filed my own THC bill. And he said he also filed a bill that was gonna decriminalize cannabis for adults. There's no energy for that. I'm sorry, but marijuana's not going to be decriminalized. Although Patrick is making the argument that by regulating it all, you are legalizing marijuana. Yeah, and so I've heard that argument

There's been, I've heard that argument that by legalizing a certain percentage of THC is still going to allow people to become intoxicated from these products similar to how they would get intoxicated using marijuana. So we'll see what happens in the house. I'm hesitant to make any predictions about what's gonna happen because Patrick has been so strong on this issue. Abbott has come out and said that a three milligram dosage is something that he would like to see. And he's the governor of the state. And so people are gonna be using his words

as a political cover for some of the arguments they make when they offer amendments and things like that. And also, he's the last say on this. He could veto it. Yeah, he could veto it. But I don't wanna make any predictions about what's gonna happen because I, you know, I didn't think the SB3 was gonna be vetoed

because it took so much energy and so much work to get it across the finish line during the regular session. but here we are again. I don't think anybody knows where this is going. Yeah. I sure as heck don't and you have Abbott and Patrick in a boxing match over this. Yeah. And neither of them are backing down. They're the two biggest figures in the state, both with a massive amount of money in their coffers and both with a lot of poll politically. Well, and I try to think to myself as well when I'm thinking about this issue is what is the political fallout if a ban or a veto comes to to SB5?

Is this really an issue that's going to motivate people to vote differently at the polls? It seems like such a small issue in some sense,, I don't know if it's just become such a big issue because now that we're in the special session, people can, are only focusing on a handful of things. And so it's at the forefront of everyone's mind. Um, or even during the regular session, is it just because, um, people were able to mobilize opposition to a ban that it propelled it into the spotlight. Because you look at any exit polls from elections,

you'd never see THC on there. It's immigration, it's the economy, it's stuff like that. It's not being able to purchase THC. You know, it's immigration, it's the economy, it's stuff like that. It's not being able to purchase THC. So if someone is aligned on 10 different issues, but then they disagree with someone on THC, are they going to vote for a different candidate just because they are aligned with them on this one issue? It's hard to say. When obviously Democrats will try and use this, if something passes,

most Democrats will probably try and use this as a wedge issue between them and Republicans. But then does this play a role in the Republican primary? You know, it doesn't, people who use THC doesn't break down. It's not just Democrats, it's not just independents, it's not just Republicans. It's probably spread across the whole array, but, you know, social conservatives are not for this. Social conservatives have been very effective in electing who they want in public office by way of the Republican primary.

Does this cause a counter movement against them, against their ability to decide to be one of the predominating factors in deciding who is elected? Because the Republican primary is the election and consequence in this state, until Democrats prove otherwise. So it's not just Republican Democratic general election theme here. There's some fights that may happen in the Republican primary that would be of

interest. Yeah, and I think it could be, but again, it's interesting because... But that's if it's a motivating factor. If it's a motivating factor, and it's hard to even say that social conservatives, on the THC issue, what does it mean to be a social conservative on that issue? Because it seems as though, over the course of the past few decades, people have become much more receptive

to using alternative forms of medication for treating certain illnesses, cannabis, THC being one of those. And if, you know, if a social conservative is saying I'm trying to be responsible by not getting addicted to using pharmaceutical drugs like opioids and I'm using an alternative form of treatment, which is a THC medication, then, you know, they're retaining their social conservatism, but they want access to THC snow. So it's just, I don't know, it's just an interesting issue because it doesn't seem as, like you said, it's not a partisan issue.

And then even within the Republican Party itself or conservatism itself, it doesn't seem as though THC falls along any sort of ideological line there. Sorry, go ahead. No, I was finished. But you are seeing law enforcement line up pretty heavily in favor of a ban. And the reason there is they just want to be able to make an easy decision on whether this is something that is not allowed to be possessed or not.

Instead of like, oh well, we may make sure it's below this certain amount. And all that discernment that goes into trying to figure out whether something is of legal limit or not in other states. And complexity is a subsidy. So that causes them to have to take on more cost. Well, and there's the public safety concern you've heard as well from law enforcement about there's roadside tests for drunk driving, but there's not roadside tests

for THC intoxication. So just not having the tools available to law enforcement to check on these certain things is something I've heard before as well. So and again, like I mentioned about mobilizing support or opposition, Patrick has been mobilizing law enforcement to come out and speak in support of SB5. I haven't seen much in the way of law enforcement coming out on the opposition side, you know, making the arguments that they just don't have the manpower If something like this were to pass I don't know it's a complex thing when it comes down to the political calculus on this issue Yeah, and you know the big question here. I think is Where's the speaker gonna land?

you have Godzilla and King Kong going at it right now, and Dan Patrick and Governor Abbott. But what's the speaker going to do? And he has, it's been out there, stated by Senator Charles Perry that the speaker is personally for this and has, he gave he gave a story he that expressed the speakers now speaker he wasn't speaker back then you know shared opinion on this yeah and that's it's accurate it is true but that doesn't mean he's gonna govern like that and that doesn't mean he's gonna force his members to come to

his side he's not gonna make it a speaker vote or he may or may not, but he seems like now so far he's not going to make that a speaker vote. He's not coming out forcefully on Dan Patrick's side publicly. Um, you know, it doesn't mean they're not talking behind the scenes and of course they are, and of course the speaker and the governor are talking behind the scenes and for sure they are and of course the speaker and the governor are talking behind the scenes but he has the power to either really push over the line a

THC ban or Set the table so that You've Dan Patrick does not get what he wants all the way Yeah, so the key and the governor have to figure out some compromise. And I think ultimately it's probably going to come down to that because the speaker has a very difficult balancing act. You know, first of all, take the fact that he's advancing this redistricting. Yeah.

So that's pissing off all the Democrats. Yeah. Many of whom voted for him, for speaker. You had this session that Democrats were not very happy with, broadly speaking, and because conservative things passed, you saw the Texas GOP touting how many Republican Party priorities passed. Well now you have kind of a flip issue where most Democrats are against a ban and if they're forced to walk the plank on this, why would they stick with the speaker? Right. Sorry, that's another reason for them not to stick with the

speaker. Yeah. So he's got to manage his his membership here on this and it's probably going to be y'all decide. I'm not getting in the middle of this. You, in terms of what the House is going to do, you figure it out. So that just leaves Patrick and the Governor. Where Patrick's on the band side, the governor's on the regulation side hash something out Yeah, that's why I think it's gonna fall if there's anything I could probably see is that there's gonna be some middle ground that yeah The question is where does it fall right? It was dead in the middle or is it more on one side or the other? you know I I

can tell you that the There was a huge lobbying effort that went into getting the governor to veto this thing Mm-hmm. He was never all the way on Patrick's side what I understand But he wasn't entirely against it. Mm-hmm, but there was a massive lobby effort Like something that The biggest one you've ever not ever seen like something that the biggest one you've ever not ever seen like versus the people involved. It's nothing's been like that. Yeah. And it was intense. It was grueling and they got it. Yeah.

Well, and what's interesting is during the regular session, I attended a bill signing of expanding Ibogaine research, right? And so it's not like Texas is completely opposed to seeing if there are medical aspects to using certain, quote unquote plant medicine. Yeah. Right. And so it's just about, do they see the access to THC or the scientific research being there to support a broader access to THC because that's the argument people are making is that they're using it for medicine.

And I think that's probably the strongest argument that people are making. You know, veterans are using it as alternative alternative the opioids people that have other sort of debilitating conditions use it It's just about Do people see that? THC should be accessed more widely or should it be just confined to the T cup program, right? Yeah, and you know now there's no leverage against the House that the Senate, the Senate can't say whether they did this or not is up for debate during the regular session. But the Senate can't say

if you don't pass this we're not gonna we're not gonna pass any other bills. Right. Right. You know some Republicans, House Republicans have made that allegation. I know those in the Senate have said that's absolutely not true and that the horse trade and I, from my understanding, this is accurate. The horse trade for SB3 was the tea cup program. It wasn't HB2. But, you know, these things are always very gray. Yeah. Legislative negotiations. So yeah, big question. Can Abbott and Patrick get in a room and talk this out? I don't see any sign of that so far.

I don't either just just especially with how strong Patrick has come out on the band, you know, multiple press conferences, tossing bags of products to reporters You know bringing out law enforcement making these on the ground videos Yeah, you know, he's pretty secure in his position and it may all be futile anyway, because Democrats might break Coram and kill the special. Yeah Later this month so Any other themes about the session you wanna touch on?

Do we wanna talk, I think it's worth mentioning some of the flooding stuff just momentarily. Yeah, I think we gotta be quick, but yeah, just you watch the hearing, any takeaways from that, the one in Curville. I think we gotta be quick, but yeah, just, you watched the hearing, any takeaways from that? The one in Curville. Yeah, big takeaway is, it seems like the patchwork of addressing emergency flooding disasters, or really any disasters,

is gonna be the cause of consolidating a lot of this, a lot of the operations. So we're going to, I can probably see a lot, some bills being filed to create a more top-down structure rather than a bottom-up in terms of coordinating responses to flooding disasters. Because it seems as though there was, you know, local oversight that wasn't in communication with other authorities that were trying to say this is happening now, we need to get people here over in to these other places. It just seemed a lot of wires got crossed. And so what we'll probably see is a large effort to try and get everything streamlined, everything consolidated, so when stuff does happen,

it's just ticking off the boxes to get the aid and get the help to the areas that need it. So yeah, lots of emotional testimony from residents of the area that were impacted or who lost family members just heart-wrenching stories it was very very sad and Yeah, I We've written up a couple pieces on it if you want to go check that out Yeah, we'll follow that through the rest of the way

We haven't really seen any policy priorities firmly proposed yet. But we will see that, provided we get to that part of session. And then from there, it's what else are they going to do? Those are the three big issues that's going to take a lot of oxygen out of the room. Is there any time to get to anything else? There's the abortion pill ban. There's taxpayer finfunded lobbying ban, there's some other non-controversial issues that had technical veto problems. We'll see where it goes, but it's a 30-day special and we've got not that long left, a couple

weeks. It's just not a long time to get stuff done. Especially when you have this three headed monstrosity of policy items that is just gonna be very difficult. A very difficult lift. Every which way you look. Yeah. So. Cameron, thank you for joining me,

for making your debut on Smoke-Ffilled room. It was filling in for Mac Yeah, it was fun. Glad to have you and That'll do it for for the smoke-filled room for the 89 The first special session of the I wish I had a cigar or like a maybe a little pipe or something Yeah One time one day we'll do that. Maybe in post production we can add in some CGI smoke. Yes.

And fade us out that way. Well everybody, thank you for joining. We hope you enjoyed this episode. It was very weedy, but I enjoyed it. It was fun. It was fun talking about all that stuff. And we'll see how it all shakes out. Where we're wrong, where we're wrong. We're right

Yeah well I think what you talk what we talked about with redistricting is something people are gonna be able to listen to or even come back to and Understand what is happening and why it's happening. I think we broke all that down. You did a great job with that So yeah props to you. Hopefully this doesn't get totally out of date by But if it does Yeah, props to you. Hopefully this doesn't get totally out of date by the core. Right. But if it does, it'll make this issue even more interesting. Yeah. So we'll see how it goes.

Thank you Cameron. Thanks. Thank you listeners. We'll see you next time.