The Texan Podcast - Special Edition - Candidates at the Texas GOP Convention

Episode Date: June 25, 2022

Welcome to a special edition of The Texan’s Voices of Texas podcast. Our team spent most of last week covering the Texas GOP Convention, and chatted with dozens of elected officials, candidates, and insiders.  This episode is a compilation of interviews with the following candidates from across the state:  0:00:42 - Julian Ramirez  0:05:19 - Nate Schatzline  0:15:25 - Rep. Mayes Middleton  0:25:39 - Sen. Dawn Buckingham  0:28:27 - Lauren Davis  0:35:38 - Tim O’Hare  0:45:54 - Alexandra del Moral Mealer  0:55:08 - Carrie Isaac  1:01:14 - Kevin Sparks  1:09:32 - Charles Cunningham  1:14:26 - Caroline Harris  Be on the lookout for another episode dropping soon, and enjoy these chats.  For more information, please visit: https://thetexan.news/

Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here, senior editor of The Texan. Welcome to a special edition of The Texan's Voices of Texas podcast. Our reporting team spent most of last week covering the Texas GOP convention and chatted with dozens of elected officials, candidates, and insiders. This is the second installment in a series of podcasts with those conversations, and this particular episode is a compilation of the interviews with elected officials from all over the state, from statewide positions to congressional leaders, local office holders, and those who legislate from Austin.

Be on the lookout for a couple more episodes dropping soon and enjoy these chats. Well, howdy, folks. I'm here with Julian Ramirez, a candidate for a position in Harris County here for the, I believe, 248th Criminal District Court. Is that correct? That's right. Harris County. Very, very cool. So tell us real fast about what office you're running for and why you're running for office. Well, I'm running for one of the criminal court benches here in Harris County because we've got a public safety problem. I was happily semi-retired

when I was approached a few months ago and I took a look at it and really came to the conclusion that it was a lot worse than I had thought and it's only gotten worse since then with judges releasing dangerous defendants on multiple felony bonds and then they go out and they pick up additional murder charges. You know, Crime Stoppers is keeping track and I don't know what we're up to now. It may be close to 170 people that have been murdered. Yeah, I think it's like 175 as of like yesterday. Yes. Yeah. It just keeps getting worse and worse. And so I've been in public service all my life trying to keep the community safe. And I thought, you know what? I don't have a good reason not to

run. Let me jump in this and see if we can't get some better judges elected. That's wonderful. So talk to us a little bit about what you're looking forward to at convention, what you're doing here. Are you here as a delegate? What will this week look like for you? I am not a delegate. I am here just to talk to you guys and answer all your questions and then walk around and check out all the booths and just see what I see. That's awesome. Well, convention is the place to do that. So talk to us, you know, judicial races often so, you know, go under the radar. It's not something that a lot of voters, even the most engaged voters in Texas, pay much attention to. Talk to us about why judicial races are important and what these judges actually do

day to day. Well, you know, I think the offices that most commonly affect the average everyday person are the courts. You know, whether they're criminal courts, if you happen to be a victim or a witness, or a family court, you know, if you happen to be embroiled in a divorce or a custody dispute, a civil court, you know, you happen to get sued, or someone rear ends you or something like that. They affect all of us most commonly. And they do sort of fly under the radar, unfortunately. Yeah. So how do you get people to pay attention to these races? I mean, these oftentimes are so far down the ballot. I'm sure there's some voter fatigue that goes into that of being, you know,

discouraged to go all the way down to the end of the ballot. Well, right. Commonly, there's so much undervoting that goes on. Folks look for the most high-profile races, and then they look at the judicial races, and their mind goes, you know, crazy. And there's so many of them. There's 68 of them in Harris County, right? So we're trying to work together as Republicans. 68 judicial positions? Yes, on the ballot. Wow. So we're trying to work together as judicial candidates to just get the word out to the party faithful that, look, you have to vote all the way down the ballot every single race.

Otherwise, we will not take back the courthouse and things will remain as they are or get worse. Particularly in light of street ticket voting no longer being an option here in Texas for both parties, right? Street ticket voting is not something you can just go in and click the button and have all the races highlighted for you in the booth. It's not an option anymore. So in terms of Harris County, I mean, third largest county in, I believe, the country, huge population, a lot of things are always happening. We can't keep up with all the news in Harris County, and our reporter Holly Hanson does a great job of trying her best to stay up to date on everything. But when you're seeing, when you're out there campaigning, when you're talking to voters, when you're, you know, working toward the November

ballot, Harris County, even just a few years ago, had some Republican judges on different courts, and those were largely wiped out by Democrats. What are you seeing on the ground? Are we likely to see that again? Will the midterm being a factor in the, you know, Joe Biden as president, midterms often favor the party that is not in the White House. Do you think that will be a factor? What are you seeing on the ground in Harris County? Well, I see a lot of dissatisfaction and concern and anger over the crime problem. You see it even on the other side in the Democrats own party. A bunch of their incumbents got tossed out. They got primaried and they lost their primaries and they're no longer going to be judges next year. Right. And so we're seeing a lot of dissatisfaction all across the board.

We're just trying to get the message out that, look, judges are only accountable to the voters. They're kings and queens of their court. And the only way you make a change is by getting involved, going to vote and voting in the right way. Absolutely. Well, Julian, thank you so much for stopping by. And we will continue to chat with you throughout convention, but thanks for making the time to stop by and say hello to us. You bet. Thank you for having me.

Well, I am here with Nate Schatzlein, the Republican nominee for Texas House District 93. Nate, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, I'm'm excited to be on that's awesome kim said to say hello to you she's chatted with you before so we're excited that you were able to join and i'm taking her spot usually she'd be the one to talk with you but she's up in tarrant county doing tarrant county things awesome so um i'd love to talk through a little bit about your campaign specifically absolutely very interesting you just got off of a runoff that was a heck of a race up there it Tarrant County. It was intense. It was a lot. It seemed like it was all the way down here in Austin. But talk to us a little bit about the political divide of that particular

race. I think it very clearly highlighted kind of the factions of the Republican Party. Sure. We had a local government official. We had a political newcomer. Those are two very different types of candidates. Yeah. Very different support for both candidates both candidates. Talk to us about how that all shook out. Yeah, I think it comes down to, you know, I think Tarrant County specifically, North Fort Worth area, which is where District 93 is, with the Hazlitt area, a little bit of Keller. They're looking for someone who's going to get in there and actually take a stand on some of the issues that seem to be infiltrating our country, infiltrating our schools, whether it be the issue with the entire trans movement coming against our kids in the schools,

CRT invading our schools. These happen to be the issues that I'm the most passionate about. I have a background in education. I've taught on a collegiate level, and I've seen these things firsthand. I've seen that if we don't get this under control with our public education system, with, you know, even our private education system and make sure that parents have the final say in their education, we're going to be in big trouble. And so I'll be honest with you. I think the biggest divide between the way I ran my race and my opponent was simply that I didn't say the normal political things that were, you know, on everyone's brain of, hey, we got to, let's look at the economy. Those are important things. But the reality is, I feel like what we did is we spoke

directly to the parent that is incredibly concerned with the next generation. Because the reality is this, do we need property tax reform? God, yes. I mean, we truly do. Tarrant County has some of the highest property taxes, but what good is it to lower property taxes if we lose the next generation? I think we spoke directly to that inside of our campaign and it showed. I think the voters wanted that. And I think those issues particularly have been some of the hottest that we've seen in Texas in the last year or two years. So let's talk about them. Child gender modification, explicit materials in public schools, school choice is even kind of on that docket because it affects those kinds of things. Those three issues, where do you stand on them?

So school choice, I'm a huge proponent. I met with some state legislators that are currently in the House about two weeks ago. We talked through how we could actually get that passed. We're looking at, you know, the big argument, I'll just speak directly to this because reality is I was the grassroots candidate, and the grassroots movement is even kind of split on this specific topic with School Choice because their idea is, hey, we don't want the government being able to put any regulation on our homeschooling, on our private schools, and I completely agree. But my argument would be they could do that if they wanted to right now anyway.

And so why not give parents who can't afford to put their kids in a private school the opportunity to do so? And here's the thing that I always say, because then you have the other side of people who are huge proponents of public education system, which obviously we want our public education to succeed. Fort Worth has some of the worst test scores you've ever seen. And so we're looking at it. Competition has never hurt any industry and it's never hurt any business. We have to look at our ISDs the same way, that the moment you give parents the opportunity to have competition in that education system, Fort Worth ISD, which speaks directly to where I live, is going to have to raise the bar and raise the standard in order to compete with these private schools, with home schools, with co-ops. This is so vital. So I'm a huge proponent when it comes to

making sure that school choice is a priority. Gender modification is huge. I don't know if you've seen the documentary, What is a Woman? But it's revealing. It's revealing at how absolutely outrageously crazy some of our nation has gone. And I think it's a small minority. I think they're very loud, but I think it's a small minority. And you see the massive regret with some of these adults that are now coming out and saying, wow, I can't believe my parent, my guardian allowed me to get this surgery that now has affected my life in such a negative way that they're now dealing with mental health crisis.

And this is something we have to address that, you know, as an adult, you can do whatever you want, you know, when it comes to your own physical body. But as a child, we've got to protect these children from making lifelong decisions over a moment of having a feeling. And I think that breaks down into critical theory and going into your next question about critical race theory. If we teach critical theory, the underlying basis of this concept in the education system is simply that, you know, how you feel is your truth. Well, that's simply not true. It doesn't matter if I feel like this ceiling is white, it's clearly black. And so you have to call it what it is because truth is absolute. And so I'm a huge proponent of school choice. I think it's a big deal and we've got to take a stand against gender modification.

Very good. So in terms of other priorities upon entering office it sounds like social issues are very near and dear to your heart what other things are you looking to tackle upon we've got to make sure our small businesses are helped we have to make sure that we can remove all government overreach I'm a big limited government guy so anything we can do to free up small business growth is huge anything we can do to you know a lot of people talk about especially in district 93 you know, a lot of people talk about, especially in District 93, you know, we're a middle upper class district.

We've got a lot of warehouses. You know, we're right off I-35. And so obviously infrastructure is a big issue when it comes to the road systems and the massive growth that's coming. But a lot of people want to talk about we need Fortune 500 companies to come into Fort Worth. Well, I actually am on the other side, and I think that's coming. But a lot of people want to talk about, we need Fortune 500 companies to come into Fort Worth. Well, I actually am on the other side, and I think that's great, but I also want to guard the culture that we have in District 93. And rather than just putting our sole focus on bringing large companies in, one of the big things I think that is important is making sure

our small businesses have the ability to grow to be a fortune 500 company and i think the more we support small businesses the greater so any type of government regulation we can remove is huge to me other priorities um lowering property taxes huge and so uh you know we've been talking about it for session after session after session i'm actually dedicated to getting in and doing something about it uh we're going to have to address the shooting in uvalde um and so but you know taking away guns is never the answer. And so it's looking at how can we resource schools for protection and safety? How can we tackle mental health issues and make sure that we are addressing, if a student's showing signs

of mental health crisis, let's give them the resources they need and make sure that that small population of people that would actually commit a heinous crime like that are seen so that we can address the issue, protect our children, whether that's arming teachers, whether that's making sure that we have officers in every single school. We have got to make it a priority. And then lastly, I'll say this. I know I've gone way too long, but the border crisis is huge right now. So near and dear to my heart is the anti-human trafficking movement. I'm very involved in that in Fort Worth. And so looking at it, you know, people love to make the border crisis a race issue, when in reality it has nothing to do with race, everything to do with trafficking.

Right now we have the largest supply of fentanyl coming across our border. We have the most arrests for human trafficking in Tarrant County. The most arrests that have been had in Texas is happening in our county right here. This right here is a massive crisis in our nation. And it's going to affect every single area, whether it be jobs, whether it be the housing crisis. The reality is we don't even have the infrastructure to be able to support the millions of people that have crossed over the border illegally. And so getting down to the bottom of this, working with the governor, making sure that we put in solid legislation to secure that border is going to have to be a priority. Obviously, growth is a very big deal in Tarrant County as well. Just Texas period. What can the state do?

What should the state do, if anything, to address that need? I think it's going to come down to infrastructure. I think it's also going to come down to make sure, you know, when we talk about inflation, we talk about really supply chain shortages are killing us right now. So my wife's a realtor and the reality is, is like she's being bought out by investors. And then the reality is there's not enough supply to build houses quick enough in Tarrant County to be able to build enough homes for the supply that's there. So for the need that's there. And so I think making sure that we're, you know, helping out again, those businesses, making sure that we're removing regulations, making sure that we're protecting these companies that supply all of the supplies needed. Construction companies, these are the types of people we need to be honestly working very closely with, hearing out

their needs and being willing to listen. And so I'm dedicated to doing just that. Last question for you before I let you get back to your life here at convention. But I would love to ask, going into November, Tarrant County has been a hotbed of political activity for a long time. It's hung its hat on being the largest Republican urban suburban county in the country. Where do you see that going? We have seen Democrats win the county in different offices throughout the last four years. What do you think this will look like as a midterm election for Republicans? We got a red wave coming. I'm totally confident. This is going to be the best, what I believe could be the best session that we have. But more than anything, we have so many hardcore conservatives that have risen up and ran for these seats. And I think the voters have

spoken loud and clear. They are winning left and right, our race included. And so looking at it, you know, I look at people like Tim O'Hare, who just won Tarrant County judge. What a patriot. He's going to bring so much common sense to that office. I look at Phil Soros, who just came in as district attorney for the Republican nominee. These are the races we need to get behind. And I'm telling you, I truly believe there's going to be a red wave in Tarrant County that far exceeds anyone's expectation.

I know this last election cycle, presidential election cycle, we saw a little bit of a shift towards blue. I think that's over. I think Joe Biden's failed policies have exposed to Tarrant County that we cannot let Tarrant County go blue. Nate, thank you so much for stopping by. Yeah, you got it. Thanks so much. Hello, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, reporter with the Texan News. Here I've got State Rep. Mays Middleton, soon to be moving over to the State Senate, here with me. Mays, how's it going? It's going great. It's fun to be back at convention in person, finally. Yeah, after everything that happened in 2020, thank God we're here.

So you are, as I mentioned, making the jump from the state house to the state senate. You have no opponent in November, I believe, right? And so you have a lot of time to prepare, basically. What's that transition going to be like for you making that jump? Well, we're going ahead and getting ready for next session. You know, it's one member can do a whole lot more for conservative legislation in the Senate than they can in the House. You know, and that's one of the biggest differences is, you know, that part of the conservative movement where there's just so much more you can accomplish.

Yeah. And I've worked very closely with the Senate for years. My very first session was SB 29, picked up the ban on taxpayer funded lobbying that was at that time bob hall and that was my first big bill yep uh to carry to the house floor so we know what happened there where they it got 58 votes that 18 republicans vote no and the gallery was filled with taxpayer funded lobbyists that cheered when it failed yeah Yeah. That's the Austin swamp right there. Well, that's one of your biggest issues, if not the biggest. With you moving to the Senate, obviously you're going to still work on that. What's that move going to be like for this issue?

Are there any changes up your sleeve on strategy on this? We've seen how important it is. I don't know if everyone followed exactly what happened with the National Taxpayer Funded Lobby Group, National Association of School Boards. So basically, they lied and they asked Joe Biden to investigate concerned parents as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act. They said, well, actually, we walked that back a little bit. That's not true we found out more information that they actually wanted the national guard to go into school board meetings to silence parents and the fbi did follow through on that it was later proven i believe jim jordan put out a

letter uh through public information request to show that the fbi fbi had edu threat and like for example they investigated one mom because they said she quote unquote owned a gun. Wow. Right. So they used it to attack parents. They're using it to treat parents like the enemy. They're using it to treat taxpayers like the enemy. So this issue has really blown up in the last year because we've seen the abuses by taxpayer funded lobby groups like TASB is one of them you know they're the member of the National School Board Association and you're not going to be surprised to hear this but TASB's former president former president of Texas Association of School Boards which is a taxpayer-funded lobby

group here in Texas is the president of the National School Board Association who sent that letter to Joe Biden's AG to investigate parents. Didn't TASB, haven't they since removed themselves from the national school board? They were about the 26th state to do that after California, I might add. So, I mean, that's not really leadership exactly to do that. I mean, they waited for more than half to leave until they finally decided that was enough for them. So, you know, but we keep seeing this. Like last session, you know, we passed the ban on critical race theory. So the first one passed in May.

Then we did it again to strengthen the bill in SB3, which I believe September 1st was when that was signed into law. Well, after we did all of that, the Texas Association of School Boards voted to integrate critical race theory in their statement of beliefs in mid-September after we'd passed both bans. And I sent them a letter, and the Freedom Caucus did sign on as well and said, you know, you're violating the law. And they said, no, we're not a political subdivision of the state. We're allowed to do this. So, you know, it's just wrong. It's wrong. And that brings us to another big issue that is going to hold a lot of prominence

when you guys reconvene next year, school choice. You are very much a supporter of school choice. Talk to us more about the issue, why you support it, and where you think it's going to go in the legislature. This is one of the most basic fundamental rights. Rights as parents are from God and not government, and we need to let parents decide. And that's really all this does is it puts the tools in the hands of Texas parents.

And it's saying, we trust you. You're hearing the opposite from D.C. where they're saying they don't trust parents and they don't want parents to decide. And they're actually treating them like the enemy. So it's time for Texas to stand up and say, no, we're going to trust you. And we're going to give you more tools to decide which education is best for your own child and your own child's unique needs. And that's really all it is. That's what education opportunity is. And I'll never forget when I first got involved in this issue in 2017, it's actually when I noticed how bad the taxpayer-funded lobbyists were because

in the education committee in the Senate, it was SB, I think, three at the time in 2017 was loaded with taxpayer-funded lobbyists that were paid to go fight parents and what parents wanted. It's just sad. It's sad we're having to pay for that. And it's time for Texas to stand up and lead on this. You know, I think we'd be the 31st state to pass some form of school choice program. Right now, of course, we have charter schools, which is a form of public school choice because, you know, charter schools are public schools. But we need more tools on the

table. We just need parents to decide whatever's best for their own child, whether that's public, private, homeschool, charter, you name it. So the word that has come to describe it is voucher system, right? In some circles it draws a negative connotation, in others it doesn't. Is that something that you support? Is that a model you think is appropriate here? I support whenever we're going to put more tools on the table. But a voucher is kind of outdated.

That's basically what we saw in the 90s and early 2000s where you get something from the state and then you can go, you know, money follows the child only to a private school. Okay. You know, I think we've seen in COVID and everything else going on, we need flexibility. We need money to follow the child, but it should be able to go to like community college classes. Okay. A homeschool curriculum, tutoring, educational therapies, books, all kinds of things where they can maybe even, you know, if you're a homeschool parent and there's a really good, say, physics class you don't want to teach or maybe

can't teach, where you can take that money to the public school where they teach physics and you like, you know, basically the outcome that you've heard about from that particular class, and you can pay to attend, you know, with that money. So the money should follow the child. The money shouldn't follow systems. And that's the big difference. You know, of course, Democrats are adamantly against this. Biden, Beto, you name it, all up and down, Pelosi,

they all hate it because they don't want parents to get to decide what's best. They want government to decide for parents, and that's wrong. Now, you making the switch to the Senate, that's one less school choice supporter in the House, although Terry Leo Wilson, who will be representing your district after succeeding you, is also a school choice supporter. But anyway, the speaker has said before that test votes have been kind of done on the House floor on this issue, and they only had like maybe 45 members and supports. What do you think its chances are in the chamber that you're leaving? I think they're very good.

You know, conservatives did really well in these runoffs on May the 24th. They pretty much swept. And nearly everyone that I know that won is a supporter of educational freedom and educational choice and parents' right to decide what's best for their own child. So, you know, that's a big change. The other big change is what's happened nationally. You know, I mean, you're seeing this across the country where, you know, like in states like Virginia, you know, that's a Democrat state, but they elected a Republican governor because he was willing to stand up for parents. Even in San Francisco, which is probably the most liberal,

one of the most liberal cities in America, they threw out their school board there because they were treating parents like the enemy there. And they wanted a school board that put parents first, you know, same as Virginia, same as a lot of different places where you're seeing this awakening where I've never seen this many conservatives involved in school board races as well, which is a great thing. So there is an awakening right now where parents know that it's their time to stand up and make sure their voice is heard first. And they have a fundamental right to decide what's best for their own child gotcha okay one more for you so um you are the chair of the texas freedom caucus

the group of conservative legislators in the house uh but as we've talked about you're moving to the senate is there anything that's going to change on that is there is there a freedom caucus going to the senate that you're going to uh starts or um just continue to work with your colleagues in the lower chamber well there's never been a Freedom Caucus in the Senate, but I'll tell you this. The House Freedom Caucus will live on, and it did some great work this past session. We only have 11 members, but, I mean, we had victories like Constitutional Carry, the ban on critical race theory, Protect Girls' Sports, the no closing churches, the social media censorship ban.

We know Briscoe Cain was instrumental in the election integrity bill and the heartbeat bill. So, I mean, it is a lean, mean, but mighty conservative voice in the Texas House. And I'm excited to also see additional conservatives get elected that I believe will end up joining the Texas House Freedom Caucus. So it's got a bright future ahead for it. And look, we need them. At the end of the day, you know, this is a spiritual battle that we're in. It takes a lot of grit to get things done. And we've proven that again and again, that we did what we said we were going to do. And we're going to keep that up next session. Okay. Well, Representative Middleton, thanks for stopping by. We look forward to seeing

your work in the state senate once you guys reconvene next year and catch you around. Thanks, ma'am. Okay, Senator Buckingham, thank you so much for being willing to talk to us. First question, what do you think are going to be the top issues in this election now that the primary is over and it's just November and the next milestone? You know, our biggest issue is it's the economy. It's the liberal policies of the Biden administration that are driving up gas prices, driving up grocery prices, really hurting all of our families who need the help the most. And it is the economy, it is jobs, it is the regulatory burden, the lack of liberty that the liberal left is trying to carry out over all of us. And so we're going to fight that fight and win in November. Sure.

So more specifically to you, if elected, which is statistically probable, what would your top priorities be upon taking the office? Well, of course, out of the gate, we're going to be really sure there's no reimagining our history at the Alamo. We're going to be sure we're doing everything we can on state lands to secure our border. We're going to be protecting oil and gas. And then we're going to be dealing with the real problems that we've seen from the disaster recovery side. Okay. So you pulled off a bit of a feat and earned endorsements from a lot of your previous competitors in the primary once it went to a runoff. If you can, maybe you can talk a little bit about how you did that, what helped convince them.

I don't know if you sat down with them or what. How did you manage to pull that off? You know, we were super excited to have five of our former opponents come around and endorse us. Some of them I've known for a while and had pre-existing relationships with. I really had an appreciation for the perspective and the expertise that each one of them brought to the race, and I was just really glad when we reached back out that they wanted to come on board and help us do great things. Sure. Last thing, is there any aspect of the office's duties that you feel could be better attended to

or that are being neglected right now that you'd like to see taken care of once you take office? My top priority is finding the executive leadership within this organization or bringing it in from outside to be sure that that this agency serves Texans well it is a big agency with a 2.3 billion dollar budget we run three big funds permanent school fund which funds public education I hear different numbers but around 60 billion dollars then you've got the permanent university funds then we've got our veterans land board and the funds that take care of that so it is a big office with lots of responsibilities i want to get good people in who are going to streamline and make the process efficient and

serve texans well sure that's all i got senator buckingham all right thanks for being here thanks great being with you This is Hayden Sparks. I'm here in Houston at the Republican Party of Texas Convention with Lauren Davis, the Republican nominee for a Dallas County judge. Ms. Davis, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. This is great. Right out of the gate, I'm going to call a spade a spade. Okay.

You are facing a formidable opponent. Judge Clay Jenkins is an institution politically in Dallas County. How do you, as a conservative in an urban county, plan to take down this high-profile North Texas Democrat? Yes, well, a couple different ways. But one is hard work, and I still think hard work wins out in America. And so a lot of times I'm finding, you know, apathy, and that can get the best of the Republicans thinking, oh, it's not winnable. And I'm an entrepreneur, so, you know, I've been fighting uphill battles my whole life. It's hard to stay in business. It's hard to stay in business in COVID.

And so the first thing is believing it's winnable and working hard towards that. And so we've got a lot of different strategies and doing all the things we're supposed to. But if we continue to play not to lose or think things aren't winnable, therefore we don't try, we'll continue to lose. You get 100% of the shots you don't take. So we'll go there. So Judge Jenkins has not faced re-election since he instituted all the restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. What would you have done differently and how would you handle future public health emergencies as Dallas County Judge? Sure. One, I think you have to look at it holistically and you cannot sit there and take one group's opinion. And to have vaccines and masks and shutdowns be our only option out of this

was wrong and immoral. So what I would have done different is just one simply not shut down and provide Dallas County residents with all of the information and allowed them and believed in them that they could make their own health decisions. One of the biggest factors in health policy is poverty. And so shutting down, especially service-based businesses where you have hourly employees, to go put them in greater poverty

is one of the number one predictors of bad health outcomes. So it's just illogical at its base, and I would never have singularly looked at an issue like that in that way. And so I would like to believe that I would never have singularly looked at an issue like that in that way. And so I would like to believe that I would have been a leader who would have held the line regardless of the pressure and stayed open. So it's just simple as that. And you have an extensive background as a small business owner. interesting aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic was the dynamic of even Commissioner Koch and Commissioner Price agreeing that Judge Jenkins' measures were not ideal. In Dallas County, there's a lot of division between, for instance, neighborhoods like Highland Park and Oak Cliff,

and there's debating about equality, racial issues, economic issues. What would you do as Dallas County Judge, which by way, is a chief executive. It's a little bit of a misnomer. What would you do as Dallas County judge to potentially bring Dallas residents around shared values and maybe alleviate this image of Dallas County or Dallas being a divided community? Yeah, I think one, in in order and i've learned this in business and we have a barbershop business called the gents place and we hire people from all walks of life from all you know um sexuality perspectives from all different races religions backgrounds

all different and when you can have a common goal common shared value of excellence and everybody winning then you can build on that and so all of a sudden some of these things don't matter and we also don't participate in conversations and fighting that is unproductive and takes our eye off of the main goal so I think it's having a leader who can hold the vision of everybody winning on excellence, empowering everybody in the county to be the best version of themselves, and having appreciation for people at all levels of life. I've worked with the homeless in homeless outreach capacities, and I cannot go on the street and help anybody in that current situation of being homeless

without appreciating who they are and where they're at right now. I don't look at them and go, you should this or you should that. You know, I heard from a great life coach we had in our life. He said, get rid of that word, you should all over yourself. It's so funny, but it sticks in my mind. And when you do that to somebody, it's not okay. And so I won't do that to Dallas County. We will appreciate everyone at every level of life they're at right now and then help them with putting in and growing the economy in a way that allows people to be the best version of themselves where they want to be. And that's not always the same. Some people don't want to be a manager of a local shop. They just want to work and go home. And we should appreciate that person just as much as one that wants to rise the ranks and be a CEO one day.

Certainly. So I think that just having that perspective, that value, that's something we've done in our business and seeing people grow at all levels will make a massive difference in Dallas County and bridge any divide there will be. Well, we've talked a lot about some things that might be wrong and the COVID-19 pandemic, but looking forward to the future, what are some policy priorities that you would institute as the chief executive of a major county in Texas and in the U.S. to improve the condition of the county? Yes, well, I look at it from a business perspective because that's where my perspective

comes from. And there's three metrics right now that aren't going well that need a complete turnaround. And any CEO would have been fired a long time ago. And that is our population is declining. All of the DFW surrounding counties are increasing, and Dallas County's population decreased by 1.1%. Then the poverty, well, that's increasing. Our poverty is increasing. The highest of all the counties, 13.7%. And then our crime, our homicide, I believe they just came out with this, is up 50%.

Our violent crime is up. And those are three metrics that people cannot thrive in. And so I would take and look at all the departments from elections, human resources, IT, sheriff's department, and evaluate where the efficiencies are. We have 6,000 county employees. Are they empowered to be the best version of themselves in order to be the best version of Dallas County? I mean, we need to look at those things and the results and the turnaround will happen. So we have people looking at it from that perspective. So, you know, my goal in a policy or

improvement or positive perspective is to identify all the things that we can turn those specific metrics around. Because if we're safe, we're growing, and people are making more money and experiencing less poverty, then everything else fixes itself. Well, Ms. Davis, thank you so much for joining us. It's nice to hear about local politics. We've had a lot of discussion about statewide politics. And I lived in Dallas not long ago, so it's nice to hear about local politics. We've had a lot of discussion about statewide politics, and I lived in Dallas not long ago, so it's nice to hear how things are going in Dallas. Ms. Davis, thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Tim O'Hare, the Republican nominee for Tarrant County Judge. Tim, thank you so much for joining us. It is always a pleasure to be with y'all. Oh, thank you. So first, I want to talk about the role of the county judge. A lot of folks think it's a judicial position, but talk to us about what the county judge actually does. Well, prior to the pandemic, I mean, almost no one other than political insiders really knew what the county judge does. After the pandemic, with the emergency management powers and the shutdown of all the businesses and the churches, now lots of folks know what the county judge is, know how important it is.

It presides over the commissioner's court. Every county in Texas, all 254 of them, have the county government side of the government is controlled by this commissioner's court, which is a county judge and four county commissioners. So it takes three votes to get anything done on the commissioner's court. And county government, for those that hadn't put two and two together on this or thought about it, county government would be the district attorney's office, the sheriff's office, the tax assessor's office, the district clerk, the county clerk. And for a lot of counties in Texas, there's a lot of rural areas where the sheriff's department actually provides the policing, not like cities.

In Tarrant County, the sheriff's department also provides some policing. So there's a big law and order component to it. And then the commissioner's court, especially in Tarrant County, sets two different tax rates, sets the county property tax rate and then sets the hospital district property tax rate. So Tarrant County, when you combine those two, I call it the combined county rate, has the fifth or sixth highest county tax rate in the state of Texas. So that's one of the things that I campaigned on that we've got to bring down. I think everybody knows property taxes are out of control of the state and each little governmental entity has to do their part. So county government, in addition to the things I described, county judge has the emergency management authority and has, it's a pretty powerful position. In fact, you could argue outside of the governor that's probably the most powerful

executive position a county judge in the county well certainly after covid i mean yeah after covid a lot of folks started to know who their county judges were and pay attention to the orders that were coming from there it's like the executive of the county right i mean that's exactly how the county mayor is probably a better way to describe it exactly Exactly. And then, as you alluded to earlier, in Tarrant County, the county judge provides no judicial functions, doesn't sit in a robe, doesn't hear trials. In some counties across the state, county judges actually do some probate judicial work. Just it doesn't happen that way in Tarrant County. Got it. So your campaign was fascinating for a lot of reasons. There was a very politically divisive campaign, but you were running against somebody who was very familiar to a lot of Tarrant County residents and you still came out on top.

Talk to us a little bit about the political dynamics that were at play in your campaign. Sure. in the race and the two most known, if you will, were my opponent, my primary opponent, which was Betsy Price, the former mayor of Fort Worth and former tax assessor of Tarrant County. And then I had been mayor in Farmers Branch, which is actually in Dallas County where I was born and raised. And then I was the party chair for two years. So she had way more name ID than I did. But our campaign focused on what matters to today's Republican primary voter. And fortunately, what matters to the majority of today's Republican primary voter aligns with my beliefs and values to a T. So we talked about taking back our country, and we talked about stopping the garbage that's being taught in our schools, and the pornography in the libraries,

and stopping CRT. And for those that don't know, I was one of the leaders of the effort in South Lake to get critical race theory out of our school district and to overhaul, overturn that school board. And after we were successful doing that in May of 21, other people from school districts around Tarrant County, around the Metroplex, and really some around the country came to us and said, how did you do it, what did you do, and we showed them the model. Well, fast forward to May of 22, and multiple school boards were taken over by more conservative candidates in Tarrant County, Keller ISD, Mansfield ISD, Grapevine Colleyville ISD, and they followed the model that we created in Southlake. is an amazing country and we've got to fight to keep it and there's a another side that doesn't love our country and it was great when in the 80s when we had two parties that loved america and thought america was the greatest place in the history of the world well we don't have that

anymore we have one that by and large the people that are pushing that party hate our country and then we have a party my party the republican pushing that party hate our country and then we have a party my party the republican party that still loves our country and wants to fight for so that's what we talked about and it resonated with voters what was cool is in that five-person race we we got 57 percent of the vote but in fort worth where she was mayor for a decade, we actually won Fort Worth outright with 52.4% to her 38.4%. So voters responded, and it was just a really neat thing to be a part of. I really believe that there is a movement going on, not just in our county, but really across the country that is saying enough's enough.

We're not going to let this happen to our country anymore and we're going to stand up and fight i'm seeing more people stand up and fight in school board auditoriums chambers if you will i'm seeing more people show up to this i mean i was in a sd10 a little while ago when dan patrick came in and he said how many of you are first time attendees there's about half the room i mean and you go to any of these Republican clubs and you see new people and people that have never been politically active before. All they've ever done is go vote in Novembers, and now they are coming out and working and volunteering.

It's really cool to see. And I think there's going to be a real awakening come November. What are the biggest issues facing Tarrant County right now? So one issue is property taxes. So with our property tax rate, the combined rate that I mentioned earlier, I mean, our property taxes are sky high. Now, yes, the county is not the biggest part of it, but it's still a big part of it. And we've got to do something to get property taxes under control. I proposed a 20% property tax rate cut. And I'm hearing from folks

that, oh, that's going to be difficult. And well, making cuts and making change always is difficult, but we are taxing people out of their homes. That's a big issue. Another big issue is we got to continue to fight this anti-American, hate-our-country teaching that's going on in our schools, going on amongst young people. Now, people will say to me, well, what does the county judge have to do with that? Well, a county judge can be a leader in the county and look no further than Dallas County. There's a guy over there, this county judge, that I probably believe the polar opposite of every single political belief that he has. However, he's done an incredible job of getting people in that county to swing full blue, and a county has gone so blue, it's sad to see. And the county judge can stand up with that bully

pulpit or with the microphone or calling press conferences or bringing attention to things. So we got to make sure CRT is out of all of our schools. And I know that the legislature passed a law to address it, and that's good. I applaud that. But it doesn't stop a lot of radical educators that want to teach it from doing it. So we've got to clean it out of our county. And we've got to tell people about how amazing America is and counter this rhetoric. We also, in the county, you know, most people don't want to hear about transportation issues. That's a big chunk of what county government is. The hospital district, that's a big chunk of what county government does.

There's lots of functions that the county government does. And we're always for good government. And good government means you're watching the dollar spent like a hawk. You watch it closer than you would watch your own money. And so that's something that I will bring to the table is, you know, as a lawyer, I watch my client's money like it is my own and guard it. And we've got to have that kind of mindset amongst elected officials because it's our money. And sometimes when people stay there too long, they think it's their money. And it isn't. It's other people's money.

So it's real easy to spend other people's money. That's not the way you know now that it's getting close to november democrats are uh slowing it down on this defund the police all the police are bad because they see it's a a loser in a campaign even amongst their own people but we got to make sure that tarrant county is a strong law and order county. You know, in our neighbor to the east, in Dallas County, you steal something, as long as you don't use a knife or a gun or a weapon and it's under $750, the DA won't even prosecute you. And, I mean, what kind of lawlessness does that promote and what kind of chaos does that create?

So we are going to be, if I'm elected county judge, we will be a strong law and order county. And it's time to stop this. It's society's fault for every time there's a crime committed. It's the individual's fault. And, yes, you may not have had the best upbringing or, no, you may have had some bad breaks. But at the end of the day, we're all responsible for ourselves. And we're going to be tough on crime there if I'm county judge. Wonderful. Thank you for your time. Hey, you're welcome. Good to be here always.

This is Holly Hanson here with the Texas News. I'm here with Alexandra Del Moral-Mealer who is running for Harris County judge. For listeners who are not aware, Harris County is the most populous county in the state of Texas, third most populous in the nation. What happens in Harris County is very important throughout the nation. But Alex is running as a Republican. She came out of a nine-way primary and handily beat an opponent in a runoff election, and now she's shifting to the general election. Alex, a lot of people say that Harris County is hopelessly blue,

and a Republican has no chance to win in this county. What do you say to that? I would say I don't think anyone in Harris County opted in for the policies we have right now, and so while on national issues people probably do tilt towards the Democrat Party, what's happening here right now in Harris County is a pretty extreme form of government. They really have tried to make our county into this testbed, or as Lena herself would say, let's make this a progressive model that could be exported around. And that's really where it's gone too far, that fundamentally they've positioned themselves as being anti-law enforcement,

anti-traditional criminal justice. So within their own party, they have a break of what I would call law and order traditional Democrats. And so that's the part where I certainly understand top line levels, but if we can actually get people to drill down to the issues, I'm very confident that people would rather see the type of government that I'm proposing versus what we have here. I fundamentally don't believe that Harris County residents voted for what we've seen here on Commissioner's Court. And you're running against incumbent judge Lena Hidalgo, who has enacted quite a few changes to the way county government operates and the role of county government. One of the biggest concerns, though, among residents is rising crime and so what would you do as county judge to address that rising crime problem well one of the big pieces with rising crime as you know with adrian garcia

lena hidalgo and rodney ellis they signed that consent decree and in signing this consent decree the o'donnell settlement was a legal settlement that fundamentally transformed misdemeanor bail reform and we have seen it bleed into felony that's always the big discussion but they essentially with signing that document said you know judges we're taking away your responsibility and we're going to put these blanket rules and so one of the things that doesn't get enough coverage or attention you start looking at these general order bonds. General order bonds are a blanket rule of offenses that you don't even see a judge. It is quite literally the epitome of a revolving door. At least with the PR bonds, the personal reconnaissance or pinky swear,

there's still the ability to put in conditions of jail. Hey, sobriety, we're doing checks. And that's what's really part of it is that created these general order bonds along with this cashless bail system. But really, this government has been typified by centralizing power, taking it away from elected officials. And you do see that in the criminal justice. So number one is putting the judges back in that seat. I'm hoping very hard to also get a new slate of judges elected that have enforce the law. And then really the power with me and Commissioner's Court is our funding decisions. So, you know, I think you covered very succinctly 82% of law enforcement budget requests were denied. We have critically starved and stressed our criminal justice system

to the point where we just have general lawlessness, and that is my number one priority. Excellent. And with that O'Donnell consent decree, a new department was created in the county. It was called the Justice Administration Department. I think there was a name change to that last week. I'm not sure why the name was changed. But, you know, what would be your plans as county judge about what to do with all the spending that's going into the Justice Administration Department or whatever it's going to be called, you know, is there still a role for that department or would the responsibilities shift? That's the bigger point that I'm just trying to get back to is that, again,

unelected bureaucrats, that was part of, we have now federal monitors, you know, that was part of the challenge that we raised the amicus brief to highlight is really the federal government has no business in state bail bond decisions. We are the only county that now has federal monitors, you know, intently into our daily operations. And part of it is through this Justice Administration Department, where they are tracking their data. And, you know, it is a huge problem that we have such a different data set between what our elected district attorney is putting out and what this justice administration department and i really do believe they've lost their credibility we sent a couple years ago to argue against felony bail reform justice administration department member you know who had that he was for the abolition of all prisons so it has been a very extreme

or interpretation where you know pre-trial detention is used in all but the most limited circumstances and there's no shortage of data supporting that fact. Excellent and you are among the few people who filed an amicus brief in relation to the O'Donnell consent decree. Not a lot of people realize this but O'Donnell is in jeopardy due to a case coming out of Dallas County at this point. Tell us a little bit about that amicus brief and what prompted you to get involved there. With me just realizing just how when you see the crime search statistics, that this is more than just funding. Funding is certainly a critical.

But what's happened with this attack on misdemeanor, failed reform, is you've seen an escalation of force. And all these headlines, the most egregious crimes we're seeing in Harris County, even this last week, for example. I live in the Heights, nine-year-old girl executed. It doesn't get a lot of news coverage, but the guy was out on five felony bonds. And before that, it's misdemeanor. So as these people keep getting routinely released and there's no consequences, because they're not, especially with general order bonds,

where they're not getting actually help for them, where if it's a sobriety problem, they're not having those monitor controls, they're escalating to a point where now we're talking about very serious felons. That's part of also what I attribute to the amount of law enforcement that have been killed. So 14 law enforcement killed since Lena took office. Unprecedented, typically zero to one a year. But that's what's happening with these shootouts more and more because now these people that are out because of the revolving door on these misdemeanor and they're taking that similar approach on some of these felonies that they have everything to

lose. And so once you realize that there's just been this fundamental break, for me that was a basic question. Well, how are these people going on on bail? Texas Constitution says five-factor analysis where we do factor in public safety and we do factor in likeliness to appear. Felony courts at this point, so it's 80%, don't show up. You know, that's unprecedented. It used to be in the 20s before this was enacted. So I really, just as a concerned citizen, wanted to know what was happening and so different. And that's where, like I said,

even kind of breaking out this general order bond, where did this come from? Oh, it came from O'Donnell. And so I think for all of us, it's a bit offensive that there is a federal legal settlement that is now in contradiction with our state constitution and our state law. And so that is when we saw that, and Davies, you know, had a ruling that would seem to apply in this case. And I spoke in Commissioner's Court in support of Commissioner Cagle. And at this point, we haven't seen any action by our county attorney to take that up. I know they did a closed executive session, but with getting a 3-2 vote, challenging O'Donnell's settlement would be a key priority. It was a $100 million

legal settlement that we've paid, and that's where funding from JAD and those other things. But to me, the short answer is this is what institutionalized a very radical form of bail reform that is resulting in the loss of innocent victims. Youth very routinely, unfortunately, as well. And last question, and we'll wrap this up. As you're campaigning, now you're pivoting to a general election, are you doing outreach in some of the communities that may be non-traditional Republican communities? We might expect to lean more to the left side of the aisle.

That is geographically the big split now. Just by virtue of being a runoff, and I would say our runoffs are too long, it ties you up in areas that are more Republican strongholds. So my big focus, I was just out in the East End the last few days, is trying to get out of the traditional Republican bastions, know that we need to represent. It's kind of a big difference. Even in our Harris County government, right now it's all partisan divide. It's something we've never seen in Harris County, where you go one, two, three, four

levels down, purging departments. I really want my campaign to be for Harris County, all of it. And right now, even the most basic decisions are being tainted with how does that politically advantage me the best. And we're really seeing a shift in resources based on political alignment instead of what I would say, trying to make decisions really based on where's the most good we can get for the most people countywide. Very good. Well, thank you so much for your time. We wish you the best of luck. I appreciate it. Thank you, Holly. Howdy, folks.

Mackenzie Taylor here with Carrie Isaac, the Republican nominee. Is it House District 73? Is that how to read a certificate and check out? That's correct, 73. Thank you for having me. Oh, my gosh. Thanks for coming. I'd love to hear.

Brad Johnson wrote an incredible piece on your election night debacle. It was crazy watching the returns come in and watch. We thought for a while that your opponent might win and then come to find out that you actually ended up victorious. And I think Brad was at your victory party, and everyone was kind of watching very quietly. Spirits were kind of low. He went over to your opponent's party, and they were celebrating. Come to find out you would win in the end how was that night for you yes so I was down early voting came out I was down

you know a few hundred votes and but I do believe that your more conservative voters vote election day and I know that because I knocked over 3,000 doors and the very conservative red meat voters are like no I always vote election day so I still felt like I would pull it out and I said my voters are showing up election day let's not you know this isn't an indication of how this is going so let's keep coming out votes keep coming out and I'm down I'm still down I'm still down one box left I'm down 400 votes we're like well yeah this doesn't look too good well and then I asked I think it was Micah was on the computer and I said Micah where is that last box and he said Bulverde well I looked over at Patty Johnson and we gave each other the biggest smile because we

knew I still had a chance because we knew Bulverde would come through for me. I won that last box by 85 percent. Wow. Do you remember what the margin I'm trying to remember what the margin was at that final 271. You know the exact number. I do. Oh my gosh. Well that's incredible. How was it after redistricting. I mean you'd run previously in House District 45. Yes. Which is the seat your husband held previously. Yes. Flip to the Democrats. And then y'all went after again with a new candidate from the family trying to flip it back for the Republicans. You were campaigning in a new district or at least partially new district. You still had Hayes and Comal. What was it like campaigning in Comal County and trying to meet new voters there? It was a blast. I love Comal County. I tell people, you know,

when I knock doors in Comal County, people are so nice. It takes me so much longer to knock doors because I just want to sit there and have a conversation and I need to keep moving. I don't want to because people are so nice. But I campaigned for my husband in Comal County before when he ran for Congress. So I was a known person there. I knew all the activists there already. Actually, when my husband ran in 2010, the Canyon Lake Republican women came and knocked doors for him. Oh, wow.

Full circle. Yeah, so I actually knew voters there for over a decade already and activists in Canyon Lake mainly and Bulverde also Spring Branch so yes I did meet a lot of new voters but I knew a lot of the activists there already. You're returning to old friends. Yes it was great. That's awesome. So what are the big issues facing your district? Well I believe there are issues in Texas which know, I know that we don't have a sovereign nation without a secure border and secure elections. And I will fight to secure

both of those. I believe that's the most important things we can do. But my hot button issue is property taxes. I believe that property ownership is a right. And I will fight for that right. I believe we should own our property once and for all and I want to start by eliminating our school maintenance and operations portion of our property tax bill economists say that we can pay that down and totally eliminate that tax about 10 to 12 years you know we have about 13 billion dollars in excess revenue right now. That's our money. Return it to the taxpayers. People are hurting and struggling.

We have widows that should own their home. They've paid their homes off. And some of these people, their property taxes are more expensive than what their mortgage was. It's insane. It's sad. People are really hurting. I spoke with another woman that is renting out a room in her home just so she can stay in a home that she's paid off, and she's in her 80s.

She should own her home. It's wrong. This is the hill I will die on. We need to eliminate property taxes. Very good. Governor Abbott came out in support of the state paying the school maintenance operations portion about, I don't know, five or six weeks ago publicly. So I'm really excited. I believe we can do it. Property taxes will always be on the docket

until that is, you know, until taxpayers feel a little bit of reprieve, I feel like. Now going into the session, what do you think in light of the last two years since the legislature has met, will be top of the ticket? What items do you think will be hot, kind of contentious among Republicans and Democrats? What do you see as being those top issues that they're fighting over? Well, I know, talking with voters, that they're really angry that nothing was done last session about child gender modification. And I believe with what's gone on with that issue publicly and in the media, I think people are ready now to tackle that issue. So I believe that's one that will be tackled, hopefully. Absolutely.

And like I said, the border is... So the border, when I was knocking doors, the border was the number one issue I was hearing from. And I believe that that's the most important. But when everybody's valuations came out all of a sudden voters want to talk about property taxes so there you go so yeah i'm sorry i keep saying the same thing but it's property taxes election security and and border security people care about those issues big time absolutely well carrie thank you so much for stopping by and i hope you have fun convention well thank you it's good seeing you.

Good morning, everyone. This is Matt Stringer with the Texan News here at the Republican Party State Convention Exhibit Hall in Houston, Texas. And I'm here with state senator-elect Kevin Sparks from Senate District 31. Kevin, good morning. Good morning. We've been several days now down in Houston. We've got roughly 7,000, 8,000 delegates discussing all kinds of different matters of public policy and party business. Senate districts have been convening and electing local officials and kind of an interesting turn of events in our State Senate District 31 caucus. We've got some new leaders out there. And kind of one of my thoughts on that was how interesting is it in West Texas

that we have a new State Senate District, new SBOE, new state senator, new SBOE, new SREC members, and you're kind of the leading the pack. Well, I don't know if I'm leading the pack on all of that, but you know, politics is a very fluid thing. And so I think it's always inviting to have new and fresh ideas introduced. Leadership as well. I think one of the things, though, that is really good about Senate District 31, you know, we still have a lot of legacy members, a lot of people that have invested in our area for a lot of years. And so I think that really helps anchor things. But the onslaught of new ideas and new energy brought into our district, I think will be a healthy thing. Oh, absolutely. For those listening that aren't quite familiar with the Senate districts, Senate District 31 is a fresh map. It's kind of similar to the old, but it runs roughly from the Panhandle down to west and a little bit of central Texas, maybe. Yeah, we actually go all the way down to Schlacker County now, Eldorado, Texas. How many counties? A total of 45 now. Wow. Yeah, so it's about a seven and a half hour drive from Eldorado up to Stratford.

And a lot of different major industries for the state out there too. Well, you know, Senate District 31 actually represents, I believe of economic diversity and power, really, for the whole state. yeah and uh one of the fun things about that is is i i believe you are uh one of the only if not the only member of the upper chamber who's going to come from oil and gas is that correct yeah i i believe i'm the only member that has any you know practical um production drilling and production experience in the oil and gas industry i've been in the industry more than 35 years, and that's been my business, my focus, and one of the things that I think I really will bring to the Senate is some real expertise in that industry. And it's such a critical industry, not only for our state, but for our nation, actually, and we're seeing that play out currently. Is there any particular issues on the horizon that you might be see coming up in the new legislative session or is all that still kind of formulating and up in the air?

Yeah no I think it's all very much up in the air you know one of the issues that I think really needs to be addressed we're still not where we need to be as far as securing our electric grid here in the state of Texas. And so there's still quite a bit of policy, I think, that needs to be formulated to make sure that these more than 1,500 people a day that are moving to Texas have the energy that it's going to take to continue to drive our economy. Yeah, that's a major issue is doing everything possible to ensure Texans continuously have a reliable source of energy on the grid. Right.

Another one of the big industries there in SD31 is the agriculture industry. What are you kind of hearing from some of the leaders in that industry and are there any issues in that area in particular that are coming to the surface? Sure. Well, right now they're suffering from very high input costs. Obviously, they use a lot of natural gas on the farm side for irrigation. Their fertilizer costs are up three or four times from last year. And I think that's something that's going to ultimately be an issue for all consumers because food costs will necessarily be escalating.

Right. Yesterday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick was here, addressed the convention delegates and got a huge round of applause, very support. How excited are you to be working with Lieutenant Governor Patrick on some of his legislative priorities? I know one of the things he touched on yesterday was election integrity. And are you already pretty well familiar with the other members that will be incoming and getting to know them? So since I don't have an opponent in November, and I'm very fortunate in that respect, I've already had an opportunity to begin meeting a lot of what will be my colleagues in the Senate,

developing relationships with them, trying to kind of understand their areas of expertise and how I can complement that. I am looking forward to working with the lieutenant governor as we, you know, election integrity is a huge deal. Obviously, we've seen what that looks like if we can't have and be guaranteed fair and secure elections. Absolutely. Here's kind of one of our last questions, and then if there's anything else you want to highlight, feel free to absolutely chime in. But what are you most excited about regarding your first upcoming session as a new member of the upper chamber?

Well, that's an interesting question. I, you know, excited. Kind of open-ended. Yeah, excited may not be the right word. A little intimidating? It is a little intimidating. Obviously, I come from the business sector, which I think is a really healthy perspective coming into politics. Did you ever see yourself running? No. This time last year, I had not contemplated ever running for public office. And so a little intimidating. It is a process. And that's part of

my goal between now and December is to get up to speed on all the workings of actually creating legislation. I know I'm going to have a lot of help. But, you know, more than anything, I want to bring good practical business experience to any policy that we, you know, that we consider. Because in my mind, what we have to be mindful as legislators, we have to be creating policy that is sustainable long term for our citizens. Looking down the future. That's right. Not just knee-jerk reactions to something that's happened, but a thoughtful process of something that 10 years from now will still make sense for the citizens of Texas. Sounds like a great mindset for an upcoming legislative session in the Texas Senate. Well, I hope so, and I'm looking forward to it. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on and joining us.

This is concluding the last day here at the Republican Party State Convention, and we just got through discussing some of the issues facing West Texans with State Senator-elect Kevin Sparks. Thank you so much once again, Kevin. Thank you, Matt. This is Holly Hanson with the Texan News. I'm here at the Republican Party Convention this morning with Charles Cunningham, who recently won a Republican primary race to replace retiring Representative Dan Huberty in District 127, which is the Humble and Kingwood area.

Gladly for Mr. Cunningham, he is unopposed this fall. So unlike some of the other folks we've talked to this week, he does not have a race to continue to pursue. So he's set to be sworn in this year. How are you doing this morning, Mr. Cunningham? Harley, I'm doing fine. How are you doing? I'm doing well. It's a fun weekend here at the convention. Yes, it is. You also served on the Humble ISD School Board and the Humble City Council. And so we would assume that you're pretty well plugged into your community. And so our question for you this morning is, what are the top priorities for the residents of your district?

What do you hope to accomplish in your first session? Well, Holly, I tell you, I have been plugged in over 40 years living in the area. And I tell you, the top one is going to be our flood mitigation. State Representative Uberty and a few of the other state reps have been working on things and we want to continue to keep that going on so that we continue to try to work with the San Jacinto River Authority, the city of Houston, to find a solution to the flood mitigation. And then the next one is public safety. Harris County is the number one, I tell you, crime area here in Texas. Criminals come to Harris County to do their dirt. They won't even go to Montgomery County. So I got to find out what Montgomery County is doing.

But I think we know the answer. But that and then, of course, lately, it's been the electric infrastructure. And being an employee with Centerpoint Energy for 39 years, I think I have a little know-how on how that works and what we can do to probably make that system, harden that grid, as we would say. Very good. That sounds like great priorities. What about the education issue? Are you hearing anything from your community about any changes they would like to see at the legislative level for education in the state of Texas? You know, I haven't talked to all my superintendents. I have five school districts

in District 127, the largest being Humboldt ISD. And so I have met with Dr. Elizabeth Fagan. Some of the things are more like local, local control, because we had this issue with the Harris County judge, Lena Hidalgo, basically trying to tell school districts what to do. And so we've been talking about certain things that we can probably do in the legislature to hopefully alleviate interference from our local government folks. Very good. And since you have smooth sailing from here on out as far as the election goes, what kind of things have you been engaging in to try to help some of the other Republicans

that are on the ballot in Harris County? Well, and I did mention Lena Hidalgo, so I am working very hard. And as you can see, we both got our Alex Mueller stickers on here. Working closely with Alex, we were in contact with each other yesterday. Also with our judges. Real quick, we need to get good judges that are going to actually come

to work. Make sure we put these criminals and stop this revolving door. I had an issue back in December. They used a car and basically drove through my house. Long story short, once we did DNA and testing and all this stuff, these were repeat offenders who were out on bail.

So this systemic problem is just rampant here in Harris County. So we need a good county judge, And so I'm working hard for Alex, working hard for the judges that are there. Brad Hart, I've been knowing him for years. He's actually running. He got swept out. So we're going to be working. Our group, Northeast Harris County, is on board and we're pushing. Very good. Yes, there are quite a few judicial races on the ballot in Harris County and elsewhere in the state. Unfortunately, those are down ballot. And so we're trying to get people to pay attention to those races. Absolutely.

Just get them engaged. And, you know, we were pleased with the early vote numbers that we had. And so I think that we're going to be able to do what we can to actually get those people who have been on the fence who think it doesn't matter, that this does matter. And so, you know, we'll see what the outcome is. I'm expecting a good outcome in November. Very good. Well, thank you so much for your time this morning. We wish you the best of luck and enjoy your time in the legislature.

Thank you, Holly. And thank you for being kind to me today. You're welcome. Hello, everybody. hello everybody this is brad johnson reporter with the texan i've got caroline harris here with me she's a canada republican nominee for house district 52 in williamson county caroline welcome hi everyone thanks for having me so she is running in house district 52 as i mentioned in williamson county she just won the runoff for the Republican Party, and now she is facing a Democrat in November. What's the campaign looking like for you going into November?

It looks very, very good. I think this cycle, any Republican race, looks really good. But my district is kind of 55-45, so it's a little tighter than some of the other districts. But I do have the benefit of having gone through a runoff. I've been to a lot of doors already. I went to almost 5,000 just myself. Uh, and that was an amazing experience. And so I'm really excited about adding to that number for November. And I'm also really excited as finding new, unique ways to get more people motivated to get out and vote. Okay. It's, it's a really interesting dynamic because you are currently a Senate staffer for Senator Brian Hughes,

but now you're running for office. What has that been like? Yes, that has been actually such a gift because Senator Hughes has been my mentor for the past seven years that I've worked in the legislature, and he was the first person to just invest in me and explain politics and how everything works. And to be able to call him and just ask him questions and get his advice is just amazing. And so I just went back to work full time recently. And that's been awesome.

I really appreciate it. What kind of policy do you focus on in his office? So in his office, I work on a broad range of things. He's a chairman of the State Affairs Committee in the Senate. A lot of stuff goes through that. Yes, yeah, a lot of policy. And so kind of the high-level policies that were passed this past session include the Heartbeat Bill, the Election Integrity Bill,

the Bill to Ban Critical Race Theory in schools. So I got to be a policy advisor with all of that. And then I also like health care reform. That just very much interests me. Very complicated topic. Yes. Yes, it is. And a lot of people don't want to get involved in it, but I love it.

Yes. And it's such a good opportunity to bring conservative values into a field that just traditionally does not have is not set up in that way. So that's why I like it okay well should you win in november yeah and make it into the state house next session what are some of the things you're going to want to do um whether it's first billy file or a few of them whatever what do you think yeah absolutely so that is the benefit of knocking doors and knocking so many doors is you get to know your constituency you know what they want you to work on when you

go to Austin. And one of the top things I heard over and over again was the border. You know, we've got to secure the border. Yes, absolutely. Cameron County, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, we're, you know, we're not close. But I actually went down to the border during my campaign. I was the only candidate that did that. And when I was there, I was talking to the sheriff of Del Rio. That's where I was at. And I asked him, how does the border impact Williamson County? You know, it's more of a suburban area than the border. I mean, you know, what are we facing? And he said he had a gang member in his jail in Del Rio from Austin. This guy lived in Austin,

had his family there. And he said, if they're in Austin, they're in Williamson County. He said nothing that happens at the border stays there. And so that's been something that I hear all the time at doors. And so I'm really looking forward to working with all of the other members, the governor, the speaker, lieutenant governor, in working on securing the border. And then locally, infrastructure is a huge deal in Williamson County. We are growing so fast. I know everyone knows Samsung's moving into Taylor. Those roads really need to be fixed.

We just need to prepare for the growth that's coming. We're already exploding, but it's coming. I think you guys are, if not the top, one of the top growing counties in the state, right? Yes, we are. Part of that is because Austin has become a mini California. The crime rates are so high. You know, the cost of living is absolutely insane. And so everyone's moving north into Williamson County.

And so one other thing that across the whole state they'll have to deal with, but especially in Williamson County, is stress on schools with more people coming in. Yes. I know you have talked a lot about school policy in your race. Anything specific there that you think needs to be addressed? Yeah, absolutely. When I, again, going back to the doors, when I would talk to people about, you know,

what is one of your top concerns, education definitely came up. And people want to have more of a say. Parents want to have more of a choice. And so that is something I heard over and over again. I think that we need to get the public education system back to reading, writing, and arithmetic. We just have to. And we need to expand options for school choice in this state. We need to give parents more of a say in what education model fits their child the best. You know, we just need to empower parents more in this day and age. So I'm excited to work on that. Well, Governor Abbott has

said that school choice, he expects a large push when the legislature reconvenes. So we'll see what kind of that, how that shakes out. But should you make it there, that is something that will probably be on your plate. Caroline, good luck the rest of the way. Thank you. Thank you for stopping by. And we're excited to see how this turns out. Thank you. And I just want to add one more thing.

Something that I discovered after I ran, I'll be the youngest Republican female ever elected to the Texas House if I win in November. Wow. And I'm a bit of a Texas history nerd. So that is a really cool thing that I just learned. And I'm really excited about that. But while you would be the youngest, you are by no means a legislative newbie.

You know, you've been in there for a while. You know how things operate. So good luck the rest of the way, Caroline. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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