The Texan Podcast - Special Edition - Elected Officials at the Texas GOP Convention

Episode Date: June 23, 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 elected officials:  0:00:42 - Rep. Bryan Slaton  0:10:40 - Comptroller Glenn Hegar  0:19:27 - Rep. Brian Harrison  0:24:47 - Commissioner Jack Cagle  0:35:27 - Rep. Cody Vasut  0:42:32 - Chairman Wayne Christian  0:49:17 - Rep. Matt Schaefer  0:58:07 - Rep. Steve Toth  1:05:07 - Commissioner Tom Ramsey  1:10:57 - Rep. Matt Krause  1:17:30 - Congressman Chip Roy  1:24:50 - Rep. Kyle Biedermann  1:33:08 - Sen. Brandon Creighton  1:41:40 - Rep. Jared Patterson  1:58:04 - Commissioner Sid Miller  Be on the lookout for a couple more episodes 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.

This is Hayden Sparks with the Texan. We are here in Houston at the Republican Party of Texas Convention. I am here with Representative Brian Slayton. Representative, thank you for joining us. I'm happy to be here. Good to see you. First of all, sir, I want to acknowledge you were a fierce advocate during the 87th legislature for Mr. Jeff Younger, who was also an unsuccessful candidate for the

Texas House. What are you hearing from your constituents about your efforts to prohibit gender modification surgeries on children? Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, they were very happy. I mean, they all say it's so sad that we have to do this, right? It's sad that where we're at is we have to do this right it's sad that where we're at is we have to protect children from mutilation in their body and sexualizing them and so um i don't know it's it's been fine you know there's people who didn't support me i ran against the incumbent that was there before and now like with this issue they're like hey you're you're you're the guy we're we're proud of what you're doing because we got to stop what they're doing to our kids. And so it's been really warm and receptive. It really has. Because

I believe this issue, it transcends party lines. There are Democrats. They're like, yeah, we shouldn't mess with kids, right? And they have a hard time admitting it because their base will come after them. But all in all, it's been, you know, pretty good feedback from the people. But they're all really sad that we actually didn't protect kids. I mean, I'm glad I tried, but James Younger isn't safer since the Republicans ended the 87th session. You know, that's that's the sad part. Representative Slayton, you mentioned that it's a bipartisan issue, that there are Democrats and Republicans who agree with this. But also,

you expressed that the Republican Party isn't doing enough to advance your proposals. Democrats would contend that this is an undue encroachment on the ability of families to make what they would characterize as health care decisions for their children. How would you respond to that point? Well, health care decisions involve finding things medically wrong with an individual and trying to make them better that you could prove. Like they maybe have cancer, they have, you know, whatever could be going on, gastrointestinal problems, breathing issues, whatever, you can measure you're improving that for them. The gender modification to children is removing or chemically castrating healthy body parts that haven't even gone through puberty. Right?

I mean, a lot of these issues with kids get corrected through puberty. It's how God made us. And so it's the fact that it's medical procedures on healthy body parts, doing double mastectomies on young girls. They have healthy body parts. So it's not healthcare at all. I mean, there's no way because that healthcare implies you're trying to make someone healthy and better. This, it has to deal with mentally, you know, trying to convince a child, what I would say probably manipulating a child, that they're a different gender than they obviously are. And that's not healthy in their development. And then you do these permanent, irreversible surgeries, chemical castration, and there's no going back. And that child's

life is altered forever, probably more to make an adult feel more secure with themselves than that child actually want the procedure. Because if you've heard any of these stories from these people who went through the gender modification surgeries and the regret they have and the pain they go through or lack thereof. Like I read one story the other day, this person said they're completely numb and they're entire growing. I said, somebody could stab me with a knife, I'd never know. I mean, they've major problems. So I want to touch on the urgency that you're expressing

with this issue because of the irreversibility of some of these procedures. What are your intentions for getting the legislature's attention during the 88th legislature and having this issue be a priority amid all the other items of business that the legislature will be considering? We have to protect children, those who can't protect themselves. But in terms of strategy? Sure. I just feel like we have to be urgent because, I mean, we're going to be held accountable. This is a government of we the people. I tell people when I talk to churches, we are all going to be held accountable for how we treat others and how our society and public policy treats others because this is a government of we the people. And we have to act because we can't let another year go by and this happen to children. Now, as far as strategy, I don't know yet. I know one thing that will help us

is Lieutenant Governor Patrick. If they're going to be aggressive and push, it will help in the House. I imagine a lot of things are going to be slowed down in the House, if not killed altogether. And my idea is we just have to push forward everywhere and every way we can until leadership is fully behind the idea. And what I mean by fully behind the idea, they have to be willing to call it child abuse from the counseling to the prescribing of medication to the actual physical surgeries. because if we only focus on the liability insurance so they can be sued well that means they can counsel these kids and get them to another state to get it or they can still prescribe the medication to them and do it to them it's child abuse top to bottom we have to be aggressive and uh yeah as far as the strategy

my idea is we're going to have to fight every chance we can. Representative Slayton, I want to shift gears a little bit because this is an issue that is important to you, and you've worked a lot on it. It's not the only issue, though, that you worked on in the legislature. The Texas House, you introduced legislation that would require the state to continue the border wall. Yeah. And lawmakers did work on border security appropriations, billions of dollars for Operation Lone Star. How would you assess the state's efforts now against illegal immigration? And what do you think should be done in the 88th legislature? Well, I would say we haven't done that great.

I mean, the border crossings get higher and higher, record amount. Human trafficking is out of control. Drug trafficking out of control. So we can brag that we spent more money than prior years, but that's something we've been doing for 12 years as Republicans, and the border keeps getting more and more out of control. So I think we need to stop doing the same things over and over. I think a lot of Republican voters realize that we are putting more and more of their money at work, but not really securing the border. I think there's things we need to do. We need to label the—we need to stand up for us as Texans. And what I mean by that, like my border wall bill, the federal government's not going to do it.

We need to do it. Send them the invoice and charge them interest. And then we need to label the cartels as narco-terrorist organizations. We need to up the penalties for people involved in human trafficking and cartels. I would totally be fine with upping those penalties to receiving capital punishment. We're going to have to do something to shake it up. Capital punishment for the cartel members. If you're in the cartels doing human trafficking and you're arrested in texas they should be eligible for capital punishment and i'm talking not just the people hosting i'm talking anybody involved like these these glorified uber drivers

what i joke and say that kind of i don't know if i should joke on that but these people that go to drive these people from point a to point b and get paid you know five ten thousand dollars they're a part of the logistics operation so you need to find a way to punish people involved with human trafficking way more so you would support legislation assertive legislation to make it a capital offense punishable by death yes to traffic human beings into Texas. Yes. Modern-day slavery, it deserves a pretty stiff penalty. You've talked a lot about your compassion for children, both on border security and the gender modification issue.

For a final question, you have a background in youth ministry. Would you reflect on how your background in youth ministry is going to influence your decisions in the next legislature? Well, one thing I was convinced of is that my job as a youth minister wasn't to be the primary spiritual influence in the kids' life. A lot of people think that, right? Because we think, well, piano lessons, take them to the piano instructor. You want baseball, take them to the piano instructor. You want baseball, take them to the baseball person. But my job or any minister's job is to help that parent be the primary spiritual influence to the child. They have way more impact on the children than we do, and they can do it in less time.

I mean, I could have six years in youth ministry helping children, and an adult can tear down everything I've tried to help build up or they can far exceed my ceiling in way less time. I mean, like I would tell people about church camp, right? We could go to send kids to church camp, spend whatever money you want. It could all be ruined in a 15 minute drive home. And, um, and so that's where I come from. That's where, uh, you know, some of it came from with my hospital visitation amendment that nullified CDC and Fauci and the others was letting family and loved ones be with their loved ones in the hospital. So it's going to influence everything, trying to get parents more involved in kids' lives, keep families together, and let Texans spend more of their money and not the government spend more of their money because they know what to do with it better than the government. Representative Slayton, thank you so much for joining us. It's always a pleasure to catch up with you. Appreciate it,

sir. Good to see you. Thanks. Hello, everyone. This is Brad Johnson, reporter with the Texan. I've got Comptroller Glenn Hager here with me. How's it going? It's great to be with you. It's awesome today. He's coming right off the stage, just gave a speech at the RPT convention. We'll hop right into it. But the state of Texas, as you full well know, has had kind of a rocky, at points, fiscal time. Where are we at right now? What does the budget surplus or projected budget surplus look like? Yeah, right now the economy is really remarkable. It has been really for the last year plus. You know, obviously two years ago, businesses got shut down. People weren't sure what was going on.

And I'd made the point then, I said, look, Texas entered into that unknown in a really strong foundation, stronger than really every other state and nation in the world. So we were blessed. The economy rebounded pretty strong, businesses, consumers. Now, of course, with all that said, for the last year plus, as we all know, people have been dealing with three things if you own a business, inflation, supply chains, and labor shortages. And of course, that inflation is really the highlight for all of us as consumers. And so my point being is ever since really February last year for about, you know, the last 14, 15 months, Texas has really just been on a remarkable pace, stronger than we could have anticipated. And, you know, now the economy is not as strong. You know, people are really concerned with the direction of the economy.

And I still make that same point I did a couple of years ago. I don't know where we're going right now, but we've got some drags against us, but the economy is good. So if you look at the next legislative budget cycle, when they get back in in 2023, our state's savings account, the ESF, Economic Stabilization Fund, which is oil and gas revenues, that fund will probably have, as of this summer, we're going to announce it'll have about $13.5 billion in it here in the next couple months when we close this fiscal year. And the state treasury, I'd said last year, will probably have a surplus of about $12 billion. In fact, another couple months, we'll give an update, and I would probably be going to add at least $3 or $4 billion to that. So, I mean, it is remarkable. Now, I'll make this point. Last month, when we announced our revenues for last month, I made the point to my staff. I said, when we send the press release out, we had noted that our sales tax revenues, which is the biggest amount of revenue, as you know, coming in the state treasury of all important pieces, was almost 9% higher than the same month last year. But the problem was inflation was over 8%. And so, you know, I'm just trying to make that point as you and I struggle at our household paying for gas and groceries that have gone up so much. I just began to manage expectations. Revenues are

higher, but unfortunately now because of this administration and their terrible policies, so much cost have gone up as well. We saw it initially when the pandemic hit, really dire projections. Right. But those have since really improved, as you said. Substantially. Yes, and we'll see where it goes now that we're seeing rapid inflation and all these other issues. Included among them is oil and gas energy stuff.

Something your office has been working on is SB 13 from last year that prohibits state money from going to companies that divest from fossil fuel companies. Part of that has been sending out letters and assessing the situation. What are you seeing on the ground level on this stuff? And what are you hearing from companies? It's really interesting as we have implemented this legislation. So in short, we are required to come up with a list of companies that are so-called boycotting the oil and gas sector. In other words, financial institutions that are not lending or doing business with the oil and gas industry. And we know, we all know already that the policies coming out of DC and

other countries as though we're going to get off fossil fuels tomorrow. Well, I mean, as you and I stand here, we're standing on shoes and what are they made out of fossil fuels? I make the point if you want to have electric vehicle, okay. But when you sit in the car and you grab the door, what do you touch? A fossil fuel product. When you touch the steering wheel, it's a fossil fuel product. Whether it's the wires that are coated in the car, the batteries are wrapped in what? Fossil fuel products. And so everywhere we touch, how do you think food gets on the table? Farmers need diesel.

Farmers need all these products that are based out of fossil fuels. And so point being is it's disastrous policies that this administration and others are leading. And so what we have determined because of pressures from so many politicians on the other side, this naive belief, you have major institutions that either, one, are boycotting, or number two, what we've really discovered is they're telling everybody, in essence, they are, when in reality, they're trying to hide behind the curtain and say, no, actually, we're investing in oil and gas. And so what I told my staff last year as we were working on this, I said, so there's the big lie, the big lie. And the big lie is a lot of, some of these companies put everything out that is all non-fossil fuel when in reality they still are. And so, you know,

we're working through that process now. Do you list them or do you not list them? But either way, if they're not really truly boycotting, but they are still what I think is a dangerous propaganda on their part, because people fully believe we are having a fossil fuel, fossil free environment and we're not. And so, you know, my point is we just have to be responsible. And so we're going to put out that list later this summer, probably. So we sent out letters to 19 financial institutions, as well as another 140 that in essence are asking, do you have a fund that people can invest in, like their 401k or a 529 account for a kid that you're going to send to college? And so those funds may be solely non-fossil fuel oriented and we'll list those. So I think there's kind of a combination of

companies out there is my point, but I do think that the rhetoric regardless is dangerous. Even if they're not, it's bad rhetoric because people believe this and we're continuing to have a perpetuation of those policies in DC, which guess what, are in part contributing to the problem we have at the pump today. You know, this administration says, oh, no, it's transitory. Oh, no, it doesn't exist. Oh, no, it's Putin's fault. When in reality, it's a lot of their disastrous policies and their fault. Real quick, the biggest name in this is BlackRock, the world's largest portfolio manager.

What have they been telling you guys when you're assessing this? Yeah, you know, it's really amazing because their CEO, Larry Fink, if you ever listen to the guy, oh, my gosh. I mean, he acts like he's the king. And, you know, it's just unbelievable rhetoric that comes out. Now, many other companies, them included, will come in and say, no, no, no, no, look at what we're doing over here. And so, you know, I think you've got two kind of groups, in other words, really three groups. One, those that are not, that are truly investing in fossil fuels and looking at things from a financial perspective. Is it a good investment?

Is it not a good investment? That's what we should be looking at. That's it. That's it. Is it prudent for the people that we're investing their money? And then you have the group that is actually saying one thing and doing another. And then you've got the third group that is actually boycotting. And so we're going through all their responses right now.

And I hope I'm going to have a meeting with my staff here in the next week or two. We go through the next round. So hopefully we'll get this list out here in the next couple of months. But it's really disappointing that, you know, I think if a company, whatever you do, just let transparency and the truth show it. Just be transparent. Don't say one thing and do another. I mean, that's what I tell my kids.

If you believe something, then say it. Stand for where your ground is. That's okay. I mean, it's unbelievable. Light does really good for a lot of things. Transparency is great. And this is one where the more we've worked on it, transparency is really needed very bad here. Reading through the letters that you guys got, there was one company that said, hell yeah, we're doing this.

We're boycotting. And they're proud of it. And to me, I told my staff that if that's where they stand and that's their policies, I respect that. I would not invest in them, nor would we, because I think that's the wrong policy. But in fact, I respect the fact that they said, yeah, we are. This is what we do, and we're proud of it. Then, you know, if you stand on one side and I stand on another, that's a healthy discussion. But if we lie to each other, what kind of world is that?

Yeah. Well, you guys over at the Comptroller's office have a lot of plates spinning, and it'll be interesting to see how all this shakes out. But, Comptroller Hager, thank you for for stopping by good to be with you today appreciate all the work that y'all are doing y'all are doing a lot of important work here in the state and we've interacted with you brad a whole lot over the course of the last year on a lot of issues and so i just want to say thank you thank you appreciate all the transparency y'all are putting out it's been great to get to know you and your staff. It's been wonderful. Good to be with you today.

Once again, we're here with State Rep. Brian Harrison. Thanks so much for being here. Just to start off generic, why don't you tell us in your own terms, how would you rate the last session? So, you know, that's going to be tough for me to do. I was there for only, as a reminder for you or your listeners, I was sworn in with only eight days to go in the last session. So I was on the floor for all of eight days. But look, we got a lot of conservative stuff. And I say we. My new colleagues in the legislature did get a lot of very consequential conservative agenda items passed. And we should be very proud as a state of that.

Constitutional carry, the heartbeat bill, the protect women's sports bill. So there were a lot of genuine, material, consequential conservative victories that were had. Sure. So you came here from Washington under President Trump's administration, focusing a lot of your campaign on school choice and adjacent topics. Why is it that you think those topics are so hot right now? Yes. School choice probably was the single biggest issue in my campaign. It's an issue I have a lot of passion about. I agree with Senator Ted Cruz, who refers to it as a civil rights issue of our day. We have an entire generation right now that

as schools, because they are absent of competition for the most part, are able to, in some of the more liberal parts of the state, focus more on indoctrination than on education. And if you're a single mom in a poor family that's got a couple kids in school, working two or three jobs, and you're an Austin ISD, that mom needs to have options so that her kid isn't forced to have highly sexualized drag queen performances for her second grade kids. She needs to have an escape where they can go and get an education. I'm pro-public schools. I'm pro-charter schools. I'm pro-private schools. I'm pro-home schools.

As conservatives, we don't believe in one-size-fits-all approaches to just about anything in any other segment of our economy, and especially when it comes to our kids. That's so true. And for too many parents in the state of Texas, they are locked into a school that may or may not be serving them. I'm fortunate to live in an area with great public schools. My children attend public schools in Ellis County. I'm vested in them and in their success.

But we have got to empower parents across the state of Texas. And it's really come to light. You asked, you mentioned that I came from the Trump administration. I was the chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, so was intimately involved in the COVID response. But one of the things that COVID did was it laid bare the professional educational bureaucracy across the country is more interested in protecting itself than in educating kids. And we have generational harm as a result of what happened from the liberal teachers unions during COVID. And I think parents across America are waking up, taking a fresh look at what's going on in the educational establishment and wanting to reassert their proper position controlling education for their children.

So on that same note, just this week, star scores came out for the most recent school year. As you already know, there was a major plunge in star scores in almost all subjects, math, history, and biology, and stagnation in English last year. Maybe you could dig a little bit deeper into what you alluded to already, how COVID played a role in this new interest in school choice, how it affected schools. I think we have two things going on here. I think we have the impact from COVID. I talked to superintendents and principals and teachers across my district. There is a noticeable and obvious issue with sort of the lag from COVID and the generational delay that millions of kids are expressing. But I think it blends into the school choice issue. We're seeing these declines.

It's completely predictable that we would see these declines in a part of our economy that has not allowed competition to do the job that competition does in every other part of our sector where government hasn't messed it up. And there's two things that happen in a free market when competition works. Prices go down over time and quality goes up over time. And we're seeing the exact opposite. We're seeing quality go down and price per pupil going up. And that's a direct result of government mandated, created, and controlled monopolies controlling almost every aspect of education in the state of Texas. And I'm going to do everything in my power to change that.

So real quick, again, on that note, how would you describe your ideal school choice legislation? So there are a lot of proposals that are being talked about. I have not formally endorsed any of them yet. But what I want to do is make sure that, and I go back to principles on most things, just because we as a society decide that government is going to provide a good or a service for individuals in that society, so in this case students, and we've decided that in our constitution, it does not necessarily follow that government must be the provider and certainly not the sole provider so we have to have some type of regime where the resources that we as a society say these resources are for the education of

students they by the way we have never said as a society these resources are for the betterment of a school system okay we care about educating children educating the next generation that's why we set aside these resources it's That's why we set aside these resources. That's the only reason we set aside these resources. So however we do it, we've got to have a system where those resources go to educating the children via the empowerment of the parents to direct how and where those kids are educated. Okay. Stay with Brian Harrison with us today.

Thanks so much for being here. Happy to be here. Thank you for what y'all do. Appreciate it. This is Holly Hanson with the Texan News and right now I'm visiting with Commissioner Jack Cagle of Harris County. This is the most populous county in the state of Texas, manages quite a sizable budget, but Commissioner Cagle has seen quite a few changes since he's been on that Commissioner's court. Commissioner, can you talk to us about how the role of county government has changed

and the spending priorities have changed in Harris County over the past few years? Well, Harris County Commissioner's Court, as in every county, is composed of four commissioners and a county judge. And traditionally, the role of a commissioner, you know, teachers teach, preachers preach, commissioners and a county judge. And traditionally, the role of a commissioner, you know, teachers teach, preachers preach, commissioners commission, we fund the functions of government. And traditionally, they go into the category of the three Ps. You fix the potholes, you make sure that the parks are kept clean and the bathrooms in the parks are clean,

and you take care of public safety. We fund the constables, the sheriffs. We fund the jails, the courthouses, the judges and the supplements to the state judges, the DAs. And so it's our job to make sure that potholes, parks, and public safety are taken care of. That's our job. And our job has not changed. But in the last three and a half years when the progressive socialists have taken over, where the money has gone has changed and where the

focus and time of what we're doing has changed. Commissioner's Court used to be over with at about noon because most of the time we were talking about what needs to be done in each of our precincts to serve the people. And there's not normally a whole lot of debate on is that a good road project or not? Are we adequately funding that pothole fix or not? Those are sort of simple things. But now we spend a lot of time debating resolutions, telling the United States Supreme Court how they should rule on cases, telling President Trump how he should conduct his business, and telling President Biden, oh, attaboy, good job on this action or another,

all of which are not our job. The focus has moved away from serving the people to lording it over them and spending millions of dollars on things that are not in our core project. And sometimes they relabel it. over them and spending millions of dollars on things that are not in our core project. And sometimes they relabel it. Prime example of this last commissioner's court is you're aware, Holly, and you endure these hour-long marathons. We, in our last budget hearing, denied 82 percent. And when I say we, I mean the majority, 3-2 vote, denied our local constables, sheriffs, DAs, their requests, and our judges, their requests

to be adequately funded to combat this crime-demic that we have in Harris County. Instead, we have found a way of funding up to $52 million in this last commissioner's court to go to early childhood education. Because if we can create our own version of i guess alina youth then they'll all grow up to be honorable citizens and we won't have a crime problem anymore so we they may die in the classroom waiting for those years of the early childhood education to occur but we're not going to get the criminals off the streets that are hurting them in fact we're going to continue to give them pinky swear bonds so that they can continue in their course of conduct that they've had and i think we're now after the

shooting that we had in nonningham park which is one of our parks we're well above 180 people who are now dead wow 180 people plus who are now dead that means mothers without are suspects who were out on multiple bonds in Harris County. On multiple bonds in this failed system of, well, as one of the commissioners said, Commissioner Ellison said, that the true victims of our society today are the accused. So if you get arrested for viciously beating someone up, not the person who was beat up is the victim. The one who beat them up, the assaulter, that person is the one that the majority thinks is the true victim of society today. And that's backwards. We're now living in a time in Harris County to where wrong is said to be right, up is down, down is up.

And whenever they say the words transparency, well, something is being hidden. Like our, you know, not only are they soft on crime, it appears now that they'd like to commit it. Three members of the judge's staff are now under indictment. Maybe soft on crime is a self-preservation tactic. So you yourself are up for re-election this year and unfortunately I think for you there was a change in the way the districts were drawn in Harris County. You were surprised I believe I was at that commissioners court meeting where they announced what the maps would be so now you have an entirely new precinct. What is your strategy for winning re-election this November?

Redistricting is a good thing. It allows you to preserve one person, one vote. And because precincts three and four have been growing, the Republican precincts, more people have been moving there, we needed to reallocate our votes and needed to move 200,000 people instead the majority moved 2.3 million people in essence they swapped our two precincts and the purpose was to commit harm but I got to tell you what they intended for evil I think God intends for good I'm before I was a commissioner I was a commissioner, I was a judge. Before I was a judge, I was a trial lawyer. I'm sort of wired for a good fight, and I've not had a good political fight in 10 years. So I'm out there doing two breakfasts, two lunches, three dinners,

meeting all of these new folks and cramming into 11 months, 11 years of service and trying to make sure that we give people good service, that I consistently vote because the issues that people care about in the new precinct is they don't like being robbed. Crime, crime, crime. I've consistently fought against people's taxes being raised without their consent. Part of the whole reason why the redistricting occurred was Judge Hidalgo said, don't be a Berean, look it up yourself. But in Commissioner's Court, she said that she didn't like my party's race to the bottom with regard to taxes.

In other words, all of your money is their money, and I and Commissioner Ramsey deserve to be eliminated because we were in the way of them of spending your money. And so those issues are universal issues. The campaign is going quite well as long as I keep focusing on less government, reasonable government, help our law enforcement, use, you know, our local law enforcement. They know what they need. But instead, the majority says we're smarter on crime than you guys and try to follow the patterns of Chicago. Well, Chicago doesn't work. And now they've been successful. That's the best practices. We now have a crime rate or murder rate that's almost higher

than Chicago's from month to month. Wow. And is it correct that county commissioners in a three to two partisan vote only voted to approve something like 18 percent of what law enforcement requested for this next budget cycle? Yes. And it was almost hilarious at the time because when we were sitting there arguing that they needed, you know, we're going to approve 52 million dollars for early childhood education, but deny 82% of what our local law enforcement asked for. And when I pressed Judge Hidalgo on it, she said that we couldn't fund law enforcement the way they requested. Otherwise, we were going to cause tuberculosis. And that kind of shook me a little bit. I think what she was trying to say is that all of these initiatives that they have in the public health area and all these other things were going to be reduced. Now, we're at 180-plus dead people due to violent crime on repeat offenders. And I haven't had a chance to find out how many people in Harris County have died of tuberculosis.

But I'm kind of thinking that the average citizen would much rather not be robbed, shot, or killed than have the risk of possibly in a number of years of having tuberculosis. And is it not true that now you had to... I'm in favor of stopping tuberculosis. Of course, of course. We don't want tuberculosis to resurge, right? But it seems like it's been a while since we've seen it. That's a pretty big stretch. Yes.

That's not the urgent issue that's harming us today. Now, since that budget was approved, you have had to come back and add some funds to some of those agencies. Is that not correct? I believe recently the district attorney's office and perhaps the sheriff's office. Well, we now actually have violent crime occurring in the jail against the jailers as well as against other inmates. That's unacceptable. Young man with autism murdered in the jail. Another gentleman murdered in the jail. Violent assault against one of the police officers in the jail. They are woefully understaffed. It's not safe for the quote-unquote accused or for those who are also in those same facilities.

And so we were able in the last commissioner's court to finally get the majority to approve another 100 positions. They needed 300. Again, somehow there's this myth or this idea set that if you add more officers to help do their job, that somehow or another that that's going to be harmful for the accused. And that's not the case. The accused, if you believe that their rights are more important than the victims, if you take that as your premise, don't you want them to be safe when they're in your jail? Sure. Well, very good.

Well, thank you so much for your time. We wish you the best in your upcoming election and look forward to covering you more at Harris County Commissioner's Court. And Holly Hanson is an awesome journalist. you, hiring you, and allowing you to do the great work that you do in covering the madness and insanity of Harris County Commissioner's Court. Thank you, Connie Burton, for giving us honest, fair, truthful, and timely coverage of Commissioner's Court through Holly Hanson. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

All right. Hello, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, reporter with The Texan. I've got State Rep. Cody Vesut here from Angleton. We're going to talk about the state legislature next year. Cody, how are you doing? I'm doing just fine, Brad. Glad to be here.

Yeah, thanks for being here. And we're at the Texas GOP convention. A lot of people walking around, a lot of stuff going on. Chairman Matt Rinaldi has already won re-election to his chairmanship with no opposition. So that's the latest big thing that's happened. But, Cody, going into the session next year, obviously it's a long way off, but I don't think you have an opponent, right? I do not. Yeah, so you have a lot of time to prepare.

Yes, sir. What are you keeping your eye on as we get closer to the legislative session? You know, we're putting together a legislative package right now. And as you know, things are fluid because issues continue to arise. But I think you're going to see legislation on gender modification, banning that. I'm going to do several bills there. I don't know if I'll be the main one that carries them, but we're going to file what we can. Property taxes, I'm going to file a bill to, one, to eliminate and replace property taxes, another to reform the property tax system.

And I might do three. On that property tax one, how similar is that to the TPPF buy down with the surplus money? Is that what you're thinking? I'll do one that's a buy down of the school district M&O. I'll also do one that is just a complete elimination of all property taxes 10 years out. Now, the reason you might say, well, you do it 10 years out, that doesn't solve the problem right now. But you got to remember what we're dealing with, the way the house works. One, we've got headwinds of a fiscal note. Two, we've got headwinds of any counter note two we've got headwinds of any

counter proposal you put forward they're going to come out of the woodwork and criticize whatever it is and so i think if you just do a bill that eliminates it in 10 years and you force then the legislature to come up with a solution they'll be more apt to do so so i think you've got to hold their feet to the fire gotcha okay anything. Anything else you're about to say? Yeah. I've got a bill that we're trying to work up about increasing transparency. We talk about parental control, and we talk about our school boards, and we know how important those school board races have been. Well, you have to track money at school board race levels too

to see who's influencing the people that influence your kids. And it's really hard to access that information right now. You have to go to each individual school district, pull the data. Sometimes you have to pay a fee. I think it ought to be available on the Texas Ethics Commission website and searchable, just like my finance reports are. You can fill them out right now on the Ethics Commission website as a school board member. You just click the file button.

That's literally the only change. And so I think that will go a long way to giving transparency. We've got a host of other things, parental rights. No, stay on that topic real quick. Here's Briscoe Cain. This is Briscoe Cain. Briscoe Cain. You're talking about local stuff.

So I think transparency in local elections I think will help. But also, how about making them register as lobbyists? So you've got to register as lobbyists in Texas when you're taking meetings with members of the executive and legislative branch in the state. Correct. And spending certain amounts of money. Well, they're doing that on the local level, right? They're meeting with members of the legislative branch, city council, school board, the executive, superintendent, mayor. They're spending money on it.

Yes. They're getting their deals done, their bonds, their expenditures, their buildings, all these funds. And we're not tracking it. I think it could also be another way of reining in the influence behind our school board races about building these massive Taj Mahals and other things and where the money's going. And so I think it fits in well. Track the reports. Track the lobbies. I mean, I think that's a great idea.

Briscoe, he's dropping and going. He's dropping and going. We only have legislative brainstorming in real life going on. I think that's a great idea. Briscoe, he's dropping and going. He's dropping and going. We only have legislative brainstorming in real life going on. I think that's a great idea. Is there a quorum requirement for that? No, no, no. You know, actually, there are some quorum requirements for committee stuff, and I wonder if committees have too many Republican members if we run into any issues here.

I don't know. That's here or there. But I guess you're alluding to, I think, maybe a question about quorum. That's the next topic, yeah. So last year, obviously, the Democrats broke quorum twice, one of them flying to D.C. for a month. You filed a bill to rein in, to set quorum requirements and punishments for breaking quorum. Tell us about that a bit, and is that going to resurface next year? I'm going to refile them all.

And I think where we run into with the Constitution is the 100 vote threshold. I think it's a very simple concept that Texans can all get behind. If you were elected to serve in the Texas House, you better show up and do your job. And it's a pretty simple thing. We're only one of four states that have a two-thirds quorum requirement. I think it's to our detriment. So I'd love to lower it to a majority. But I think in the practical sense of what we can get across the finish line with 76 votes is some rule changes, automatic penalties that take into effect if you break quorum. We're going to pursue those.

So I think you'd be well to pay attention to the early days of session when rules come up. That is something that I'm going to push, and we're not going to back down on it. There will be mechanisms that we're going to pursue to hold them accountable. We can't do anything this next session for what happened last, unfortunately, and I disagreed with that. I thought we should have held them accountable last time, but we can certainly change the rules going forward to make it less likely happen again. Yeah. One of those things, one of those punishments that you laid out in the bill was, I believe, stripping chairmanships from anyone that participated in that. Obviously, Democratic chairmen in the House is a big topic.

Many of the people that went were chairmen that broke quorum. So that would have applied to them. Absolutely. Is that something that you think is going to be another aspect of the punishment for a bill you file? Everything is on the table. My proposal that I'll file will be very similar to what I did the last time, which has a graduated system, which is, I'll give you some details. Those details may change, but approximately 24 hours you get a fine, 48 hours you lose your chairmanship, something of that nature,

something at a graduated scale that has as its chief objective not so much to punish but as to get them back in their seats so that we can get back to work. But if they're not going to do their job, then accountability needs to happen. And I think stripping chairmanships from people that break quorum and refuse to return is entirely appropriate. Gotcha. Okay. Well, Cody, anything else you want to touch on there? Man, I appreciate you having me out here. It's an honor to get to serve in the Texas House. I love the Republican Party of Texas Convention.

This is a great place for grassroots ideas to find their wings in many cases. And the Freedom Caucus, one of the main reasons I'm a part of it is because we are devoted to advancing the legislative priorities of the Republican Party. I'm anxious to see what those are, and we'll get to work. We will file legislation on every single legislative priority. I may even do that myself. It's an important thing, and I'm anxious to see what the delegates come up with. They're hashing out right now the list of legislative priorities. I believe they'll finish on like 8 maybe.

At least that's what they did last time. So we'll see how it shakes out. But, Cody, thanks for stopping by. We appreciate you talking with us. Thanks for having me. Hello, everyone. This is Brad Johnson, reporter with the Texan News. I've got Railroad Commission Chairman Wayne Christian here with me. Wayne, how's it going? Honored to be with you, my friend. Thank you for the work that you do, and God bless America and Texas. Yeah, thanks for coming by. We're excited to have you. First, let's talk about Texas Oil and Gas.

Railroad Commission, as you mentioned in your speech earlier, has nothing to do with the railroads, but it regulates oil and gas in Texas. What is, in relation to everything going on internationally and nationally, what is Texas's oil and gas production role, and what do you see coming in the future? Right now, Texas is the hope for the free world because of our oil and gas. If we were a nation, we would be number three in the world currently in oil and gas production. Pre-COVID, we were about 40% of national production. If today we're taking national production in America, we're 60%. I'm getting calls at the commission that because we have the only open LNG ports along the Gulf of Mexico,

we have more of them in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and through the Gulf of Mexico through Texas, we are the only hope now for Europe to get a loose from Putin's hold with that natural gas pipeline that Joe Biden had him to build that Donald Trump killed. So all this is turning to the point that people's eyes are on Texas. I'm getting calls from Florida near Merlago that's saying Texas is the only hope we have to bail out the rest of the world. If it weren't for the decision we made in Texas several years back to not limit the production of oil and gas in Texas at the Railroad Commission, we made that decision.

Proration. Proration. It was a proration issue. And we were being forced. I had companies telling us we were going to destroy the oil and gas industry. We had a 10-and-a-half-hour Zoom conference on that issue. I think there were several hundred countries, 49 states. We had, I think, 100-plus people testifying. And we were told we were going to completely destroy the oil and gas industry if we did not prorate. And I looked around.

I said, hey, we're conservatives. And I remember what Connie and the rest of us have been working for for decades and that's the free market always does a better job than big brother government so we made a decision not to prorate immediately the price of west Texas intermediate went from a negative number to positive and has gone up since so the the idea of big brother government is the enemy in America today and it's's the enemy that our dear president, who is not as cognitively impaired as people put him out to be, because if he only comes to once a month and see what he's done to our country in a year and a half, he is an evil tyrant, and he is an enemy to free market in a lot of different directions,

but stopping oil and gas is his current mission. Quickly, what's the role of the commission in this, and how do you incentivize more production to come out? Well, we take rules and regulation down, move big brother government away. We literally go in and rein in the bad guys or bad actors, which are very small, very minute. We also fight the media. We fight these people that say, oh, we're tarnishing the entire world.

One example was Flaring. You've heard of the media Flaring? Yep. They shut down Mr. Larry Fink of BlackRock Financial. Their efforts at ESG, Environmental, Social, and Governance Funds, have closed 90% of the funding from Wall Street the last five years. We're getting only 10% of the money to go in and expand oil and gas. So that shut us down. Biden administration shut down oil and gas production. So I feel our job at the

Railroad Commission is get the truth out there. Dirty oil and gas. Do you know the Railroad Commission of Texas this year alone has received four environmental awards nationally, state, from our universities. We in Texas, when they go back in this whole Green New Deal, this whole slant on American oil, gas, and coal fossil fuels is dirty and destroying the environment, is the biggest scam and hoax in the history of the United States of use of machinery, tripling the population over the last 50 years, 77% decrease in every poisonous gas they have. Let me give you, you were mentioning earlier about what we do as the Railroad Commission. Okay, they were saying we were destroying the world, the atmosphere with flaring gases. It was on television everywhere.

Wall Street was shutting off funding to Texas. France stopped buying LNG because flaring was destroying the environment. Flaring two and a half years ago, pre-COVID, was 2.7% of all natural gas in the state of Texas being produced was being flared. It reduced during COVID to 1.8% just because of lack of use. Then after the storm, January of last year, flaring in Texas as a percentage of all the oil and gas produced was seven-tenths of one percent. Mid-year's half a percent. Currently, less than two-tenths of one percent of natural gas is being flared. Yet the scam of the Greenies, the lies of the media, the eyes of all these organizations are saying flaring is destroying the atmosphere,

and they've shut down again 90% of dollars. So that's how we're being beat up is by these financial corps and this lie of the Green New Deal. Last one for you real quick. You got a race in November against Democrat Luke Warford in 2020. Michael Bloomberg put in $2.7 million to that Democrat's race and failed. What's in store for November for you? I hope that we win, but there's only two ways you run a race that's scared or unopposed, and I am currently opposed. And to sit back and think, well, because of Joe Biden and the destruction he's done to our society in this last year,

it's going to be safe, I think is a very fraudulent place to be. Right now, you mentioned Bloomberg put in $2.7 million in the last railroad commission race. They now have organized what they call this dark money organization. It's got a commission shift, I think is the name of it. And these Bloombergs, Soros's, others can now attack with dark money. Nobody knows where the money's coming from. And this organization can do press releases, all this other campaign against us in much more money than that. So I do not take this as an easy ride. I think the good Lord gave Texas the largest amount of oil and gas in the history of the world is sitting in West Texas. And we are stewards of that. And we have got to make sure and make people understand we are the cleanest industrial environment on planet Earth.

And in this campaign, my job is to stay in a position that I can fight it. I'm glad that I wrote for the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, where I was elected the chairman, first vice chair, a couple years ago. I authored 60% of all the resolutions against the Green New Deal, ESG, and other things. I want to keep fighting. And so that's where I need people's help, and I think Texas needs to remain Texas. Well, in Texas, this is one of the most important races. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. Chairman, thank you for joining

us today and good luck the rest of the way. Honored to be here. Thank you for the work you do. Appreciate it. Hello everybody, this is Brad Johnson, reporter with the Texan. I've got State Rep Matt Schaefer of Tyler here with me. Matt, how's it going? Great, man. It's good to be here. Good to see everybody at the convention.

This is a big setup. It's a lot of people here and a lot of stuff going on. Well, people from all over the state. I actually got to go pop into a Senate District Convention caucus meeting from Dallas County where they don't have any Republican elected officials in the legislature. So they invited me to come over and actually talk to them and get them pumped up a little bit. So that was kind of fun. Okay. Yeah. You're East Texas right up there. And anyway, so what we want to talk to you about today is something, a tragic issue, obviously, Uvalde.

There was the shooting last month. Nineteen children died, two teachers. And it has sparked a debate about guns, as every other shooting has. So I want to talk to you about what Texas law is like regarding guns, especially with schools. So if you could tell us, give us kind of a background on what is actually on the books here in Texas on that issue. First of all, anybody who's not authorized by the school district is essentially committing a third-degree felony at a minimum for setting foot inside a building or in the grounds of a public school with a firearm, right? So if you're not specifically authorized, you're committing a very serious crime. So we already have very strong laws in place with respect to unauthorized people in firearms at public schools. Now, with respect to the teachers and staff, the state of Texas

has had something for many years, going back decades, called the Guardian Program. And it's not really a formal statute. It's simply a framework, a compilation of laws that allow the school districts to handpick teachers or staff to get training and to carry a firearm on campus. Now, this is not something where you're compelling teachers who don't want to carry a gun to do so. No, these are teachers or staff who have a background check, they have the right temperament, they have the ability, they're willing to go through all the training, and they're willing to do what they need to do. That has been going on in the state of Texas for a very, very long time, going back decades, and with great success on the schools that have been doing it. And by success, I mean they've not had any accidental discharges

or crimes committed by those teachers or staff members. They've had a very clean record as far as the way they've performed in that. With respect to what happened in Uvalde, I think there's a lot of fact-finding that still needs to be done, a lot of misinformation, sort of the fog of war there's a lot of fact-finding that still needs to be done, a lot of misinformation, sort of the fog of war that's coming out of that situation. But I think as the after-action reports come out, we need to see what happened. And one of the first questions I want to ask is, you know, why wasn't some authorized person, some staff member, some campus police officer, someone armed on that campus who could have

been there when it began. And it's my understanding that there was no one there when it initially happened. So I think we're well past the time in our nation's history where you can have any public school campus that has no person there who is armed in order to provide security. Those days are gone. And so the authorization exists to do that in the state of Texas, and certainly I would encourage school boards to take a look at that. It's an unfortunate reality for not only Texas but every state in the United States. Do we know how many teachers actually do this across the state? Is that kept?

Well, we don't have actual good reporting because there's a lot of flexibility in the law. The schools don't all, under the Guardian program, they don't have actual good reporting because there's a lot of flexibility in the law the schools don't all under the guardian program they don't have a formal reporting process under the school marshal program which is which is set in statute and it's more uh it has more red tape but it's a more formal structure uh you still have a small minority of overall schools that are doing it but that number has been growing over the last few years. That number grew since the Santa Fe shooting in Texas. And so I know that in my district where I live, there are schools that are doing this. Yeah. One of the responses to this that we saw at the federal level be suggested by a bipartisan group of senators, including Texas Senator John Cornyn, is a compilation of suggestions

of appropriations. One of those is supplying money to help states implement red flag laws. That issue has kind of come up previously in Texas. It went nowhere. What is your opinion of a red flag law program in Texas? I have such strong feelings about this. One, I think to say to the, I want to say to the federal government right now, you can pound sand, okay? We have strong laws on the books in the state of Texas regarding the misuse of firearms already. And in fact, if you look at our health and safety code in a mental health crisis, we've already got some laws that are in place in the state of Texas. We have a lot of tools that are in place in the state of Texas. We have a lot of tools that our law enforcement already has,

even under asset forfeiture, certainly under bond conditions when someone's been accused of a crime, in family violence situations, you have restraining orders. There are a variety of tools that are available to law enforcement and to the courts to take weapons away from people who are deemed dangerous. That's already the case today. But the idea that John Cornyn would create a financial incentive, which will now be a bribe to the states, which will never go away. They'll put that in the federal budget and it'll never go away. It'll be year after year, session after

session, they'll come to say, why aren't you taking this money for these so-called red flag laws? To me, it's the height of a betrayal of the rights of Texans. Because a red flag law at its core is conditioned on a set of circumstances where no crime has been committed. Because if a crime has been committed, or if a crime has been alleged, you're now into the Code of Criminal Procedure. You're now into the Penal Code. You're now into cops. You already have all those books in place. And so really you're talking about something that is a pre-crime act based on subjective evidence. And where does that go? You look at the mental health professionals in this country

that are telling 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds to take life-altering hormone therapy that could harm them the rest of their lives, or even to have their genitals removed surgically. I don't trust them with this type of advice. We also see the politicization of these kinds of accusations. Well, you see the religion of the climate change movement and how people will go to extreme measures if they believe you're doing something to harm the environment. You may just have people who have a different viewpoint about the environment, a different viewpoint about

marriage or gender or sexuality. And others on the political side of the spectrum would say, well, that is an extreme point of view. You actually have a violent viewpoint. You actually want to harm others with those viewpoints, so why don't we use the force of government to make sure you're disarmed? So, Warren, it's very dangerous what they're trying to do to be able to take someone's Second Amendment right away from them,

having not committed a crime, having not been accused of committing a crime, and then tell them, you've got to pay money, you've got to go to court to prove that you should get your Second Amendment rights back. It's un-American, it's unconstitutional, and it should be resisted with the greatest force possible. Guns are a big issue for you. You authored the constitutional carry bill last year. So especially after the shooting, this is going to continue to be an issue, whether it's school hardening or a push from Democrats for some sort of gun control. So we'll be watching as you guys reconvene next year.

Anything else you want to say about the legislature next year when you guys reconvene? Well, we've got a lot of priorities that we need to look at. Economic, property taxes, energy policy. The state of Texas needs to try to incentivize nuclear power, a lot of things to get our energy costs to come back down. We've got to resist the ESG effort that was really harmful. We've got a number of fronts that we're going to have to be playing defense on, but we'll also

have to play offense on some things as well. Well, we'll see how it shakes out. Representative Schaefer, thanks for stopping by. Thank you for having me. Hello, everyone. This is Brad Johnson with the Texan. I've got Representative Steve Toth of the Woodlands here with me. Steve, how's it going? Good, Brad. It's fun to be with you, buddy. Yeah, thanks for coming here. And we're at the Republican Party of Texas Convention.

Steve, I want to talk to you about a couple of things coming down the pipe. So first of all, school safety. That's a big issue for you. Sure. I think you're going to lay out some sort of plan, at least in the near future, on that, on something you want to do. What kind of things do you think Texas, especially after the Uvalde shooting, can do to harden its schools? You know, we used to believe in the Republican Party in this thing called personal responsibility. We used to believe that inanimate objects were not capable of jumping off the desk or coming out of someone's pocket or coming out of someone's gun safe and shooting somebody.

We used to believe that evil people did evil things. And now we're getting behind red flag laws, which we have plenty of red flag laws in the state of Texas that we're already ignoring. We use, you know, or decreasing the size of a magazine. I mean, you've probably shot an AR. You've probably shot a hunting rifle. You've probably shot a 9mm, which, you know, Joe Biden says will blow your lungs out, which is the most ridiculous thing I think I've ever heard. How long does it take to drop a

magazine and put a new one in? A second? Is this going to do anything to make our schools safer? Of course it's not, but it's great virtue signaling by the left, and I don't understand why we as Republicans are engaging in it, because we're giving parents and children and teachers a false sense of security that we just made our schools safer when, in fact, we didn't do anything. If we want to make schools safer, we've got to get rid of Senate Bill 393, which came out of the 83rd legislative session. And what it basically enabled schools to do is to warehouse violent children.

In an attempt, Democrats, in an attempt to break, to disrupt, if you will, the schoolhouse, the jailhouse pipeline, they said if a kid is guilty of a misdemeanor, he is to be left out of the hands of law enforcement. The problem now is that because of TASB, everything is a misdemeanor. So I was just talking with... The Texas Association of School Boards. Texas Association of School Boards. So I was just talking with a woman that heard about School Boards. Texas Association of School Boards.

So I was just talking with a woman that heard about my bill, and she said, Steve, she said, my kid was sitting right next to a school shooter. This is a violent kid. He's had problems with the law. I mean, he's had problems with the school system. The law doesn't know who he is. So he threatens to shoot the school up, which, okay, does he have a gun? Yep, check that box.

Does he have a plan? Yep, check that box. This kid fits the profile, basically, of the Uvalde shooter, of the Parkland shooter, of the Santa Fe shooter. And you know where he is today? He's right back in the classroom sitting right next to that woman's daughter. So what did she do? She pulled her kids out of the school. Why? Because some woke, stupid superintendent and school board believe it's more important for that kid to get an education than to take him out and keep the rest of the kids safe.

I can't count the number of teachers that have come to me and said that they have been physically or verbally abused, assaulted in the past year. I mean, bullying is at an all-time high. The problem is that the left will say, oh, these statistics are dropping. Not if you ask the teachers, the number of reports of bullying, the number of reports of assaults on teachers is going down for the very simple reason that ISDs across the United States are not reporting them. But if you ask teachers if you've been reporting, if you've been assaulted, if you ask kids if they've been bullied, it went from, believe it or not, 30% of children three years ago report to being bullied in the last 30 days

to 60% now three years later in the past 30 days. So it's definitely on the rise. It's on the rise because we're not taking these problem children out of the classroom. We either have to reach them, and if we can't reach them, we need to remove them. Okay. So on another much different issue that you have announced some legislation that you will file once you guys reconvene in 2023, ESG, Environmental Social Governance Business Policy. Why is this such a big issue to you, and what's a way that Texas can... Texas needs to stand against this, so it's killing the oil and gas industry,

and it's been frustrating to hear these discussions with the mainstream media and the Biden administration about why we're not a net exporter like we were under Trump. We're not a net exporter because the biden administration has basically told the treasury who's basically told wall street you're not to loan money to oil and gas companies you're not to loan money to banks that deal with them you're not to loan money to insurance companies that back them so we've gone from basically 40 to 50 funds that would fund oil and gas exploration back in 2016 to about 10. We've gone from $46.9 billion in funding for oil and gas back in 16 to about $4.2 billion. And so you wonder why we're not drilling wells right now?

It's because these small and medium-sized oil and gas companies can't get money. And if they can get money, they can't get an insurance company to come out and underwrite their well. broadly speaking, is this trend within portfolio managers and bankers of refusing to underwrite loans or insurance policies for anything with fossil fuels. Right, anything. But here's the funny thing. The left claims to care so much about the environment, but the E, the environment, is a small E. It's a capital S.

Environmental social governance, right? This is about wokeness. This is about ending white privilege. This is about equity. This is about inclusion. This is about diversity. This is about LGBTQ policy for all these companies. The S is significantly bigger now than the E and the G. And I'm sure that will play out in the legislature when you guys reconvene.

We look forward to watching that occur. And Steve, thanks for coming on. Yeah, you bet, buddy. Thanks. Take care, Brad. Good morning, this is Holly Hanson with the Texan News. I'm here this morning with Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey. He is one of two Republicans on the five-member Harris County Commissioner's Court. Harris County is the most populous county in the state of Texas.

And today I'd like to ask you, Commissioner, about public safety. Probably the topic I'm hearing people from both sides of the aisle discuss this year is the rising crime issue in Harris County. But we're hearing dueling narratives about how the county is approaching public safety. On the one hand, we hear that law enforcement is not getting enough funds. We've even heard that from the Democrat district attorney. On the other hand, we're told that the county is spending more than ever on public safety in the past two years. So can you help us understand the difference in those narratives and what's happening at the county level?

Sure. It's good to see you this morning. I tell you that the top three problems in Harris County today are crime, crime, and crime. And when we think about what policies do to impact that, you don't have to go very far other than the judges. You look at the judges and what they are doing on the low bonds. Currently, over 170 folks have been murdered by a violent offender who was let out of jail on a low or no bond for no good reason. So we start there but it's not just that. There are other parts of that it has to do with funding. When you look at the funding of law enforcement within Harris County, we do not listen to the experts that would tell us what they need.

I consider law enforcement in Harris County the sheriff, the constable, the DA, and the fire marshal. When they came with their budget request this year, we only funded 18% of what they asked for. Let me say that another way. 82% we rejected. So they'll tell you we're spending more on law enforcement, whether they are not telling you the whole story in terms of we are in the middle of a crime-demic, we need to put more resources into it and they refuse to listen to the experts. Very good. We also heard last week that there was a lawsuit that the deputies

organization filed against the county regarding the sheriff's, excuse me, the jail. And I know you can't really talk about pending litigation litigation but there was some conflict last week about whether or not that case was still pending. Could you answer that question? Do you know if that case is still pending against the county? I don't know whether it is or not. Seemed like I heard something in terms of there was movement on it. I'm not sure exactly what the status of that is but I think that's an indication that when the sheriff comes and he asked for certain things and we only give them 18% of what they asked for this is what happens the other thing that I would say when you look at the detention we have the largest jail in probably America in terms of a county terms of the county, and we have to almost reinforce the budget every other month.

This past meeting, we had to give another $7 million to the sheriff in order to take care of the overwhelming needs within the sheriff's office, but the radicals on court refuse to listen. They think they know better. And what we need to do is get a focus on what the problem is and solve the problem. And then if you want to get creative after that, that's fine. Commissioner, last week you introduced a measure to create a safe schools commission here in Harris County in the wake of the Uvalde shooting and some of the concerns that citizens have about what's going on in schools and the access that gunmen may have to to those

schools. Can you tell us a little bit about that commission? Yes there are people out there that are saying well the solution lies in Austin or the solution lies in Washington and they'll be those conversations but school starts the second week of August and so we need to know what they need in order to properly open and be safe I trust the school districts there's 25 school districts in Harris County they all are right now I think scrambling a bit to get ready for school coming up in the second week in August. The commission has been organized with five members, very few people,

and we're going to essentially meet from July the 1st to August the 1st. And we're going to gather up all the good thoughts and measures that the schools are having, share that with them, and if there's anything there that we may be able to help fund or provide resources for we will but at least we ought to get on a piece of paper what the schools private schools and public schools what do they need in order to properly open in uh in in the middle of august there very good and i understand that is one of the occasions on which a proposal from Commissioner Ramsey, a Republican on the court, passed unanimously. Is that correct? That's correct. It's right up there with Moses, part in the Red Sea. It was quite the, it was encouraging, I will

tell you that, that we can all agree that we need to have safe schools and so I think that's a that's a positive and I will be encouraged with that. Excellent. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Okay. Thank you. Hello, everyone. This is Brad Johnson, reporter with The Texan. I'm here with State Rep Matt Krause from Fort Worth. Matt, how's it going? It's great. How about you? Yeah, it's going well. Thanks for being here.

Absolutely. Matt will not be returning to the legislature next time. He ran for first Attorney General and then ran for Tarrant County DA unsuccessfully. But we're going to review Matt's time in the legislature, see what you think about how many years was it that you were in there? Ten. Ten. A decade in the state legislature. Well, you know, what do you think are some of your biggest accomplishments in your time there? Yeah, absolutely.

It's been an incredible honor, honestly, when you think about very few people have ever in the history of Texas been able to sit on that floor and do the things that we got to do. When you think about there's 32 million, 33 million people in Texas, only 150 of them get to do what I was privileged to do the last 10 years. It's really an unbelievable honor. So, but in those 10 years, we were able to do a lot of stuff, especially on the pro-life front. The heartbeat bill was kind of one of the huge capstones to the entire, that's one of the animating principles that got me into public service in the first place was that pro-life issue.

Something you guys had been working on for many years. That's exactly right. And finally got across the line. That's exactly right. Another one is the Second Amendment sanctuary state. I'd been working on that since I came in in 2013. We finally got that across the line, which has become into a lot more focus now with Washington, D.C. pushing a lot of potential gun control measures that I think might violate constitutional rights and the Second Amendment rights of Texans. So that's huge. Spending cap bill. I'd been working on that for several sessions. We finally got that across the finish line this last time. And then a host of religious

liberty, election integrity, border security type issues, whether it's banning sanctuary cities, whether it's cleaning up our election code, ensuring churches and people can stay open and worship the way they want to. So on a host of different levels, I feel like hopefully the last 10 years we've made Texas a better, freer, much more prosperous state to live and work and play. Now we launched in 2019 and the first time I remember seeing you on the floor was the Save the Chick-fil-A bill. That's right. And that was, it had a bit of a rocky path, but you guys passed it. That's exactly right. And that is one, at least one of your marquee bills that you got done. That's right. That's right. And I always called it the First Amendment Defense Act because nobody should ever be punished or penalized

because who they support from a religious perspective, what church they go to, what things they donate to or associate with. And we saw that real-life example down in San Antonio that they didn't want to extend a contract to Chick-fil-A because they'd given to such bigoted and awful organizations like the Salvation Army. And so once we got there, it was absurd. And we'd been pushing that for a while, but it really came into focus when you had that Chick-fil-A versus San Antonio issue. And I was glad we were able to use that opportunity to show people this is a real-world issue. We need to take action on it.

So outside of legislation, what are some of your takeaways from your time in the legislature in terms of how things get done, what are the difficulties, what are the easy things that you can do? Just give us a review of that. That's right. I think what I've been telling a lot of the incoming freshmen, we've got a lot of great ones. And actually, the guy taking House District 93, Nate Schatzlein, young guy, energy, passionate,

he's going to do a great job. So we've been talking a lot about what to expect. And I always tell them, manage your expectations because you want to come in. You want to change the world that first session. But there's only so much bandwidth in a session. There's only so much emphasis placed on certain issues. So manage those expectations. But also cultivate relationships.

And that's how a lot of things get done in the Texas House. I know it's frustrating to a lot of people. It should only be about policy. And at the end of the day, we need to make sure we're having good policy. But if you don't take the time to build those relationships, it makes those policies a lot harder to come by. And so I encourage everybody coming in new, take the time to build those relationships with people you agree with, with people you don't agree with, because those relationships help you later on as you're trying to push your legislative policies. What was the hardest thing about being in the legislature? For me personally, it was being away from the family. I've got a beautiful wife. I've got five

incredible kids. I like being with them. I think they like being around me. And so being away from them so much, especially every other year from January through May. And if you ask them, they loved dad being in the Texas house. My wife was incredibly supportive. But I think they all said, just like the Bible says, there's a season for everything. Ten years is a long time to serve the state of Texas in this role. We've been able to do that. So they're ready for Dad to get home, for their husband to be home.

So that was by far the hardest thing is just being away from the family and the sacrifices you had to make there. I remember seeing your kids got to go up at the Speaker's Dias and gavel in, I believe. That's right. There's a spitting image of you. That's right. I couldn't tell who was who while you were standing up there. What was by far and away the best thing for you about legislature?

I think kind of what you were just talking about, that unique opportunity to give your family some of those experiences most other kids and most other families don't get to have. I mean, how many kids have actually gotten to gavel in a session or gotten to be on the house floor when you're debating bills and things like that? So there's unique experiences and blessings that you've gotten being in the state house that most people don't get to experience. And I would say kind of the fraternity of the house. I'm going to miss that as well. Played sports growing up,ved playing sports. And there's a certain kind of camaraderie that you build in that crucible of a sports team. You can't really replicate that many other plays except for the house. You're there for a long time together, long hours, stressful times, joyful times, frustrating times. And so it's just a unique environment and experience that you can't really replicate anywhere else. And now I feel like I know people all over the state, whether it's El Paso, Amarillo, Lubbock, East Texas, South Texas,

Central Texas. I know somebody in each part of the state that I can call and ever say, hey, what's it like over there? Are you ever getting an issue or need anything? So that's kind of unique as well, knowing somebody from all over the state, having those friendships and relationships. And that's something I'm certainly going to miss. Last one for you. What's next for you? That's a great question. We're taking applications now.

So everybody said, what happens if you lose? I'm such an optimist. I always feel like we're going to win. And we had that kind of burn the ships kind of mentality of, hey, we're all in 100%. So after the last election results and the runoff didn't go our way, we're kind of reassessing now. And so there will be an opportunity out there. But I told my wife, if we can impact the culture, advance the kingdom, and provide for the family, that's what I'll feel good about doing. So that's what we're looking to do, and we'll see where we go from there.

And at the very least, you get to spend more time with the family in the meantime. Exactly. And that's a win above everything else. So it's going to be great. Well, State Rep Krause, thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you for the work y'all are doing. Appreciate you. Thank you for the work y'all are doing. Appreciate you.

This is Hayden Sparks. I am here with Congressman Chip Roy, a Republican of Texas. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Great to be with you, Hayden. Yeah, great to be here at the convention. Great to be in Texas. I got up this morning, flew from D.C., so great. Good to be here. Excellent. Last time we spoke, we talked about the border, and you indicated that Governor Abbott should shut down the border. CBP just reported nearly a quarter million encounters with illegal immigrants in May. But Governor Abbott has said he's expressed two concerns with shutting down the border,

and I want to give you a chance to respond to those. Sure. First, that local police in Texas could be prosecuted and that if they are expelled, they'll just come right back over the border. You're an accomplished prosecutor and lawyer. How would you respond to those arguments? Yeah, well, first of all, there's a number of different things we're talking about. Let's first talk about what the state of the border is, right? Because that's actually the underlying issue.

This administration is refusing, flat out refusing to secure the border. They're intentionally and purposely doing it, and they're endangering Texas and endangering migrants and endangering ranchers, empowering cartels. You just said about a quarter million apprehensions this last month. We are now pushing three million apprehensions during this administration. We are now at 800 and something thousand gotaways throughout the duration of this administration. And we had 107,000 people die from overdoses and fentanyl poisonings. And so we're truly under assault and the cartels are empowered. So the question is, what do we do about it when the administration refuses? They're allowing asylum laws to be the exception that swallows our border security rules.

So what do we do? I don't believe that we, Texas, should be standing back and allowing this to occur until we get another Republican president, Lord willing, in two and a half years. Because, first of all, we've got to make that happen. In the meantime, Texas is dealing with this every single day. 2,000 people crossing every day that are the known gotaways, right? 8,000 every day that are being apprehended. They're turning themselves in. So yes, we should empower Texas to deal with the invasion. It is an invasion, declared an invasion, operate like it's an invasion. Now, what I will tell you is the governor isn't wrong that there

is a risk of what will happen to law enforcement individuals. And he is the chief executive. He's the one who has to deal with that risk. If he does that, we've seen that 19 cops in Austin have been persecuted by the radical leftists in Austin because they were doing their job during the riots. You send DPS, you send law enforcement out of the border and have them do the job Border Patrol is supposed to do. And most of them are going to get hauled into court under civil rights violations I mean you know sued by the radical left and they're going to pay for that and deal with that so we do need a plan to deal with that in Texas I do think the governor's right to raise those concerns but it doesn't mean we don't declare an invasion it doesn't mean we don't do what's necessary to secure the border we need to reconcile those issues and have that conversation.

One final point. We've actually had some success, limited, based on the fact that the governor instituted the inspections. That is slowing down the traffic. Mexico was freaking out because of that. We shouldn't abandon that strategy. If they aren't going to work with us, if they're not going to stop the flow, shut down I-35.

Now, I know that hurts Texans. I get it. I understand the election year. I don't want to shut it down. We've got inflation, cost of goods going up because of this administration. But we've got to stop this, and you can only do it with force. And that's my two cents on it. So would it be fair to characterize your position as, yes, they could be prosecuted, but at this point, because of the cost to human life, it's a risk that we need to take? Well, look, they could be sued. And I'm saying it's a risk we need to take. We're talking about law enforcement.

Which law enforcement would be open and amenable to it? Have we talked to sheriffs in South Texas who are saying, you know what, I'll do it? Have we talked about people who might volunteer? Maybe there's veterans. Maybe there's retired police officers. And then, yes, what should the state do with respect to DPS? What can we do to protect them from litigation? But let's not go run away from that fight. Let's figure out how to address it. And let's say, look, we're not going to allow

these people to be hauled into federal court on our watch because they're doing what we want to do to secure the border. We should have that conversation here in Texas. We shouldn't walk away from it. You were recently in a committee hearing and you were bringing attention to the problem of sexual assault on the southern border because of illegal immigration. And there was a moment where Congressman Nadler seemed to almost throw up his hands and say, well, there's sexual assault in every state in our union, as if the context was unimportant. What do you think it's going to take for Democrats or those who do not see border security as a priority to see the problems that are happening on the southern border? Well, I mean, I would invite and have invited all of our Democratic colleagues to come down

and go with us and let us take you to the entirety of the border, not just come in and do a quick photo op at El Paso at the fence like our supposed vice president did. They need to come see it with their own eyes and talk to the people on the ground. They need to come talk to the Hispanic community throughout South Texas, the Hispanic community, which just revolted and elected a Republican, obviously, in 34 with Mayra Flores. Come down and talk to the leadership in Webb County, where Senator Cruz and I were last September, where long lifetime Democrat Hispanics are livid and frustrated with the Biden administration, come talk to them and see what's really happening and recognize the reality of what this means for young girls and for women that are being abused by cartels. That is not to say that there aren't people who are seeking a

better life and that we don't take that into consideration for how we manage the flow but it is the opposite of humane it is the opposite of compassionate to allow cartel run open borders to have people coming up in caravans coming into our community especially in the heat of the summer in texas potentially being abused being then having to pay six five you know five six seven eight thousand dollars to cartels. It is irresponsible and inhumane to do that, and my Democratic colleagues don't care. I have one final question for you, and we've talked a little bit about policy, but I just want to ask you, Congressman, man-to-man, patriot-to-patriot, when you see the condition and the direction of our country, what's on your heart? Well, you know, I've been talking about this a lot lately,

and I'm getting ready to kind of lean into this a bit. You know, 2026 is our 250th birthday as a country. We've got to decide whether or not we're going to live free. And that's a question that's in front of us, and we're going to have to choose. When we started this country, right, there was this flag, join or die. There's the motto, New Hampshire, live free or die. What is our motto for 2026 because i can tell you this my kids and grandkids are going to live in freedom i want that to be under the stars and stripes and i want it to be in a unified united states of

america but one way or the other they're going to live free and so we need to restore sovereignty restore order restore law and order stop spending money we don't have, stop this woke nonsense destroying our freedoms and destroying our country, ripping us apart. We need to restore education freedom, health care freedom, energy freedom, get this economy rolling again, and stop government from interfering with our way of life. But the clock's ticking. Congressman, our time is always too short, but it's a privilege to be able to speak with you. Thank you so much. Pleasure. Y'all keep it up. This is Hayden Sparks with the Texan.

I am here in Houston at the Republican Party of Texas Convention with State Representative Kyle Biederman. Representative Biederman, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Well, Hayden, I appreciate you, but even more, I appreciate the Texan. I've been involved in the Texans ever since, you know, Connie Burton started it, and just watching it grow and watching the news coverage that you're doing grow, the quality of the stories, and getting the facts. Since I know from the inside, you guys give the facts and it's unbiased, which I'd like it to be a little more biased, but I'm glad you're not. But no, it's fantastic. We

just love the Texan. Thank you, sir. We appreciate that so much. You are not returning to the legislature next year. And I imagine it's a bit nostalgic for you being here at the RPT. But I want to reflect on one item that you introduced and ask you a little bit more about that. You wanted to put on the statewide ballot a referendum that would let Texans decide whether to secede from the union. From your perspective, what are the strongest arguments for Texas separating from the United States? Well, here's something that I think is very important. My legislation never talked about seceding or leaving the union. My legislation was only about beginning the process to talk and debate about whether Texas should or shouldn't and what would

be the ramifications. And we listed all the things that we were going to ask the legislature to discuss on whether it's better for Texans to be under the state of Texas or to be under the federal government. And then there would be votes in the next five years. In fact, we had the timeline put forth on when the next vote would be if we even liked what we found out from the Texas legislature. So it really had nothing to do with secession. It had to do with finding out who would take care of Texans better, the federal government or Texas. Why and then could we leave the union? And then there would be next votes would be about, yes, we think we should continue the discussion. And then, of course, there would be a vote at least five

years away, which said in legislation of whether we should secede. So put simply, would you personally support Texas returning to our status as an independent republic? And what would be the best arguments in favor of that? Well, the first thing is we've got to make sure military, Social Security, monetary, can we take care of ourselves? Are we sending more money to Washington than we're receiving back? Can we support ourselves? Those questions need to be answered.

Now, there's been groups that have done the research and feel that it could happen. But I want my legislation was for the legislature to prove yes or no, and then find out if we should or shouldn't. But you look and I mean, it wasn't hard to see what was going to happen, what's happening in this country. I mean, Trump did a great job for our country. But then, and I put the legislation out before the election. So it wasn't because of Biden's winning. It was because you could see what's happened to our country. Texas, I don't want Texas to go down because of New York and California, their policies, which are just horrendous for all the principles that Texas supposedly espouses. And we knew that was happening for many, many, many years, the bloated federal government.

The reason we had the revolution to begin with, to begin our country, and then of course the Alamo. Why did we fight Texas against Mexico? Same exact reasons. And so why are we allowing Texas to be used by these other godless, immoral, just money-wasting states? And so we've known that for years. Everybody has. So my legislation was, Texas, let's start the debate and then find out if we should. And when we start looking at what's going on, especially with the Biden administration, it's looking more and more that Texas can be better off on their own, especially when it

comes to energy. And again, we own 95% of our land. No other state owns that much of their land. So there's just so many benefits that could happen with Texas. And the reason we left the Union to begin with and joined the Union to begin with was because we were just a fledgling country. We didn't have all the resources, the money. We just finished defeating one of the strongest armies in the world just because of the independent principles and spirit of Americans. So you'd contend that Texas is in a much stronger position now to be an independent country as opposed to when we joined the union. Exactly. Well, Representative Biederman, you've also emphasized Texas history and the

lessons that we should impart to Texas children. And though you're not returning to the legislature, I wonder, do you have any future political aspirations to continue advocating for these issues? Well, first of all, I'm just so grateful, fighting six years for the Alamo, to not move the Senate staff, to make sure the story is told based on history and based on the Texas Declaration of Independence. We won that battle and praise God for that. But yes, it's all about our education system. I really believe that our education system is what is failing not just Texas, but our country. But Texas has the most rich heritage there is and rich history of independence and the great spirit within us as true Americans. Even though America is comprised of 50 states,

right now Texas is the one that is actually exhibiting that spirit more than the other 49 states. So that's something very important to me. But about running again, I'm grateful for the six years. Again, I'm a term limit person, although I espouse for more than three terms as a legislator. But I'm taking a year off or a session off, getting my business back together, enjoying my family. And let's see what happens. I imagine after six years at the Capitol that you'll enjoy that year to withdraw from politics a little bit and focus on other aspects of life.

Well, I've got a beautiful house. I live in the most beautiful district in the most beautiful actual town in Texas. And yet I spent my time driving to the Capitol and other places in traffic. So I'm enjoying being home in my beautiful town and my home, but I do miss this because this is so important. The Texas legislature is so important. My main thing is if we don't change leadership, then it's not going to change here

in Texas. It's all about leadership. Whether it's my business at Ace Hardware or whether it's the Texas legislature, it's all about leadership. Whether it's at the Texan, why is the Texan doing so well? The leadership is doing a great job and getting more and more of the legislators to open up and actually give you information. Because right now we're so focused in Texas, or not focused, all we get is the liberal side. And it's just sickening when we know what's really happening, but we never hear from true people or get that information. And so that's what's so important about leadership in the state of Texas. And again, I'm not trying to just promote the Texan,

but you guys are doing a great job, and we really appreciate you. Representative Buechman, we appreciate your kind words so much, and it's always a privilege to get to speak with you. Thank you for joining us today. Well, you're very welcome. Thank you very much, Henry. Appreciate it. So I'm here with State Senator Brandon Creighton from Senate District 4. Thanks for being here, Senator.

We're here at the GOP convention, so maybe first of all you could talk about your victory efforts as part of that committee. Yeah, great to be here with you. And you guys have been going nonstop through the convention and so much traffic around your studio and your booth. It's been exciting. So, always a fan of the Texans. Appreciate it. Yeah, the victory effort is fully underway now that the run-offs are over.

The state Republican Party has a super PAC and all states and their Republican Party have the same. It's by statute. It allows for a 50% discount on postage for the direct mail that's distributed. So this huge direct mail campaign that we're assembling as we work separately to put money and funds together for get out the vote, for leveraging the technology advances we've made, for voter registration. It's all going to tie together. But the victory effort for 2022 for the state is to make sure that our full ballot,

as well as our swing districts in the valley and in other areas that are highly contested at the congressional level, that we do our part to take back the house by making sure that Texas produces the strongest numbers. Sure. So just to move more into the Capitol, so to speak, you've been focusing on higher education at the state Capitol. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's right. And recently there was some rearrangement of the committees in the state Senate. Maybe you could go over how that happened and what your new role is in that regard yeah so i have chaired the senate education committee for higher ed for the last few years separate from that has been a senate education committee for

public ed and the lieutenant governor recently decided to combine both of those committees into an education super committee where we're not working in silos, but we're working together on a K-16 completed holistic effort that also has a workforce component on it. And so from that, that represents over half of the Texas budget, and we will be coming forward with reforms for public education both on policy, the classroom, curriculum, and how schools are funded. And at the same time we'll be working to develop an extensive parental bill of rights and we're also working on a teacher bill of rights to make sure their experience in the classroom

is lifted up in the ways that keep their hearts and their minds, knowing that we appreciate them, their focus, and what they're attempting to accomplish on behalf of our students. And we have to do all of this together. But public ed and higher ed, there are a lot of changes we need to make. And our parents across the state are very vested in these efforts. We see other states advancing these efforts, and Texas should be the model for the whole country to follow. Maybe you could elaborate a little bit more on the changes we need to make as you characterized it. Yeah, if you can. The changes in particular for policy? Yes, if you

have any legislative ideas. I know Sessions is a little bit of ways away. Well, you know, to get granular, the Parental Bill of Rights itself, there are many aspects of a Parental Bill of Rights where parents working with schools on transparency, getting the right information quickly that they request on behalf of their students, making sure that they're involved and welcome in school board public meetings so that their voices are heard. And whether it be through a difficult pandemic like COVID, where there are controversial policies being implemented, or now that we're out of COVID and on to back in classroom instruction, knowing that we've got some archaic ways we've been doing things that from a regional perspective

aren't working as a one-size-fits-all in education across the state. And so we're going to get, like I said, very granular with it, very specific. We're going to look at some of the positive things we've done in public education in the last few years. We've made a 25-year change on how we fund public schools. We've reduced reliance on Robin Hood by 50%. We've tied in public school funding to sales tax consumption-based funding. We've made sure that a 38-year change took place on the property tax system tied to public schools. On and on, we've got very pro-taxpayer-minded, very pro-parent and pro-child-minded initiatives that are just the next chapter because we can't accomplish everything in one session.

It's a 141-day mad dash to get the urgency of the priority bills accomplished. We always stumble on some of our favorites, but we don't want a system any other than what we've got. Because in Washington, the reason why they get nothing done is because they have months and months and months and months to make promises that hang on your door, but really rarely ever accomplish what we need to happen. Texas gets the purpose done, the bills done, the priorities accomplished. There's always unfinished business, but schools will be safe, and our kids will have the best education system in America.

So you mentioned pro-parent, pro-child policy and transparency. Do you have any theories as to why those particular topics and that general legislative thrust is so popular right now? I think we've seen across the state that school districts that apply curriculum but allow lesson plans to be developed in the classroom are taking a risk that there are some wet blankets of indoctrination thrown into those lesson plans in order to accomplish a curriculum that never really required such. And so where districts are allowed to develop their own lesson plans and there's a political ideology from the woke left

that is designed to infiltrate these classrooms that really aren't necessary with reading, writing, arithmetic, and deductive reasoning as we work towards these STEM deficits and these other things that we need to accomplish. I think some of those things parents are demanding change. And so under a parental bill of rights, we'll be reviewing all of that and curriculum and lesson plans are at the heart of what teachers are teaching and what students are learning. Sure. Probably about the last thing. Recently, in the previous session, we passed a bill, the Texas legislature passed a bill, limiting racially preferential treatment in K-12 public schools and other adjacent treatments regarding race and gender in SB3.

Is there going to be anything like that similar for higher ed, do you think, on the horizon? Well, my bill to ban critical race theory, K-12, I will bring that bill back again, and I will be expanding that into higher ed. As far as the provisions that you're talking about, I think it's all on the table. And I know we will be having hearings on consideration of expanding those policies into higher ed. But we've got some major higher ed reforms that even go beyond the scope of those subjects. And they're more comprehensive. We have to really take a look at the framework for higher education in Texas and where we want to go into the future. And some of these ways that we've been doing it in the past have worked. And some of the ways that we have been doing this in

the past are policies and protocols we need to leave behind and take the next step. And so there's going to be some very interesting hearings on education this coming session. We'll be listening to the expertise. We'll be listening to the expertise. We'll be listening to the educators, but we'll also be innovative and thinking outside the box with parent involvement and with experts that I think have brought amazing accomplishments in other states that we need to be looking at. Here with State Senator Brandon Creighton. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for the invitation. Appreciate what y you all are doing here at the Republican Convention and always how you cover the news and cover the facts

and just get the information out to the public so they can make their own decisions. Appreciate that. Thanks a lot. Hi, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, reporter with the Texan News. I'm here with State Rep. Jared Patterson, two-term State Rep. from Frisco. Jared, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, man. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here. We're at the Republican Party of Texas convention. It's really big, but it's only just starting.

And so there's a lot of stuff that's going to happen. We'll see how it turns out. But Jared, thanks for making the trip over. You are one of the lucky state reps, if I remember correctly, who did not have either a primary or a general election. That's right. And so you've been helping your colleagues get reelected. But also, one issue you've been working on a lot during this time is explicit materials in schools. Tell us about what you're finding in these schools, especially in your district, about what you're finding in these schools,

especially in your district and what you're doing to address it. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's almost harder not to have an opponent because you spend as much time traveling all over helping, you know, all your friends to get reelected, you know, but certainly it's a blessing to be able to get back down there officially, you know, already. Yeah. So the, this issue with sexually explicit books you know it's one of these things where we keep having to legislate things that we didn't know that you had to legislate for example last session we passed the save women's sports act right legislating that boys can't compete against girls and women's sports didn't know

that you had to pass a law for that thought that was just common sense but here we are yeah this book issue kind of falls into that same realm where who thought that sexually explicit and when i say sexually explicit i mean extremely graphic both illustrated and just in the written word that these extremely graphic sexually explicit and pornographic materials who would have thought that we would have to say, hey, this shouldn't be in the school library. Y'all need to get rid of this. And so that's really what we've been dealing with. Number one, educating my constituents and others around the state that this is an issue, highlighting the books that we found, because I didn't believe it at first either. But then also pushing and pushing and pushing both at the local level to get districts to change policies to, number one, get the books out aggressively, root out the books. But number two, make sure that they pass policies that means that there aren't going to be them moving forward.

You know, let's let's pass some higher standards. The TEA recently came out with a with a model library book policy. They didn't have one before. You know why? Because the adults used to be in charge, and we didn't put porn in the school library when the adults were in charge. So I think the world is starting to wake up to the fact that this issue is a real issue, that these things exist. Parents are challenging books through the formal process that many districts have, and they're reaching out to their state representatives and saying hey I don't want this crap in my schools and so

that that's really what we've been working on and you and I have messaged about some of these examples before and to use the old SCOTUS quote you know it when you see it yeah pornography and some of these are just egregious yes it's clear as day so what are what are the responses you're getting from school districts on this issue? And how quickly do you think they're going to solve the issue? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. I mean, you're absolutely right. You know when you see it, and it is unmistakable in these examples. I mean, I'm not talking about innuendo. I'm not talking about thought-provoking literature. We're talking about basically a

hustler magazine in some of these books. I mean, we're talking about the worst of the worst, right? And there's illustrations and there's also descriptions. Yeah. And the illustrations are awful because I mean, it's close up, full on illustrations, but in the written word, I mean, you're talking about every possible detail of a sexual encounter that are in the, I mean, every possible detail that you could imagine and probably some that you couldn't imagine in the written word in these books. So it's a major, major issue. The responses has kind of been a mixed bag, honestly. At first, there's kind of shock and awe of, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this is here. And then it's, okay, how are we going to respond?

You know, Prosperized E up in my area had kind of that shock and awe moment of, oh my gosh. But then they quickly went into action. They've removed 38 books from their school libraries that they no longer have available. And they did that in a very quick manner. Then you had the Frisco ISD example, Frisco ISD where I live, where all three of my children go, where it was denied, denied, denied, denied. The superintendent continued to downplay. He said, look, we've got a million books. This has been one book. Then he said it was two. Now he's saying it's six.

We know it's more than that. It's just as we continue to push and push and push, we're forcing the issue. And we're forcing them to change policies at the local level. But nationally, we're also having an effect. We met with a company called Permabound. Permabound is a family-owned book company, a library book company. They sell books nationally. They sold some of the sexually explicit books that we found in schools. Their national sales manager came into my district office, hat in hand, completely embarrassed,

outraged that these books were books that they had sold. And that's a whole different story about how they get into the process. But they came hat in hand. They had pulled 40 titles nationally that they are no longer selling. Then we had a meeting with a company called Follett, who is the largest library book company nationally. And it was completely the opposite. It was so bad. Representative Shaheen and I were in this meeting together in my district office. It was so bad. We got up and walked out because they said, we will only stop selling these books if you force us to legislatively. And if you force us to, even though these books are reprehensible, we're still going to sell them to other states if they want them. Basically saying greed has taken over. We're all about the cash. We're all about wokeism and not getting into a Twitter battle with the far left. We stand for nothing. We only stand for selling whatever

books that the districts want to buy. And you've mentioned before, some of these schools don't even know the books are there when they purchase these literally thousands of book bundles, right? And that's how they kind of slip in. Yeah, look, there are a few radical librarians that want to push this agenda. We found one at Reedy High School in Frisco who literally trains other librarians nationally about how to, quote, read woke, about how to, quote, bring in the white folks and educate them. We found the slide deck and posted that publicly a few months ago. But that is by far and away the minority. Most of the teachers and librarians that I've spoken with are appalled by this.

What happens is that in my area, I live in a very fast-growth area, the fastest-growing area in America over the last 20 years. Frisco, Prosper, Little Elm, all these towns that have gone from, Frisco went from like 20,000 people 20 years ago to 225,000 people today, right? So massive growth. They're building all these schools right and left. Every year they're building at least one campus. They go out, they contract with a book vendor, for example, Follett. They say, I need 12,000 books for the library. Follett says, no problem. We'll sell you the books and we'll bring them in. We'll stock the shelves. We'll set up the displays. Your librarian walks in on day one and they've got library books.

That's how it works. Now, the districts never changed policy to say, oh, I want these pornographic books. They've had the same policy forever. I want nationally recognized books. I want award-winning books. I want highly rated books. The is is that in 2022 america the ratings agencies and the awards agencies are highly rating and even giving awards to these massively sexually explicit pornographic books and so you know the districts unknown to them by and large um you know they're getting these books the problem is how they've responded we're trying to hold the book vendors accountable. We're trying to say, look, you need to put economic pressure. No state is

going to build more schools in the next 25 years than the state of Texas. If we band together and put economic pressure on the book vendors, we will have an effect nationally on the books that are sold in this country. That'll likely be something that when you guys reconvene at the legislature in 2023, something's going to be conjured up there, I'm sure. The other issue I want to talk to you about is the power grid. Yes. Obviously, it has gained new relevance after 2021. Not many people paid attention before then to the thing to power the state, really. Yes. Where are we at with both the physical reforms, the weatherization stuff

that seems to be at least currently making its way along pretty well and then also the possibly more important side of the market reforms that ercot is current that that's a good question so number one uh when dealing with electricity grid you can't look at this thing in a vacuum okay you cannot look at what happened that one week in February, 2021 in a vacuum and say, this is the status of the grid. You have to look at the 20 years prior to that and say, these are the policies that were put into place that led to why we had this number of thermal units, you know, natural gas fire generators or coal fire generators or nuclear generators to generate electricity. These are the policies that are in place, which led to this amount of wind power on the grid or this amount of solar power on the grid. You have to look at all that. You cannot look at it in a

vacuum. I happen to be the only member of the House of Representatives that's actually from this industry. I'm from the electricity industry. I saw the problems on the grid before it was cool, before everybody could even spell ERCOT, you know, I was implementing, or not implementing, I was filing legislation in 2019 to address these issues. And thank God I put it on YouTube because I've been able to reference that material back, you know, to my constituents and to my colleagues to say,

"'Okay, look, remember when no one else "'was talking about the grid? "'Like, here's where the problems are.'" So the real big problem that we have in our grid is that while over the last five years, while we have grown by over a million and a half people, while we've gone from the 10th largest economy to the 9th largest economy in the world, we've had all this growth, all this expansion. No one is investing in reliable thermal generation, dispatchable generation, meaning dispatchable, meaning when I go press the button that we need this number of megawatts on the system, it puts that many megawatts on the system.

In short, not reliant on something you can't control like wind or solar. Absolutely, like wind or solar. That's right. So no one is investing in our state with these resources. And so you have to say say in a period of growth, why are they not investing? And it's because of the overwhelming influence that the federal production tax credit has had on wind power. The proliferation of wind power in our state is a result of this federal tax credit where they are actually paid whenever they produce power

from the federal government, from your tax dollars that you're sending to the federal government are turning around and being paid to these wind farms. So their break-even is at negative 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour. So they're in the money regardless of what happens. So people ran out because of that and built wind farm after wind farm after wind farm and flooded the market. What that did is it depressed prices to the point where no one else could make money by investing in a market. So that's why we continue to grow both economically and in population, and no one is investing in our grid with reliable sources of power generation. So that's a massive problem, right? Now, the winter storm also highlighted, now, granted, an act of God like no one could have predicted right i mean the

entire state of texas covered in snow advice and that cold weather for that long period of time you know a lot of people say well why didn't these guys winterize well they did they just didn't winterize enough to meet what happened to meet massachusetts weather basically absolutely absolutely and then the other part and this is such a government problem to have, but there was a lack of paperwork. These oil and gas producers didn't fill out the right paperwork to say, hey, you can't shut me off because I'm a critical load. Now they've done that now, but they didn't fill out the right paperwork of all the things that sounds like a government problem. And so they were curtailed from the power company because the power company just sees meters so they're curtailed like everyone else was and then you know they start freezing up they cause problem they can't

get the flow of gas to the natural gas guys to burn it to create electricity so it was just problem after problem after problem and i've got confidence that all of that has been addressed. The winterization has been addressed. The communication piece, the paperwork piece has been addressed. The bills that we pass that Governor Abbott signed into law have addressed those issues. There still are other issues on the grid. The PUC and ERCOT are working through. We've had a number of changes, the most substantial changes in our market in over 20 years have taken place in the last 12 months. And so I feel very confident in where we are, but we have to figure out a way to get more thermal reliable generation sources. Now, and I'm sorry, let me just say this one other thing.

I have been on a soapbox forever against wind power because I think it's the most ridiculous thing ever. I think it's the biggest mistake from an infrastructure perspective that the state of Texas has ever made, right? But I don't feel the same way about solar. Solar actually produces power when it's hottest in Texas. When we need power, solar produces power. Now, I'm not a crazy fan of all the incentives. And the peak being in the mid-afternoon to early evening. That's right. In the four summer months, June to August, September, from 3 to 7 p.m., that's when solar produces the most. That's when we need electricity the most.

And so it can be a really good force in the state of Texas. And we're going to get there eventually. But still, you've got the situation where the sun's not always shining and it can still be really hot and we still need power. So everything has to be backed up with thermal reliable sources of generation. And the PUC and ERCOT are currently working through the market redesign. We've got a piece on the website they published in December. If you want to go read all that technocratic jargon.

Yeah, and it's great, by the way. Thank you. Good job on that. Appreciate it. You can go see that there. It spells it all out. But that is going to be finalized later this year. I think they said earlier, back in May, like December-ish.

Yeah, well, you know, there's a state affairs meeting on June 22nd and 23rd. I'm not on state affairs, but I'm going to sit in on the one on the 22nd. ERCOT's going to be there. They're going to talk about it. The 23rd, I'll be in a Homeland Security meeting that's a joint hearing about the school shooting in Uvalde. But my point is that we're kind of at a crossroads right now. My concern is that the PUC drastically oversteps and creates a lot of additional costs on consumers that they don't need to make in implementing what's called a capacity market or load service

entity obligation where retail electricity providers will be forced to pay this extra fee that is in every other market in the United States. That will raise costs to consumers. I adamantly oppose that obligation because number one, I don't believe in being paid for something that you don't produce, which is what we currently have in Texas. You get paid when you produce. But number two, it hasn't worked in every other market. Other markets still have massive problems, even with a capacity market. And so I'm adamantly opposed to this. We'll see what happens. I think some members of the PUC believe that they have the authority to implement this on their own. I would argue that the legislature should be the one to determine if we're going to go down that road. But, you know, we'll see what happens. I think the biggest problem that we have is that the last time we

really went deep on this issue was in 1999 until this last year in 2021. And a lot of that institutional knowledge is gone. And so, you know, it's just everybody has their own areas of expertise. And there aren't just a ton of just, everybody has their own areas of expertise and there aren't just a ton of folks that are just really as into the weeds on this topic as what someone that worked, has worked in the industry for almost 20 years, you know, has. Well, it's definitely a complex topic, hard to understand. Um, and whenever the PUC does decide what it's going to do, we'll be following it at the Texan. I'll be writing about it. That'll do it for this segment. We'll be talking to more state officials here. Jared, Representative Patterson, we appreciate you coming. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, and we look forward to seeing how things develop

in the legislature next session. Absolutely. Thank you. So I'm here at the GOP convention with Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Mr. Miller, thank you so much for being here, Commissioner. So first off, provided that you hold on to the office in November, what are your top priorities going to be going forward? Well, we've got a lot of number one priorities. Depending on what segment of agriculture you're in. Of course, we market Texas around the globe.

So I've built a new livestock export facility in Del Rio. I built a new one at the airport in Houston. But it's still not enough. We need more flights to ship our livestock out to the European countries, so we're in negotiations of building another one in DFW in Dallas area. I've got a billion dollars worth of bonding authority that we have not used so we're working with the state fair to help them renovate that the state fair park and move that from a three year I mean threea-year venue to a year-round venue. We're also working with other livestock fairs that raise scholarship money for ag kids,

the East Texas Fair in Tyler, the Fair in Denton to help them build some new facilities, maybe the one in Lubbock. So we've got that going on. Legislatively-wise, I'm still working to get legislation passed in Texas to prevent foreign ownership of agriculture land. We still have not got that done. To me, that's just a no-brainer. We shouldn't be allowing the Chinese to buy our farmland.

If you'll remember, there was a Chinese purchase, 120,000 acres near Del Rio, near Laughlin Air Force Base. Their intention was to put up a wind farm. Obviously, that would give the Chinese access to our grid. We don't need that. Of course, Donna Campbell filed legislation to stop. The purchase was already made when I found out about it, but Donna did stop them from building the wind farm in past legislation.

The problem with that is they're going to build a solar farm. So we do not need to let these foreign entities buy our agricultural land. Now, understand that there's some commercial things we need to do, like with Toyota and BMW and, you know, companies like that. But we don't need to let foreign people own our farmland. So recently, well, one of the duties that falls under the purview of your office is K-12 school lunches. And you recently had a little interaction with the Biden administration, a disagreement regarding that subject and linking it to some legislation the state recently passed regarding school sports

and keeping biological males out of female sports. Maybe you could elaborate on that, what happened? Well, the Biden administration has a proposal now to make our schools go woke and implement a transgender policy. And what I mean by that, they want us to allow drag queen story hour at school and gender neutral bathrooms and stuff like that. Well, let me just tell you about that. We're not going to do that. You know, I am that. I run that program. That's my program. We're not going woke. You know, we're going to fight them tooth and nail. And his threat is if we don't, is he'll just let the kids

go hungry. And now I take great exception to someone using little kids for bargaining and feeding them. I can't believe that he would threaten to let these school kids go hungry if we don't do his LGBTQ agenda. So I'm not going to do that. Whatever I have to do, if I have to sue him, if I have to introduce legislation, make my own rules, get waivers, whatever is necessary, we're definitely pushing back against that. On that same note, with regard to lawsuits and the Biden administration,

you've had another interaction, disagreeing with them in your private capacity, a lawsuit regarding the administration of federal farm aid to non-white farmers only. And again, that's in your private capacity. Maybe you could elaborate on the purpose of that lawsuit, to non-white farmers only and again that's in your private capacity maybe you could elaborate on the purpose of that lawsuit what you're trying to get at well the bite administration came out with the third round of pandemic relief for farmers trump had two and he uh thank thankful to him our farmers stayed in business every once in a while we have to prop them up we don't want our farmers going bankrupt and not being able to feed us. So with third round, I wasn't opposed to that. I was opposed to the way they did it and how you qualified.

Their proposal was that if you had a USDA loan or a USDA guaranteed loan, they would just forgive it, whether you were in trouble or not. Not only forgive it, but they would forgive it at 120%. So if you had a loan with the government for $100,000, they'd just write it off and give you $20,000 cash. I mean, that's enough to sue them over right there. That's crazy. I didn't sue them over that. I sued them over how you qualified for the loan.

So to qualify for this loan, you had to be black or, you know, a minority. If you're white, no need to apply. That's just plain racism. You do not cure racism in America by creating more racism. It's just not right. It's not reverse racism either. Every federal document I ever signed in my life said at the bottom, we do not discriminate on race, creed, or color. And this definitely was discriminatory on the color of your skin. So you're right. I didn't file as the ag commissioner. I wasn't going to use taxpayer dollars. I filed as an individual farmer. Stephen Miller and the America First legal team represented me. And we basically won that one without a fight. They didn't even contest us on that.

So chalk up a win, call them against the Biden administration. Here with Commissioner Sid Miller, Agriculture Commissioner of the state of Texas. Commissioner Miller, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. You bet. Thank you. God bless. 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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