The Texan Podcast - Special Edition: Top Stories of 2020

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

This week on a special edition of The Texan’s podcast: our reporters discuss the top stories of 2020, including state and local government’s response to the coronavirus, the fight over mail-in ballots, and the 2020 general election.

Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here, Senior Editor at The Texan. Welcome to a very special edition of our podcast. Our team will walk you through the top political stories of 2020 as this insane year comes to an end. We cover all the ups and downs of the pandemic and state political dramas. We hope you enjoy wrapping up this year in a bow as much as we did. And folks, right now, if you go to thetexan.news forward slash forever, you can score yourself a fancy Texas Forever baseball cap when you subscribe to the Texan. Make it your New Year's resolution to support news you can trust. Folks, thanks so much for listening.

Howdy, folks. We are back. It is the end of 2020, and I'm here with Daniel Friend and Brad Johnson. Are we back in black or back in the midnight groove? See, here's the thing. Back in black. For for the last five seconds i could see you thinking about what this was you were going to say and i thought i might be able to get to the end of my intro before you jumped in and the last i could not you should know i tried i really did there's only so much i can do i can't and in 2020 like that's all the unexpected is expected just try your best i am going to go

with back in black along with daniel though great yes really do you know what i'm referencing i have no idea silly i don't know the other song that you're referencing but i know acdc i don't know who sings the other song i just know it's a thing i've heard it you guys are doing really yes acdc is the one this is a great introduction yeah i'm proud to be here with both of you at the end of this. You are so welcome. You know, I'm trying to get back into it, Brad, and you're derailing me just by looking at your face. That is my job.

Daniel, you are being much more cooperative. Sort of. For now. That's very true. But, yeah, let's talk about 2020. This is a special edition of our podcast. We certainly have a lot to go over this last year. There were a lot of stories that popped up that were unexpected.

We did not foresee a global pandemic as part of the deal. But here we are. Sarah predicted it. Sarah predicted it. Look at that. But I think she has a time machine. Oh, she had an issue. She was cheating.

I don't know. Now, is this a time machine like in... We are saving this for the end of the podcast. We are going to continue muscling through. You guys are both... We need more banter, but okay. We need more banter. I will relent.

Oh, my gosh. But all that to say, did either... I mean, nobody foresaw what was coming this year. You can't in any given year, but this year was a particularly interesting instance. Brad, we're going to start with you. We're walking through the top Texas political stories of 2020 on this edition of our podcast, replacing our usual weekly roundup with a little bit of a rundown of what happened this last year.

Brad, we're going to start out with you. There were some, I mean, we know about the pandemic. We know what happened. Talk to us about one of the biggest fiscal impacts that that pandemic had on the state of texas so about this time last year i was writing a piece about the oil and gas industry and how it was coming it was capping off a historic record insert to your adjective there um decade and it really was you know the the texas had jumped to if it was its own nation fourth in the in the country in the world in energy

production um you know astounding um its energy portfolio expanded from basically you know, astounding. Its energy portfolio expanded from basically, you know, mostly crude oil to a massive amount of natural gas and also renewables. And it was quite that. It was a historic decade. And, you know, as I was writing this piece, I thought, oh, you know, this is just going to continue. What could possibly stop this? Little did we know a global pandemic would stop it. But it actually started before then. It started with a global supply fight between OPEC countries themselves and Russia. OPEC countries being? Saudi Arabia. being explained saudi arabia it's it's a lot of mostly middle eastern countries that kind of are

unified in their petroleum production and so russia is sort of a part of that body although not specifically and there was a fight between the pair between the opec countries and russia on oil production because they wanted the prices to remain high. And of course, you know, laws of supply and demand, when you inject supply, the price eventually decreases. And that's what was happening. And therefore, these companies, these countries, they're making less return on each barrel of oil and you know they have debts to pay now that was the theme also in the united states and um especially because of the fracking revolution they had the u.s had become increasingly unreliant on foreign oil now that doesn't mean we don't import any oil from

outside of the country we have to uh for for certain instances, it's more cost effective in certain places. But we were not reliant on Middle Eastern oil, certainly to the degree that we were in the 70s. All that said, come to this year and this oil production fight, it's initiated both through this negotiated deal they're trying to put forth um that fell through on on production and it was also kind of driven by the beginnings of the pandemic and what that was doing to global travel now this would all come to a head with the

u.s when it really hit, when the pandemic really hit our country and Texas being the foremost producer of specifically fossil fuels, but energy in general, it really hit the industry hard. You know, companies had predicted, had set forth their, they'd hedged their prices months in advance, and they also took on a lot of debt during the good economic times. That way, they could expand their operations. And all this just combined in one massive blow to the industry. Back in April, the price of a barrel of West Texas intermediate crude oil dropped to, I think it was almost negative $40. First time it ever dropped below zero and it dropped significantly below that. Now it recovered and right now it's floating around $40 a barrel, but that is still about $20 less than it was before all this hit the fan right before

the pandemic again back in 2019 when we were setting records for oil production yeah and I remember when that historic dip happened we were getting ready to publish a piece about it and it kept dipping so substantially it wouldn't stall to a point where we could publish and actually say what number it was at it was happening so rapidly we had to go the generic drop below zero yeah exactly exactly um and so what caused like a lifetime ago yes oh my gosh and what caused that was uh you know the drop in in uh consumption namely travel air travel and and ground travel, had created this supply glut within the United States, they ran out of storage capacity. And it resulted in essentially owners of X amount of barrels of oil paying people to take them off their hands

because they had nowhere to store them. Um, and so it wasn't like you were, um, it wasn't like you, everyone could, uh, just get a barrel of oil and you had to be able to store it obviously. And, um, they weathered that storm. It, you know, it was a hard hit and they, um, a lot of, you know, tumult occurred in the industry. For example, Halliburton shuttered two of their facilities in Texas. That was a big, big shock. And we just started seeing a lot of the industry really change their future predictions on what was to come down the road and therefore changing where they were putting their money, um, where they were, um, drilling and how much they were drilling. And that has all affected, uh, the forecast of the industry. Uh, but they have kind of regained their sea legs. Um, they're stabilizing a bit, although still struggling mightily. Um, but it has, it's been one wild ride for, um, for the oil and gas industry and you know it started

as i put in the piece here started with the highest of highs and plunged to the lowest of lows and that really sums up texas's uh oil and gas industries here so far absolutely well thank you for covering that for us we always tease br Brad because he has enthralling topics like energy and property tax rollback rates. We'll talk about property taxes soon. We will, yes. But you do such a great job of it. So we'll keep slapping that on your plate. Not that you don't like it. I feel like that was a backhanded compliment. It was a compliment. Purely positive. Although I miss that you haven't been doing any plumbing stories recently.

I do miss the plumbing beat. Yes. That was plenty of opportunities for lots of puns just to be crammed down those pipes. Oh my gosh. I drive by the plumbing, the state plumbing board like office, I think just about every day.

Just, I don't think I've ever told you that, but I drive by it. Yeah. Anyway, this is the first time. If you don't know that, I'm very disappointed that you've not disclosed that before. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Go to the texan.news and search plumbing. You'll find some really interesting stories from Brad. Daniel, we're pivoting to you. Due to the pandemic, certain precautions and regulations started to come to the forefront of the discussion with state and local officials. Really? Yeah. I know. know that is very interesting i think so as well please walk

us through a little bit of that dichotomy between state and local the differences between some of the measures taken and what the response was as time went on okay yeah if you if you don't know it already there were some orders issued uh year. But only a few, right? Just a few. Very consistent. Governor Abbott's executive orders increased by about, I don't know, 400%. Yeah. He had seven.

From the previous New Year's of his term. By the end of 2019, he had issued seven. He's been in office how long? I don't. Oh, yeah. He's been in office since 2014. Several years. Only seven executive orders this year he has issued 25 more orders all related to the coronavirus pandemic

so there's been a few um now they were very rapid i think towards the start of the pandemic and even kind of in the middle um they kind of slowed down a little bit after his mask mandate in July. And then his last one that he issued was in October. So it's been a little bit since he's actually issued an executive order. Of course, those orders that he has issued are still having implications to today. But to hop into the time machine and go back to March, that's when everything kind of let loose. You had a lot of local officials seeing the pandemic spread across the country or across the globe. And some cases were starting to come into the country, into the state. And so you had a lot of local officials raising the alarm on that.

You know, South by Southwest is the big music concert here. If we were talking about this at the beginning of March, right after the primary elections, the question was, okay, are we going to have to work from home? Not because of the pandemic, but because of the traffic for South by Southwest. That's so true. We did avoid that.

Yeah, that was a thought. Turns out South by Southwest was canceled by the city, I believe. that's so true we did avoid that yeah that was a thought turns out South by Southwest was cancelled by the city I believe I have to go back and look

but that was the time when other county judges started issuing stay at home orders yeah right at the beginning

of March and that's also when Governor Abbott issued his first disaster declaration for all 254 counties in Texas, which is foreshadowing. Yeah. I mean, that's what gives him the power to do anything that he has done is that disaster declaration across the state under Chapter 418 of the Texas Government Code.

Fun stuff. Which I'm sure the legislature is going to talk about in that coming session, but that's a looking forward thing, not a looking back thing. So you have him issue that disaster declaration, then he issues his stay-at-home order, which is this wide-sweeping,

limiting social gatherings to fewer than 10 people, closing dine-in restaurants, closing retail stores. A very much tighter lockdown than what we've seen most of the year. And that stayed in effect throughout the rest of March and through April. Toward the end of April, you know, this is also

the time when the 15 days to slow the spread thing started happening. I think that was in March, actually. How many days since the 15 days are we at now yeah more than 15 um so that was that was the white house's initiative back in march or april i don't know it doesn't matter um they did the 15 days and they're like well we really need to do 30 days. And then it just kept on happening. So, you know, during that time in March and April, the coronavirus numbers, you know, we did see some case numbers start to grow. Of course, there was very limited testing right at the start of the pandemic.

People were still trying to figure out how to get a test and get test results back quick enough for it to be effective. And that was something that they just struggled to do right at the beginning. And that being said, the hospitalizations were not spiraling out of control throughout April. It was very low. Yeah. Throughout that lockdown. Then Governor Abbott started reopening things in May, right at the beginning of May, April 30th, 31st, whichever the last day of April is.

There were 50 new reported deaths. And of course, all of the media outlets start screaming about that and being like, there were the highest number of deaths today and we're opening in eight hours. Everybody just kind of started freaking out but he starts rolling back these uh lockdown measures opening limited capacity for dining restaurants for retail stores um getting through salons and gyms having most things start opening back up in some capacity and throughout all of may the case numbers did not go up at all yeah um it was really still level as it was in april um no significant increase but then uh in the toward the end of may we'll come to this later was when the george floyd protest happened

and after that about a few weeks later was when cases started going back up. And so then in June, now you have all these local leaders coming back to Governor Abbott, pushing for regulations to be in place, pushing for another lockdown, pushing for a mask mandate and all that stuff. Now, Governor Abbott's reopening orders, he had really tied the hands of local governments into not being able to – everything – all of his orders superseded all of the local orders. Which is different than what it was before where he gave them more leeway to kind of do as they please. Right. And it was during that time in the leeway when we saw, you know, some of the craziest measures being taken by local governments. You know, for instance, the city of Wiley, which is in the DFW area, kind of caused a

stir among its own residents when instead of just closing a skate park and telling people that they couldn't go skating there, they spent $600 to bring in truckloads of dirt and just cover up the skate park. You know, that's one thing. You had the city of Port Isabel issuing a prohibition, not just a mask mandate, but also a prohibition for more than two people in vehicles. Yeah. You know, the city of Laredo, according to the Washington Post, and I think this is accurate, was actually the first city in America to issue a mask mandate. Wow.

And that came with a $1,000 fine penalty for violating that. The police in that city also carried out a sting operation on two women who were engaging in the illicit act of providing beauty services. Nail and I think eyelashes or hair or something. Are you sure this year is not a parody? It's kind of sounding like it. I don't know. At this point, anything would be unsurprising. I wanted to hear Daniel talk more about beauty services.

That's what I was wanting, yeah. Well, you weren't going to get it. I was done. What's your favorite beauty service do you know uh you know i go to all the time he gives me a great haircut how do you know him i i know him quite well um actually you gotta let him wind it up himself He really didn't become a barber until like college. Oh, okay. Yeah. When he was forced, he didn't have his mother to cut his hair.

I bet he saves a lot of money too. He does. And then everybody else was surprised like, where am I supposed to go to get my hair cut? Everybody's screaming this year. And I was like, I always cut my hair. No, your barber said that. My barber said that, yes.

That's what I meant. I don't know what I was talking about well another another local order that was issued was in Port Aransas they prohibited fishing from the shore in public areas

so you could not go stand out on the beach or pier or whatever it is wherever it is you fish from in Port Aransas

and cast a line by yourself. Now, notably, you could get on a boat and go fishing. Yes, yes. But not from the shore. So these were all local orders that were issued kind of before the reopening, before Abbott's, I don't know what timeline you want to call that, but kind of at the beginning of May, those orders that he issued where he said, this supersedes all local orders.

And in that order, he also said there will be no individual mask mandate for individuals. And so, you know, as the cases are starting to increase back in June, then the local governments were trying to figure out ways that they could implement stricter regulations, but also, you know, within the guidelines that Abbott had set up with his order. And so they were trying to figure out, like, how are we going to issue a mask mandate? So Judge Nelson Wolf of Bexar County issues, I believe, one of the first mask mandates in a county where he says instead of imposing a mask mandate on individuals, he says that the businesses are required to require masks for their customers and employees, which is kind of this convoluted way around the order. And since Governor Abbott had been explicitly against face masks and said that we're not going to allow them in Texas,

we're not going to allow governments to impose them, it was kind of up in the air, like how would he respond to this? Is he going to push back against the Bexar County judge? And he comes out, I think the same day or the next day, and says, no, this is actually good. doing what he had had in the plan all along. Congrats, he's figured out the secret formula behind his mass murder's order. Yeah. That was kind of the attitude behind it, too. It was, yeah.

Yeah, and— Finally figured it out. Yeah, he said something along those very lines of just implying that he had planned some way for county officials to be able to impose their own orders, not requiring mask mandates on individuals, but requiring mask mandates on businesses or requiring businesses to issue mask mandates. Very convoluted. I don't know how he got there. But when he was saying that, as he was defending this order, he explicitly said government cannot require individuals to wear masks. Also foreshadowing. About two weeks later, he issues an order which which let me look at my notes yes it was the government requiring

individuals to wear masks yep um so he kind of did a completely 180 degree drew yeah and he completely walked over it um and so you know that's just an inconsistency, whether it's a good policy or not, I'll leave that to you to decide. Um, so that mask mandate was issued just a few days before July 4th. Um, that was kind of when cases were still rising. Um, other counties like had, had issued orders like Bexar County had in between the middle of June and July when Governor Abbott issued a statewide mask mandate. So masks were already being used quite a bit in the most urban areas in June. And then cases continued to rise. Finally, they kind of tapered out in the middle

of July, toward the end of July. That's when they started to decline. That's when we started seeing a decline in hospitalizations, a decline in active cases, really things going in a good direction. And so that continued all throughout August and mostly all of September. In September, Governor Abbott kind of returned to his executive orders, issued a few more relating more to hospitalization requirements. So he imposed if a trauma service area, which there's several different regions in Texas of hospitals, and if these regions go over certain hospital capacity then hospitals

would be required to um impose more uh capacity restrictions and stop doing non-essential surgeries that sort of thing um that was in september when he issued that order then in the beginning of october he issued another order um to reopen to allow some judges, to allow some bars to reopen. Basically, he was handing it over to judges to make the decision over whether or not they want their bars to reopen. To work. It was still to a limited capacity. Still to a 50% capacity. In that order, I believe he also expanded capacity for restaurants and retail services up to than 15% of a hospital capacity in one of these regions, then they have to go have a rollback on their reopening and reduce the openings. For seven consecutive days, right?

Yeah, for seven consecutive days. They have to roll back that reopening. The bars would have to close again. And so that's what a lot of places have been seeing now throughout kind of mid to late December. You started seeing a lot more of that. So right now we're kind of at a higher point in the number of coronavirus cases, but there hasn't been any more executive orders since Abbott's last order in October. He has kind of butt heads with the county judge in El Paso and

also most recently with the city of Austin for a curfew that they're trying to implement for New Year's. And so Abbott has pushed back on those, but his other order has remained in place. Yeah. So all that to say, it was very easy for citizens to follow and understand, very easy for businesses to comply with, particularly when you go from county to county, city to city throughout the state. It was a very easy time for businesses and civilians. Still is. Yes, that's 100% inaccurate, but yes. Thank you. I'm here to only talk about the truth.

True news. Okay. Well, Daniel, thanks for making sense of that craziness for us. Brad, we're going to turn to you. One of the more horrific things that happened this year happened in Minneapolis. Walk us through the response to George Floyd's death, particularly here in Texas. So, you know, as you alluded to, George Floyd was a man in Minneapolis who was killed by a police officer, Derek Chauvin. And what happened was Floyd was being arrested and Chauvin was

apprehending him and had him in custody. And he had his knee on his neck for the better part of nine minutes. And, you know, whatever caused it, whether it was, uh, suffocation, which pretty clearly looks like it is, or, uh, something else, um, you know, like heart arrhythmia or whatever, um, you know, it caused a lot of anger and understandably so. And there were police officers that were standing around and not doing anything. And, you know, if you ask any, any average officer, they're going to tell you that is, um, misconduct and it should not be accepted. And, uh, you know, I've talked to many here in Austin and they said the same thing. Um, so anyway, um, I digress that sparked, uh, first off riots and, uh, protests in Minneapolis that then spread elsewhere. And it spread all across the country, including here in Texas.

And the weekend after Floyd's death, we saw gatherings in, keep in mind, all during a pandemic where people are being encouraged not to gather. And so it happened in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin. Pretty much every sizable city in the state experienced something or other. Some of them morphed into, especially later at night, actual riots and destroying buildings and vandalizing and whatnot. And that continued for the better part of a month. It wasn't constant, but it was happening frequently. And it kind of put, especially here in Austin, which is obviously the thing that I've been covering most, and put everyone on edge.

And no one really knew what to do. And it was happening in the midst of an already increased crime wave, uh, that had started with the pandemic and continues to this day. So, um, just a lot of turmoil, uh, occurring and it kind of it the unrest the civil unrest gave local officials um kind of the legs they needed to finally implement some of the the reforms they had been wanting for a long time most notably this happened in austin um the city cut a fourth of its police department budget 150 million dollars uh they cut and diverted elsewhere, but brought it out from under the umbrella of APD. And that kind of sparked this tiff between, well, it didn't spark it, it continued the tiff between the state and its capital city, most notably between Governor Abbott and Mayor Steve Adler, that

had been widely reported on and shown on social media and whatnot over its homeless policies. And it just put a cap on the huge divide between state leadership and city leadership. And so, Governor Abbott has suggested in response to the city's defunding of its police department to kind of annex the department itself under state control under the dps abbott said last week that he had a draft bill for that and nothing has happened yet obviously the legislature is not in session this would have to be something the legislature does although we've said that before about various other things mainly the emergency powers the stuff done with the emergency powers. So who knows? But he says he has a draft bill.

And I wholeheartedly assume that will be a pretty big topic come January 12th and onward. But that kind of, it all underscores the divide. And it's not just Republican-Democrat divide in the city of Austin. I mentioned the homeless stuff. There was the city's PR bond policy that directly or indirectly resulted in the stabbing and killing of the person at the Freebirds restaurant in Austin by a homeless man. And he was let out on personal recognizance bond,

you know, three weeks, almost three weeks to the day that he killed people. And so, um, you know, this divide is, is growing and,

you know, kind of culminated this year in the upset on city council. And I have a lengthy piece about that and what all fueled it. Um, but you know, the, the police stuff is just the latest example of Austin and the state of Texas butting heads. Um, mayor Steve Adler is not backing down at all and he is digging his heels in against the governor and um governor's doing the same so um a lot of turmoil has gone on since especially since george floyd's death yeah and i that was kind of the peak 2020 moment where everyone's looking at each other and saying we're in a global pandemic there's riots and protests in the streets this seems like an absolutely crazy time

to be alive yeah seems like a tv show it yeah like this is our real our real world right now um well thank you for covering that for us uh brad we're gonna stay with you actually so stick with me here plot twist uh we alluded to this earlier very spicy topic of a property tax level yeah but it is spicy walk us through the details of that and how it affected texans this year i mean i think it's interesting it's fascinating anyone that pays property taxes should be very interested absolutely um so note most notably the um the legislature in with its senate bill 2 in 2019 they reduced the property tax increase limit from eight% down to 3.5% for cities, counties, and various special districts. It was reduced to 2.5% for school districts who account for a wide majority of the the total property taxes paid. But hidden within SB2 was this provision. It was a loophole. And it stated

that if the governor declares a disaster in an area, then that area is not subject to those new restrictions. They're subject to the old one, the eight percent and lo and behold the governor issued a disaster for the entire state and therefore based on the provision the entire state cities counties and various special districts taxing districts are were now subject to the eight percent and many of them took advantage of them some of them didn't like dallas didn't after a lot of public pressure, they opted against it. And I should add that the limits are in place. And if you go above it, the voters have to validate it.

They have to vote on it. You could raise it 100%. And if the voters approve it, it goes into effect. But this was without voter consent. And we saw Houston go with it. Austin did. Various other places across the state. And it's an interesting dynamic with the bill, with the provision itself.

Because in the provision, it does not specifically limit to anything other than it doesn't include a drought. So like if the governor declares a drought for Laredo or Lubbock, that doesn't count, but all other natural disasters, it does, including pandemic that is in, that is in that is in the in the bill or in the provision and so um but the the intent of the legislature was clearly about something like hurricane harvey something that's regional it was almost nearly in response right and if you read legislators talking on the floor about it it was very clear yes that was the intent yep and so it raises this

very interesting dynamic and the only way this will be settled is if someone tries it in court it's the especially on the more conservative side you have there's this and conservative legal circles there's this fight between originalism and textualism and this represents both of those sides very well. And you have the originalist intent, what was clearly the legislature's motivation for this and intent in the provision for regional physical disasters. But then you have the text that does not limit it. And so, when those two face off, what wins? I don't know. That would be for a court to decide. But that's one of the reasons that I find this very interesting.

Nonetheless, the legislature, at least a few of them, specifically Representative Dustin Burroughs and State Senator Paul Bettencourt, have indicated that they want to try and implement some sort of policy to reprimand localities that take advantage of this who are the authors they were the authors of sp2 yeah and so author and the sponsor um you know we'll see what what comes of it um but until then the main you know recourse for taxpayers is you know public pressure And it works in some cases. It doesn't work in others. Public pressure in elections. Yep. And so that is the property tax loophole, disaster loophole that, you know, everyone should be aware of, especially given the broader property tax situation in Texas.

Well, since you did such a great job with that section, we're going to stick with you again. Oh, gosh. The firing line. Yeah. Wait, you just don't want to hear me talk, since you did such a great job with that section, we're going to stick with you again. Oh, gosh. This is a firing line. Yeah. Wait, you just don't want to hear me talk, do you? Daniel, we're ending on a strong note, and that means two of your sections. Oh. Yeah.

Oh, I see how it is. This is how it works, folks, placating both of these boys. So, Bradley, talk to us. Let's pivot a little bit out of this disaster that we've seen in this last year with the pandemic and basically all the things we've talked about so far i've been related to that in some way or another for the most part walk us through uh particularly in elections uh news story mail ballots were a huge sore subject uh for republicans and democrats this year yes walk us through although i guess it's it still relates to covid but walk us through everything relates to covid this year. Walk us through, although I guess it still relates to COVID, but walk us through.

Everything relates to COVID this year. It all will come back. Well, yeah, we have one or two that, you know, we can say don't, but regardless, everything does. Walk us through what happened with mail ballots and the arguments for and against the provisions. So in Texas, voters who wish to vote by mail must meet a few different requirements, namely being 65 years of age or older, having a disability, being sick, too sick to come to the polling location. Something like having cancer and being bedridden would qualify there. Or being out of the county in which you are registered to vote at.

So if you meet any of those, you can, and that mostly applies to people like military members overseas and whatnot. So if you meet those requirements, you can vote by mail. Other than that, everyone else has to vote in person. And you can do that by voting early. The state has, you know, not even including the extension for this year, but a pretty, in normal times, a fairly lax or extensive early voting period. Whereas some states, you can only vote on election day, or you can vote on election day in person. And so the Texas Democratic Party, they sued to expand that mail ballot ability to all voters out of potential fear to contracting COVID. And they tried to justify it in their

state lawsuit as, you know, this is a sickness. Not having immunity to COVID is a sickness. And that's the way they tried to make it fit. In the federal side, they tried to make an argument through, I think it was the 26th Amendment, that there's no reason to stipulate between a voter who's 65 and a voter who's 18. And neither of those were successful. Both of them were rejected by courts. But, you know, this topic remained. And especially considering the allegations of fraud and, you know, mail ballots are naturally

more susceptible to fraud, just the nature of them. That doesn't mean it's particularly easy to do it's not as simple as printing off a a ballot on your printer at home and standard copy paper and turning it in it's not like that um there are there are measures now you can argue that there's not enough and certainly some of the legislators um coming into the session think that and are filing legislation about that. But, you know, this, it kind of, it blew up into this massive ordeal, especially with the presidential election and, you know, the accusations of widespread ballot fraud, especially focusing on mail ballots. And, you know, it really, it probably will not end.

It will continue and um it's it has been a main focal point this year and so i expect it to be uh you know a main theme next election yeah absolutely well thank you um for talking for such a long time ouch okay i feel like I was pretty brief there. No, you were just cause you had like four bits back to back to back. It was, it was easy for me to say that it was fun.

I had a good time. I feel attacked. You should. Daniel, Daniel, we're coming to you now, my friend. Um,

well, it's about time. I love that movie. It's about time. Is that a movie? Yeah, it's a great, it is a great movie. It's a really, yeah. If you haven't watched about time it's about time is that a movie yeah it's a great it is a great movie it's a really yeah if you haven't watched about time watch about time but uh let's talk election

2020 let's continue talking about it let's talk about it generally speaking daniel i will say i'll brag on him for a second we made predictions in the office most folks including myself i thought democrats were going to win you know know, in a landslide. Just about most races that were contentious, even some that would have been upsets. Daniel thought Republicans would largely hold their seats and that would actually be a good year for Republicans in a lot of ways. Daniel was right. I was unbelievably wrong. But, Daniel, walk us through election 2020, what happened, what we predicted happened i feel like you're skipping over the you

were wrong part that i was wrong emphasize it more oh i was very wrong well to be fair i was wrong too because i was i had made some projections that republicans would pick up more seats in the texas house yes that's true the outcome was that they're really nothing really changed. Yeah. There were a few small changes. You know that the Republicans did lose one House seat, but the Democrats lost one House seat, so they offset each other. And then you also had Republicans lose a spot on the State Board of Education as well as a State Senate seat, which the State Senate seat was very, kind of a very blue seat. So, I'm not too surprised. Until Pete Flores won it in the special election in 18, it hadn't been taken by Republicans since Reconstruction. So, that's the kind of district they were running in.

Now, the interesting thing about that seat, you know, it stretches, I believe it stretches from almost El Paso into San Antonio. Now, lots of counties there. Had San Antonio, had Bexar County not been in the race, Pete Flores would have won, which is also testament to probably the biggest trend that we saw in the elections that's really notable is that trend in south texas and along the border counties which historically has been very blue even in the past few decades the past 10 15 years it's been a very blue area of the state but we're starting to see that shift now it hasn't shifted enough to actually change the outcome of the elections quite yet, but it's getting there. And I wouldn't call it a trend yet either. It's happened once. No, it is a trend.

Yes, it's a trend that has happened. elections in 2018, whereas the rest of the state was going towards Beto O'Rourke and Democrats in that election, these counties in South Texas along the border were actually trending in the other direction. So, you know, this is a trend that we've seen in the past probably really two to three cycles, election cycles. So it'll be interesting to see see what comes with that later um you know in some counties i think the highest county that saw the biggest shift in the presidential election shifted 28 points toward president trump um so just like this massive uh shift and for statewide

republicans it went as high as 20 percent um So not quite as high as just looking at the presidential race. You know, you have some districts where a representative, a Democratic representative won, but it might have been a district that Trump actually carried. So I think going into the next election cycle and after redistricting, this is something that I think Republicans are going to keep an eye on. And if they don't, then they're not making wise political choices. Right. This is definitely one of the new battlegrounds developing in Texas politics. So that'll be interesting to see going forward. So that's elections in a nutshell.

Nothing too exciting, but there is that trend that is interesting. One other part of it that was notable is just how wrong polls were. I did a piece right after the election and looked at the various polling, kind of not specifically graded it, but graded it in generalities. The national polling outfits were wildly off in texas now i was just looking at um the presidential and the senate race but um you know they were they were very very wrong and actually the the outfit that was the most wrong was a texas outfit it was uh the dallas morning news and whichever polling outfit they use um they

they had an average average out there the results and they were at biden was at like plus 0.1 or 0.2 percent so very slim but wildly off uh the nearly six percent that donald trump won by but most other when you take the the Dallas Morning News out of the local polling outfits, whether it's the Trib or Hobby School, they were fairly accurate close to the final result. They were, it was 5.25% and Trump got just shy of six. So that was, I thought, very interesting and kind of is a testament to how uh you know when you're not in the state it's a lot harder to know all the um what's going on and the intricacies of you know what will eventually fuel the political winds yeah and i think too in light of 2018 and

how detrimental it was for texas republicans that fear interpretation on their part and that zeal and energy on behalf of the Democrats made sense. Right. And in terms of watching what had happened two years before, no elections the same. Whoever's at the top of the ticket really determined a lot of that energy. And when we had Beto O'Rourke in 2018, we have Donald Trump and Joe Biden this this this this time, not to not to not remember Ted Cruz, but he was he was the one being challenged by Beto O'Rourke in 2018. We have Donald Trump and Joe Biden this time. Not to not remember Ted Cruz, but he was the one being challenged by Beto. It was just a different year. And I think, you know, a lot of folks saw that as writing on the wall that Republicans would lose big in 2020, and it just did not happen. So, Daniel, thanks for covering that for us.

There are all sorts of pieces on our site that really go in depth in terms of maps and voter data and all sorts of good stuff. Color coded. They're beautiful. Daniel puts together good stuff. So go check those out. Daniel, we're going to end with you. This is not coronavirus related at all. Well, I can make it coronavirus related.

You know, I think you could. I think this is a story that I don't even know how to start with this, but let's talk about the attorney general and a lot of the controversy that has shrouded his office and his person in the last, how many months, two months, three months at this point? Yeah, since about the beginning of October, so whenever that was, two months, almost three months now. Now this controversy has been going on on the inside. I think it's been brewing a little bit longer than that. But basically what we saw in October, November,

and even some into December now, was really the fallout of a civil war within the offices of the Attorney General. This all came to light at the beginning of October when First Assistant Attorney General Jeff Mateer kind of abruptly resigned from his position. Looking from the outside, it wasn't really clear why he did that until a day later when it came out that Mateer and six other senior aides in the office filed a formal complaint or a formal complaint of some sort uh making allegations against attorney general

ken paxton accusing him of bribery and abuse of office um and so you know when that came out kind of this this bombshell event in tex, I'd say the biggest in terms of political scandal this year. Yeah, the biggest purely political story, I'd say. Yeah. Unless you want to go to Steve Adler and his trip to Cabo. There is that. That's covid related um so you know this it wasn't something coming from the outside of you know ken paxton's democratic opponent accusing him of some kind of crimes these are

people inside his office that he appointed um making accusations against him. His top staffers. His top staffers, like the highest people in the office making allegations against him. Yeah. And so when that came out, then the question is, what on earth is going on? We're still kind of asking that. We have a lot more details now. You know, it slowly emerged.

You know, the name Nate Paul was brought up very early on in this scandal that erupted. Nate Paul is an Austin real estate developer, and the aides in the attorney general's office basically accused Paxton of using his office to benefit Nate Paul for various reasons. And so that's just been something that's been continuing to unfold throughout the past several months. Now, all of those aides who were working in the attorney general's office, obviously Mateer was the first to resign. There were a few others who resigned and there were some others who got fired um and there were some who were put on investigative leave and then uh eventually fired and so none of them are working in the office of the attorney general anymore they've all left um that being said they have filed a lawsuit against ken paxton now claiming that he has violated the whistleistleblower Protection Act by firing them and by kind of putting them in a hostile work environment in other ways,

saying that Paxton and the officials that he's appointed since Mateers left have kind of made the hostile environment because of their whistleblow, because they were making accusations against Paxton. Now, the FBI has reportedly begun an investigation into Paxton. There's not really any more details about it other than that. The lawsuit that was filed against Paxton, Paxton did file a response, I think a few weeks ago in December December and basically just denying the allegations again. And so we'll see what happens of that.

It's still in the court process, still at a trial court. So we'll see what happens. But that is the most intriguing scandal in Texas politics in 2020. Anything to add there, Bradley? I have absolutely nothing to add there. This was quite the story. I remember when it first broke, I was driving somewhere and we were on a conference. There were so many conference calls and so many talks about this story just because there's so much here.

A lot of he said, she said, he said, he said. Bring it on. It's interesting stuff but lots of saying going around lots of yes lots of lawsuits lots of statements resignations firings all the good stuff the whole shebang makes for good theater um i don't think there's been any murders though okay so that's good okay that's good yeah i mean we're not living in a netflix tv show not yet who knows but you know they are doing some kind of a real project in austin maybe someone's going So that's good. Okay, that's good. Yeah. So we're not living in a Netflix TV show. Not yet. Who knows? But, you know, they are doing some kind of a real project in Austin.

Maybe someone's going to push someone in a train. I don't know. And we are recording this before 2020 is over. So knock on wood, somebody. Thank you. Wonderful. Well, gentlemen, let's turn to some more lighthearted ban banter here after talking about and a scandal in the attorney general's office this last year um i know brad and i want to brag on daniel a little bit but daniel uh tell us about a big goal that you got accomplished this year so i remember last year we were having some kind of a similar podcast although i think that we

were looking it was it wasn't looking back on 2019 because that was just kind of a boring year in terms of politics. Comparatively, oh my gosh. Well, yeah. Other than the Texan launch out. Other than the Texan launching. Yeah. Dennis Bonin. Yeah.

All sorts of, I mean, there was a lot. There was some juicy stuff to happen. Yes, Pancho Navarro's. I think that we were looking, I guess that I'm thinking back to, maybe we did two, maybe we did one that was looking back and one that was looking forward. I think we did, yeah. This one was the one looking forward, and we were talking about like, what are your goals for 2020?

And I was like, I'm going to write my book. That's what I want to get done. I got it done two weeks ago. Woo-hoo! The first draft I finished earlier in the year, but it was very rough. It had a lot of stuff missing. Um, and so I kind of sit on a back burner for a little bit. Uh, but then I was able to kind of think through those problems and what I needed to do to adjust them and get them worked out to

something that I can actually let people read. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're at that point now. Um, now I have to figure out what I'm supposed to do with it. It's amazing. So Daniel, how long have you been working on this book? It depends on how you define the term working. Like I've had ideas for it brewing for years and years on end. Probably the past three years has been when I've really focused on it the most.

This past year was when I actually did the most writing. Before that, it was a lot more just crafting the story. That's crazy. I was listening to a podcast and I thought of you while listening to it. It was between Conan O'Brien and, wow, I am disappointed in myself I am blanking on the guy's name

member of Monty Python John Cleese and what they were talking about was it's not just writing the book that goes into it it's the procrastination the thinking all of that is part of writing a book and that would definitely balloon your time,

the amount of time it would take you to write the book. But it's a great accomplishment. I would say the thinking part is actually harder than the actual writing part. Because writing, if you know what you want to write, you can sit down and you can write it. If you don't know what you're trying to write, you're stuck. Yeah, absolutely. And we always tease Daniel that he writes for a living and he writes write it. If you don't know what you're trying to write, you're stuck. Yeah, absolutely. We always tease Daniel that he writes for a living

and he writes for fun. How many words are we at now for this draft? It's about 81,000. Unreal. What is that in pages? I want to say it's around 300. About standard. That's amazing.

So awesome, Daniel. And so cool to be able to look back and see that you said, hey, I wanted to do this this year, and you did it. Yeah. Not bad. Maybe it was thanks to the pandemic. I don't know. The lockdown certainly helped. There was some extra time.

And hey, unlike most people, you followed through on your New Year's resolution. That's a big deal. It's so awesome. Brad, do you have anything big this year that you want to tout? I made a really good steak a week ago. That's a big deal. It's so awesome. Brad, do you have anything big this year that you want to tout? I made a really good steak a week ago. That's fantastic. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Proud of you. That's all. Did Winston help you? Oh, I forgot about Winston. No, yeah. That's my 2020. He's literally sitting on your feet. That was literally going to be mine.

Winston did not help me. He would have eaten the steak himself. Along with Huckleberry Finn. Winston did not. He would have eaten the steak himself. Um, along with Huckleberry Finn. Yes. Yes. He just ate that book last night. Um,

yes. I was trying to get the reference. I was like, I don't remember. I would say, uh, some of the things I wrote here, I'm very proud of,

for example, the, um, ride along piece. That was a really cool experience. And, uh, it was great getting to know officer conch who was the guy i rode along with and just getting to see everything that all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes that nobody ever sees like you know being in a booking facility and uh watching you know the interactions there and um seeing someone od'd on synthetic marijuana um you know

this was pretty scarring stuff but important and um you know i was glad i had the opportunity to do it and get to write about it and that that's my job yeah instead of having to go uh you know be a pencil pusher somewhere so that would be my 2020 i love it that's phenomenal and i love too that that day i think you pulled an all-nighter to write that i did because you wrote all night and then you came in the office and wrote it i left after we did the podcast and went home and slept that's awesome what about you um gosh i think well this year was just a big year for the texan in general we brought on a lot of new team members who've grown substantially. And I think, too, it's been incredibly encouraging to see that even in hard economic times, people are still trusting us and still choosing to subscribe and reading what we put out there.

I think that shows a lot about the hard work you guys are putting in and, you know, what we're being able to provide, particularly in this climate here in Texas, this media climate that isn't unlike that at the national level. So that's been really encouraging that despite that, we really have not hit any roadblocks. In fact, the company's accelerated. I've loved to be able to be part of that and to see that happen. But it's been a good year. And despite all the craziness, it has still been a good year any final thoughts boys no i think that's a pretty good way to end it well folks thank you so much for listening happy 2021 and we will catch you next year thank you all so much for listening if you've been enjoying our podcast it would be awesome if you would review us on itunes and if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show give us a shout on on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News.

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