The Texan Podcast - Special Edition - Top Stories of 2022

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

Register for the 88th Session Kickoff: https://thetexan.regfox.com/88th-session-kickoff Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.  This week on a special edition of The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses some of the top stories of 2022 and a glimpse at things to watch as we enter the new year. 

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, in a very special edition, the team discusses the top 10 stories of 2022 and what we've got our eyes on going into 2023. Lots to discuss. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. Thanks for listening. Happy New Year and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy, folks. Welcome to another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. Happy New Year or almost Happy New Year. We're so excited to be starting 2023, wrapping up everything we've covered this year politically in Texas. And we have so much to look forward to.

So that's what this podcast is going to be all about. We're going to talk through the top stories of 2022. Look forward to 2023. We're going to count how many times I misstate what year we're going into and what year we're wrapping up. Cause I've done that several times in preparation. We'll try our best to be, well,

I'll try my best. Y'all, y'all are fine. I'm the one causing trouble here. But I'm here with Brad, Holly, Matt and Hayden. We're going to cover all sorts of different political topics that have been big game changers in 2022. And Brad, we're going to go ahead and just start off with you. This year was much calmer than last year in Texas politics, but still had its fair share of spice, as I like to call it. It's very spicy here in Texas politics. The overarching theme was the election, both the general and the primary. Give us a recap of the results and what that means for the majority party, in this, state Republicans had a good night, especially compared with their national counterparts who had a really lackluster showing across the country. But here in Texas, it was headlined by Governor Greg Abbott's 11 point win over Democrat Beto O'Rourke. And each of the seven statewide Republicans defeated their opponents by double digit percentages. That continues Republicans near 30 year dominance, total dominance of the statewide, the seven statewide positions. And you can include in that the two Senate seats in addition to those typical statewide

positions like the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, et cetera. So, this kind of sweep sets the table for another session of heavily GOP priority items. We saw in what happened in 2019 where Republicans kind of got shellacked, especially down ballot. Beto O'Rourke then running against Ted Cruz almost upset Cruz. Democrats made gains in the House. I think it was eight or 12 seats they flipped in the House and then two in the Senate.

And we saw the kind of session that came after that, this focus on bread and butter kitchen table issues. And that bore out a session where two biggest pieces of legislation were a limitation on the ability to raise property taxes along with a buy-down of local rates, and then also a massive injection of school finance. That didn't happen in 2021. We saw a lot more focus on these GOP priority issues, specifically abortion. That and constitutional carry were the two biggest pieces of legislation we saw but this time we see another uh generally republican favorable results and this sets the table for uh likely what we're going to see is a debate between republicans over how to spend the projected $27 billion

surplus. You have the governor talking about using at least half of that to cut property taxes. You have the lieutenant governor laying out his plan, part of which is to buy down property taxes, but then a bunch of other expenditures as well, such as on the border, things like that. And then you have the speaker who has kind of pushed back against the idea of using half or most of the surplus on property taxes and wanting to divert some to infrastructure spending. And so there's going to be less dealing with Democrats overall on these grander issues because Republicans will not feel like they they have to at the moment due to the result of the election. But, you know, something we'll talk about later. Democrats are still going to be a big issue, especially when it comes to committee chairs.

But generally, Republicans will be able to do what they want. But that doesn't mean that there won't be infighting. There surely will be. And that'll start January 10th next year when this legislature reconvenes for the 88th regular session. It's going to be fun. And to reiterate kind of your point here is we saw a lot of Republicans in Texas and across the country saying this is going to be a huge landmark year for Republicans at the ballot box in the general election with Joe Biden in the White House. They expected a huge red wave. And really the only places where there was pretty dominant Republican wins was in Texas and Florida, right? And Texas had even less to show than Florida. So we'll see what that means going forward. I'm curious what that means

in terms of leverage for Republicans when they actually do convene in the legislature, how they'll leverage that to get their priorities done and what those priorities will be because conservatives and Republicans have very different opinions of what should be published. And we saw in the House, the Republicans gained two seats. They lost one, flipped three for a net gain of two. And in the Senate, they nearly took one of the seats in the Rio Grande Valley and they, they flipped one in Senate district 10 up in North Texas. So each chamber has gained a slight amount of, of seats, but they certainly didn't lose any like they did four years ago.

And so again, that will set the table for a lot of republican on republican jockeying and um how it shakes out we don't know but it's exciting that it's almost here we've been waiting for session for a while personally i prefer that to elections but um yeah it's almost here absolutely i'm stoked it'll be fun we love some drama. That's the business we're in at this point. Bring on the drama. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, we're going to pivot here big time. Texans suffered an immeasurable tragedy earlier this year. Give us an overview of some of the key events since the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde. May 24, 2022 will be remembered as a day of unfathomable horror in Texas history. There were 19 schoolchildren and two teachers gunned down at an elementary school in Uvalde in their classrooms by an 18-year-old who had attended the school as a child. He used an AR-15 style rifle. And since then, there has been discussion about the law enforcement response, or a lack thereof. The response by those in charge that day has been

roundly criticized. Colonel Steve McCraw condemned the law enforcement reaction as an abject failure, and he stated that it went against everything law enforcement are taught in terms of responding to mass shootings, especially the doctrine that has been developed since the Columbine massacre in Colorado back in 2000, excuse me, back in 1997. There was a delay of 77 minutes between the beginning of the shooting and when the 18-year-old perpetrator was finally gunned down by a team of Border Patrol agents who went into the school as they had hundreds of officers more or less waiting around outside and inside the building. It was later revealed that another official with the state police had even attempted to tell them to stand down as they were responding. So that officer is under investigation, as many other officers who responded on that day were. And Colonel LaCroix and specifically Senator Roland Gutierrez have

been among the vocal critics of those who responded that day. Texas Legislative Committee condemned what they called egregiously poor decision making and published a report outlining many of the things that went wrong in terms of school security and the law enforcement response on that day. And the focus, of course, should be on the unspeakable loss of life and the grief that all of those families are going through, especially during the holiday season. Absolutely. And Hayden, you've covered this from the start and we appreciate your coverage. It's been very unsensationalized and you've done a wonderful job of making sure that folks know what happened. On that note,

obviously after a tragedy like this, the conversation pivots to what can be done in terms of policy and legislation, especially in the political world. Going into 2023, what are some legislative changes that could be adopted in the legislative session? I mentioned Senator Gutierrez, who represents the district that includes Uvalde. He has proposed a compensation fund that would include hundreds of millions of dollars for victims and survivors of the shooting, those injured family members of those who were killed, and others who were impacted on that day directly by the massacre. He designed this bill to circumvent a more traditional process of securing a judgment in court. There have been those who have said that gun manufacturers should

be held liable for this, but I believe this is not necessarily tailored for that, but to compensate for the lack of response by law enforcement on that day and the lack of coordination and leadership shown particularly by Chief Pete Arradondo, who was fired in August over this tragedy, this massacre, mass murder. Gutierrez also said on Sunday that he would propose requiring active shooter training for all law enforcement officers in Texas, which is currently not required under the law unless they are working in a school. So his bill has not been filed yet, but it will, according to him, require active shooter training for all certified law enforcement in Texas. And then, of course, there are the more politically perilous items where

there's going to be obviously more disagreement. He has proposed a prohibition on what he calls assault weapons. In other words, AR style rifles, semi-automatic weapons, and similar weapons. So the gun control debate will almost certainly be hashed out next session. Even if not on the House floor and Senate floor, it will be hashed out in the court of public opinion. Absolutely. And again, folks, this is one of those things where we talk through the top 10 stories of the year. And this doesn't even deserve to be called a story, but it does deserve our reverence and attention. So Hayden, thank you so much for covering that for us. Matthew, we are going to do our best to pivot to different topics now. A huge story, one of the biggest this year, even just nationally, was the U.S. Supreme Court just dominating headlines with a landmark decision overturning another controversial landmark decision. What all has transpired since the court overturned Roe versus Wade? The high court revisited abortion rights in reviewing a Mississippi state law that banned abortions after 15 weeks, and in doing so, overturned the 1973

opinion Roe versus Wade, which set off a firestorm from pro-choice activists and also set off lots of celebrations from pro-life activists who had been advocating for the president to be overturned for many years. The ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson, allowed Texas' state laws prohibiting abortion that were on the books since before the Roe ruling to go back into effect immediately, as well as triggered a 30 day countdown for the recently enacted Human Rights Life Protection Act, which ultimately went into effect the next month. Political spectators wondered for some time what the impact the decision would have on Republicans in the past November midterm elections. And it turns out not much in Texas. Republicans still retained control of all statewide offices with healthy margins, and also maintained healthy majorities in both legislative chambers of the Texas legislature. One notable data point that

has come out since the ruling was handed down back in June is that abortions performed in Texas almost dropped tremendously immediately. In June, when the ruling was issued, there were nearly 2,600 abortions performed, whereas in July, there were only 68, which represented a 97% drop. Wow. Well, thank you so much for your coverage, Matt, of that issue. And we'll continue to watch what legislators do. And I'm sure Democrats in the House and Senate, once we convene in January, will have their eyes on the prize in this regard, regardless of whether or not they have the power legislatively to enact any sort of policy in response to Roe v. Wade being overturned.

It still is something that they have talked at great lengths about during campaign season. And so we'll see what proposals. It'll definitely be an issue this legislative session. Absolutely. It'll be interesting to watch. Well, thank you for your coverage, Matt. We appreciate it. Hayden, we're coming back to you. Some conservatives are gearing up for a fight over influence in the Texas House committees. What are some highlights of the controversy over committee chairmanships? Probably some of the most powerful positions in our state are the chairmanships of committees in the Texas legislature, because they shepherd different proposals that end up becoming law. They also have the ability to strike down proposals that they dislike by placing them far down on the calendar or refusing to take them up for a vote.

So it's natural that there would be people who care about this issue. And Republicans believe that the practice, I say Republicans, a handful of Republicans believe that the practice of appointing Democrats to committee chairs, scuttles, gives Democrats the ability to scuttle their legislative priorities. And this has been a sore point for many staunch conservatives, in particularly the Texas Republican Party. And it has been something of a tradition over the years for the Speaker to appoint a few members of the opposing party to committee chairmanships. And a notable example of this was Harold Dutton, who presided over the House Education Committee in the prior legislature. He famously sided with Republicans in a way when he scheduled the bill on participation in sports based on

biological sex versus gender identity when he brought that bill up for a vote and angered those within his own party. But still Republicans believe that some Republicans believe that Democrats should not have that type of influence and that only those in the majority party should occupy the committee chairmanships. And some of those conservatives are laying the groundwork to have that debate on the first day of session. So let's talk about that. And I will say it's also worth noting last year when there was that quorum bust over the Election Integrity Act of 2021, as Republicans coined the term, when Democrats fled the state in order to try and just filibuster the bill essentially without the actual term filibuster being accurate here. But that's what they did. They left the state in order

to stop the passage of that bill, that GOP-backed election reform bill. And some of those who did flee were chairman. And so that's where some of this discussion is coming back to the forefront is, okay, how do we respond in an event like that where legislators leave the state and leave their posts during a special session? Could, back to what you were talking about, about fights on the House floor, could this issue of Democrats and committee chairmanships be intertwined in other fights on the House floor? I will say it could be, but there's not a great likelihood that it will. And I'll add to our prior discussion that the Republican, the state Republican Party has said that only 18 Republicans in the House have committed to opposing Democratic committee chairs or supporting

a rule that would preclude that. And 18 put a mark on that number because there was a vote in the Texas House Republican Caucus over Speaker Dade Phelan's candidacy for Speaker and whether or not the House caucus was going to support him again. And that passed overwhelmingly 76 to 6. And so there's a gap there between the number of people who have said they would oppose Democrat committee chairs and those who are opposing Speaker Phelan's candidacy. So obviously, there are not a great number who are opposing Speaker Phelan's candidacy. So obviously, there are not a great number who are making this a do or die issue for them in terms of whether they'll support Phelan. And Tony Tenderholt, a Republican from Arlington, is running against Phelan and has committed personally to us that he will, I say personally to us, he stated in an interview with us that he would take his

candidacy to the House floor. And while there are these members who say that they are going to oppose this practice, clearly, it's not necessarily an issue, a deal breaker for them in terms of supporting Thielen. deal breaker for them in terms of supporting Phelan. So this could be a floor fight on the first day of session, but the numbers just aren't there at this point for them to mount a significant challenge to Phelan or the practice of supporting Democratic committee chairs. And it would take something monumentally significant politically for that to change in the next couple of weeks or however many days we have until January 10. And I think it's also worth noting that we've seen, especially after the quorum break last year, we've seen some changes of opinion on this topic. When this floor debate happened in the rules argument last session,

a couple of days after the speaker vote, we saw Representative Briscoe Cain, one of the most conservative members in the state house, get up and passionately argue in favor of preserving the practice of appointing Democrats as committee chairs. And in his argument as stated on the floor was that, you know, we don't want to be like Washington DC where they own, where the majority party only has, um, appoints committee chairs. And then, um, they see that at least as, as Kane said, see that as more dysfunctional. Um, DC is widely that as more dysfunctional. D.C. is widely seen as more dysfunctional. And so I don't know what specifically Briscoe Cain's change has been on that. But for many of these people, I would it would be hard for me to believe that anyone that changed did not consider the quorum break that just happened as part of the reason that they shifted their position on the issue.

That was such a big occurrence. And multiple of the people who fled the state were committee chairs. And so. And ironically, they went to D.C. Yes, yes. function like Washington. And then whenever they fled to Washington and shut everything down, it just kind of, that narrative got a really interesting reaction from everybody that said, well, have we not crossed that threshold? And where's the guarantee that they don't do this again next go around? So a lot of interesting elements in that saga.

And to add the other side of this argument is that the speakership itself is a numbers game, right? You need 76 votes in support to secure the speakership. And Republicans going into the next session will have about 10, 11 extra members. And so if you look back in history of the ledge a few years ago about how Joe Strauss came to power, he had a band of 11, 12 Republicans join all the Democrats. And so this is a political game of trying to ensure your governing majority. Part of that, I'm sure a very useful tool in that is offering a committee chair to a Democrat in return for their support as speaker. And so that's the other aspect of this. That's why these two issues are so tied together, the speakership and the Democratic chairs. But there is already more support for banning Democrat chairs among the members than there was last time.

So we'll see where they fall on, you know, when they vote next year. I need to correct myself. It was 78 to 6. I think I said 76 to six. Oh, got it. In the caucus vote. In the caucus vote. So it was 78 for Phelan, six opposed to Phelan. This issue is incredibly important specifically to grassroots conservatives, those most involved in the political process in Texas. They know this issue in and out. It is something that legislators will receive

calls about to their office. So I do think it is safe to say that if this were to go to a vote during the rules fight and the session, more Republicans would come out in favor of this issue of banning committee chairs or banning Democrat committee chairs that have pledged to support it publicly now. So that's part of the argument by people like Representative Tenderhold is, well, let's just get it to a vote. Of course, Democrats say, please just allow us to represent our districts. Please allow us positions of power.

We understand this is a Republican majority, but we want to be able to do our jobs as representatives from our districts. So that's, I mean, arguments all over the place. But do you have one more thing before you move on? We've already seen um grassroots individuals organizations promise primary fights against um met republicans who do not vote to ban democratic committee chairs uh the the patriot mobile pack who dumped a lot of money into school board races

this year and was very successful in putting conservatives on school boards, they strongly hinted that they'll be doing the same but in Texas legislative races on this one issue. Prefacing the 2024 race is already occurring on this issue and it will continue. Certainly. Okay. Well, we could talk about that all day long. We love the infighting in the Texas house. Can you not tell? Matthew, we are going to come to you. Speaking of grassroots conservatives in Texas, this past

summer, roughly 10,000 Republican delegates decided on the state GOP convention in Houston and one Republican lawmaker didn't receive the most cordial welcome over a piece of gun control legislation that he had been supporting. Tell us the details. Senator John Cornyn got booed rather loudly. If you can imagine how loud some 10,000 people booing can be. But the boos were motivated by a piece of bipartisan gun control legislation being championed by Senator Cornyn that had a few provisions that did not sit well with his fellow Republicans, including funding, federal funding that would go to encourage states to adopt red flag style laws. This is legislation that would allow law

enforcement to, without a warrant, go and confiscate firearms from somebody's possession over different allegations. The legislation was ultimately signed into law later by President Joe Biden, who praised the bipartisan support that the legislation received. But yeah, for those who were in Houston this past June, it was definitely the sight to behold over the policy differences between the Republican delegates and Senator Cornyn. He did receive a little bit of support whenever he got off onto some other topics, managing to shift the conversation over to his success, getting Trump-nominated federal judges confirmed in the Senate and helping further some pro-life issues. So that was met,

accepted by the delegates. But overall, they weren't very happy over the gun control issue. Certainly. And to note, particularly Governor Abbott did not attend the convention on site. He had an off-site welcome party for delegates that he did sponsor. I don't believe it was directly affiliated with the state party, but I cannot remember. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on that. But some folks were concerned. Okay.

Some folks were concerned that the governor didn't show up to convention because he was, again, had a tough primary challenge and it would be difficult to face delegates. But, you know, Senator Cornyn showed up and he was also in a tough position politically. And so that was fascinating to watch who showed up, was willing to talk to delegates who had crowd favorites like attorney general ken paxton there senator ted cruz who are beloved by these kinds of republicans in texas um so interesting to watch i have to go i have to give senator cornyn the credit for for showing up

and taking the beating um i don't think i could have stood up there. But it was kind of interesting, too, because the next speaker was a Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who received overwhelming applause from delegates. And he took a little bit of a swipe at Senator Cornyn saying, you know, if Congress passes any kind of unconstitutional gun control legislation, he'll be the first to file suit on behalf of the state of Texas and get it struck down. It was kind of interesting to see a little bit of competitiveness going on up there. Those two have certainly gone at it before. So it's fun to watch political, again, the drama, we live for the drama. Thank you, Matt, for covering that. Bradley, let's talk to you about another issue here that's been a very hot topic with abortion past the legislative limelight after Roe and the legislature's laws passed last year. The social issue spotlight has moved largely to child gender modification. What's occurred on that issue this year? So, due to the legislature failing to pass a ban of child gender modification surgeries and procedures last year, the attention moved to the executive branch last August after session ended.

But during the whole quorum bus fight, and this issue was not one of those placed on the special session agenda. But last August, Governor Abbott asked the Department of Family and Protective Services to determine whether gender modification surgeries themselves constitute child abuse and began a few different investigations into such instances um but after an ag opinion this and then over the last part portion of the year and into the next year into this year the question over whether puberty blockers applied to that standard as well was kind of being kicked back and forth and, and feet was feet, feet were being dragged, um, on all sides of that. Um, but eventually the office of the attorney general, uh, Ken Paxton released an opinion, non-binding opinion,

uh, backing the proposition that it could be extended to puberty-blocking drugs. And since then, those investigations have extended to those instances as well. There are a couple ongoing lawsuits against the executive branch for this action. And currently, GOP legislators are regrouping for their push to ban the practice entirely next year. Last session, we saw the House version of this die at the end of a deadline because it was placed quite far down the calendar after kind of lingering in committee for a little bit. And then we saw the second version, which came from the Senate, die as well. I can't remember if that occurred on the first quorum bust when House members walked out.

I don't think so because I don't think it ultimately passed the past the house. So it had to have been the earlier deadline, um, to pass Senate bills through the house, but, uh, it's going to be an issue again. There've already been multiple different versions of this, um, this topic filed. Um, we saw just the standard ban. We saw, uh, something prohibiting doctors from getting malpractice insurance for these procedures. And then another thing we wrote about this week, um, or when this is out, it'll will, will have been last week, uh, representative Brian Harrison filed a state Hyde amendment version of the Hyde Amendment, which would prohibit tax dollars going towards paying for these procedures and treatments. And so they're coming at it from many different directions.

And this will, especially given the fact that like abortion and con carry were already already passed are now no longer going to be on the legislature's plate, at least to the degree that they were last year. This has a lot more potential for gathering some legislative oxygen. Does that mean it'll pass the finish line? I'm not sure, but there will be many a floor fight on this issue, especially in the House. Like I said, we've already seen this kind of legislation pass the Senate, but the real battleground is in the House and whether those supporting it can gather enough votes to push it through. Absolutely. Thank you, Bradley, for covering that for us. We appreciate it. Hayden, it would not be our weekly roundup podcast in any way, shape or form without talking

to you about the border. The crisis peaked in 2022 this year with a record amount of illegal immigration. What were some of the highlights of the crisis and particularly Republicans response as they are the ones in power? Well, there were more enforcement encounters with illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2022, which ended in September, than there ever was in any year prior. There were 2.38 million encounters along the southern border, and that includes 2.21 million arrests between ports of entry by border police. There is no way to possibly summarize everything that's going on with the border in just a few minutes. But I think a few highlights are first, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas virtually forced out his Chief of Border Customs and Border Protection, Chris Magnus, forced him to either resign or be fired.

It was a whirlwind over the course of a couple of days. Magnus went from defending his record and saying he had no intention of leaving to handing in his resignation more or less the following morning. So Mayorkas having to push out his CBP commissioner is a huge statement of where he personally believes the border crisis is and how he believes it has been handled. Governor Abbott invoking provisions in the Constitution of the state and U.S. Constitution concerning invasion is a major escalation in his response to the crisis. Operation Lone Star has resulted in 333,000 or more arrests of illegal immigrants to be referred by federal authorities. That's according to the most recent update on Friday. And more than 14,000 have been bused out of state to various cities that Abbott has dubbed sanctuary cities and that themselves pledged to not arrest people on the basis of being in the

country illegally or provide them housing and shelter, all grouped together what Republicans would characterize as sanctuary city policies. Most recently, the Texas Military Department sent 400 troops directly to El Paso to respond to the surge that that, is against the backdrop of Mayorkas saying that Republicans are the ones contributing to the idea that the border is open by constantly beating the drum of there being an open border under President Biden. So there's plenty of finger pointing as to who's responsible for this surge of illegal immigration and plenty of conditions abroad that are contributing to it as well. Is there any debate at this point, Hayden, that there is a crisis at the border? Is that still something that is being debated between political parties at large? Or is it pretty much

agreed upon at this point? I don't think anyone denies that this much illegal immigration creates a need for people to step up and provide for all of these people who are coming here with no job, no savings, no necessities. I don't think anyone disagrees. I think the disagreement is now who's responsible for taking care of these individuals, of these people, and many of them children who are coming across the border. And big city mayors would say that the whole country needs to do its part. Republicans are focused on deterrence and securing the border and stopping the flow of illegal immigration, whereas I would say Democrats are more focused on finding ways to provide for the people who are coming here course, is grounds for debate. But no, I don't think there's any debate that the way this current situation is, in fact, a crisis, at the very least, a humanitarian crisis. But, of course, at worst, opening the country to a risk of terrorism as well. Certainly. Thank you for that. What role have federal judges played in the border crisis? Just at large, generally speaking, what role have they played in this issue? Because of all the litigation over Trump's policies and Biden's policies, they have really

directed policy on the border because they have issued injunctions that have applied nationwide. Most recently, Chief Justice John Roberts made the final call on Title 42 being continued as opposed to being ended, which is going to immediately make a huge difference because everyone agreed that there was going to be a surge of illegal border crossings. The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that and warned everyone about that. So federal judges, with their injunctions and with their decisions that they've made in lawsuits, many of which have been filed by Ken Paxton, have had a major influence on immigration policy in the past couple of years. And before that, but especially the past couple of years.

Well, Hayden, you've been an incredible addition to the team just reporting on this. We appreciate you taking the time. Folks, if you have been listening to our podcast all of this year, we're so grateful that you've been listening and 2022 has been an incredible year of news to keep up with. We would ask that if you have not subscribed to the Texan, go to the texan.news right now, make it your new year's resolution

to subscribe to a news outlet that does not have advertisers, does not have big money donors, and make sure to have news that pertains to you and your pocketbook each and every day that will not be hostile to your worldview. We take this very seriously. I try to make sure these boys are fed, that Holly and Kim can provide for their children, not to tug at the heartstrings, but I'm tugging at the heartstrings. Make sure

to go to the texan.new subscribe today. You can subscribe for $9 monthly or an annual subscription is $7.50 per month. That's as much as my coffee costs, which I go and get multiple times a week. So folks, we just encourage you to go and make sure that you subscribe. We appreciate your support. If you're listening, we so appreciate that as well. That helps us each and every week to continue to deliver the news that we care so much about. But subscriptions is really how we make sure that we're able to provide for our team and continue to report on news 10 years from now. So thanks for listening. And we hope you go to the Texas news and subscribe to day. Holly, we're coming back to you or not back to you. This is your first time talking on this podcast. I'm so glad. Welcome. Welcome. It's great to be here.

Let's talk about Harris County trouble in paradise for Lena Hildalgo. She won her reelection. She's the Harris County judge there locally, but there's an issue still looming. Tell us about what's going on down there. Sure. And this is an issue that started back in 2021, where we found this, there was this contract that the county awarded for COVID vaccine outreach for $11 million. And it caught our attention because it was awarded to a one-person firm. And the one person who owned this kind of data analytics firm was a very well-connected Democrat. She had been the deputy campaign manager for Commissioner Adrian Garcia when he ran for Houston mayor. This woman had also worked for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016 and was a data

analyst for the Democrat National Committee. So it did seem interesting that she would get this COVID vaccine outreach contract. We are one of the entities that started to look into this as well as Fox 26 here in Houston. And we started to discover there's a little more to the story. There were some interesting emails that went back and forth. There were some scoring sheets that showed that actually a more qualified vendor may have been the UT Health Science Center. They actually bid at a lower cost than this woman's firm, which incidentally is the Fel Perea's Elevate Strategies. But there was more to it than that. So the contract got canceled, but the district attorney's office assembled a grand jury. There was an investigation. The Texas Rangers were involved. At one point, they executed search warrants and seized a wide variety of communications from Lena Hidalgo's staffers who were involved in creating this work. And what came out afterwards led to the felony indictments of three Hidalgo staffers. Now, that was all very busy news last spring and over the summer to some extent,

but it did quiet down before the election. Part of the reason for that was that there were accusations from Lena Hidalgo's office that the investigation and the indictments were politically motivated, although the district attorney in Harris County is also a fellow Democrat. But still, there's kind of a friction between the district attorney and Lena Hidalgo. And so that was, you know, kind of bandied about. There were some competing motions for sanctions in the courts and so forth, but there really hasn't been any action since about last summer. However, we are expecting there to be a trial at some point, and there are some speculation, there is some speculation that Lena Hidalgo herself could be indicted in relation to this contract. She herself announced publicly at one point that

she expected to be indicted. And what's at stake here is that it seems that Hidalgo and her staff may have created this project for this crony, if you will, this Democrat compatriot of theirs. And then after the scoring took place, they may have moved to disqualify the UT Health Science Center so that they would not be able to obtain that contract. So I think that we will expect to see some more and more developments in that story in the upcoming weeks, perhaps sometime in the new year. But that does continue to loom over Harris County. Now, Lena Hidalgo did win her reelection.

So she's not, you know, not fighting that on the campaign trail, but it looks like something that will still be discussed in the courtroom. Certainly. And that was an incredibly contentious race as well. You're talking about one of the biggest races of the year was the Harris County judges race for the general election. It was absolutely wild. Alex Delmaral-Miller raised so much money. They're looking challenger to Hildago. I can't remember, but she outraced most statewide candidates. She did. And she ended up raising more than $8 million in that race, which really raised a lot of eyebrows across the state. In the end, it wasn't enough to get her across the finish line, as far as we can tell. Lena Hidalgo still won with about 1% of the vote.

There was also a third-party write-in candidate that took, you know, I think 0.1% of the vote, not enough to sway things. But, you know, the dust is still settling here in Harris County over the elections. We had a lot of election issues. We did see some judicial candidates file election contests. I don't think there's enough of a vote margin there to bring the county judges race into play in any of those contests. But there's still a lot that can happen. Certainly folks all over the state care about Harris County because they see trends similar to that are happening in Harris County in their areas.

So, Holly, we so appreciate your coverage. And this bleeds so much into what we talk about on the state level in terms of policy that's talked about during the legislative session. So thanks for your coverage. Always a delight to have you on the podcast. Bradley, following up on the first topic you discussed on this podcast, what does the election mean for the minority party, Texas Democrats? So the Democrats did not have a good night here in Texas. They managed to keep two of the three South Texas congressional seats that were getting a lot of attention. But when you look at the partisan leaning of those three, the results of them were not really all that surprising. The two that Democrats won were heavily leaning Democrats after redistricting, and the one that went to the Republicans leaned their way after redistricting. So there was not a lot of surprise for the Democrats. And what ultimately happened was

more of the same from the last 30 years. They were locked out of any of the statewide races or positions um like they have been for nearly 30 years they lost as i said lost a couple had a net loss in the house and lost one seat in the senate um and so this kind of sends them back out into the political wilderness where they've kind of made a home for themselves of late. And they're going to have to now try and take stock of the race, figure out what went wrong for them, which with how bad it was, is probably quite a lot. And the democratic parties post-mortem analysis that they put out, it placed the blame of the feet at the, uh,

of redistricting, uh, quote voter suppression, um, tying that to the, the election reforms that passed last year. Um, and a lack of national democratic investment that last one we

saw uh beto o'rourke talk about a lot in his message following georgia's outcome but the one thing that they kind of uh actually provided some self-inflection on self-reflection on was the, as they described it, their, their own poor border security messaging that costs them, um, especially in, in, uh, at least one house seat down in the Rio Grande Valley. Um, it costs them in the seat, the other, one of the other state house seats that touches down there, uh, that that actually is represented by Ryan Guillen, who flipped parties last year. And that was the one, seemingly the one thing that was blaming it, that was placing some blame at their own feet rather than at these other things. And so maybe we'll see a development there.

We saw Henry Cuellar, who is one of the most outspoken Democrats on the situation at the border. He won by quite a decent margin. And regardless, this is just another cycle like has existed for the last like almost three decades now. And if Democrats ever really want to make Texas truly competitive, like they've been chanting for the last four years since the beta wave in 2018, they're going to have to change some things up. And for them, the shot clock ticking down to the 2024 election has already begun. We've seen this on the Republican side that Matt's about to talk about. But apply it to the Democrats as well. And not just at the presidential level. They'll have a U.S. Senate seat up in 2024. It'll be Ted Cruz's seat. Whether he chooses to run or not we don't know but um are they going to go with beto again or are they going to find

somebody else whether it's julian castro or somebody else waiting in the wings they have got a lot to figure out and maybe this the result of this election, when their Democratic compatriots had a lot of success across the nation and they did not have a lot of success here in Texas. Maybe this will be, you know, a kick in the rear end for them to try and figure that out. But, you know, it's been said before, too. So a lot to play for in 24. And Democrats are really going to have to take a good look in the mirror on it. I think it's fair to say Texas Democrats are highly energized. They're becoming more well-organized. Their bench is just not that deep. Republicans have so many different folks to

draw from. They've been in power for so much longer. It means that it tracks candidates who may have better skills or resumes to the table to run for even low level offices. Whereas Democrats have a harder time with that because the attraction is not there. It's harder to win in Texas. So a lot of well-connected Democrats are kind of starting to wake up, starting to run, but the bench is just not as deep for those Democrats in Texas. So it'll be interesting to see how quickly that changes. It'll take a while, I think, for Texas to turn blue if that were to happen. Interesting podcast we recorded a while ago with Derek Ryan, a Republican consultant and data analyst, has a lot of good information about what that would look like. So make sure to go

check that out. But thank you, Bradley, for that coverage. Speaking of 2024, Matthew, we are coming to you. A very major candidate has already announced for the presidential election in 2024 tell us about this news you and the docket call it huge news so why don't you uh give us a little bit of a rundown as to why that might be the word that is most appropriate for this scenario not very subtle there matt huh well i was trying to think of a good, I'll give you all a little bit of a clue on the segue. So, former President Donald Trump is the first to officially toss his hat into the 2024 bid for the White House. The former president will seek to serve a second term if he is successful. His announcement was welcomed by his former Texas campaign chair, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.

Interestingly, the Texas Republican Party did a poll of Republican voters that showed Trump has a rising contender in the GOP primary if he is opposed. And that is in rising star Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who's closing the gap and taking a close second place position. DeSantis has yet to make any formal announcements, although he hasn't completely ruled it out. Also, President Joe Biden has not announced his 2024 plans from what I've seen. But it'll be interesting to see if the country has a 2020 rematch shaping up in 2024. Absolutely going to be a spicy time and Republicans in Texas seem very split on the issue and more favorable to DeSantis than I think we would have thought a year ago compared to Trump. So it'll be very, again, the drama, very fun to watch how that all breaks down if the Florida governor does in fact throw his hat in the ring as he is expected to. Gentlemen, Holly, let's jump ahead to talking about what we have our eyes on going into 2023

in Texas politically. What are we watching? What are we looking forward to? We're turning the corner here and entering an entirely new year. New stories are coming up. Bradley, what do you have your eyes on and are watching specifically going into the new year? Well, I already mentioned the projected $27 billion surplus that is going to lead to a lot of fights on many different issues over how to spend that money. And actually, it might be the comptroller said the other day that he's going to have an updated estimate on January 9th, the day before the legislative session starts. And so it may actually he told me that it may actually grow. So that's even more money potentially. I think one thing that's really developing is this fight over ESG.

That's something I've been following. The legislature passed a bill last session that kind of took aim at this. It's the environmental, social, and governance movement within the financial world. It's a movement that is trying to move capital away from fossil fuel sources of energy and towards other things such as mainly wind and solar um when strictly talking about you know um generation of power and so

uh that turned that trickles into all different kinds of things um but the social as well applies to non-energy related stuff, such as there's a series of board shareholder proposals at a few companies that tried to push back on abortion restrictions like occurred in Texas. And so this spans a lot. Energy is just kind of the headliner of this. But we saw last week, State Senator Brian Hughes and the State Affairs Committee in the Senate questioned BlackRock, which is the world's largest portfolio manager, and a couple other companies, including the state pension system's proxy voting service over their policies and how things have developed to where they are. This is not going away. This is probably going to be one of the keynote issues, I think, in the session, at least among the people that they're inclined

to care about this. It's not as easily understood as abortion, but as I said, it touches abortion, but it extends well beyond that and especially holds a lot of implications for the state's oil and gas industry. So that's something I think is going to be a big, a big issue. Generally, politically where the chips fall on these, on things like the chair vote, the speaker's vote, the relationship between Lieutenant governor Patrick and speaker feeling,

do they just try and throw a bunch of legislation at each other that neither of them want to deal with? As we saw happen last year, I think there's a good chance of that. Where do they find compromise on? It's going to be a very hairy session and I think ripe for conflict in many different areas. I'm game for it. Bring it on. I think it'll be fun. It's so funny to me, and this is kind of what I'm to piggyback off of what you said, looking forward to watching in 2023

is how these Republicans in power either work together or go to bat against each other on these big issues. Phelan and Patrick have both proven to be incredibly different leaders in terms of what they prioritize, regardless of being a part of the same political party. And the governor, I'd say he kind of straddles both chambers of trying to figure out where he'll actually

put his political capital. His emergency items at the beginning of the session will be incredibly telling as to where he thinks his time and effort and behind the scenes calls of, hey, you know, calling up members on the House floor saying you better vote for this, like those things happen. And where will that time be spent from the governor? And which side will he kind of be more willing to engage with in terms of the House and the Senate will be fascinating. And we saw, you know, four years ago, is it four years ago now? Almost four years ago when Speaker Bonin was the Speaker of the Texas House,

there was a call to kumbaya session. I was just about to say that. You saw it. We saw so much collaboration. You know, Brad, that's my job. If I don't steal your thunder once a day, then I'm not doing my job. But the collaboration between the chambers,

between Speaker Bonin and Lieutenant Governor Patrick was unbelievable compared to previous sessions when Speaker Strauss was in power. And compare that to last session, totally different. Yes, 100%. We have a lot of info on that as well. But the behind the scenes bartering on some of these really big issues like constitutional carry like this was this was big stuff and it'll be fascinating to see where the chambers come down on the on uh you know those issues this session and who decides to expend more political capital to get their items across the line so we'll see and just who has their members in order right like a lot of members take pride in not going uh along with their uh their chambers leader, particularly in the House.

There's a lot of independence and fun to be had in that regard of House floor fights. And the Senate is far more planned and far more strategized. And folks are in line with the lieutenant governor. Well, I mean, you mentioned the Senate is far more lockstep behind Patrick. Well, especially now that Seliger, Kel Seligeriger is no longer going to be in the Senate. He was the chief thorn in Patrick's side for at least two sessions. Yeah. Republican.

And so, you know, I remember my first day on the job, Seliger was, did you call it a filibuster? He was giving a very long talk and he was about to. He was considering whether to tank the lieutenant Regardless, that was my first day on the job here in Texas, seeing Seliger go at Lieutenant Governor. And so who, does anybody take that role from the Republicans in the Senate? Probably not, but you know, stranger things have happened, I'm sure. Well, Kevin Sparks in West Texas has replaced Seliger and is obviously and publicly far more amenable to Patrick's style than Seliger was. So at least in that seat, we kind of know where that's headed.

Hayden, what about you? What are you watching as 2023 begins? I hate to say this, but illegal immigration is the gift that keeps on giving for Republicans. I'm going to clip that out of context and tweet it out. Yeah. Shocking. The Texas News reporter calls illegal immigration a gift. No, I'm kidding. It'll be surprising to see how much more money the ledge gives to Operation Lone Star and what Abbott does with it in the coming year if he's going to back Trump or if he's going to run himself or endorse DeSantis if DeSantis decides to run. I'm curious how Abbott's going to handle 2024, especially now that he's been given another four-year term and DeSantis has

been given another four-year term in Florida DeSantis has been given another four-year term in Florida. But both men have made illegal immigration and border security major issues in their campaign. It scares people, the illegal immigration does, and particularly it angers conservatives. that the legislature will address it again and will pass bills to continue to clamp down on human trafficking and drug trafficking. They passed a fentanyl bill last session that increased the penalties for fentanyl trafficking. That legislation was authored by Senator Huffman. So we'll probably see some more legislative response to the border crisis. And Abbott will probably have a lot more to say on it. And I don't know, maybe he'll get more aggressive. Maybe he will come around to the thinking of declaring an

invasion and deporting illegal immigrants with state resources. He's gone over and over the risks that he believes come with that. But there are those who say that the risks are not as serious as the risks of not doing it. So it will be interesting to see how much further Abbott takes Operation Lone Star, how much more aggressive he gets with illegal immigration, and how far the legislature goes to fund his efforts as well. Absolutely. We're going to go in alpha. Oh, yeah, Matt, go for it. Well, I was just going to add into that, Hayden, I think it'll be interesting to see if the severity of the humanitarian crisis at the border causes Democrat lawmakers

to face any kind of pressure from their base to come to the table on the issue or whether or not it's just going to be a non-starter, continue to be a non-starter issue for them. But it's getting progressively worse. An interesting example, Abbott was out with a letter a little while ago, you know, talking about the upcoming freeze that the state's going to be under and how there's thousands of people in El Paso without, you know, necessary shelter and supplies and imploring the Biden administration to provide, you know, resources for, for all of these people.

And it's quite awful. Um, and so it'll be interesting to see if that, if that starts to have, uh, any kind of, um, an impact on the democratic electorate base that, that trickles up and translates into some sort of, um, action on the, on the other side, rather than, you know, forcing Republicans to have to go to more and more outside the box thinking avenues to address the border. So yeah, interesting thing. Particularly when Texas Democrats have such nuance in their voting habits, particularly in South Texas. I think that's a great point. We're going to go alphabetically here. Holly, what's something you're going to go alphabetically here. Holly,

what's something you're going to be watching going into 2023? You kind of talked a little bit earlier, but give us a sneak peek of what you're thinking. Sure. You know, the big thing in this area is that we will have mayoral elections here in Houston, you know, most populous city in the state. Arguably, what happens here is very important to the rest of the state. Sylvester Turner is term limited, and he is completing his second term as mayor. He's been a very resilient politician despite multiple scandals. And, you know, there was one of his senior aides pled guilty to federal public corruption charges and has resigned. And there's a lot of concerns about some housing deals and things like that.

Not really terribly unlike what is being investigated on the Harris County side of government. But it'll be interesting election to watch. Probably the money front runner, if you will, right now is state senator John Whitmire. And speaking of Democrats who've held chairmanships on the Senate side, Whitmire's been a chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee for years. He's actually been in the state legislature, I think, since the 1970s. So he's kind of out there in front, but depending on the feel of the or the mood of the electorate, if you will, there's also a stiff challenge coming from Chris Hollins, who is the former interim Harris County clerk. He's very popular locally and he could be

a stiff contender. And then there's also a former council member and a local attorney. Um, but this will be one to watch Houston, you know, has this sort of odd election cycle and, uh, unique election, uh, procedures going on. And, uh, all 16 members of the, uh, the council will be up for reelection as well. So we'll be looking at some robust debate and talk about some of the council will be up for reelection as well. So we'll be looking at some robust debate and talk about some of the issues that are plaguing the city and everything from infrastructure to funding. The city has used ARPA funds to plug some pretty significant budget holes. And so it's going to be incumbent on these mayoral candidates to come forward with some realistic proposals for

how to manage that going forward. And we'll just keep a close watch on it here at the Texan. Seeing how, like you said, the momentum shapes up behind those two candidates in specific will be fascinating. I'm very excited to watch it and fundraising will be a huge part of that, which we know Whitmire has incredible fundraising jobs. So we'll see what happens there. Holly, thank you so much. Matt, what about you? 2023, what do you got your eyes on? Well, I think it's just going to pretty much

be dominated right off the bat with the legislature. I'm going to be watching the first couple of months of the session to see kind of what priorities shape up from the Lieutenant Governor, the Governor, the Speaker amongst the big three, see what direction the session takes. I think we'll probably get a pretty good feel for what the big issues are going to be pretty soon. And then, yeah, after that, I'm hoping that 2024 politics with the White House and all that good stuff will at least hold off until sine die. And so that we in Texas can get our exciting session out of the way. Cause too many big, too many big distractions all at once. Just,

just too much. So, yeah, just seeing what direction the legislature is going to take. And, and, and, and then we'll traverse over into the 2024 politics.

That sounds about right. Wonderful. Well, gentlemen, happy new year. I'm excited to get to work with you all for another year. It's wonderful as always to, I don't know, sit around and put commas in places where y'all are already such subject matter experts on what you do. That's all I do. I just sit around and put commas in places. You guys make my job so easy, but thank you for your work. Oxford commas, that is. That's absolutely correct.

Thank you for that distinction. must have the oxford comma that is incredibly important um but regardless we're grateful folks again if you have not subscribed to the texan already we ask that you do go to the texan.news today and make sure you're subscribed if you subscribe you also get wonderful emails in your inbox each morning with the top stories from each day which is a very healthy um little fun little tool. So we love it. And I take advantage of it because I forget what I published the previous day. Folks, thanks for sticking with us. Again, we have blathered. We appreciate you listening and happy new year. Merry new year. 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. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.