The Texan Podcast - State Rep. Briscoe Cain Discusses Congressional Run, Redistricting Ruling, Texas Legislature

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Senior Reporter Brad Johnson interviews state Representative Briscoe Cain about his campaign for Congress in Texas's new Congressional District 9. Cain shares his thoughts on the recent ruling that overturned district maps, his continued commitment to his campaign, and his work in the Texas legislature, including his pivotal role in passing the Texas Heartbeat Act. 00:00 Intro00:49 Thoughts on the Court's Decision04:11 Special Session and Redistricting09:13 Institutional Knowledge and Term Limits13:38 Texas Heartbeat Act19:55 Redistricting20:55 Deciding to Run for Congress21:37 Challenges in the US House of Representatives22:48 Campaign Strategy and Opponents25:58 Addressing Criticisms29:48 Local Issues and Community Concerns37:49 Restoring Congressional Power40:59 Closing

Good morning, everybody. This is Brad Johnson Senior Reporter here at The Texan. Today for the podcast, we've got State Representative Briscoe Cain. Briscoe, welcome. Howdy? Good morning, Brad. How are you doing? Man, I'm excited.

Yeah. Have it a great day. You are, of course, running for Congress, Congressional District 9, one of the new seats. And we had scheduled this interview in advance and fortuitously. or not. There was a big ruling that happened yesterday as we sit here and record. The maps got tossed, at least by the district court, and we'll see where it goes with the Supreme Court. But what are your thoughts on that ruling? And obviously, it does affect you more than many other people if those maps stay out. Yeah, I see it kind of as a temporary setback. I remember

my manager walked in the room and said, oh, did you see what happened? So it's time to double down. Let's go block walk. And so yesterday, my wife and I, My oldest kid went out and knocked doors. It's all gas, no brakes. You're staying in the race, as you said in the statements on Twitter. Absolutely. I came up to Austin today, right, the day after the opinion came out and filed to officially run for Congress. But the opinion is troubling.

Let's think about this. It seems like leftist, Democrats, when they appoint judges, they appoint leftist. And I don't get it with Republicans. We keep kind of picking these failures. And Jeff Brown wasn't exactly known as a conservative. of around folks in Houston that knew him well. But I'll remind you, right, Jeff Brown wrote the opinion at the district court level in the Pettaway case. The Fifth Circuit reversed and said it was wrong, and it would seem like he's one of the two of the three in the case that came out yesterday

that's wrong again. And so I think in reading it and talk to some other scholars, there's plenty of grounds for the U.S. Supreme Court to find reversible error and correct the problem. What are those grounds, you think? But on a high level, they misapplied PEDAway. They're using kind of statements by the state as being against the state, and that's just not the way case law tends to play this out. But I think this is a guy who got reversed and is upset about it and doesn't want to let go. That his application, the law was wrong.

He was wrong when he did it in PEDAway, as you can see with the Fifth Circuit, and he's wrong again. It seemed one of the big problems for the map, at least, in the legal opinion that was mentioned, was this DOJ letter, the letter that came out from Harmeet Dillon at the Department of Justice, basically prodding the legislature to redistrict. And that seemed to undermine the case the state was making that this was a partisan redraw. Do you think, what do you think about that? Was that here as well?

Well, look, in interpreting statutes that are made, we should always first look to the plain reading. and read it. And courts should be very reluctant and hesitant to take the words or statements by individual legislators, right? When you're trying to pull out the intent of something, it's about what people said, and it's certainly not what some outside source party had anything to do with that, right? They are not a member of the legislative branch. The U.S. Constitution leaves redistricting up to the states, and the state constitutions invested that with the legislative branch. We're the ones who have that power, and we should be allowed to do so autonomously. there needs to be a ruling from the Supreme Court pretty quickly because we are in the middle of filing period with the deadline coming up early next month typically does the Supreme Court jump in pretty fast on this are you expecting that I would hope something by the end of the week but you know it just kind of reminds people of like 2012 2013 when we saw this right and you didn't see the elections until after after the convention if I don't remember how delay that was now hopefully it's not delayed like that but I'd I'd I'd I'd

I do think there's plenty of reasonable grounds for the U.S. Supreme Court to find reversible error. In many ways, in at least count three, the court ignored controlling precedent out of the Fifth Circuit. Okay. Let's step back a bit and talk about session. Part of that was the special session where the state redistricted. But, you know, you came in backing the reform candidate for Speaker David Cook, and you were heavily involved in that movement. It was unsuccessful, and you found yourself on the ounce with leadership. What was, in your mind, session like from the beginning to the end?

Well, at first, it wasn't fun, right? Having been chair of elections and then in 2023, chairing agricultural and livestock, you kind of see why people enjoy it. Being chairman's fun. You don't have to work your bills. They just kind of go through committee. They get set through committee. They go to calendars without any request.

I can see why it's such an attractive thing, why some people will cling on to power as much as they can, I wanted to let it go. But then a day, I still care more about policy and I care more about the principles, especially following with the platform and the caucus bylaws had set up. I'd fought for those things in 2018 and 19 when we actually amended the bylaws of the caucus. That was a really big deal. And so I wasn't going to compromise on that. So it wouldn't fund for a little bit. But ultimately, I think that reform movement still prevailed. How so? Well, it may not have, you know, chosen the speaker, it was still part of moving the entire chamber to the right.

It just absolutely moved the Overton window. Very few folks can doubt that. In fact, you're seeing the party praised Dustin Burroughs, Speaker Brose, who did a fantastic job, and he himself is a conservative. I assure anybody of that. If you want to call a rhino, you don't know what the word means. Just to be clear. Base, if you are using that term, you've lost your mind.

You don't know what it means because this guy's solidly pro-life, solid on guns, solid on everything else. He just may have gotten there the way we wouldn't have liked. But it was a conservative session, and it was due to that reform movement. A large number of new freshmen came in with great ideas and the desire to fight and press the battle every day. And when they did that, it worked. What are the big wins from Session in your mind? Yeah.

Some of the big ones that I think are unsung. Let's talk about maybe the unsung ones. Sure. Which would have been a – there was an awesome amendment that stopped social transitioning of children. While we had stopped the medical procedures and the hormone treatments, you still got that grooming and things are going in the classroom. There was a amendment that got that done. Amendment in the House that really, really improved and strengthened our foreign adversary land buying bill. It was by Representative Nate Shadsline.

In fact, it was used yesterday when the governor added, what was it, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood to the terrorist watch list. that's because of an amendment like that. And so there were just great bills coming out, but also there's a lot of hard-fought work on the floor that I think the reformers, would include myself, got done for the people of Texas. You mentioned, you complimented Speaker Burroughs in terms of the results and what happened.

In your mind, where did things turn? When did your assessment go from, okay, if not opposed, at least concerned to this speaker? to now your position that you just stated. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say I was concerned with Speaker Burroughs ever, really, though it might have been some of the people he surrounded himself with or the people that were there in the room.

That had been moderates for a long time, and it's who they are, right? But he seemed to have not allowed that to get too much in the way. I'm not sure when it kind of dawned on me. It's just the bills were coming to the floor. It was happening, things we've been fighting hard for for a long time. Were there some things that didn't get happened? Yeah. There always is.

We're still waiting for the ban on taxpayer funding to make at the floor. We constantly get promised on that, and it just doesn't happen. But he delivered school choice. Something that was so historic, it was a thing that I was really willing to lay my hat on and go, we're done. I've done all I could do that I came here for to deliver freedom for parents and for children. That's generational changes. One of the biggest ones left to be done to kind of really reform and change the future of Texas is to stop using tax. tax dollars to hire lobbyists who then give us campaign donations with tax dollars. It needs

to stop. Simple. And so outside of those little failures, it was a great session. And I trust that Speaker Burroughs would be handily reelected. I mean, after all, the president wanted to get these maps done, and he delivered. Do you think he wins caucus next time around? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Will there even be an opponent, you think? I don't know. But they should still follow the process. The caucus still should come together and follow the nomination process as set out in the platform of the Republican Party, Texas, right, as demanded by the grassroots when they drafted it, but also as set forth in the bylaws that we should come together in that December following that November election and choose a caucus nominee. This session, in my mind, for the right flank of the caucus, it's marked by a lot of institutional knowledge and experience leaving, right? you're leaving, you've been in that house for a while, I represent Tinderholz, represent

Shatslines leaving, represent Toth. There is, there's just a loss of a lot of experience on that side of the caucus. How do you, what do you think that means going forward? Are you concerned about that? Like, what do you think? I'm glad you asked that regarding, like, institutional knowledge. Anybody that maybe is, like, new to the party or is never gone to a convention, I can remember my first time being a delegate to a convention. I also remember being a freshman. And I think you come in and you know everything. And he realized, oh, there's this person who's been there for 20 years.

And then they were just the relationships in the background. They understand the whys and the how. And so-and-so used to be neighbors or dated or their exes or, right? Those details really, really, really matter, especially in that building. And the instructional just got to be passed on. So I knew, I didn't know I was going to be running for Congress, but I knew this was going to be my last term. Really?

Yeah, I believe in term limits and had told my supporters back in 2016, we decided to run just out of caution and fear that we've seen some great folks go get elected and something happens. And so I wanted some accountability. And so we told him, hey, I pledged only do 10 years. So I thought I was going home.

And so that entire time I spent really trying to train up other folks, guys like Mitch Little and Brent Money, I was passing on my knowledge of the rules. In fact, given them my work product on how to call these points of order, and it was a big focus of mine just the entire session. And some folks didn't know what I was doing, right? And so maybe they're a little cautious that I wanted to teach them how to write amendments or carry those things. Because, yeah, I kind of realized I was leaving and I needed to pass some important knowledge on, you know.

How long did it take you to get up to speed on the rules where, you know, you were the point of order guy in the House for the Republican caucus? Is that that took you a while, or did you get up the speed pretty quickly when you first got to the House? No, that one, again, is going to take multiple sessions because you've got to witness the arguments. There's a difference between looking at the journal and trying to dissect what something meant and looking at the rules and the precedents and actually seeing it. And each parliamentarian, each judge is a little different, each bill is a little different, and it's why you go down there and look at it. But it comes from kind of having a love of it.

There was a former member, his name's Robert Towton. He was a member out of Pasadena. And when I was running, and after I won, he kind of sat me down and was like, look, here's a trick. This can be one of the most powerful members of that body by just being one guy. Because it takes a committee to vote that bill out. It takes a lot of people to pass that bill. It takes the calendar's committee, right? That means multiple people to put that bill on the floor, and it just takes one guy to ruin everybody's day and to kill that bill.

all that hard work and I'll be shut down by one guy but also could be used as a negotiating tool maybe there's something we want maybe there's something stuck in calendars and I maybe I'm willing to remove that point of order in exchange for for some action and that's also been a successful tool of being able to have the rules at your at your disposal for the can you explain for the average person why points of order the rules are so important in the legislative process well it kind of be summarized by part of the end of that question, which is it's a legislative process. And the Texas Constitution sets forth certain rules for how bills are passed when they can be filed and what has to happen to them in order to become law.

Constitution also empowers both chambers with the ability to set their own rules. And so with that constitutional mandate, legislative branches, the Texas House has created rules. And those rules are for us to be predictable. It's also to rein in kind of the capriciousness of a speaker. Maybe they have their own biases or friendships. It's to make sure that every member knows what the rules are. There's predictability in the process. Then everybody gets to participate.

But when those rules are broken, depending on which ones, it can completely alter the day. It can either cause the bill to be sent back to committee or depending on the timing, how much time is left, to completely die and not have any chance of coming back. what are you proudest of in your 10 years in the legislature the texas harbid act and that was yeah explain that that's a fascinating one if you want to get into the the nitty-gritty i'll tell them we'll cut some time story man for me it started it's two thousand eighteen tyson's corner of virginia i'm outside it's night outside the palm restaurant and I'm having a little glass of scotch cigar a friend's there and a legend former majority leader of the United States House of Representatives Tom DeLay walks out and it looks

down at us and I already looked like a child anyways right this is 2018 and he says less so now with the stash yeah right and he says can I have a seat and I'm just kind of starstruck like absolutely so he says down tells us really cool stories about right like flying fighter jets on aircraft carriers and getting to shoot big guns and things that they don't just even let normal congressmen do. And then he starts to talk about this thing called the Heartbeat Act. And so we commit to it. I go back to legislature.

I file a different version in 2019. And then just kind of fast forward, we meet these right people. Brian Hughes gets involved. We then bring in Jonathan Mitchell. And during COVID, since you're in 2020, we spent a lot of time writing this thing that eventually is going to break the system.

It's going to bypass Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey and frustrate the courts. I'd say up to the point that it wasn't Mississippi that's responsible for the Dobbs decision, that it's Texas. And then the day, in short summary, it was a Texas heartbeat act that abolished abortion to save so many kids and families. If this is it, if that's all I ever did, it was all worth it. And that was, the legal strategy there was to get around the prohibition of setting, of restricting abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision and the others that followed was taking the enforcement mechanism away from the state and giving it to, you know, average people in a civil cause of action. Yeah, to prevent government from able to enjoin it. What was really unique about the whole thing is, at least if you're a Christian out there listening, to understand how it was kind of, this confirmation through the Holy Spirit, which is, so my first year in law school kind of

started out this whole political thing as an anti-abortion activist. I found out the first pro-life law student organization. Our son in Mississippi helped establish law students for life. It's a division of students for life of America. But my law professor sponsor, my first year that's like 2010 tells me this idea is like, hey, if you want to get around Roe v. Wade, you just need to start suing abortions. Just malpractice claim just suing them, right? It's not a statutory issue. You're not running into this.

Now in Texas, we have some med-mow things that kind of prevent you. You've got loser pays if you don't get past certain summary phases. But the idea of getting around that began to make sense. And then in my second year, I wrote an article. It was about, I called it an undue burden. It was the idea of going after abortionists for failing to enforce. warm women of the side effects, but the principal was still a civil cause of action of suing them in order to get around that. And so when I'm having this conversation in 2020 with Brian Hughes

and Jonathan Mitchell, when that concept was brought up, it was just really affirming, like, light bulb, like that's exactly what we've been thinking. How do we get around this? And so we crafted the silver bullet and shot it and killed Roe v. Wade. It's a hard one to to believe so many people have been working for so long, and I recognize that wasn't anything I did or anything Jonathan did or Senator Hughes or Shelby Slalson, that there were people that come before us that had laid that groundwork and fought in the trenches and protested abortion clinics and giving up their time and treasure of adopting kids and spending all this money to save lives, and we just kind of got to be there to undo it. It was just neat. It was probably

the first instance of kind of the new alignment we're seeing in terms of Republicans being more friendly to lawsuits as a tool, right? And obviously that has bled into this political fight that occurred between the trial attorneys who see, you know, more of a constituency among Republicans than they ever had before. And Texans for lawsuit reform, the business community who wants to limit lawsuits. What do you make of that dynamic? That didn't exist when you first got to the House. No, it didn't.

And there's good reasons for conservatives being friendly with litigation. The question is whether we're being friendly with maybe frivolous. But the same time, I'll tell you, I would totally support the concept of frivolous litigation against abortionists. Like, sue them constantly, put them out of business. It seemed to work. Fribilist litigation worked against types of businesses leftists didn't want, so I don't want why we don't use it.

But as a small government conservative, the courts were meant to be open for that redress. We have the common law, these concepts, we don't constantly need to pass statutes. When you're harmed, you should be able to litigate it. And we're not exactly rewarding millions of dollars and bankrupting small companies with that. And so we can't always wait on government to enforce things. And I fully believe that citizens should be able to run to the courthouse if they're DA or their prosecutor or their attorney general or somebody else is it going to enforce the laws. I think it ensures that bad actors don't act like that, right? Because we pass laws all the time.

If you imagine that, you don't see it enforced. I mean, that's a common thing. Am I wrong? And so, yeah, we need to make sure it's enforced. And I think by allowing citizens to do so and ensuring maybe that the statute is written in such a way that no one's getting rich off of this, but it's a means to encourage that the law be enforced. One more thing about this general session and it will lead us into your campaign, the redistricting.

That was something we, it's not unprecedented because mid-decade redistricting has been done before, but it is rare. It doesn't happen very often. You know, what was that like being in the mix, in the body that was working through this mid-decade redistricting attempt? It's pretty fun. This is my second redistricting. to be a part of and it's fascinating when you really look at it you're like I am you

were part of changing literally the shape of it who's going to be members where they're going to run from it's it's not taken lightly but it was really cool especially my favorite people my deskmate go to Vassut it was chair of redistricting he's you know sat within 20 inches of me for six years got to do that and so being a fly on the wall watching those things happen and not expecting that a map was going to be drawn that had you in it. There were no plans for me to go. There was not an idea. It wasn't until my wife woke me up and was like, have you seen this map?

Your house district's in it. And we made some calls and some encouragement. And we decided to run, but I'd never thought I'd be playing a role in that. Why did you decide to take the jump and go to Congress? Yeah. What's motivating you? I believe that Trump's like a very important. people to go up there and fight. I've got a proven record of at least a decade of showing that

I don't flinch. I don't cower and fear. And I think just kind of the right time, especially what we're seeing across America, that there's, I think there's some bold young Christian conservatives that are rising up that are unafraid to fight back against the woe. And I think I've made a pretty good showing and that I'm good at that. The general sentiment I'm hearing from congressmen here and there is that it's just really unpleasant to be particularly in the U.S. House of Representatives right now. And if you're not, you know, with leadership. Have you thought about that? Has anybody warned you about that? Or is that just, you know, do you think that's not a concern at all? Yeah, I've always made, I guess, the best of my time in the legislature. And so as a

freshman, of course, I was on the outside of leadership then. And so I spent my spare time learning the rules or learning how I could add value to the conservative movement, whether I was adding value to other members, but that's just not my style. I don't think you'll see me there with my hands together twiddling my thumbs, kind of mad that we're not getting what they want to get done. You always find something to add value, whether that's even you're looking back at Austin from D.C. and helping people get through things that are important to the Republican Party of Texas, which is, I don't see a lot of congressmen doing that.

I've been a little surprised. So I think you've got a platform that you can do good things, whether that's in D.C. or locally. And so I think you'll be seeing me do a lot of that as well. Okay. Let's talk about the race. It's one of the most interesting in the state, I'd say. There's a handful of candidates in the Republican primary. And if the map is, if the Supreme Court upholds the map, your district will encompass the portion of the eastern part of Harris County and Liberty County, right?

It is an R-60 district, so it is not close in the partisan leaning, but it's not, you know, a shoe-in Republican seat where you don't even have to campaign. But first, you have the Republican primary. That seems to be your main opponent so far as Alex Miller, who previously ran for Harris County Judge. Almost won, didn't. Contrast yourself with her. What's your case to voters over her for this congressional seat? Yeah. Well, it's kind of simple.

I grew up in the shadow of the Sanchez and a monument to parents who worked at the refineries there. I'm from the district, my entire life there. And you're not kind of guessing what you're going to get. I've got a decade of legislative experience, but not just that, of fighting for the things that every other candidate is bragging about. of fighting to do our best to cut property taxes. Sadly, locals keep taking that away. Of being the first member of any state legislature to file a bill to help Trump build the border wall. From carrying legislation that banned red flag laws and constitutional carry to funding the border and banning sanctuary cities

and helping require local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE in order to deport criminal illegals, all of those issues we've played a role in the last decade and not just like passively doing so by just voting for it I'm the kind of guy that goes to the conventions helps fight to get things put in the platform to make them part of the legislative priorities then drafts and files those bills and fights as hard as we can to get them across legislature in Texas you know only

all right meets every other year it's kind of part time and so keeping that in mind I give it everything I've got when we're here you lay it all in the field because you realize you're not coming back for another year and a half. And so that's who I am. It's kind of my style. Plus, you're not going to be able to beat the not-so-secret weapon that we've got, which is Mrs. Burgundy-Cain. There's two of us out there that are knocking on those doors, and our five boys, it's a team effort. We've got the grassroots behind us. I think that's something that no other candidate in this race can have, including the conservative organizations

that people have come to know so well. what's the reception been when you're knocking doors from voters at this point to even realize that there's a race at hand or are they actually tuned in yeah absolutely for the most part if i'm in my house seat i don't really need to do much introduction i've knocked those doors before i've had multiple races and have one-handedly every time yesterday i was out in liberty county and those folks had been kind of they were familiar with the name and they've been seeing and had great reception. I didn't have a single no. If you open the door, you were voted for risk okay. Liberty County, of course, is the site of Colony Ridge, which is a settlement, a development

that doesn't have a lot of codes or restrictions. It's easy to buy property there and build what you want, which is why it's attractive. There's also a pretty heavy illegal immigrant population that lives there, or at least that's what the locals are saying, the local sheriff. Your opponent has hit you on this. You got $10,000 in donations from Trey Harris, I believe, the developer. Yeah. You want to address the criticism there on that? Yeah, sure. By the way, when you get a check, it doesn't say Colony Ridge on it. And I received one that said Colony Ridge on it during that time period. I wouldn't have known it was. I don't think many, now folks that have been Liberty, maybe they'd knew. But if we weren't out near Cleveland area,

it wasn't on your radar. It wasn't being talked about by really the party base, the state of taxes, or even the nation until later in 2023. So in 2020, the developer did what developers do. They send out campaign contributions to members of legislature nearby them, RSDs, etc. It was Greg Ford. It was unsolicited. Then apparently I got another one in 2022. I didn't know about until very recently if that gives you an idea of how influential it was. Because in fact, the bill in 2017 that gave these powers to Colney Ridge to go do that, I was one of seven voted against it. If they were trying to buy influence, it was a really bad job. In fact, then this session, a bill by Janice Holt was being, it would have helped really reform it. Sadly, Angie Chin Button

was holding it up. And it led an effort to almost 40 House members of calling for her to vote it out. She didn't do it, of course. People should probably be more concerned with Angie than they are with those of us who have been fighting Colony Ridge the whole time. The former mayor, Leanne Walker, who was kind of the whistleblower, yeah, of Plum Grove, is really the one who kind of brought attention to this is supporting us. And she's come out explaining and clarifying that this is all nonsense and somebody's kind of twisting facts and things. Because you'll hear this story with like, well, Kane called it the American Dream. And we'll pause for a moment. What's fascinating right now, especially with social media, you would think voters

I've learned to like stop taking things literally at their face value and go, what a minute, what's the context? What's the full story behind this? What is the truth that we live in this world of kind of disinformation, misinformation, and just have stories that they would maybe like ask Rock like, hey, what was it in contacts? But in context, I just took a tour of a place, didn't know anything about the cartel, didn't know people there were living illegally, but it was asked a question, what did you see? And again, I'll tell you, I saw a bunch of trailers with paved roads.

And I'm not going to knock on those folks. They're living for them. They're living the American dream. In isolation, that statement has nothing to do with the criminal element or the flooding. And it's still silly to get mad about it, right? I'm just not going to knock on that. Now, are there some problems? Yeah, do I think the feds are in there?

Yes, I trust Tom Homan. I trust Cash Patel that they're going to get to the bottom of it. If the criminal illegals are there, they've found many so far and run them out. If the developers have done anything illegal, I trust that they'll get to the bottom of it. I did a ride-along with DPS when they first ramped up their presence there to assist the local sheriff. And the site was pretty stark. You know, you'd see, like you said, a trailer, pretty rundown trailer on one plight of land. And right next to it, you have a pretty fancy, you know, house of some sort.

It's got like a libertarian paradise. Yeah. You can have like a trailer shop and a taco shop in your front yard out there. that's your thing so what are the what needs to be done about colony rich how do you fix the problems that are there I think some of it's just it is in general which has to do with title transfers making sure there's no fraud in it making sure people aren't being taken advantage of I think the county does have you know certain flood regulations already that they're working on and putting into place but one of these ones to get rid of the illegals to clean it

out and brings to that sandy to back to and I think that's what's going on right now just a process the one of the other problems i've heard is the stress on the local services whether it's the school or uh the doctors the hospital's there um it's you know a lot of the problems come from just a massive amount of people being dropped into a exurban pretty rural county right um i don't know how you go about actually fixing that part because people are there right they're they're living there you can't just. Yeah, totally. I think just like any other, this isn't the first time you've had a rapid, fast growth in the area. It's not unknown to taxes or places in America, and it's going to be some growing pains, and infrastructure will catch up. I'm positive of it. And right now, it's not to say that people's ire is unjustified would get it. And it's hard while you're going through it to not want to be fixed right away. But I do trust the locals that are working on it. And again, I trust the Trump administration to be handling. the criminal element to fix it.

You know, in order to get to Congress first, you get to win the election, obviously, but Democrats after the off-year election this month, they feel pretty good going into next year. And they seem to have some momentum. Their voters, their base is mobilized. Now that was in Texas special elections and the constitutional amendment election. do you think that that momentum for the Democratic Party in Texas, you know, does it hold into next year? I'm not seeing the momentum, at least not in my district.

Okay. I don't see them gaining anything, at least not in kind of the East Harris County. Maybe some of the swings, they've seen it, but it's not a vibe I'm feeling at all on the ground. This is... So you don't think Texas is going to go blue? Texas is not going blue. I don't think anybody thinks that. No one's being honest if they think that at all.

That's all pure theater. It's amazing. And I've served with, I think, I want to say, Tala Rico and I maybe came in together. And then I think Crockett might have been there in 21. I know it was with her in her freshman session. That's all theater. I think everyone knows they don't stand a chance

that they're kind of being sacrificial am anxious like, I guess Beto was when he ran for statewide. He had to have known there's no way he was going to win. I mean, it might have felt like it came close, but just was not happening. And Texas is not. there. The woke stuff is just turned people off, and these guys are not moderates at all. I think they actually benefit us right now. I mean, God, having Jasmine on the take would be awesome because

she's so woke. I invite it. What are the problems that Republicans have in terms of, if any, in terms of political messaging going into next year? What would you say the problems? It seems now like affordability. That's something Democrats are keen in on right now. And, you know, it's kind of a holdover from the Biden administration, and that was used to great success for Republicans. But now with a Republican in the White House, it's being stuck to the GOP. Who knows what the economy looks like next year? And that's probably going to determine a lot across the country.

But it seems like Democrats are keen in on that affordability issue. Yeah, how's the affordability? seems to be one that we're seeing. It's something I do here at the doors when parents or grandparents are talking about how their son or daughters recently graduated from college and can't find a place to live. Some of that, though, outside of regarding rates and things, I really put on local government that's just run by liberals to begin with, like trying to regulate building materials. And that's something the legislature did. I was part of that saying that cities couldn't tell you what you had to build your house out of. Imagine if they all had to be stoned the price on that. Or

They had to be a certain size. So I think the Texas legislature did a few things this session to try and get at that, especially with accessory dwellings, allowing people to maybe be able to rent out a garage apartment. That stuff's important to create availability in the market. And, you know, I hear you on that. I still think it's the left that overregulates things that have made that cost go up. So it sounds like Republicans are going to have maybe a better job messaging on who the rule culprit is for affordability. should you win, you'll be in office for the last two years of the final Trump administration,

at least as far as Donald Trump is concerned. Who knows what happens in the presidential in 28? But what are the top issues that should you be in Congress, federal government will have to take care of in your first term? On kind of just maybe not superpartisan level looking at local things, The new nine has the Houston Ship Channel. It's the Port of Houston. It is, I think it's the star of Texas.

Not only is it a quarter plus of our state's GDP, it's why we're here. It's just the oil and gas. So the stuff we take out of the Permian, right, gets refined down there and changes lives and needs to be protected, and the infrastructure needs to be built up. We just got done with what's called Project 11. It's almost finished up. We're deepening and widening the Houston Ship Channel. That means we're looking at, like, doubling the exports out of Houston.

Think of what that means for traffic and roads and housing and infrastructure. Thankfully, we've made great investments in career and technology education, have awesome junior colleges over there, and the schools in the region, as well a lot of the state are focusing on CTE as well. So I think Texas is in a prime spot to continue to kind of be the future, right? Look at the constitutional improvements we just passed, setting Texas up as being the hub for corporations and being the new, New Delaware. We have business courts now.

We've ensured certain taxes can never be imposed. I think it's going great. So anything that really helps support taxes leading the way in this, I guess, is kind of this next century. We're coming off the longest government shutdown in history with a, and it was only concluded with a very short continuing resolution. we'll have this fight again in January probably. Are we on a path towards just doing continuing resolutions like forever

and not just CRs but frequent CRs like every three months? Are we barreling towards that? It feels that way, doesn't it? Yeah. That's not good for Congress, surely, right? It can't be a bit like, what happened to you during the shutdown? Were you inconvenienced? For me, nothing, no.

Yeah. I didn't fly anywhere. during that period. I don't know, were there any issues flying? In some places, yeah. It wasn't everywhere, but there were some, yeah. Yeah. So I didn't notice it.

Like, if we saved some money during that time period, maybe we need to do it again. Like, I didn't feel like that was a harsh punishment for us. It seemed to have worked out well, and we may have sent a message on, especially on expiring some of these government subsidies. And so, yeah, they've got to stop doing that. The lawmaking branch, Congress, just the House, that has that power of purse, needs to take it back and actually use it properly and stop just doing CRs.

That's what the voters expect you to do. They expect you to actually be part of a budgetary process, and that's exactly what's not happening. Conservative has talked to big game for decades about Congress reasserting itself compared to the presidency. How does that even happen? There's been no gains on that that I've seen. And everyone just focuses on the White House. Everything comes from the White House, regardless of who the party in power is. How does Congress get back to the original intent under the Constitution?

You know, I may go a different direction with this one. Sure. I think it's going to come down to the people at home for them to actually even understand what these roles are. They demand that the executive do things that probably constitutionally shouldn't be doing or doesn't have the power to do, but they expect it. and they also ask the legislative branch to do things that they don't have the power to do. I'll get yelled at as a single member to expect us to do something, and our power is divided amongst the entire branch with checks on it from both the judiciary and the executive. But for the American people to finally really get tired that the other branches are stepping all over them.

The lawmaking branch was intended to be the most powerful and dangerous branch. It has the power to make laws. It has the power to take life and death. It has the power to tax you. That is a dangerous thing. it's the people's branch. And it's supposed to be the main actor with the others kind of playing supporting roles

and checking it, and that's exactly what's not happened. But if members of Congress are going to try and fix that in an isolation without demand from the people at home who recognize that that's how to fix it, I don't think it's fixable. If people aren't demanding it and expecting it be put back into its place, I don't think we are.

And so I think if you were to kind of do a kind of a study across the board, I don't think people, I don't think a majority of American citizens would say they're familiar with the importance of those checks and those divisions on our powers of government. And they're perfectly fine with it. Ignore or not, like, I'm not saying it's malice. It's just the frog has been boiled. And everybody just kind of gotten used to it being done this way for so long that it's okay. We just kind of have allowed it. And until we get it put back in that box, we're going to continue to live in essentially tyranny.

I mean, where our government just continues to grow and getting to parts of your life, it was never supposed to be. When I've talked to members who were served in the House and go up there, they go, what are you doing? You're going to lose all your power. You're like, what do you mean? Right? Most people at home think how congressmen's a step up and explain, like, well, while the state agencies will listen to you as a state legislator, if you need something, maybe a DPS, you need to fix someone's driver's license to help a constituent. You can do that. the headless bureaucrats that fourth branch of government the administrative state in dc

from mothers i've been talked to they don't care what you are they don't care what congress thinks what are you going to do to them you actually never punish them with the power of the purse you never hold them accountable they're going to get paid off but there's there's nothing ever rains them in and so it sounds like it's a little more chaotic up there so and you thrive on nothing if not chaos chaos creates opportunity yeah for those who are paying attention for a small organized group of individual that opportunity can be done for for good or folly anything else you want to add yeah to uh to my wife and children thank you for for supporting me though so far in this

role um i want to let you down briscoe can thanks for joining us thank you good Thank you.