The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup 2.18.22

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses the start of early voting, AOC campaigning in the state, a Texas congressman aiming to cancel student loan debt, the federal government donating border wall materials, a new lawsuit from Texas challenging another of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 policies, the race to replace Congressman Louie Gohmert, Texas suing Facebook again, local municipality debt, a crime report in Dallas, school district bonds that will be on the ballot in May, and the political leanings of State Board of Education districts.

Howdy, howdy, Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. Our team covers the start of early voting, AOC campaigning in the state, a Texas congressman aiming to cancel student loan debt, the federal government donating border wall materials, a new lawsuit from Texas challenging another of the Biden administration's COVID-19 policies, the race to replace Congressman Louie Gohmert, Texas suing Facebook, again, local municipality debt, a crime report in Dallas,

school district bonds that will be on the ballot in May, and the political leanings of state board of education districts. We also try out a new segment on notable tweets from the week and float the idea of a mailbag segment. If you'd like to contribute or you have questions for our team, email editor at the texan.news. We'd love to hear your feedback and answer your questions on next week's podcast.

Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy, folks. howdy folks mckinsey taylor here with brad johnson daniel friend hayden sparks and isaiah mitchell on another episode of the texans weekly roundup podcast we have a lot to get into we are is it two weeks away from primary day or two uh one and a half weeks away from primary day one and a half weeks depends on when our listeners listen to this someone could potentially listen to this after the election day that's true which would be a bummer. Yeah. But 12 days per Hayden who has no mic currently. Okay. 12 days, 12 days away from primary day. On that note, Isaiah, we're going to jump right into this early voting. We're off to the races. When does early voting start? When did it start?

So early voting in Texas kicked off on the 14th and it runs through February 25th. That's awesome. What are some of the biggest primaries to watch? Obviously, everyone is watching the Republican primary for governor. Incumbent Greg Abbott is facing his most serious and well-funded challenges in recent years. So that's a big one. And a lot of the people jumped into that race really early. And it's just been simmering. It's been big one. And a lot of the people jumped into that race really early. Yeah. And it's just been simmering. It's been on the simmer for a long time. There are also a lot of high profile Republicans running to unseat Ken Paxton. And the only open statewide office right now is land commissioner, which has eight Republicans and four Democrats running for it.

Got it. Wow. Which is open because the current land commissioner is running for attorney general. Exactly. Well, that's exciting. Very good. And March 1st is election day. So, folks, make sure to get out there and vote.

Brad, let's zoom out here. On the campaign trail, we had someone, a very prominent national Democrat figure, making an appearance this last weekend, and particularly something for two Democrat congressional candidates. Who was that? So, the representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC. Yes, AOC, as she is infamously or famously known, depending on your opinion of her. She came to San Antonio for a rally supporting candidates Greg Kassar in Texas 35 and Jessica Cisneros in Texas 28.

And while there, she made a bold declaration, one that has never been made before. And it was that Texas turning blue is inevitable. And so obviously, you know, that is going to be the rhetoric going into this new election. Democrats are hoping to make some gains build on things that they they took in 2018 that they couldn't um you know again they couldn't continue in 2020 and so um they uh this is going to be the rallying cry again um but in these two races they're both democratic primaries in heavily blue districts that whoever comes comes out of the primary will have really no no worry about a republican challenger beating them that's not

really true with uh the 28th congressional district that one could be potentially swinging toward republicans there's quite a bit of a fight there what's the tpi in that the tpi i believe is about d 56 or 58 so it is dem leaning but not as dem leaning as yes it has trended toward republicans in the past few election cycles it's in south texas which republicans are putting lots of effort into i'd say if it was last election cycle and we were looking at a tpi of that kind of district we'd be more like yeah it's locked and loaded democrat but in this midterm election cycle there's a little bit more room for republicans perhaps right in terms of historical trends to make grounds in ways that they haven't in that area prior and we saw trends from last

election cycle too that make sure that that portion of the state could be up for republican grabs and you know the historical trend is that midterms tend to swing against the uh white house white house yeah so that obviously favors republicans here um but in texas 35 uh you know i see no way that a republican will win that one right exactly so these two candidates cassar and cisneros are the more, further left candidates in their respective races. Cisneros is running against incumbent Henry Cuellar, who has been a longtime more moderate Democrat congressman. And then we've got state representative Eddie Rodriguez facing Kassar in Texas 35. Rodriguez is, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't put him in the same lane as quay are but he is certainly not as far left as as cassar and both of these candidates cassar and cisneros are

endorsed by the group justice democrats which is a progressive left pack that was kind of started was started after the bernie sanders campaign in 2016 after he lost from a couple of the staffers and um trying to essentially pull a a reverse tea party from the the early 2010s and unseat incumbent democrats that they deem are not as um progressive as they should be and so the justice democrats are behind them uh hence AOC support for them. And also, actually, I'll leave it there. The next thing I was going to say, we mentioned after this. Yeah, well, let's talk about that. So talk to us about how Republicans specifically reacted to this statement. I'm sure they loved it. Oh, yeah, it's great campaign fodder for them.

Governor Greg Abbott, at a campaign stop, I think it was Monday, said on Saturday, of all things, the person who came to Texas, to San Antonio, to campaign for the Democratic candidates was none other than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She felt the need to tell people what Democrats stand for. We know exactly what they stand for, these radical leftist policies like the Green New Deal. And one thing I failed to mention earlier, the message that she said, other than Texas is turning blue, she said that when it does, we're going to make sure we unionize the hell out of the state. I don't care how many cycles it takes, it's going to happen. And so you see, obviously, contrasting messaging there. Land Commissioner George P. Bush went on news uh criticizing her for the stop um also

and obviously as daniel said he's running for ag in texas but you can bet that this is going to be used by republicans um on the on the campaign trail and it is already and it will continue to be done so certainly anything else notable before we move on? Yeah. What I was going to say that I stopped myself was that on the day after the event, Senator Bernie Sanders, with whom AOC is close, endorsed Kassar and Cisneros. So you see basically the progressive wing of the party uniting behind these two candidates in these two races. They see opportunities to take those congressional seats, one from a moderate incumbent and another from a more moderate uh challenger for the open seat thank you bradley elizabeth warren is also going to make a campaign stop on the afternoon she is yep yeah i think it's this weekend or maybe

i don't remember for the same two minutes right for this yeah okay um wonderful daniel well let's jump in another texas democrat making waves uh waves. Texas congressman filed a new bill to cancel708, which would direct the Secretary of Education to cancel or repay up to $25,000 in federal student loans for each borrower. So that is a significant chunk of student loan debt that it would cover. Quite a far-reaching bill. We'll see what comes of it, though. How much would this potentially cost taxpayers? So doing a little bit of number crunching, the bill itself doesn't say specifically what the total would be. So you have to kind of go in and do the math. There are about $1.6 trillion

in outstanding debt for student loans, and that's among 43.4 million recipients. Now, some of these recipients have just a few thousand dollars in loans, whereas others have $200,000, $300,000 at the far end. So it varies from person to person. So looking at it broken down, as far as the Department of Education goes, in these different brackets of people who have different sizes of loans, my estimate would be probably about $742 billion is roughly what it would cost if you're paying $25,000 for each individual. So that it's not the full $1.6 trillion. It's not as close as there's been some other proposals from progressive

lawmakers such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, who have tried pushing for $50,000 per student. But this would not go that high, but it's still a significant chunk. $742 billion is more than I'll ever have. It's certainly not a drop in the bucket. Well, it is for the federal government, but regardless. Now, has legislation like this been filed before? You kind of already alluded to this, but talk to us about historic precedent on this. Yes, it's interesting.

I saw an article that was from 2020 looking at a lot of different legislation similar to this that had been filed. Lots of different lawmakers have tried to address student debt in various ways, including Vicente Gonzalez. The interesting thing here is that he filed this bill previously in the fall of 2020, right before the general election as HR 8514, which would have likewise directed the cancellation of $25,000 in federal student loans for each recipient. And so it's interesting that that came right before an election. It was also a competitive election that he faced with a Republican challenger. And now he's facing a competitive election as well among Democratic candidates in the primary election as he's changing districts from 15 to 34 after redistricting.

So that is kind of interesting what the prospects of it passing are. You know, it could just be an election stunt of I'm filing this bill to try and generate support. Certainly something that politicians do. It could go somewhere. Also, the Democrats do control the House, so they might try making this an issue. I don't see it flying with support with the more moderate Republicans or more moderate Democrats in the Senate.

It'd be interesting to see that pass, but it's possible. Certainly. Well, Daniel, thank you for covering that for us. Hayden, let's talk about the border wall. What did the federal government recently provide for the border wall project here in Texas? The Arizona Daily Star reported that a Department of Defense spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Mitchell, estimated the value of the supplies to be $6 million, and those materials include more than 1,700 bollard panels. Texas Facilities Commission spokesperson who indicated to me that those panels and the other materials have been transferred to a secure facility in Maverick County, and the Texas National Guard is guarding that supplies. The state was able to acquire this property through a federal surplus property program, and they followed the application procedures to receive it through that, the U.S. General

Services Administration. The Department of Defense reportedly is seeking to clean up some of the hundreds of millions of dollars, $265 million worth of material left over from Trump's border wall project. And all these materials are being shipped to an Air Force base in Tucson, Arizona and other locations in the U.S. They are going to be provided to state and local governments as well as some private organizations. I believe, in addition, they will be transferred to other federal agencies. For instance, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

for what is being referred to as border wall remediation or other border wall activities by the federal government. So that's a brief overview of some of the supplies that the state of Texas recently received. Well, give us another brief overview this time of the history of the federal border project or border wall project and then the state project. President Biden canceled the federal border wall project upon being inaugurated in January 2021. And he also promised that there would not be any additional tax dollars going to the project. But it has reappeared in certain ways. Of course, when a new incumbent is inaugurated, there's always that pressure to fulfill campaign promises. And this has been a hot button issue for many years on the campaign trail between

Trump and Democrats. When Biden shut down this project, there was resistance from people advocating border security and Governor Greg Abbott instituted the state border wall project in June of last year. The Texas legislature added funding to that project, billions of dollars to Operation Lone Star, which encompasses the Texas border wall. And the federal government has even reconsidered portions of this project. The recently appointed commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said he was open to resuming portions of the project if it was tactically necessary. So out of sheer necessity, the federal government has, in one way or another, continued the Border Wall Project. They've given all the supplies to Texas, which I asked the Texas Facilities Commission when I was on the phone with Ms. Luca, who is the spokesperson for the TFC.

Was it in any way a secret that the state of Texas was going to be using the supplies for the border wall? And she indicated to me, no, it wasn't. It wasn't something that the state was trying to hide or that was shrouded in mystery. It's an open fact that the state is working in a border wall. And we it's for environmental reasons or for border security strategic reasons, they have had to continue the project at least to some degree because it was necessary from a security perspective and the current administration argues from an environmental perspective. So the president sought to stop this project cold turkey, but it continues to reappear both as a political issue and as a border security issue. Yeah. Well, Hayden, thank you for that. Daniel, there is a new lawsuit from Texas challenging another of the Biden administration's COVID-19 policies. Shocker, right? We're so shocked by this. What specifically is the state challenging this time? So this is actually a joint lawsuit between the state of Texas, which is represented by the Office of the Attorney General, Ken Paxton, as well as Congresswoman Beth Van Dyne, who's coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was an order that was issued back in January of 2021, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, that prohibited or required people to wear masks while on commercial flights and at transportation hubs. So this lawsuit is really going after specifically that mask mandate as relates to flights. So when you go to an airport, you know, instead of the current policy of you have to wear a mask,

they're trying to say this is stupid for lack of more, I mean, they're a little bit more detailed, but that's my paraphrasing. Well, it was good. It was good paraphrasing. It was well done. What's the core argument of the lawsuit? The core argument of the lawsuit, there's a few different things that it touches on, both from Beth Van Dyne's perspective as an individual who flies frequently on planes between here and D.C.,

but then also with the state and its authority versus the federal government's authority. There's some arguments there. But the real core argument of this lawsuit really focuses on the regulatory authority of the CDC and whether or not this order was issued properly or not. Matthew Miller, who is one of the attorneys with the TPPF, said in a press release, if someone were to be known to have COVID, the agency could then take steps to prevent that person from spreading the disease to others.

But the CDC has no authority to make rules that limit the freedom of tens of thousands of travelers without any evidence in the hopes that it may have some preventative effect. Sorry. Got it. So, in essence, their argument is saying that the CDC overstepped its authority here and did not follow the proper protocol in issuing this order. Interesting. Well, we'll see where that goes. And I think, you know, I just had an idea. We should probably do a tracker for all of the Texas v. Biden lawsuits. That would be a lot. Yeah, it would be a lot. It'd be fascinating. All in one place. We'll think about it. Well,

thank you, Daniel, for that. Hayden, we're going to pivot over to you again. House District 18. How was it affected by redistricting? And tell us a little bit about that district. House District 18 is currently represented by Representative Ernest Bales, who I believe is from Shepherd in San Jacinto County. And the current district lines are around Walker, San Jacinto, and Liberty counties. But the new district is in San Jacinto, Liberty, and Hardin counties and a portion of

Montgomery County. Hardin County is currently represented by Representative James White, who is running for Agriculture Commissioner instead of seeking another term in the Texas House. So Representative Ernest Bales is the incumbent for House District 18 and is now the incumbent for Hardin County as well, which was previously represented by James White. The district as it is currently, as it is redrawn, as it is currently constituted, is R83 on the Texas Partisan Index. Shout out to Daniel. So that is a virtual lock for Republicans after primary day. In other words, we're not looking at a competitive race in the general election. So whoever gets nominated is likely to be, most likely to be the next state representative. Yeah. So whoever gets nominated is likely to be most likely to be the next state representative. Yeah. So you talked about the incumbent in this district. Talk to us about what his challengers are saying.

The most notable challenger so far is the presiding trustee of Sillsby Independent School District, which is in Hardin County. She is emphasizing, Janice Holt is her name, she is emphasizing combating critical race theory. And Isaiah has talked about this before, but it's worth repeating that when we say critical race theory, what a lot of people are referring to is the ideology underpinning the idea that children should be taught to view others in terms of race and view society in terms of historic injustices, as opposed to, for instance, individual actions. And what has been characterized by Holt as a dangerous ideology is what she's referring to. She also talked about COVID-19 and some of the

measures that have been taken to require masks and her contention that that is inhibiting learning and socialization among children. Representative Bales was one of the members who chose to sign on to the expansion of Medicaid. He was one of a handful of Republicans who did that. He was ranked the 65th most conservative lawmaker on a list of lawmakers from most conservative to liberal. He, however, has a pretty decent fundraising haul of $29,265 in campaign contributions in the most recent campaign finance period. And so Holt indicated to me in our conversation, we had a conversation, I interviewed her and she said that she has no animus against Representative Bales, but

she does believe that he is a nice man and surely a wonderful father and husband, but that were her words, but that he, quote, I just believe there is a contrast between the values that I have and the values that he has voted for in the past, end quote. So a friendly competition between Bales and Holt, I would characterize it as that. And she is emphasizing her conservative stances on the issues and the fact that Bales has received grades of D from organizations such as Texas Right to Life and Young Conservatives of Texas. The National Rifle Association has endorsed Bales, but the Texas chapter of Gun Owners of America has endorsed Holtz. So a little bit of a divide among gun rights supporters as to who they're

backing in this race. It should be an interesting contest. There are two other candidates, Ronnie Tullis and Steven Missick. They didn't get back to us on our interview requests, and we don't see any contributions from the Texas Ethics Commission in the last campaign finance report for those two candidates. Got it. Well, Hayden, thank you. Let's continue talking about campaigns with you here. Congressman Gohmert, why is he on his way out? And what does that mean for the first congressional district? I have referred to Congressman Gohmert as an icon in my interviews with some of these candidates. He has definitely become a prominent figure in East Texas politics.

This race is significant because he's been in the U.S. House since 2005. And it's been almost two decades since that East Texas district, Northeast Texas district, has selected a new congressman. And it's been redrawn a couple times since he's been in office. The district is an R74, meaning in the last two election cycles, Gohmert beat his Democratic opponent by about three to one. So it's significant because the Republicans are pretty certain to have a victory in that district. And a new congressman will be representing East Texas and Northeast Texas for the first time in many years. Yeah, certainly. And like you said, Congressman Gohmert has been there

for a good amount of time and folks know him in that district. He, for better and for worse, is everywhere all the time in that district meeting folks. Who are some of the candidates running in the Republican primary? Well, we have four candidates, some of whom have political experience and some don't. But A.D. Adderley was a staffer in Congressman Gohmert's office in Washington, D.C. He is an oil rig worker and manager. And he also has experience in the United States military. He was a Marine artillery officer, and he emphasized his stances on border security and indicated to me that his position on border security is that border funds should go directly to border states instead of being directed toward federal agencies on border issues,

which I thought was an interesting proposal. He also told me that he plans to join the House Freedom Caucus. Another candidate is Joe McDaniel. He didn't get back to us on our interview request, but he states on his website that he's not a part of the Smith County political bubble. And of course, this district doesn't just include Smith County, it includes many counties in East Texas and Northeast Texas, but he made sure to stress that point on his website. Judge Nathaniel Moran is the county judge in Smith County, and he's been in that office since 2016 when his predecessor was removed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. He's been endorsed by Texas

Right to Life, and he also made a move in 2019 to make Smith County a Second Amendment sanctuary. So those are some of the highlights for Judge Moran. And then John Porro was the captain of a volunteer rescue squad on Long Island, New York, and was one of the people who responded to the September 11 terrorist attacks. And I think one of the interesting things that he said to me in our interview was, he said, quote, what I didn't realize when I was born in New York is that I was actually an East Texan who was accidentally born in New York. So he said, yeah, he may be from New York and he may have moved to Dallas, but he said that he likes being in East Texas among like-minded people. And he

currently serves on the board of directors for the Texas Association of Physician Assistants. Mr. Porro is a physician assistant for a living. Got it. Real quick, give us some background on the stay-at-home order controversy in this race. So a point of contention among the candidates is Judge Moran's decision to institute a stay-at-home order from March 27, 2020 until April 30, 2020. We talked about that a little bit and Judge Moran told me that groups such as Grassroots America, which is a strong conservative group in East Texas, have still endorsed him and given him positive reviews on his response to COVID-19 because it was so new, because of the loss of human life that was associated with it, and the desire to protect public

health. Judge Moran told me that it was a public health necessity to institute that order and that it was uncertain at the time how COVID-19 could affect hospitalizations. And he wanted to balance protecting the God-given right to liberty, but also protecting human life. And so, he's been criticized for not standing up and being more assertive against Governor Abbott. But he also stated, or he told me that it was not something that he wanted to do, but something that was necessary from a public health perspective. So that is a broad overview of the stay-at-home order controversy.

Well, Hayden, thank you for that. Daniel, another lawsuit. On the first day of early voting, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a new suit against Facebook. He's been very critical of big tech in the past. But what are the specific allegations against this company this time? So this lawsuit, which was filed in the 71st District Court in Marshall, which is out in East Texas, alleges that, quote, Facebook unlawfully captured the biometric identifiers of Texans for a commercial purpose without their informed consent, disclosed those identifiers to others, and failed to destroy collected identifiers within a reasonable time. This is in reference to a facial recognition program that Facebook used. It had used it in years past, so if you uploaded a picture to Facebook, it could identify your features and then use that to help you tag you and your friends on your social feed. The lawsuit essentially alleges that this is in violation of

Texas laws. Specifically, there are two laws that were cited in this lawsuit, the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act. One more specific to the facial recognition thing and other biometric identifiers. And the other, the Deceptive Trade Practices Act is a broader law that really prohibits companies from defrauding consumers by not disclosing what they're doing. So the penalties attached to this is $10,000 and $25,000 per violation, respectively. So Paxton says this could amount to billions in dollars that Facebook could be fined for violating those laws. Got it.

Has Facebook been challenged on their facial recognition program before? Yes, they were actually challenged by this in the previous few years by the state of Illinois, which actually they reached a settlement with the state and paid them a huge sum of money. And so after that last year, Facebook actually announced that it was ending this facial recognition program. So even if you go into your settings now on Facebook and try to adjust that, it'll come up with a notification of saying that this program has basically ended. So after they had reached those challenges, they kind of brought it to an end.

And now Texas is now trying to kind of go back in time, so to speak, and say, hey, if you shouldn't have done that, give us some money too. Yeah. Now Paxton made this announcement in Marshall, which is in texas in the district of one of his primary challengers uh we just talked about louis gomert paxton has also gone on the offense against gomer in advertising did this location uh of the lawsuit have anything to do with this election

in your opinion yes i will not speak my opinion i'll let the readers decide what they that's perfect what they want to read into it uh there were certainly some people who saw this and saw him you know going on the offense against gomert and then having this announcement in his home territory seeing kind of a correlation between that reporters at the press conference in marshall actually brought this up and asked him directly like does this have anything to do uh with the fact that you're running against louis gilbert this is his home territory and he said zero uh he said this has been planned for a long time we would have filed it either way whether he was in the race or not so that was paxton's response at the press conference to that question

directly uh so you know whether it was or not, whether it's just political framing, I'll leave that up to you to decide. Well, there you go. Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate that. Isaiah, remind us of the details of the Sutherland Springs shooting and the lawsuit that followed. For those of y'all who remember when this was in the news years ago, in 2017, a mass shooter shot up a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, first from the outside, then walking in and killed 26 people. And afterwards, survivors, their relatives, and some relatives of the slain sued the federal government in a lawsuit that's

still developing today. Yeah, absolutely. What recent order just recently came down in this lawsuit? The lawsuit is for is before federal judge named Javier Rodriguez based in San Antonio. And he recently determined cash award amounts for each plaintiff. Again, these are all survivors of the shooting and relatives of the wounded or the slain. And a document issued on February 7th. And so he has ordered the federal government he already had previously determined that the federal government was at fault at least partially in this case and this most recent document what they're going through right now

is reckoning the damages to be paid to these plaintiffs the victim to the shooting and he were either there or claimed that they were otherwise harmed by it. So, and that's what the parties are deliberating right now after his order came down. What, why is the federal government paying these damages? The shooter was an airman, actually. And he was in the Air Force. His name was Devin Kelly. And he had disciplinary problems during Air Force service that led to a court-martial case, actually, involving assault of his wife and stepson.

So the Air Force, according to the judge and the Department of Defense already years ago, came out with a report determining the same thing. The Air Force should have turned this information in to the FBI so that when Kelly, for example, would go to buy a gun, it would appear on his background check that he would be ineligible for that. Because the Air Force did not turn that information in, his background check came through clear, and he was able to purchase a gun at a store regularly. And the ATF thought that he was just a regular eligible citizen so that's why the air force primarily um is at least 60 or around 60 responsible for the shooting according to rodriguez's order from a little while ago got it well i say i think you're following that for us and keeping us updated on um yeah the aftermath of that tragedy brad, let's pivot to a story you wrote this week about a

study of municipality debt. What did it show? So an analysis by Truth in Accounting, it's a conservative think tank. The analysis itself was based on 2020 financials, showed Texas's top nine most populous cities have accumulated $21.6 billion in debt that they cannot currently pay off. The way they did this, they calculated the amount of revenue they have coming in and the amount of debts they owe. And basically, it's the shortfall of that that comes with the total that they have. Houston accounts for the largest slice. It's the largest city. It's not surprising.

Exactly. But it accounts for the largest slice of that, $8.9 billion, with $13,200 in debt per citizen. And that's specifically for Houston residents. For Houston, yep. The debt per citizen overall for the state for these nine cities is i think like 2400 um and so obviously houston is way above that in terms of average yeah uh only plano and corpus corpus christi have surpluses both in total actually um i think corpus does not have a surplus in

forget it ignore what i'm saying they have surpluses per taxpayer um and it's very low amounts of a surplus but i think planos is like 2700 per taxpayer and cor's is like twenty seven hundred per taxpayer and Corpus's is like eight hundred or something per taxpayer. So they're still in still in the green, still in the black. Whichever the accounting color used for that is opposite red. Come on, Brad. And yeah, just provides a snapshot of the fiscal health of these cities. And I think it would probably would not include the aid, coronavirus aid that these cities got because that was doled out generally after these financials come in. But yeah, so even without that, you know, these cities are kind of struggling

to pay their debts. Yeah, certainly. What is contributing to these debt amounts? So something I've written on before is unfunded liabilities, and that's an amount promised usually in pensions or health care benefit plans that cannot be accounted for in the budget. Those are a large driver of these debts. Houston's, I think it's not quite half quite half i don't have the actually let me look at the chart it's it's pretty close um houston's is actually almost all of houston's debt is from

its unfunded liability total wow and so what you've written about you've written about unfunded unfunded liabilities for years with the state government it's a problem with all these local governments with like the municipalities pension system all this stuff um essentially uh you know unfunded liabilities occur when more people are pulling out of it than are paying into it the best uh comparison is social security you know right um even though it's not explicitly a pension, it's in access in a very similar way. Yeah. This is just on the state level. Either the locality when they have these unfunded liabilities, the locality has to restructure the payment process.

We saw the Texas legislature do that with the employees retirement system this year. Change the way that that um contributions are made and outputs are are taken out or they must inject inject one-time fundings into the system to pay their obligations and that's really only a band-aid solution because the underlying problem that causes the debt is still there for example houston only set aside 72 cents for every dollar promised in its pension system and set aside nothing for the retiree health care benefits fund. So everyone pulling from that health care benefits fund, that's all essentially borrowed money or future promise money that this city cannot pay for right now. Right. Got it. So if you want to see more of the chart like i have a chart in the article of all the

different uh cities you can see the exact numbers um i recommend go looking at it we love we love charts here at the texan absolutely thank you brad hayden let's keep it local is violent crime decreasing in dallas what are some of the highlights of chief eddie garcia's efforts chief eddie garcia since he took office in January of last year, I'm sorry, that is not true. I just lied to our whole audience. He was hired in December of 2020. And I believe he took office in February. But he instituted a crime reduction plan in May of last year, and it has worked, to put it simply. He reported decreases in violent crime, a 13% drop overall since the crime plan was implemented, with notable drops such as a 27% decrease in murders, a 28% drop in robberies, a 6.5% drop in aggravated assaults.

And like I said, a 13% drop in crime overall since that time. And then last year, as Brad has reported, there was a decrease of 13% in homicides in Dallas. and that is in contrast to other major cities in Texas, which saw increases in murder. So, the police chief has been touting the work of officers on the patrol level, and he, jokingly, but it really isn't, it really is true that he gives his officers credit when things are going right, and he tells people to come to him if things are going wrong. So he has been talking to the media, at least to a limited degree, talking about some of the successes of his crime plan. And then we also spoke to the Dallas County District Attorney, who has also talked about this as well. Got it.

Now talk to us about, okay, well, first of all, how do you say the district attorney's last name? I believe it's Cruzzo. Cruzzo. Okay. So a little bit of French pronunciation. Yes. What are the policies that this Democrat DA, John Cruzzo, what has he implemented as district attorney in Dallas County? Well, I had a fascinating conversation with a district attorney, Cruzzo, and he talked about the discretion that he has used with prosecuting marijuana offenses, first-time offenses of possession of marijuana under two ounces, which is a misdemeanor in Texas. He said that 97% of marijuana cases fell within that category, and he does not generally prosecute first-time offenses of possession of marijuana less than two ounces. Chief Garcia instituted a similar policy of not arresting people for that.

We talked a little bit about the reasoning behind those policies. District Attorney Caruso came from it, came to the table with a mindset of geography and race as well. He said that has a racially disproportionate impact, these lower level marijuana offenses, and targeting certain neighborhoods for these minor, relatively minor crimes. And the police chief contended from a similar angle, but a little bit different, that you cannot, that when officers are searching vehicles for marijuana, they can't be tending to more violent crimes that are taking place. And the DA also made a similar point that you can't fight violent crime by searching a vehicle for marijuana or pulling someone over. So slightly different reasons, but the district attorney stated to me that

their policies are working well together to get the job done. So though he has faced some criticism for the marijuana policy and also for the theft policy, he stated that it is working from his perspective. But the theft policy that the DA's office instituted was thefts of items worth less than $750 are not prosecuted unless it is shown that there was, quote, economic gain as the motive. The DA believes that prosecuting thefts that minor is, quote, criminalizing poverty. So whether or not these policies are contributing to the decrease in crime, that's debatable how much of a role they play. Also, he emphasized to me, and all of this is available in a report that we do have on

our website, the texan.news, that convictions of things like homicide and other serious crimes are actually up in Dallas County since his administration and acquittals are down. So that's another factor to consider that the violent crimes are also being are still being prosecuted aggressively. And that could be contributing to the decreasing crime crime rate as well. Cruzzo has one Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Frizzell and a Republican challenger Faith Johnson, who is a former state district judge and who was district attorney before Cruzell. She had been appointed to that office by Greg Abbott after there were some issues with her predecessor. So she is again challenging him this year. We couldn't get in touch with Johnson or Frizzell. So we only got to speak with District Attorney Cruzzo, but some interesting

commentary on the state of the decreasing crime rate in Dallas County. And again, all of that is available in the DA's report, which we have placed on our website in the article regarding the District Attorney. Yeah, certainly go to the texan.news to read all about it. Hayden, thank you for that. Always interesting to compare the different policies, particularly in this issue, sort of criminal justice policy. Very interesting in terms of big cities here in Texas. Bradley, let's talk about two school bonds that were approved this week. Yeah, so two school districts in Harris County approved pretty large bond packages that will be on the May 7th ballot, local election ballot for their voters. Klein ISD approved a $1.1 billion bond election to fund four propositions across purposes like building construction and renovation, a new football stadium, and

construction of a new event center. Overall, if the bond propositions pass, it will be an $86 increase on top of the already significant property tax bill increase that is going to be implemented with the tax rate that the locality adopted. So in total for the average homeowner in the area, it would be like a $500 property tax bill increase. But only $86 of that was tied explicitly to the passage of these bond propositions the other uh school district was humble isd which i believe is a neighbor to uh klein isd if not it's very close in proximity um they approved two propositions worth 775 million to fund one is for building renovations and i have the whole list in the article a litany of other purposes that they actually list out pretty specific lists of all the stuff.

And then the second one is for technology purchases, like personal devices for teachers and students. For that, the average homeowner in the area would see, if they pass, would see their 2022 tax bill increase by $428 roughly. And obviously it depends on the value of your home, but a smaller portion of that would be directly tied to the provisional passage. The school district didn't tell me. They adopted the same tax rate as the previous year. And so if these do not pass, I assume that the tax rate will be reduced probably pretty modestly, but it will be reduced to some degree. So I couldn't do the math to add up how much of it is tied explicitly to these bond passages. But that gives you a picture.

Voters will see these on their ballots on May 7th. And early voting, I believe, starts on the exact day, late April. It's going to be a busy few months of elections. We are so close to the primary. We've got local elections, and we will no doubt have a litany of runoffs to cover as well. And these are only two of probably the many school bonds that we'll see. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Well, thank you, Bradley. Daniel, in the past, you've done some analysis on legislative districts and showing their partisan leanings. It's called the Texas Partisan Index. This week, you did that analysis on the State SBOE districts will not be surprising to you. They follow a lot of the same trends that we've seen in the other maps as well, namely that the most Democrat-leaning districts are located in the urban areas. Specifically with this map, there are three, one in Houston, one in Dallas, and one in Austin. Those are both very strong-leaning Democrat districts. The next set of more moderate districts, but they're still a little bit more Democrat-leaning, at least based on the past few elections. We might see that change here in the next couple of election cycles, are all located down in South Texas and along the border. The most competitive being District 2, which is on the

coastal side, stretching from the Rio Grande Valley up to way past Corpus Christi and almost not quite to Houston, but up toward that way. That is the most competitive district. I think the TPI was D, 52%. And then you also have, as far as the Republican seats go, again, you're seeing some that are a little bit less, they're not super purple. I wouldn't call them purple. They're more red-leaning, but they're not super red-leaning. They're the ones that are largely in kind of crossing lines between the the state kind of just dipping their toes into the the urban areas and the suburban areas of like colin and denton counties and uh williamson county for instance and then there is like one bright red district out in the texas panhandle in west texas and that one is just like red unsurprising so that's that's the state of the district so there's

15 in total you can go look at the article to see it broken down a little bit more in more detail. Yeah, absolutely. We have all sorts of fun interactive maps as well that Daniel puts on there for y'all's enjoyment to get a look, you know, really just to get an idea of what these districts look like and who will likely be elected. So, Daniel, thank you for that. Okay, gentlemen, we're going to do something new on the pod this week. We're going to talk about some of the tweets we've seen. Notable tweets from the week that maybe weren't worth an article, things we didn't write about, but at least worth knowing or interesting to look at. Let's go ahead and just jump right into this and start talking about some of these.

Interesting all around to watch some of this tech sludge. I don't know, just drama sometimes. There's tech sludge drama led drama certainly we'll get into some of that um there's never any drama in politics no that never happens you're right i'm so sorry i was just guilty of um just spouting off fake news i'm so sorry about it um one thing i do want to flag for our listeners derrick ryan um every year uh puts out this really interesting early voting report or just election day report that kind of goes through who's come out to the polls. Very interesting. He runs a data and research firm here in Texas. Definitely worth looking at. Kind of runs through and sends out an email each day or every other day, depending on his bandwidth, of who's come out to vote in both the Democrat and Republican primaries. So definitely worth looking at. He's Longhorn Derek on Twitter. Go follow him. But very interesting data points so far, as of his

latest report in the Republican primary, there have been 137,000 early votes cast of 16 million, almost 17 million registered voters for a turnout of 0.82 percent so far so just just just a few people coming out to vote we'll see what happens by the end did you say 0.82 percent 0.82 percent so far i also heard i i don't know if this was in his report but i saw it somewhere actually br Brad flagged this tweet for me. There was apparently on the first day of early voting, there was one person who came out to vote in Loving County. Which is actually a higher percentage than statewide total. Quickly talk about Loving County. It's the smallest county in Texas.

That's it. Do you know the population? It's like 100. That's amazing. Sorry to burst your bubble, Daniel, but I actually saw a follow-up tweet to that. That was Republicans that came to vote. There were more but it was only like 18 total.

Which there was one Republican and 17 Democrats who voted in Loving County? That would not make any sense. I don't know if they were independents or what but the tweet that I the same guy that tweeted it that you saw. I don't think it's the one. People live in Loving County.

This is very questionable. All i have to say people are voting in loving county we can just leave it in the i think it was the 2018 general election there were like two people in the county that voted for beta o'rourke so how many it was like two out of the hundred people maybe i had it flipped maybe it was that was a democrat and then the rest were republicans i don't that would make more sense yeah yeah but still that's that's a lot for early voting yeah significant certainly by the way the population of loving county is 169 people according to the googles oh my gosh is that based on the 2020 census i believe it's based on maybe the 2019 estimate i don't know we'll have to look into that anyways it's a small amount. It's very small. I completely forgot about it.

I had pitched this to Mac a few months ago. I wanted to write an article on Loving County for Valentine's Day. I totally forgot about that. I completely forgot about it. Okay, I was like, I don't think I shot that down at all. No, no. I totally forgot. I completely...

Next year. Next year. Put it on the calendar. Seriously, put it on the calendar. And then real fast, in terms of Democrat early voting votes cast, completely next year next year put it on the calendar seriously put on the calendar um and then real fast in terms of democrat early voting uh votes cast we have 94 000 uh in terms of in terms of democrats vote casting ballots for a turnout of 0.56 so we'll see how that changes that's just like the very first report we're getting um from derrick ryan but interesting

nonetheless brad oh yeah go ahead you can always he breaks it down based on elect voting history so you can see people that voted in the last four of the elections of those primaries versus new new voters yeah and so he breaks it down with percentages based on that and once we get more data we'll be able to know a little bit more about actually who's coming to vote. But the utility in this is, OK, especially in big, you know, midterm elections, once we get to November, it'll be when it's, you know, D versus R. How many Republicans still haven't come out to vote? How many Democrats still haven't come out to vote? Are we dealing with a deep bench for either political party? Like, what are we dealing with here?

That's kind of where that utility comes in for campaigns. Very interesting. Brad, any tweets that you saw? Yeah yeah so that was one of my tweets to my own horn here oh my gosh it's about the ut poll that was put out this week just some interesting numbers um that i found interesting i'll say that redundantly they compared the net fave unfave between trump beto o'rourke and greg abbott and trump was that this is across the state of texas um trump was at minus three percent o'rourke was at minus seven percent abbott was at plus one so i i think those are interesting in proximity to one another um this is like favorable unfavorable when we say favor talking about generally favorable

view of ex-politician versus the unfavorable view of ex-politician and you know it's usually split up between um very unfavorable somewhat unfavorable right neutral and so on together but i thought that was interesting um then there's head-to-head. Abbott is up 10 points on Beto O'Rourke in a hypothetical general face-off. And in the GOP primary, Abbott is at 60%. West is at 15%. Huffine's at 14%. The other Rick Perry at 5% and Chad Prather at 3%.

Obviously, that would indicate that if this holds true, that Abbott would avoid a runoff. But one thing that stuck out to me on this was, I believe, in comparison to the last few polls from other media outlets, I've seen west and huff finds at lower percentages than they are posting here um and there was one that was done that perry was actually higher not like double digits but higher than five percent so um there's a lot of jockeying for position on this but it's interesting that um you know who knows who will be right more right when it comes down to it this ut poll or whatever the the other one, DMN poll, I don't know. But that was one part that stuck out to me. And then one more thing that they polled was from recent Texas transplants, where they came from.

California was 15%. Florida was 6%. Along with Louisiana, New York, Oklahoma, and Georgia were all 4%. And I think that's interesting in relation to the exit poll that was put out in 2018 for the Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke election for Senate found that Texas transplants, recent transplants had voted more for Cruz than Beto. And, you know, there's this idea that people that are moving here from, especially California, you know, the Texas versus California theme, but that they're all Democrats moving here. And the question is, what's the motive? Right. And that's just historically

not the case. And we'll see how it turns out here. Yeah. Daniel, I think one of the most surprising things about this poll to me was how low rick perry's name id is is pulling weight like i i really kind of expected it to do more i know political nerds who listen to our podcast and who are in the know know that this is not former governor rick perry right but uh based on the polling it looks like you know that's pretty consistent among most voters as well uh so or either that or people just like greg abbott more than rick perry i feel like the pollster probably clarified that it's not the same it's possible but based on like these are numbers that have been through like three or four different polls now i just i can't imagine the

and i don't i don't know anything about well i i know very little about the process of polling but i just can't imagine a pollster calling up somebody and going, would you vote for Rick Perry without somehow specifying or following up that it was not the former governor? Their job as a pollster, like they're going to say what's on the ballot. Do we have the wording of the poll by chance? That would be interesting. That would just be curious. I'd be curious. No, they have the wording of other questions that were asked but not that but with that it's

who would you vote for abc and they don't say the other rick perry have y'all been called by people doing surveys before because i is it a live person or because i know some people do robo calls where it's like press one if you'd vote for candidate a press two if you'd vote for candidate b but if it's a live person I suppose they could follow up and say you know that this is not the former governor polling is so scientific that you don't want to and that's the hard thing is it's not a sales call so once you're on the phone with somebody they're going to be pretty like they're going to stick to the script. But it depends. There are some robocalls and there are some live callers.

It kind of depends on who's doing it, what firm is, it's likely that they are at least paying enough attention to know that Governor Rick Perry has not announced a candidacy. Yes. Well, unless I've seen, I mean, Governor Perry has very high approval rating number. I mean, he still is writing. It seems as though he's pretty popular here in Texas. And I think folks would say, oh, well, I haven't seen seen a mailer from him haven't seen him on tv yeah then it's probably not the same guy you know there might even be that logic but regardless we'll have to see what happens daniel what what what caught your eye that was what come i are you talking about like i'm talking about another another tweet another tweet okay one of the tweets that i saw uh i think this was today on thursday um one of the state representatives

representative jared patterson tweeted out a list of people that he's voting for uh and it's mostly you know statewide candidates so it includes governor greg abbott lieutenant governor dan patrick comptroller glenn hagar land commissioner don buckingham railroad commissioner wayne christian and for the supreme court one of the justices, Evan Young. Now, there are two things that stuck out to me. The first being he also lists a candidate for agriculture commissioner, which is his fellow statehouse representative, James White. And then also, there's no little box here for attorney general, which is something that I've noticed not just with Representative Pattersonson but from a number of republican state representatives yeah i think there's this common

theme of those are the two races attorney general and agriculture commissioner where they they're not supporting the incumbent necessarily now they haven't necessarily come out and endorsed a candidate uh but you have seen a little bit of tension there in those two races which is interesting we has patterson endorsed in agriculture in the, in, in the agriculture commission? Yes. He said James White.

Okay. Got it. I missed that. There's quite a bit of state reps that have. Yeah. Colleague against, you know, I mean that kind of like against an incumbent that is not,

um, as popular among the legislator, legislative members. It makes, it makes sense. Um, well, it's very interesting.

I'll have to see what happens there have any lawmakers come out and in and endorsed paxton have we seen that from legislators um i know it's all i know that i've seen several legislators endorse uh other candidates i know that there have been um i think i saw i don't remember which member i know one member endorsed george p bush and i've also seen a number of lawmakers endorse uh congressman gomert yeah um so i know that there's been that dynamic i don't know that i've seen any endorse paxton though yeah i don't have to go back and double check there could be yeah there could be okay um isaiah what about you what caught your eye uh well in a different

statewide race uh for land commissioner one one of the candidates, Dr. John Spires, twirled out some endorsements. Twirled out? Every time he says that, it just makes me cringe. Oh. It makes me... I'm sorry. He twirled out some endorsements from the Houston Chronicle, for example, is one of

them, and Grassroots America. And if you all know anything about these two entities they're usually not in agreement and we've we've talked to this before because some of this information informed connie's most recent hot take i believe but editorial boards editorial boards for newspapers generally have an incentive for both like real ideological but also some fiscal reasons to either endorse moderates or if that's not the case to make their endorsees appear moderate and grassroots america does not at all have that incentive right they like they like people that are very purist and principal and because that's that's their deal and conservative

like principle like these are grassroots american people is one of the foremost conservative grassroots groups in the in the state yeah to be specific conservative principle absolutely and um so for spires to have both those endorsements is interesting i i read houston chronicles endorsement of spires and they're impressed with his focus on primarily the actual duties of the GLO, especially with regards to how he plans to distinguish himself from the other candidates. I got the chance to talk to six of the eight candidates. Weston Martinez and Rufus Lopez did not get back to me. But Don Buckingham, for example, we talked about this on on the podcast then like a lot of candidates in primary races everywhere it's just a political phenomenon her language focuses more on the democrat opposition rather than the republican competition

because she feels that she's in a secure position she She's got a lot of very, very prominent endorsements, and so it just doesn't behoove her to draw attention to her competitors. When she can frame herself, you know, you get the idea. And Spires, when he was talking to the Chronicle, focused a little bit less on border security

and critical race theory, for example, and other very hot-button issues about which people have very real concerns, but about which there's some disagreement over how much the GLO could actually address these things. And Sabiris focused more on disaster relief, transparency, funding for military veterans and stuff like that.

So that impressed the Chronicle. But he is also a very conservative candidate. And it's interesting to see him tout the endorsement of the houston chronicle right to be proud of it because we've also seen recently some conservative candidates wesley hunt to be you know specific has been a big part of this entire thing itself like not just another newspaper but it was the chronicle that he spurned the endorsement of yeah yeah the exact and didn't even meet with him which was notable as well as he did not meet with the,

the board. They requested one and he did not grant it to them. And then he was endorsed and he spurned it. Very interesting. And like, just for like the Dallas morning news, for example, they back in the day chose Joe Strauss as their text into the year.

When I was interning there, they assigned me to this piece for, it was just a Q andA piece about Jeff Leach's reneging on an abortion bill that he had previously proposed in a previous session. And when it got support, he decided to start opposing it. And so they wanted more probing, but at the same time, admiring piece on that decision. And so that's just to give you kind of flavor for generally what newspaper editorial boards in Texas like. Again, Conrad mentioned some of these reasons that are most recent hot take. Middle of the rotors, people are less likely to unsubscribe when they endorse middle of the rotors, for example.

A lot of it is also just ideological. The people that graduate from journalism school and go to work at editorial boards. But there's some hard reasons, some more principled reasons. But it's just funny to see a guy... Yeah, these two groups are generally not... The Venn diagram of their endorsements...

John Spires might be the only one in the middle there at the moment. I don't know. I haven't dug into the the others yeah very interesting well i say thank you for that hayden do you have anything else that you want to spotlight as far as um you know tweets of the week go michelle beckley tweeted a while back i don't think it was a few days ago that texas is a non voting state and i always think that that's few days ago that Texas is a non voting state. And I always think that that's an interesting argument because there's a

running joke in politics that Brad likes to repeat. And that is that it all comes down to turnout every day or every time before election day, it all comes down to turnout because Texas is a non voting state. I don't seen the numbers lately on what it is estimated that Texas would be like politically if every single eligible person voted. But it's every election, both sides, I think, say, well, you know, if we had this group, if they went out to us, we definitely would have won. Or if we had had this windfall right before election day, then we would have added in the bag. And it's just interesting, and I'm not singling out Beckley. I'm just saying that it's interesting

to see how kind of the self-talk among candidates and people with dogs on the fight as to hypothetical situations, how the election would look under in different scenarios. And I'm sure that in the week following March 1st, we'll all be seeing lots of interesting theories when we find out who wins in the primaries. Absolutely. Well, gentlemen, thank you for that. Always fun to talk about. I sort of cut you off, but I have an idea.

Ooh. Yeah. So. I always get nervous when you have ideas yeah it's probably terrible i don't know i had more to say after that but um i just stopped saying that i had so i i thought about um you know us doing kind of a mailbag section of the podcast where we take questions from our listeners and answer them you know whether it's on policy uh obscure rules of the texas house i don't know whatever you want um so if we you know

i think that would be good if we can get enough yeah feedback or questions submitted yeah so folks if you have um if you have questions for the reporting team here at the Texan, email them to, let's do editor at thetexan.news for now. Email editor at thetexannews and we may or may not just answer them live on our podcast. Could be political, could be- Live to us, not to you. Fun, personal, whatever you want. Yeah, totally.

You just ask super intense personal questions about Brad and specific. And I will read them. Exactly. I will dive for the list and I'll make sure and they get read. So send them over. Like, Brad, why has Cincinnati had such a bad sports year? Even though it's been a good sports year. It's been the exact opposite.

It's been awesome. But there hasn't been like a moment of conclusion where, you know where you became the winner of all the winners. Yeah. Well, story of my life. I'm convinced that I will probably go to my grave with none of my teams winning the title. I guess you're right. They made it very, very far. That was kind of depressing.

Exactly. Or why are there so many dogs at the Texans' office? Or Isaiah, why do you like to wear hawaiian shirts or when is the filing deadline for a b or c oh i can tell you we can answer any of the any of those questions so email editor at the texan.news and if we get enough questions we may just um bring them on the podcast cool i like I like it. Good stuff, team. Well, folks, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been

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