The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 18, 2025

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/Learn more about the Data Center Coalition at: https://www.centerofyourdigitalworld.org/texasThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.School Choice, Public Education Funding Bills Pass Initial Vote in Texas HouseState Sen. Mayes Middleton Jumps Into Race for Texas Attorney GeneralFormer Texas Congresswoman Mayra Flores Announces Bid for Henry Cuellar’s SeatTexas House School Discipline Bill Passes After Debate Between LawmakersPaxton Impeachment Back Pay Instruction Approved by House for Budget Conference CommitteeSen. Cornyn Urges Federal Authorities to Investigate Islamic 'EPIC City' DevelopmentDOGE Committee Chair Requests Pause on Superior HealthPlan Medicaid ContractsFederal Authorities Investigate Texas Children’s Hospital Whistleblower AllegationsHouse Bill Would Prohibit Shelf Sale of Sex Toys in Non-Sexually-Oriented BusinessesDEI Amendments Fail to Pass During Texas House Budget Night

Well, howdy folks, it's Mackenzie here with Brad Cameron and Mary Lee. So we are all bright eyed, bushy tailed, never been more energized. Um, I think very normal thoughts are coming to us easily. We're able to string sentences together with the greatest ease. Oh yeah. Would you agree? Wow. I think time will tell during this podcast.

I think you're probably right. Cameron, I want to ask you specifically after the marathon school choice here. Now you also, I'd say suffered the greatest disruption to your sleep schedule and just general life schedule being that you typically wake up around the time the house ended its deliberation yesterday. Right. So how are you doing? I'm running on a lot of caffeine right now, but I'm just excited to be here,

happy to be around friends. I love how you look sweet directly at Brad when you said that that waiting to see what his response would be. No, I I'm, I'm doing okay. Uh, I, it was, it was a long night, but it was important day for a lot of members. Uh, it was a lot of interesting debates, discussions that I'm glad I was there for because it's one thing to watch it on screen, it's one thing to follow it on social media, it's another to be sitting there on the floor and seeing everything going on right in front of you. So it was a really interesting night, but yeah, big disruption to my normal schedule, but that's just part of the game.

We're going to try and get you, just to get you home with a good time today. Yeah. That's our goal. I'm happy about that. Mary Elise, Brad, how are you guys holding up? Brad, you were there late too. Mary Elise, you were there late for a while and then you watched, um, most from home. Yeah.

So I can't complain quite as much as the boys can. Same. Yeah. Okay, I was up about the same amount of time, just for the record. Yeah, sure you were. To steal from the same thing I said last week when we did our smoke-filled room podcast. To quote Jackson Brown, I'm running on empty. Was it the exact same line? It was literally the same line. Yeah. Was it the exact same line? You need to, uh,

you know, beat this dead horse until, I don't know. Or do you, so we use recycle. Yeah. That's very true. Um, well, should we just get into it then? I feel like that's what we're going to talk about regardless of whether or not we actually jump into the stories is school choice. Yeah. So let's talk about this. This is a long awaited day in the Texas house. Specifically, the Senate has passed different forms of school choice legislation for several sessions, many different forms during

special sessions, right? So we've been waiting for the house to take it up on the floor in this way for a long time. Of course, the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker have all been in lockstep on this issue since the beginning of session, even since before session began largely. Cameron, I want you to just walk us through what happened. You're sitting on the floor, watching it all go down. And even before then, there was a lot of rallying and discussion and activism happening at the Capitol? Yeah, well, like you just described, this has been a day, years in the making. Greg Abbott has really made school choice his issue that he's campaigned on. He's held rallies throughout the state, really championing this issue. And he went on the offensive, really promoting pro-school choice candidates during the primary, and it worked out for him. Many of those candidates ended up winning the general. And so he was very confident about school choice, actually getting a chance to be brought up

on the Texas House floor this session. Because as we know, when it was brought up last session, failed to pass. That was because during the special session, there was the Rainey Amendment, which struck the ESAs from the education omnibus bill, struck the ESAs from the education omnibus bill, which essentially just killed the entire thing. So this was really the time, this session, with everything that's been going on, with

what I just described with Greg Abbott, but then also with the new Trump administration, who has been vocally supportive of school choice. And we saw that again the morning of the vote. The House Republicans met with Greg Abbott before, and Donald Trump calls in to encourage them to pass school choice. And we also saw a press conference with House Speaker Burroughs and the Pub-Ed chair Brad Buckley beforehand with school

administrators. They were talking about the Pub-Ed finance bill but of course everyone was wondering what their thoughts were on the day regarding school choice and that morning again Burroughs who has said on multiple occasions school choice will pass he reiterated that the morning of so there was a lot of positive energy going into the day and once we got onto the floor it was about 10 o'clock the first bill they took up was the Pub Ed finance bill. And again, Brad Buckley, who has been leading on all things education in the House, he called it landmark funding.

He said this is more money for Texas public education than any other piece of legislation in the history of the state. But of course Democrats who again this has been a long process they've been very much opposed to school choice really trying to promote continuing funding public education. There was a big debate on the Pub Ed bill. Representative John Bryant led on many of those amendments, but really at the end it had a much easier pathway to passing because there was quite a lot of bipartisan support for Pub-Ed funding and ended up passing 144 to 4 with reps Brian Harrison, David Lowe, Brett Money, and Mike Alcott voting against it. So the wide majority of the

body there voting up on pub ed and finance but as everyone was waiting. It was time to take up the school choice bill. And SB 2 took up how many hours of debate? 12, 14 hours? It was eight hours. Okay. Well a total on the day. Yeah it was it was a long day. But this SB 2 is the Senate's plan which again the Senate was able to pass it. They made some changes in the committee substitute, specifically tying the individual amount of the education savings account to 85% of the statewide average state and local funding per student and average daily attendance with additional amount for children with disabilities. Home schooled students have a capped ESA amount of $2,000 per education savings account.

And the big quibble that has been continually brought up is the $1 billion appropriation for the ESA program and then also the legislative budget board projections for the future BIAMs. In the fiscal note. In the fiscal note where they projected could continue to expand into larger and larger amounts. But again, those are estimates. I've covered that extensively with different leaders like Dan Patrick told us at the kickoff event that, again, those are just estimates and there's a provision in the

SB2 legislation that everybody in the bodies in both the Senate and the House need to reappropriate that money in case there are issues with the budget. So there are those sort of guardrails and safeguards in place, but getting back into the night, amendments, points of orders, all sorts of debate covered the gamut of issues. There wasn't that many points of order I was surprised. There wasn't that many but compared to budget night compared to budget night but there was a lot of amendments and it was really the one amendment that people were waiting on was something that was rumored there was going to be an

amendment that was proposed that would place the ESA on a statewide ballot for a vote. That was the big one. Everyone was waiting. Everyone was waiting and there was rumors about who would propose it. Ended up being Rep James Talarico who said it, it's interesting because you could see, this is one of the things when you're on the floor, you really notice in Mary Lise brought this up. And we were talking about it is you could sort of see James Talarico preparing himself

right to bring this up, kind of pacing around around reading off of his notes kind of getting hyped up because he knew this was kind of his big moment and going into when he proposed this amendment he said there had been quote bipartisan support for this referendum then he alleged that Abbott governor Greg Abbott began quote, quote, threatening to veto all the bills of any member who votes for this amendment, threatened to make their primary elections, quote, a bloodbath. What was the reaction when that was said on the floor? Did it? There was grumblings from both members and the gallery, and what was interesting is after Talerico

brought this amendment to bring ESAs to a referendum to a vote, Representative Mitch Little went to the microphone to respond to that claim about the threats from Governor Abbott. And he said, certainly he was not threatened. He then went on to ask quote if we're going to delegate our lawmaking authority directly to the people why do we need to be here at all? Why don't we just do that with every

bill? And there was an extensive back and forth between the two members. And the amendment was eventually tabled with only one Republican vote against tabling it, coming from former House Speaker Rep. Dave Feeler. Very interesting there. His name will come up again in just a minute. There was, you know, quite a number of amendments proposed. BRAB was keeping us updated on TLO and ended up being nearly 50 that were officially filed onto TLO.

And there were almost 70 that were filed. But I'm saying that's what I'm saying. Yeah. I'm saying TLO official ones. Yeah. I'm saying TLO official ones. Yeah. SB2 did end up passing 85 yes, 63 no. Two Republicans, reps Gary Van Deaver and again, Phelan broke with their party, And that was sort of the crescendo to everything when the up or down vote on the essays happened. Everyone was very ecstatic, especially the Republicans of the House. There was a number of closing speeches from Democrats, but it was a long day and we

we include some reactions from Abbott and Burroughs. Just happy that this vote ended up passing because like I explained this was a big policy that Abbott has been pushing so he was very excited that it ended up passing. So it was a long day, but it was a culmination of years of different policy groups, different elected officials, lots of money coming into Texas to get this issue across the finish line. So a big day for a lot of people. Really the fruition for the governor of all of his effort in the primary too right this is a legislature that just a couple years ago would have

if something this I mean there were a lot of proposals discussed as far as okay what could school to what version of school choice could be palatable enough to pass the Texas House? And we're looking here at something that, in a large part, is very similar to what the Senate has been able to pass. So wild to watch that happen. Well, and ultimately, it was those seats that flipped this result. And I forgot the exact

number. It was at 15, pro-school choice candidates won, and the primaries around there. And, you know, most of that is due to Abbott and the just sheer amount of money dumped into this thing. And a good general for Republicans, where you certainly brought in a few members who, even if they're not out there touting school choice necessarily as much as the candidates who won in the primary did that Abbott backed, are still at the end of the day, yes votes for this piece of legislation. Well and yeah, you had, there was probably a group of about five or six members who either did not really get challenged much by Abbott in the primary because of candidate quality or lack thereof.

Abbott made strategic decisions on who he would back. But then also, those members ended up, many of them, voting for the ultimate bill. And a few of them put out statements detailing why. The big reason was a deal that was struck on amendments. It's in the perfecting amendment that that Buckley had. The biggest one is the they called the pop-up provision. Basically a charter private school in an area has to be accredited for two years before they can get these.

You can't have something move out there just to get these ESAs immediately to pop up. Their operations, they have to be established. And so that, because most of these rural areas, there's already limited, if any, options private school-wise because they don't really have, most of them don't have the population base to support it, right? That was part of the whole argument here that why not just bracket out these rural areas because it can't survive there anyway. So they kind of got that in a way and that was enough for people like Drew Darby, Jay

Dean, Jeff Berry to ultimately vote for this. Either skeptical or very ardently opposed to school choice. Right. Well, Darby was when you tweeted out, was it last night or earlier this morning? It blends together. The Darby response, right? Because when we spoke to him during our kickoff event, he was taking a very different tone at that time. He was scrapping with Briscoe Kane over that.

Yeah, so to see him fall on the yes side of the school choice vote. Well, and his statement was summed up in like the first sentence of the last paragraph, which was, you know, this is not what I would have written. I think I'm not super in favor of it, but this is not what I would have written. I think I'm not super in favor of it, but this is better than what would otherwise come if we didn't tack this amendment on. Well, that's why I think it's a, it was interesting watching the back and forth on the amendments from the DEMs, the Democrats in the House, because every amendment they would propose, it seemed like a Republican would go to the back mic and ask, if we adopt this amendment, will you vote for this bill?

And they would say no. And so maybe that was a wrong strategy to take for the Democrat members who are opposed to the school choice bill. Maybe they could have worked in some of their amendments to where they could get something out of the school choice bill knowing it was going to pass if they were willing to vote for it. So just maybe a different tactical approach. You could have awarded them some of the things they want to see happen in education they could have tacked on to the school choice bill. But that's where that's a hindsight's 2020 electoral

consequences, right? For Republicans, if they vote against this measure, they're facing the governor that has been explicitly stated by the governor time and time again. Democrats, if they vote yes for this piece of legislation, certainly are going to face an uphill battle in their own districts, most of them. And that's a wild, wild, or just, it says a lot about this issue in terms of partisan leaning, right? This is, which I think Democrats time and time again said that last night in criticism of Republicans who maybe were against

ESAs, but were going to vote for the bill regardless. That was a criticism lobbied by Democrats time and time again was, hey, you guys, a lot of you, not a lot of you, a sizable number of you voted against, um, similar proposals in the past or have vocally been, um, resistant to any sort of school choice proposal. Where's that courage tonight is what they kept saying. And what's interesting, I think at the last moment was representative Jean Wu, a Democrat from Houston, also the chairman of the democratic caucus was saying, where are those 24 members who voted against this proposal last time? He called them heroes. A lot of them are no longer in office. I was standing on the floor in the back of the chamber and when Gene

Wu says that I hear Terry Canales shout, another Democrat, another Democrat shout, they all lost! That's where they went. And so, you know, I think there was an air of inevitability about this, leading up to this. The leverage that Democrats and those among Republicans who were opposed to this had was the question. Nobody really knows where the votes are. But, you know, Ockham's razor, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. If you just do the math are. But, you know, Occam's razor, the simplest explanation, is probably the correct one. If you just do the math on who won who lost in the primary, this thing was gonna pass. And it was always gonna pass. But also there was room for dissent among the Republican caucus for a few, like it was

not as though if a few members peel off and vote no on this proposal that they become which they still would become the scapegoat of a governor but the bill would still pass my point right they're not killing at least on its face the governor's prized piece of legislation but they still kind of stuck together as caucus with the exception of Phelan and Vandeever yeah and with those two there's a lot of speculation they're not going to run again. Well I was going to say what does this mean for those two Republicans? Of course Phelan is the former

speaker. He was at the dais all you know the last two sessions and so it is not historically common for speakers who lose the gavel to stay in the house for extended periods of time. We have an exception in Tom Craddock who's been serving in the house for decades, but that's not typical And so even feeling being here, you know, he ran for reelection one Very close by a very close margin But still it I think all you know His intent was to maintain the gavel and be speaker again the session and when that did not happen

He's just he's a member. Yeah. So, um, there was a lot of talk on, Calarico made this accusation on the floor about Abbott and threatening to veto bills. Little responded and said, I didn't know about this. The governor's team put out a statement saying that's not true. Well, Jeff Berry responding on his Facebook to a comment that was in response to his statement of why he ultimately had voted yes for this

after telling a town hall about a month ago that he would vote no. He said, if I had voted against it, I would have had every statewide and national political AI figure against me Not to mention all of my bills vetoed the consequences were dire with no upside at all so That's what I said about the air of inevitability like he goes the other way. That's just a Signal vote, you know, it's not really any it's not gonna affect anything. He's not a swing vote. And so he said, all right I'll take it and You know he along with the others took the amendment and that's why they swallowed what they really didn't want to vote for and just

You know took the bullet on it and voted for it You know that there's a lot of tallarico You mentioned you saw him preparing for this big speech with the referendum. There was a lot of talk about a Republican offering that beforehand. You know, the two names I heard the night before, and obviously ultimately this didn't happen,

were Phelan and Charlie Garan. But there was a lot of talk about who was gonna carry that. And when I got to the floor on, what day was it, yesterday, Thursday, Wednesday, Democrats didn't know ultimately who was gonna do it. It was still up in the air. Then Talarico filed it, we all knew who was gonna author it.

But also with Talarico, a lot of talk about him running for governor. And I can tell you Abbott's team is expecting him to do that. And so this was like a big stage for him to give his opposition to this, something that will probably be, if he does it, the centerpiece of his campaign.

So a lot of different electoral themes here, not for 2026, not just on the Republican side, but the Democratic side as well. Well, and the one time I heard the word populist said on the floor, that was so interesting. Yes. It wasn't by Talarico. No.

Or was Jean Wu or someone speaking in opposition to the bill though. Um, in the context- I think it was a female state representative. Yeah, but in the context of trying to send the, uh, the vote to the, to the people sort of idea. So both political parties trying to generate their own populist energy here. I think it's interesting you mentioned that Talarico could use his amendment and his floor speech on that amendment as a springboard or a

centerpiece rather for some of his campaigning if he ends up running for governor because there is this populist energy within the electorate and it seems like Democrats are gonna try to generate some of that for themselves you know. And one more theme on this I'll mention. So Donald Trump put out a statement this morning, a truth or whatever it's called, congratulating the House for passing it. And he said explicitly, I want to congratulate my friends, Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Speaker Dustin Burroughs.

So you got looped in. Imagine seeing that three months ago during the heat of the speaker's race when everyone was thinking, oh, Trump might endorse David Cook. That back-channeling was happening. You can guarantee Donald Trump Jr. was pressing his father to endorse David Cook. Ultimately, he'd stayed out of it. Burroughs wins. And now he's being called as Donald Trump's friend.

Yeah. You know? So, life comes at you fast in Texas politics. Yeah. Um, but you can guarantee that if we have another huge, kind of quasi-leadership fight in the primary next year, which we probably will, at least in some races, that's going to be stuck on a, a male piece more than one. How likely do you think it is that Democrats now go full scorched earth on a lot of the priority pieces of legislation in the house for the remainder of session? I don't, I think it was a concern, right?

That was a major concern. I mean, they knew, they think it was TBD. That was the concern, right? That was a major concern. I mean, they knew this was passing. You heard comments leading up to this by Barbara Gerben Hawkins, other Democrats. We know which way this is going. Look at the elections that just happened. It's a simple whip count, you know? So they were coming to terms with this.

Now they had to present their opposition, give their say, right? That's why this was so protracted on the floor with amendment after amendment after amendment. It was just the same process. Everything was tabled, right? But they wanted their say and they had their say. They just knew, they knew it was going to pass. Yeah, on that point, you could see how the messaging changed over the last few months on school choice from the Democrats. It was opposition to the issue outright, then it was opposition to 1 billion dollars, then it was opposition

or trying to get the ESAs onto a ballot for a statewide vote. So kind of shrinking down the scope of their opposition there. Strategically maybe trying to get a smaller piece of the pie or something that they actually could secure at the end of the day because it was going to pass to your point. Yeah, so yeah just very interesting dynamics there and like you just said it'll be interesting to see what the fallout is for some other priority pieces of legislation that comes up because the House they still got a long way to go. Yeah. So a lot of bills to pass.

So we'll see how things play out. Absolutely and of course I think allies are on the constitutional amendments that the House would have to pass. So we'll see how things play out. Absolutely. And of course I think allies are on the constitutional amendments that the House would have to pass because that does require a two-thirds vote as opposed to the simple majority which is a hundred members which is more than there are Republicans in the House. So that and we're talking bail reform specifically that I think is top of mind for state leaders in that regard. The other question, last one about this is that what's the Senate do? Do they just concur with the House's version and is top of mind for state leaders in that regard. The other question, last one about this, is that what's the Senate do? Do they just concur with the House's version and avoid another vote in the House? Because then it goes right to the governor's desk. But if they don't, there will have to be

another vote to concur with the conference committee report in the House. And I don't think anybody really wants to do that on either side of this. They don't want to have this fight again. I think it's pretty likely the Senate concurs and they just send it. And if you look at Governor Abbott's statement, he said, I look forward to having this pretty quickly on my desk. I think that tells you a lot. Yeah. What the behind the scenes conversations are like. Yep.

Hints everywhere. Any final thoughts on the debate of it all? Well, I personally really enjoyed the back and forth between Tallarico and Representative Little. I found that to be very interesting because they were talking about Little was asking, okay what is the point of a legislature? He said why don't we just send everything to the voters because Tallarico was emphasizing that voters should have a say when it when it affects their taxes this significantly their children and then little was saying hey I mean how are we

gonna determine what pieces of legislation should go to the voters versus us deciding on them so that was a pretty yeah we live we don't live in a direct democracy in that way right that. That was the point being made. It's like, what's the point of electing a legislature? Which also was interesting because then Little's point was, okay, well, the 8 billion we just added to school funding, that bill that we just passed, you know, a couple of hours ago today, we didn't have this conversation surrounding that bill, right? And Tallarico's point was, I think his argument in argument in return was well no one's against giving teachers pay raises and little was like

well it's eight billion dollars is one billion dollars like what's what is the designation of the legislature when are we shirking our responsibility by saying yeah we're gonna let the voters decide this yeah versus you know being duly elected representatives saying hey we represent hundreds of thousands of people in the state of Texas. This is all closest weapon to hand politics when appealing to the populace and the referendum. When that suits you, you use it. When it doesn't suit you policy wise, you don't like it.

But you saw time and time again in this debate. On all sides of this. Absolutely. You know? And on all policies. You know, let's talk about a THC ban or gambling, things that would probably, THC ban would probably fail on a referendum ballot, and gambling would probably

pass overwhelmingly. It all falls on different sides. And it just, when know, when we have a put a property tax relief hike up to voters, you know, that's fine. It's all kabuki theater when invoking these statewide votes. Well, even when people are holding up these polls, like we saw that mentioned last night, like Gray Gabbott's poll says people support a school choice well our independent polls say people don't

support a school choice and say the the polling is representative of people who answer polls. You know you ask the random person on the street have you ever taken a political poll before? They might, you're probably gonna say no. And then you get to the fact that this would be on, if that had passed, this would have been on the November 2025 ballot, which is like, what, 15% of the voting populace, it actually turns out, as opposed to a general election

in a midterm or presidential. Sure. So like, what's the accurate electorate here? It changes every year in whatever election you're talking about. It's just, it's a shell game of electoral stuff. But also I think to Cameron's point, the strategy Democrats employed there was far more fearsome to Republicans than any other they'd done previously because they were like, okay, well, how are we going to like the anticipation for that amendment

skyrocketed. Right? I mean, there were a lot of different amendments. Because nobody really knew what would happen, right? Yes, which tells you that there is at least hope for the Democrats in employing that strategy, whereas before there really wasn't. You know what it kind of reminds me of? It still did not result in the outcome that they wanted, and very decisively so, but at least there was some discussion among Republicans like, oh gosh. Yeah, it kind of reminded me of the 2021 Medicaid expansion test vote in the budget where beforehand you had I think nine Republicans sign on and say yes I'll vote for this and I think that made it close enough where it might have passed but then by the time we got to the vote all but one of the Republicans

Then by the time we got to the vote all but one of the Republicans You know voted against this thing and only I think Lyle Larson voted for it So, you know when the time comes to vote the actual consequences are on the table You see decisions change and that's what this reminded me of there was a lot of buildup for this Yeah, like the political pressure that Republicans in specific were feeling was... And I think if you'd, if you, in a vacuum for each of these on the fence members, you'd see a lot of them vote for a referendum on this. But we're not in a vacuum. This is, there's so much context to this. That's exactly right. That's why it's, it's honestly difficult sometimes to sit on the floor and listen to the members debating these hypotheticals, like future hypotheticals.

Because it's like, there's so much left out of the context in those questions asking about if this happened, would you vote for it? Would you re-up the probe? Like a Moody Amendment was a big thing. Yeah. And it's like, there's so many things that are going on that you can't take into account right now. So, um, but yeah, it was, yeah, it's just interesting. It's very true. Well, we can talk about this forever. I'm

going to put this in your brains and I want you to noodle on it. We'll come back to it later. If this vote had happened via secret ballot, what do you think the breakdown would have been? Okay. I want you to think about that and we'll come back to it later. If this vote had happened via secret ballot, what do you think the breakdown would have been? Okay, I want you to think about that and we'll come back in a little bit. And run those numbers. We're going to take a quick break to hear from a sponsor. Did you know data centers support 364,000 jobs in Texas and contribute $3.5 billion in state and local taxes? These critical facilities boost the state's economy and contribute $3.5 billion in state and local taxes. These critical facilities boost the state's economy and power essential services. From video calls and online banking to health care and government operations, data centers

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And we're back. Okay, well, we have a lot of news to get into To learn more, visit centerofyourdigitalworld.org slash Texas. And we're back. Okay, well we have a lot of news to get into and we are over halfway through our podcast time. So let's get into the attorney general's race. This was big news this week, Bradley. Yeah, so we were all expecting this in one form or another. Senator Mates Middleton jumps in the race,

Republican from Galveston, deep pocketed Republican from Galveston, deep-pocketed Republican from Galveston. And he He announced his long-awaited Attorney General run Ever since Ken Paxton dropped out even before he did a lot of buzz about Middleton running for the seat He said quote as Attorney General

I would join President Trump in his efforts to return a seat. He said, quote, As attorney general, I will join President Trump in his efforts to return America and Texas to common sense and to fight to secure the border, ensure law and order and be tough on crime. So goes Texas, so goes America. There isn't another Texas to move to and I will work to ensure Texas is the safest state to live and raise a family. The theme is the same as we're seeing in every single one of these Republican primary campaigns that have launched since. Very much cozying up to Trump because he is the face of the party, he is the leader of the country at the moment, and his endorsement is the winner in a lot of these races. So nothing surprised there.

In the initial release, I think the big item was that Middleton said he'll self-fund his campaign at least with $10 million right off the bat. That's notable partly because he's in session. He can't fundraise right now, which Matt and I talked about this on Smoke-Filled Room. A lot of these guys that are looking to run statewide from their legislators, they are probably hesitant to jump in because they can't raise any money. And if you can't raise any money right off the bat.

You're behind. Right, so Middleton doesn't have that problem because he can self-fund. And so that immediately makes him, if not just a very formidable challenger, kind of leader of the pack right now. Now there's only two people in the race. Listen to Smokefield, Rumeck, and I talked about all the other candidates.

Those are fun episodes. Potential candidates. But one is in the race so far, and that's John Bash, former US attorney during the first Trump administration. A lot of talk about him having affiliations to Elon Musk. Which is also why the 10 million from Middleton is a big deal. Yeah and how much Musk will be involved if at all. I've heard conflicting things. We'll see what happens especially when the finance reports come out. Is there a musky donation to John Bash's campaign?

Musky. I like it. I don't know. We'll see. But Bash said in his response to Middleton jumping in, this is a job interview for the top law enforcement position in Texas. As far as I can tell, he has no courtroom experience and he tried to get rid of the most successful AG in the nation, General Ken Paxton. Now as far as I read this, that is a reference to the first

vote in the Paxton impeachment which was whether to just toss all the articles out or not. Middleton did not vote to do that. He voted to have the trial and then he voted to acquit after the 12-day trial. So that is my read on what bash is spinning here. Middleton responded in an interview with Chad Hasty on 660 AM. The answer in Dallas, he said first of all, I voted to acquit. But then he said, I've been a part of the conservative movement for decades and I've never seen him around where has he been on that so yeah that is that's the messaging we're seeing so far a two horse race at the moment we will probably see more people jump in there

will be more horses one of those might be Brian Hughes state senator from Maniola another member of the legislature who's dealing with that fundraising. Yep, and we talked about him a lot on the podcast but I'll mention that I talked to Senator Hughes on the floor on the House floor yesterday and he said that he's very much considering still considering this even with Middleton jumping in. So he said, I expect a decision sometime soon. We'll see what he says, but what he does. But this is gonna be, I think,

everyone's gonna watch the Paxton-Cornyn race. And my gut kinda says that's what we'll see. We won't see any other candidates jump in. You could, but I think we'll see just those two duke it out. But this is, I think, gonna be the most interesting. Another name that we didn't talk about that was brought up to me the other day for that race, or another statewide, Congressman Chip Roy.

Of course. Yeah, I don't know how we totally blanked on him. Oh my gosh, I think we even mentioned him in the other smoke-filled room. Like we talked about him there, I think. Yeah, yeah we did. How could we, well. I mean, I totally blanked mentioned him in the other smoke-filled room, like we talked about him there, I think. Yeah, yeah we did. How could we, well, that's interesting. I mean, I totally blanked on him.

And his fundraising is solid. Yeah, yeah. And he used to be in the Attorney General's office when he was the first assistant for Ken Paxton. And of course they had a falling out. Major. Roy left. They're not on good terms with each other. But we've seen Chip Roy come out and say, hey, yeah, this is a good move, right?

They turned their own. This is a bad move, but he's certainly not shied away from criticizing the general. Right. So a lot more to come in this race. And I think it will be the most interesting and exciting race of the next cycle. Absolutely. I'm with you. Thank you, Bradley.

Mary Lee's we're going to come to you. This is other interesting campaign news. A former Texas congresswoman has announced her bid for Congressman Henry Cuellar's seat. Yes. Tell us about this familiar name. Yeah, so as I said in this story, former Congresswoman Myra Flores has thrown her hat into the ring for Congressman Cuellar's seat in District 28. He's been in this position for over 20 years now. She announced this just a day ago. So she ran against Vincent Gonzalez twice actually and she lost both times. So she's got experience in Texas elections in District 34 and she originally served in District 34 after there was the Democratic congressman, Philemon

Villa, who resigned in 2022. And she served for about half a year there. So she's got experience here. She announced, yeah, that she was going to challenge Congressman Coyarcey, and he's someone that we've, that we were watching closely during the election last year because he was actually indicted by the Department of Justice for different forms of bribery and money laundering in coordination with his wife who's Imelda Cuellar and then some foreign nations so he's, he's got a court date

coming up this year that will cover his indictments and so we were discussing okay is this gonna affect his chances of winning? I mean he's held this seat for so long but he is indicted and that could affect the way that his constituents view him. But he did win with nearly 52% of the vote and he ran against Republican candidate Jay Furman who's someone that we interviewed. We have a piece talking to him about the race so we'll be watching Congresswoman Myra Flores closely and there's another individual that announced that he would also be joining the race, which Brad tweeted out, Juan Esparza.

He's a Texas nurse. Yeah, so he's also jumped into this race and this is District 28 and it does favor the Democrats with our Texas Partisan Index. It gives it a rating of D, 58%. So definitely- Is that old? Oh no, 57%. I think it's 57 20th

congressional yeah I think it's d50 one or two isn't it I've seen the 57 I think that's the old one 58 live fact-checking Yeah. This is what the Texan does. D51. It's 51? Yeah. All right, I stand corrected. Brad is right, D51. But it does still favor the Democrats. Barely. Barely, yeah. But it does. It swung a lot because Quay are kind of very close race. Yeah. But Republicans, this is on the NRCC is target list. They feel like they can really flip this seat. And I think cook, not cook, uh, saw it as Chris ball rated it as a toss up. So this thing this thing's gonna be Well, and you mentioned NRCC They actually were watching Meyer Flores very closely during the last election and they called her this was a one-year piece is the young gun

She was in their young gun list, which is She was included on a pile of the races that they thought that they could that they could take so Yeah, but until Flores jumped into this race There was one other person that people really had their eyes on for Congressman Cuellar's seat. And this was Webb County Judge Tano Tihirina. And he flipped parties, I believe it was in December 2024 from Democratic to Republican. And one thing that people took note of was that when he announced this, the email was sent by Axiom Strategies, which is a huge consulting firm. And so everyone's eyes are still on him, right? It's very likely that he will still jump into the race as well.

But Mayra Flores being in this race is going to make his path to getting a GOP nomination just in general. His path of getting Republican favor will be much less easily attained. Yeah and also another aspect of this announcement that Mayra Flores made which was pretty shocking she announced that she was running for district 28 and then it was three hours later that her team said that she'd been hospitalized unfortunately which was pretty shocking this announcement I'm running for this office and then she's been hospitalized. And they posted later that she faces sudden health scare, but she received incredible

care and she's recovering and feeling stronger than ever. And her passion for serving TX28 has not slowed down one bit. So, there you go. Yeah. It'll be a wild race to watch. Yeah, it'll be very fun to watch. In a very close district. Marylis, thank you. Cameron, we're going to come to you. Another huge bill. We are in the full movement of session right now. A classroom discipline bill passed this

week that also sparked a lot of debate among lawmakers. Tell us about it. Yeah, House Bill 6 authored by Jeff Leach. This is the Teacher Bill of Rights. And this bill is particularly interesting because of what was brought up during the committee discussion on the bill. There was lots of testimony provided from teachers, parents, administrators regarding rises in classroom violence. And I detail all that in a piece.

I go through a lot of the statistics from TEA, the Texas Education Agency, regarding in and out of school suspensions. But the real crux of this piece is the discussion that was had on the floor between Representative Gene Wu and Leach and it really centered on a different foundational difference and approach to education and the extent to which teachers should be handling some of these students and that was really the

culminating portion when Leach said quote we just fundamentally disagree about human nature but House Bill 6 did end up passing 121 121 yes to 21 nos. And again, House Speaker Dustin Burroughs said this is going to quote, reestablish respect for this profession. So big piece of legislation ended up passing. So the House here taking some steps to move the ball forward on priority pieces of legislation.

Lots of education conversations happening in the Texas House this week. And major ones at that. Major ones. Cameron, thank you. Let's talk about some budget day relitigation this week, Bradley. Oh yeah.

What happened? That was interesting. So, there was a series of motions made when the members, so the budget after passing the House went back to the mic and makes a motion to appoint conference committee members. Ultimately that was the, that became the Bonin and then all the subcommittee chairs for appropriations, Mary Gonzalez, Stan Kitzman, Angelia Orr, and Armando Walle plus Bonin, that's a 3-2 Republican breakdown there. The Senate appointed all Republicans on their side, which is I think how it's gone every time I've done, I've been here for a budget. So

the, during that, things kind of stopped for a minute. And some of the members on the right flank of the GOP caucus began making motions to instruct the conference committee members. And those motions are non-binding. It's basically just a, hey, here's, we the House say you should get this in the budget And they went through that on a few different things. But the reason they did it is because

When we talked last week about the budget Uh, there was a motion or there was a maneuver by mary gonzalez and and probably greg bonnin, um to prevent a lot of the amendments from those from that flank of member that segment of members. Things like, you know, giving the off-seat attorney general employees a raise, a 6% raise, and it just kind of nixed a lot of the record votes that these members wanted, the conservative members on the right flank of the caucus wanted. And so they did this or these amendments got put into Article 11. So I think the Paxton back pay one was put in Article 11. So this was a way for these members to get a record vote on this

and to advance the ball on whatever it is they wanted. For Mitch Little, it was the first and foremost the back pay in that past. Interestingly enough, Dade Phelan voted for it. So this happened and the, so they got the record votes and now it goes to conference committee. Those conservative members, they celebrated that they got these votes and there were a few others. I think property tax was one of them something on a Michael caught had one track directing budget to have hospitals track

uncompensated care incurred from providing services to illegal immigrant illegal aliens who can't afford it right That's That's what that's a problem, especially among these rural hospitals. So It's not a huge development and all like I said, it's non-binding so it's not like Automatically, this is gonna get in. I think you probably will see the back pay get in though, especially with the Senate pushing for this So we'll see but it was a bit of a, you know, fighting back and a bit of retribution from those members who had their amendments just kind of tossed aside during the budget process. So a more coordinated opposition than other methods we've seen and you know I think we're seeing it right now as we sit here with the Cecile Richards resolution in the house those

members are really putting up a fight about this we might see it on the local and consent calendar so you know despite the motion to vacate and a lot of these members not voting for it and they're still mounting opposition and I think they will continue to strategically. Yeah, certainly. Including in this case. Absolutely. Today is a big day in the Texas House. It's the first local and consent calendar as well as this opposition has been mounted

to the Cecile Richards resolution on the House floor as well. So lots of spice still happening today and lots of members, uh, being truly, uh, called to action the day after they, uh, gaveled out at three AM. So a few hours after a few hours. Exactly. Karen, another Texas official is ringing the alarm about Epic City. Something we've talked about on the podcast before. Yeah.

I'll be quick here. Senator John Cornyn penned a letter to both U.S. Attorney General Pam Bonney and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harvey Dillon, to push for an investigation into Epic City. Again, Epic City, East Plano Islamic Center. This is a real estate development that has garnered increased attention from the, a number of Republican leaders in the state. We saw Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Kim

Paxson worth noting. Again, Paxson is running against Cornyn for the Senate here in Texas. And so just another Texas official ringing the alarm regarding this epic city real estate development. So we'll see if anything comes of it. We're still waiting for these investigations to take place and information to come out. Absolutely. Cameron, thank you. Mary-Liis, another follow-up to a previous story. The chairman of the House DOJ committee is taking action against Superior Health Plan. Tell us why. Yes, a little bit on the backstory, which we have covered in this podcast, but in case you missed it, there was a delivery of government efficiency House Committee

hearing during which Superior Health Plan, which is an insurance company came in and they originally came in because there's this lawsuit going on between them and Texas having to do with the procurement process and they're alleging that Texas's process was unfair so that was the original reason they came in but what happened during the hearing was Chairman Giovanni Capriglione passed out these folders that had different records of emails inside of them which we have actually obtained if you want to check that on one of our pieces but it had proof that this company had been hiring private

investigators to investigate lawmakers and claimants a journalist and other citizens so this is that's kind of the background there. It was a very fiery hearing, particularly with the CEO of Superior Health Plan and back and forth with the committee. And he was fired, actually, shortly after that hearing. And since that's happened, we published a piece about how the company,

so there's Centene, which is Superior Health Plans parent company, and they had begun an internal investigation looking into this whole situation. We detail that in the story about their different findings. But so that's kind of all that's, since that happened, it's been kind of quiet. There hasn't been any updates since then. But Chairman Capriglione, he's written two different letters, and he got multiple members to sign on to them. But he wrote a letter to the state auditor,

and he wrote a letter to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. So the state auditor, he asked them to help him obtain some sensitive information about Centene, information about internal investigations, which we wrote about, and different investigations involving whistleblowers and such. So that's the state auditor and he's asking the state auditor there to assist him in this and to collect in collecting this information and then the Texas HHSC he asked that they not give any more Medicaid contracts to Superior

Health Plan until Attorney General Ken Paxton's investigation into the company is complete and we have all the findings that investigation that was something I forgot to mention is that Paxton had launched an investigation shortly after that fiery hearing. So in this piece you can check out all of the different requests. He made some very specific requests to the HHSC and the state auditor, but it'll be interesting to see how either one of these respond to these requests. They're pretty strong moves on the part of Chairman Capricleon. And Centine, I would like to include that Centine

responded to us and said, we look forward to the opportunity to share information with HHSC and Attorney General to correct the numerous false accusations that have stemmed from that committee hearing. And then they reiterated that the research in question was limited in number, desk space, and only use publicly available information and occurred more than five years ago. And then they, they have a few more comments that they add in there about Superior, but

definitely recommend checking out the piece. Check out the piece, Marylis. Thank you. Okay, we're just gonna hear our last story before we talk about other things. There's been a new development in the whistleblower case against Texas children's hospital. Tell us about it. Yeah. This is regarding Texas children's hospital whistleblower Vanessa Savage. She was fired after blowing the whistle on Medicaid fraud related to the child

gender modification procedures and surgeries that were continuing. She was allegedly let go from her position because of her religious accommodation and in this HHS announcement stated they are going to be investigating a major pediatric teaching hospital for allegedly terminating the employment of a whistleblower nurse for exercising her federally protected rights of conscience. I'd encourage everyone to go check out the piece. I got a chance to speak with Savaj about her feelings after this investigation was announced,

what she ultimately wants to see happen, and what she expects to see with Texas Children's Hospital. So, encourage everyone to go check it out. Very in-depth piece. So, that's it. There you go. Okay, I want to talk about the question I posed to y'all earlier. If it was a secret ballot by which members decided their yay or nay on school choice yesterday, what do you think the vote breakdown would have been? Mary Lee, it sounds like you have a number. Yeah, I think that more Democrats would have voted for it, and I think the Republican votes probably would have been around the same.

Okay. So, maybe a few more. Yeah. What was the final vote breakdown, Cameron? 86? It was 8563. Okay. So you think maybe what 9060 or 9059? Yeah, let's go with that. Okay. I like it. Cameron, what do you think? I think it's

the same exact thing except more Republicans vote against more Democrats vote for it, but it's the same breakdown. Okay. So a little bit of a swap. What do you, how many Republicans do you think switch over and how many Democrats? I couldn't tell you. Cameron, this is why we're having this conversation. I wasn't thinking about your question. Yeah, I just forgot you asked. I've been just trying to keep it together. I was trying to give you guys as much runway as possible, but I do realize today, of all days,

it's probably a difficult one to keep these things in mind. Bradley, what do you think? About what? I'm not listening. Next time, I'm just going to ask you guys right on the spot I'm not gonna give you any runway for the question. The secret ballot question. Oh would it have passed? Was it the referendum or the whole thing? The whole thing. So would it have? What would the vote breakdown for school choice have been if it had

been secret ballot? I think it still would have passed. I think it would have been very close. We saw what? 86 because Schofield's machine malfunctioned, didn't register. We saw 86 Republicans vote for it. That's only to everyone but two and even the speaker voted for it. So I think it would pass maybe like between 76 and 79 or 80 votes I'd say. That's my guess. Yeah okay yeah I think the margin comes down a little bit. I'd go I'd go like 81 eyes. That would be my guess on that one. Cool guys. Wow. Okay. Well, we're going to probably just hop off here because we are right in an hour and we have the house and L and C and lots to get to today. So folks, thank you so much for hopping on with us today

and putting up with our sleepy selves as we try to put sentences together in any sort of coherent fashion. If you have questions, please let us know. Editor at the Texan.News and we'll get into all the scuttlebutt. We'll do tweetery next week. We're punting to next week on the tweetery section. Oh man. Cameron. Oh man. Folks, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Catch you next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.