The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 21, 2023

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: The Texas Senate passing its version of the state budget with $6 billion more in spending than the HouseLt. Gov. Dan Patrick open to forcing a special session to pass school choice legislationThe House passing sunset renewal bills for the Public Utilities Commission and ERCOT gridA bill to ban “sexually explicit material” in schools receiving initial approval in the HouseEight Democrats joining House Republicans to pass a local government preemption billThe House giving initial approval to a bill to limit the death penalty in specific casesTwo lone bills in the House and Senate to reform grand juries in TexasThe House Education Committee hearing testimony on a bill to require parental consent for children’s psychological examsBills to address damage to land from trespassing related to illegal immigrationTexas Congressman Lance Gooden endorsing Donald Trump for 2024 after meeting with Ron DeSantisTexas renewable and natural gas energy crowding out growth of nuclear powerThe upcoming trials for deputies of a Smith County constable convicted on charges of theft and official oppressi

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses the Texas Senate passing its version of the state budget with $6 billion more in spending than the House. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick opened to forcing a special session to pass school choice. The House passing sunset renewal bills for the Public Utilities Commission and ERCOT grid. A bill to ban sexually explicit material in schools receiving initial approval in the House. Eight Democrats joining House Republicans to pass a local government preemption bill. The House approving a bill to limit the death penalty in specific cases. Two loan bills on the House and Senate to reform grand juries in Texas, the House Education Committee

hearing testimony on a bill to require parental consent for children's psychological exams, bills to address damage to land from trespassing related to illegal immigration, Congressman Lance Gooden endorsing Donald Trump for 2024 after meeting with Ron DeSantis, Texas renewable and natural gas energy crowding out growth of nuclear power, and the upcoming trials for deputies of a Smith County constable convicted on charges of theft and official oppression. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening, as always, and enjoy this episode.

Well, howdy, folks. Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Matt, and Hayden on another edition of the Weekly Roundup Podcast Journal. And thank you for joining me. I am trying to think of whether, no, if I were to serve somebody in this room with a lawsuit, who it would be. Everyone look to Brad. I mean, that's the obvious choice the question is what would you sue me over probably also defamation

wow okay i just feel like you have at one point defamed me huh okay would you if you were to serve me with a lawsuit i will turn this around to be fair. Would you also do the same? Well, I think the difference that I would say is that you have probably slandered me more in writing than verbally. Which is good for you. Which is libel, not defamation. That's good for you, though. You have more record. Yes. Yes, I can prove.

Yeah. I have the receipts as it were that's true anybody else want to sue anybody else in this room hayden i would like to sue you mac okay that's fair why do you want to sue me on the ground that you laugh at me through the glass because you can see through your door because it's glass. And so I never get away with anything. So if, for instance, and I'm not saying this happened, but if I am innocently drinking an iced coffee and I happen to dribble on my shirt and you happen to be looking through your door,

then you will see it and make fun of me for the rest of the day. So I'm adding that to count one of my complaint that I'm filing against you. Okay, that's fair. I just want the law schools that I applied to to hurry up and admit me so that I can go become a lawyer and then make a bunch of money. On us suing each other?

Y'all suing each other. Okay, that's a good idea. I'm not, I don't want to hire you as my lawyer though because you're too enthusiastic. Well, that's too bad for you because that means Mac is going to hire me and we're going to counter sue, buddy. Fine. You'll get your $1.50 in attorney's fees. I was going to say, yeah, but the attorney's fees are going to be wild. Okay, gentlemen. Well, Matt, we're going to start with you talking about some news this week the texas legislature is almost finished completing its loan constitutional mandate each session and that

is passing a state budget the senate took up and passed its version which differed a little bit from the house which passed two weeks ago at this point the house yeah two weeks two weeks that's wild that that was two weeks ago um matt give us the details on some of the notable differences what's in the bill and what is the process to complete the budget. How many billions does it take to run the state of Texas for two years? Well, if you ask the wise old Senate owl, he might tell you $308 billion. This differs from the House coming in, over $6 billion more in their proposal. Let's talk about what's in it.

Headlining a breakdown of the Senate's budget proposal is the $16.5 billion provided for local property tax relief contingent upon the passage of the upper chamber's property tax relief plans. The two chambers are presently in a standoff regarding each of their property tax relief proposals. State employees will see the highest amount of pay increases under the Senate's plan in 40 years. Texas teachers will see a $2,000 pay increase with an additional $4,000 for teachers in rural districts. Senator Brandon Creighton, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Education, noted on the floor that over 53% of the state's entire budget goes to fund public education, making

Texas one of only 15 states to allocate over half of its entire budget for the purpose of public education. That's a lot of education. A few other notable expenditures in the Senate proposal is $4.6 billion went to the ongoing border security operations, which is typically called or known as Operation Lone Star. A few other notables that were highlighted is $400 million went to the General Land Office to use on the Alamo Preservation Project. And we have a full rundown of some of those notable appropriations in our story. Now, with the billions in differences between the two chambers, the House will either vote to confirm the Senate's plan. Spoiler, they won't, which will send the bill into a conference committee. Lieutenant Governor will appoint members of each chamber onto a committee that hashes out their differences and then presents a final version of the budget back to both chambers for an up or down vote of approval. Hopefully they approve what the conference committee recommends.

Otherwise, the governor will be calling them right back to do it again. That's exactly right. Another difference I saw when looking at these two budgets was on judicial pay raises. The House has included a 5% pay raise for each year of the next biennium. The Senate does not have that at all. Interesting. I'm not sure what the dynamic is there, why the Senate is opposed to that, why the House is for it. But that may be something that causes some tensions in the conference committee.

Yeah, and we reported during the State of the Judiciary address given by Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, he specifically called for judicial pay raises pointing out that Texas is way behind most all the other states except for like West Virginia, I think it was, and Guam on judicial pay, that they hadn't had a pay increase in quite a while and that the state of Texas needed to get competitive with their judges' salaries. And if you look at the pay scale, judges obviously make a good bit of money, especially if you're on the Supreme Court. But it's not just judges that are applied to this. How much does a Supreme Court justice? I think it was like $200,000 if I remember correctly. Okay, somewhere in there.

It was around there, which is a pretty nice salary, right? But when you get down, the lowest pay scale on the pay scale are like county attorneys, and they can make like $20,000 between 20 and 70. So it's not just the top of the line judges that are already making well into six figures that stand to gain from this. Got it. Very good. Well, Matt, thank you for your coverage of that. Cameron, we're going to head to you. Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor in his typical fashion came out swinging in a recent interview where he talked about a variety of different topics pertaining to the legislative session. Tell us what happened.

Yeah. So, as you know, Patrick likes to mix it up when he's speaking about the House and what he and the Senate have done with passing bills. So, he gave an interview to Spectrum News 1 where he talked about the potential for a special session at the end of this legislative session. And if some key pieces, this is if some key pieces of legislation are not passed. And he made sure to note that school choice was high on that list of priorities. Yeah, absolutely. He also made some remarks about appraisals and the battle he's engaged in at the House Speaker, Dade Phelan. What did he say about that?

Well, Patrick made sure to call out, in his words, California Dade Phelan. Oh, man. And the difference is— Talk about a shot fired. Yeah, no kidding. That's a heck of a thing. What was really interesting is as he was talking about California Day, he was flashing cash during the interview and used them as props, trying to give some insight into the differences between the two plans. And it was a really fun interview to watch. It's all up online if people want to check it out.

And we wrote about all the different aspects that he touched on. So I encourage people to read and watch it. Yeah, that California Dade comment was very Trumpian kind of, I don't know, just comment to make about his opponent or his political opponent kind of sticking some sort of moniker like that and fascinating. Patrick also addressed a few hot button issues with Governor Abbott and former President Trump. What did you see about that? Well, he was asked if he still agreed with Abbott's decision to pardon Sergeant Perry after the release of the text messages to the public. And Patrick said he continued to support Abbott's decision. And in regards to the former president,

Patrick said that Trump is still in the strongest position to win the primary and the White House in 2024, despite what's been going on in New York. And so just reiterated his already established positions. But again, always interesting to hear the lieutenant governor's positions. And to your point, the biggest topic of this interview, the most notable portion was him saying he'd be willing in some way or another to force a special session, which he made clear the governor is the only official who can make a special session happen, who can call one to order. But if Patrick, you know, he said, if I choose not to pass a key form of legislation, if I choose to hold something back and not have it passed during the regular, that would force the governor's hand in calling a special session. Now, the governor has also said he's been very pro-school choice in a lot of very important ways. And so if school choice does not

pass, the governor may just call one without any prodding. We don't know, but that was a very notable thing. Also important to note his tone change. Since the beginning of session, when we spoke with him at our event. He was very reticent to make any sort of derogatory comments about the house or the speaker kind of saying, well, we haven't started yet. I don't know. We're kind of waiting to see what's going on. And now that we're further into the session and both chambers have lobbed their rhetorical bombs at each other in one way or another, they're much more willing to kind of go to blows about these topics. Certainly.

Thank you. Okay. Well, Cameron, thank you. Is that the affirmation you were looking for there? I thought you had something to say. You had your, I misread your body language. Oh, no. I thought you had something to say.

I was off in space. I was zoning out. Okay. I totally misread your body language. Cameron, thank you for your coverage of the Senate. Brad, an odd thing happened in a Texas House committee this week that we alluded to earlier. Give us the details. Yeah, we really put the cart before the horse on that.

Representative Jeff Leach, chairman of the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, was served with a defamation lawsuit during his Wednesday committee hearing. I've never seen anything like it. The process server signed up to testify on a bill, but instead of discuss that bill, he announced that he had a lawsuit to give Leach. That's a wild way to do it. It was the talk of the Capitol for a whole day. So Leach, understandably so, Leach and the committee, when they were expecting testimony, were caught a bit off guard by this process server.

Oddly enough, because of the requirements and the process of testifying on a bill, you're under oath. It creates a bit of an odd criminal aspect of this, like potential perjury. I'm not sure if that individual is going to be arrested for this at all, but it was mentioned. Yeah, because you swear that you're there to testify on the bill. And whenever Leach asked him, you know, do you have anything to say on the bill? And the guy was like, no. Yeah. It makes you wonder.

Yeah. Yeah. I linked to the video in the piece. You can watch it for yourself. Nonetheless, a very, very weird situation. I asked DPS whether or not the individual had been arrested. I've not heard from them on that. So no confirmation there. Leach responded to the suit later in the day in his own statement in which he said, Needless to say, the claims are entirely without merit, and I intend on fighting back and doing so vigorously. What was the suit all about? Give us the details. So the lawsuit was filed by Parker County resident Morgan McComb, a pro-Texas activist. Texas, of course, is the idea that Texas should leave the union and that voters should be given the opportunity to make that decision on a statewide ballot.

McComb alleged that Leach defamed her by, quote, likening her support for the Texas Independence Referendum Act to, quote, seditious treason. The suit cites specific comments Leach made on Twitter after Representative Brian Slayton filed his Texas bill in March. Leach said at the time, this is a ridiculous bill. Or sorry, this ridiculous bill is the very definition of hypocritical and seditious treason, and it is already dead. McComb replied, are you accusing me of seditious treason? To which Leach replied back, if you believe that Texas should secede from the United States of America, then yes, unequivocally yes. McComb's lawyer told us in a statement, Representative Leach has made it clear,

his statements on Twitter that he values unconditional loyalty to an oppressive federal government over Texans' rights to freedom and self-government as guaranteed by the Texas Constitution. It wasn't already clear that the suit was chiefly about Texit and Leach's criticism of it. The Texas Nationalist Movement head, Daniel Miller, released a statement saying his group is paying for McComb's legal representation. Yeah. So then what are the chances the suit gains any traction at all? Probably slim.

Maybe not exactly zero, but probably slim. Texas has an anti-slap law on the books, a law that is intended to protect individuals exercising their freedom of speech from lawsuits aimed at silencing that speech. And so that's a way to get suits like this just dismissed from court out of hand. I'm sorry, what did you say that's called? An anti-SLAPP? Anti-SLAPP. Oh.

S-L-A-P-P. It's an acronym that I can't rattle off at the top of my head, but that's what it's called. That's funny to me that it's called anti-slap. Yeah. I think whoever was in charge. In Texas, you can't go around slapping people. Yes. Well, I think whoever was in charge of coming up with the name of this law, you know how they brainstorm creative acronyms, thought the illustration of slapping a case out of court is what they were going for.

At least that's my opinion on it. But anyway, so in the case, McComb cites a recently decided defamation case in Lilith Fund v. Mark Lee Dixon, in which the Texas Supreme Court ruled invalid a defamation accusation against Dixon, who's a pro-life activist, for likening abortion to murder. And basically making that connection to pro-abortion organizations like the Lilith Fund and Planned Parenthood. So McComb, I spell it out in more detail in the article, but McComb tries to make the case that this situation is different than that one and that this one will actually has validity where that one did not. Kelsey Warren v. Beto O'Rourke, in which Warren, who's an energy transfer partner CEO, sued O'Rourke for defamation over allegations the then candidate made about the Texas legislature's response to the 2020 blackouts. That is still lingering in court. So I don't know how these other cases are going to affect this, if at all, but there's kind of different outcomes so far on those two cases that may indicate one way or the other what happens here. Yeah, absolutely. Brad, thanks for your coverage. Cameron, we're coming back to

you. The Reader Act has garnered a lot of attention, speaking of acronyms, by the way, the Reader Act has garnered a lot of attention. Speaking of acronyms, by the way, the Reader Act has garnered a lot of attention recently, and we have written about it before. Tell us again what this bill does and what have been some of the developments. So the Reader Act was introduced by Jared Patterson in the aim to prohibit sexually explicit materials in schools, sanction vendors who supply those materials to schools, and require parents to opt their children into being able to access sexually relevant materials. So it passed its initial vote on the House floor and now will require a third passage before heading to the Senate. And that's kind of how bills work. It's read first, referred to a committee,

read a second time on the floor where they have most of the lion's share of the debate, and then a third time is kind of a ceremonial passage as well. So what has caused the recent attention that this bill has garnered? Well, it all started the day before. Patterson took to Twitter in an effort to expose, let's say, some of the books that have been examples of what would fall under the sexually explicit definition in the bill. Some of these books, this was in a long Twitter feed. He's since deleted this thread. But a lot of these books had images that were very graphic and blatantly sexually explicit. And it did get across the point he was trying to make that some of these books are in schools and there needs to be some oversight of what is being put on library shelves. So some of the debate on the floor

between members also gave insight into the reasoning behind the bill and provided people who were listening in the opportunity to understand that a bill to define and regulate sexually explicit material was, as we've seen, necessary and what that means if this bill is eventually signed into law. There was an amendment that was added that gave some of the guidelines that a lot of these rating agencies and book vendors were going to have to adhere to. So there was lots of debate over definitions. And we wrote all about this, all the details in a recent piece. So I encourage everyone listening in to go check it out and get all the little details. Yeah. I mean, Catcher in the Rye came

up. There were a few classic pieces of literature that would have been the argument from Democrats in large part for a lot of this discussion. But the author was very clear about the language of his bill and what it aims to curtail. Cameron, thank you so much. Brad, we're coming back to you. The much anticipated local government preemption bill was passed in the House this week. And this largely was the bill that even Democrats were more anxious to debate than this Reader Act in a lot of ways. Yeah, which I was surprised.

And there were some Democrats as notable votes in support, though. Who crossed party lines to support this bill? So Representative Dustin Burroughs' HB 2127 passed 92 to 55 with eight Democrats voting aye. Those were Reps Terry Canales, Harold Dutton, Bobby Guerra, Tracy King, Oscar Longoria, Eddie Morales, Sergio Munoz, and Richard Pena Raymond. Most of those, interestingly enough, are South Texas or Rio Grande Valley representatives who tend to be on the more conservative moderate side of the Democratic Party. I thought it was, you mentioned that they were, that the Democrats were wanting to kind of throw everything at this bill on Tuesday when it first came up. It took about five hours to get through a discussion on this bill.

Democrats offered almost 40 amendments, none of which were added. And so it was lengthy. There were four points of order called, none of which were successful. But it was clear Democrats were really trying to throw the kitchen sink at this. That's different than HB 900, which I thought would get at least some pushback, which it did, but maybe not quite to the level that 2127 did. But it didn't even come close to what 2127 got. And maybe part of that is the amendment that Patterson tacked on initially. It tweaked the bill some. I think Cameron, if I'm correct, wrote in the potential statute the requirements for the standards that the Library and Archives Commission would adopt. That's right.

Yeah. And so that got 11 Democrats on board. So still two very big bills this week, Republican priority bills, got a sizable number of Democratic support. Yeah, fascinating. Why was this notable specifically for this bill? So the preemption bill lays out nine sections of state code, and it says that localities may not exceed the regulations laid out in there. Its intent is to prevent the state from having to respond to each individual instance of local regulations the legislature deems excessive. One of the biggest examples of this is something that hasn't quite been approved yet, but it's floated, Dallas's potential ban on gas-powered lawn equipment.

That's something that's been cited a lot. There's been a number of things the city of Austin has done that the legislature is not happy with, the Republicans in the legislature are not happy with. And so it drew a lot of heated support and opposition. Municipalities, especially the big blue ones, unions and progressive activists, were against the bill. And then Burroughs had on his side a lot of businesses. The NFIP was big on advocating for this. National Federation of Independent Businesses. TPPF was big on it.

Just the dividing lines were pretty clear on this. And he said once it passed, HB 2127 provides the regulatory stability and certainty that enables business owners to expand their businesses to other cities within Texas with more consistency. want to be able to know what to expect when they try and move into another city and not face this patchwork of regulations that they have to adjust to every time a local city council decides, you know, gets a bug in its ear about something else. And so that's the purpose. It's a much different approach than what the Republican legislature has deployed in years past. Or it's like an individual piecemeal approach. whatever a locality is doing in that session. A rifle approach rather than this being like a shotgun approach.

So we'll see how it fares in the Senate. Senator Brandon Creighton is carrying it over there. The Senate has passed similar but more tailored preemption bills in the past few sessions. Last session, there was one on employment regulations. That passed the Senate twice but died in the House twice. Democrats in the House successfully killed it. So I would expect it to move pretty quickly through the Senate. Absolutely.

Brad, thank you. Hayden, is this your first segment of this podcast? It is. Do you feel like Chopped Lever being number six? No, I've enjoyed sitting back and relaxing and listening to everyone else do their segments first. Well, that's really good. The House gave initial approval to a bill limiting the death penalty. How exactly would the law do that? It's my first topic and it's about the death penalty. Joke is the wrong word. We made observation this week of sometimes how Hayden's beats are so depressing. They are. They're very grim. The legislature passed, forgive me, the

House gave initial approval to a bill limiting the death penalty regarding the law of parties. If you haven't heard, Texas, relatively speaking, is pretty active with its use of capital punishment, and we are a law of parties state, meaning you can be convicted of capital murder even if you were not the one who pulled the trigger or otherwise committed the killing. If you were with a group of people committing a crime and someone ended up getting murdered as part of that crime, then you could be convicted under the law of parties. But this bill by representative Jeff Leach,

again, discussing Leach on this podcast, but a bill by Leach would make it that the defendant had to be a major participant in the crime and show reckless indifference to human life. And then it adds under other language to the statute to make sure that the Texas where an individual who was part of a group that committed a murder was sentenced to death when he was not the trigger man. And the trigger man got life without parole. the perpetrator of the actual murder, but was convicted under the law of parties spurred this change and other changes to capital punishment. This session, such as a bill by Tony Rose that the House passed to to make people with severe mental illness not eligible for the capital punishment. So this is another bill that the House has passed to limit the use of the death penalty in Texas. Does Leach, a Republican, have a history of opposing the death penalty? Leach has said that he supports the death penalty in the most heinous

cases, but he is a public skeptic of capital punishment and he has expressed concern that Republicans bury their heads in the sand on this issue. Last year, we covered the case of Melissa Lucio, who is a death row prisoner who had an execution date set for April of last year. And upon pressure by Leach and State Representative Jeff Moody and others in both parties, that execution date was canceled by the Court of Criminal Appeals after a very bizarre, very dramatic committee hearing. I remember that hearing vividly. It was at the Capitol a year ago.

It was very strange. They had the DA of Cameron County on a conference call in this committee room with friends and family of Melissa Lucio in the room and other advocates against capital punishment. And the criminal jurisprudence committee, I believe was the committee. It may have been that or the select committee on criminal justice reform. I can't remember as one of the other. Leach was in the chair and they were pressuring this DA to withdraw the execution date. And he said, I can't do that because the judge is the one who issues the death warrant. And it was this very cinematic hearing where Leach told the DA that he was washing his hands like Pontus Pilate before Jesus was crucified.

It was very, very dramatic. But ultimately, the Court of Criminal Appeals stepped in out of fear that Melissa Lucio could have been innocent. And out of that event, a lot of different reforms have been proposed. Moody, in fact, filed a bill that I believe received initial approval the other day that would give the DA and the chief prosecutor in a county the ability to unilaterally withdraw an execution date. So if he filed a motion to withdraw the death warrant, the judge would be required to do that and could not override the DA's decision. So lots of different reforms have arisen out of the Melissa Lucio case. Leach and Moody have really been the main ones who have shepherded some of those proposals. So Moody is absolutely an opponent of the death penalty. He filed a bill to abolish it, like many Democrats do every session. Leach is not quite an opponent, but he is a public skeptic of it. Wonderful coverage as usual, Hayden. Thank you so much. Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying our podcast and our up-close

and personal coverage of the 88th legislative session from the Capitol here in Austin, subscribe to The Texan right now while you're listening. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep doing our jobs. When you subscribe, you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published so that you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month. And as a reminder, new subscribers will get that Fake News Stops Here mug, our most popular merch item of all time. And I do know that we are considering changing

the merch item so folks get your fake new stops here mug before we switch for more details visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the url in the description of this podcast now let's jump back to chatting about our stories from the week matt we're coming to you yay criminal justice reform is usually a very big legislative issue each session, as we kind of just talked about with Hayden. But despite growing concern that the justice system needs reform to prevent political abuse of the system, not much is happening as it relates to the grand jury system. Give us some insight. The indictment of numerous publicly elected officials on felony charges, most notably the recent indictment of former US President Donald Trump, resulted in an outcry from numerous officials and the public that the justice system has been, quote, weaponized for political purposes. of state legislative reforms relating to what is viewed as the Constitution's primary check against abusive prosecutorial power and what has surfaced has seen little movement to date. A publication by the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Right on Crime Initiative

described that the grand jury system here in Texas is ripe for abuse and inconsistent outcomes and listed a number of recommendations that need to be made. And after we did some looking into bills relating to those recommendations, we only found a handful that have been filed and thought it would be interesting to report on the status of those proposals. The most comprehensive bill that we could find was House Bill 1258 by Representative Synchronia Thompson, who's a Democrat lawmaker from Houston. Among the reforms in her bill would be ending the ability to jury shop indictments, which what that means is if a prosecutor goes to the grand jury with a case, they review it,

and they decide that it doesn't have probable cause and issue a no true bill, he can just take it to the next grand jury and present the same case to them until he gets one that's willing to rubber stamp it. This bill would require substantial change in the material evidence to occur before they could represent the case to prevent the bill, the case from being jury shopped. Another element of the reforms is that typically the grand jury process is an adversarial, meaning it's only the prosecutor talking to the grand jury. The other side typically doesn't get a say. Her bill would allow witnesses and the accused to have legal counsel to appear before the grand jury to make their side of the case, give an opposing viewpoint, making the process a little more adversarial

as opposed to how it is now. Unfortunately, for reform advocates, the bill still hasn't been granted a hearing and has been sitting in committee since I believe early March. Another bill in the Senate by Nathan Johnson, a Democrat from Dallas, has only part of Thompson's bill relating to allow an attorney for the accused to appear before the jury to kind of create a more adversarial process. But once again, there's not been any movement on that bill either since it was referred to committee. The interesting part about this story is we kind of highlight a lot of the notable public officials that have been indicted on felony charges everywhere from Rick Perry to, you know, the most recent example, Donald Trump, et cetera. There's even one state lawmaker who's presently under felony indictment.

All those officials in Texas are Republicans. The only notable bills that I was able to find reforming the grand jury process were by Democrats. And in a Republican-controlled legislature, those bills aren't moving forward. So a little bit of a fun fact that we uncovered as we kind of looked into this topic. I couldn't remember if Representative Sinfronia Thompson is the highest ranking in seniority in the House, but it's Tom Craddock. Tom Craddock is number one. Oh, okay.

Well, Tom's been around for a session or two. Just a couple. Yeah, it's Craddock, Thompson, Dutton in that order. They're both the deans of the House, right? They share the title, don't they? I don't think so. I could be wrong. They are. Yeah, I think they're both deans of the house right they share the title don't they i don't think so i could be wrong i mean craddock's been in the house since the civil war so

i i did think i read somewhere that tom craddock from midland he's a republican from midland for those who don't know and was the former speaker of the Texas House, is the longest serving state lawmaker in the nation out of any state. Really? I didn't know that. I knew he was the longest in Texas. I didn't know. In Texas? Even in Congress?

I don't know about Congress. But I heard a story like a year or two ago that it was as far as out of all state legislatures across the nation, he's the longest serving ever. He first served, number of sessions, 27. Number of years, 54. Wow. Because he was elected in his early 20s, I think. He was 25, I think. The 61st legislative session.

Yeah. So double up there and think about it. Sinferni-Thompson, 50 years, 25 sessions. She was in the 63rd legislative session. Yeah. So double up there and think about it. Sinferney Thompson, 50 years, 25 sessions. She's in the 63rd legislative session. Dutton, 38 years.

So he's like 12 years below Thompson. So there's a little bit of a jump there. 19 sessions. To kind of go down this side path, this week I was walking

through the Capitol and you know, they have the big frames that have all the pictures of lawmakers from previous sessions and everything like that. And I was just kind of going along looking to see like how many of the same faces were in each session going back. And it was kind of interesting.

I was looking at the Senate ones. They're in the first level of the basement. Yeah. whenever you go down towards the annex. And it was just kind of interesting to see, you know, as those faces that you recognize now from today's session, you know, going back in previous sessions as they slowly disappear. And there's still a few of them that go way, way, way back. Well, it's fun also to find familiar faces like Rick Perry or people who served in the House back in the day and see who you recognize.

Forgive me, Dutton and Smithy have both served the same amount of time, 38 years, 19 sessions. So they're tied for third. I think in the Senate, Royce West has been there for quite a while. I bet. Just looking at those picture frames in the underground. There you go. And Whitmire, I think, is the dean. Yes, he's the dean. We'll have to

look up the Senate numbers. But Matt, thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, we are coming to you next. Parental consent and education transparency have been themes this legislative session, but this particular bill takes a bit of a different angle on it. Tell us what it's about. Yeah. So Valerie Swanson submitted a bill that will seek to amend the state education code to require school district employees to receive a written consent from a parent before conducting a psychological or psychiatric examination or treatment of a student. And so the unique part of this bill includes what falls under the definitions of psychological or psychiatric examination because, as it says, an examination is designed to garner information about the child in relation to attitude, habit, trait, opinion, belief, feeling,

or mental disorder. Any of those would be under this definition and require a written parental consent. And additionally, any survey or check-in or academic lesson that has embedded psychological testing methods falls under this definition of examination in the bill. So what could be some of the implications of this bill? Well, we've seen lots of debate around books like what we talked about with the Reader Act and with gender modification procedures this session, many of the books and processes associated with the gender modification procedures specifically have begun in some of these school settings, as we heard many people testify in committee hearings. So if this bill is to pass, it's going to be in committee this week. So if it's passed, then whenever a school staff member wants to have a conversation with the student, that includes the student's habits, traits, opinions related to gender,

then the staff member will need to get a written parent consent. That's my understanding of the language in this bill. We'll see when it is heard in committee this week once we get some more specifics. But also the topic of social emotional learning is something that has been a focus of conversation with how it's being used in, let's say, nefarious ways with students in classrooms. We wrote about a story that a mother discovered her daughter was involved in an SEL class, that's social emotional learning, that had a game where she was acting out the role of a hooker. So because of this bill includes academic lessons that has, again, embedded psychological testing, it will require parental consent.

And then those social emotional learning style curriculum that's routinely utilizing surveys and gathering data on students, it would be affected. So this will be an interesting bill to follow to see the discussion around a lot of the language that's included. Absolutely. Cameron, thank you so much for your coverage. Matt, we're coming to you. The prevalence of private property being damaged and destroyed due to criminal activity at the southern border has prompted legislative proposals in both houses of the legislature, with one bill receiving approval from the Senate this week. Tell us about it.

Senator Cesar Blanco, a Democrat from El Paso, filed Senate Bill 1133, aiming to help those who have suffered financial loss due to property damages caused by human traffickers, smugglers, and all stemming from border-related crimes. The bill, along with its House companion, House Bill 4670, by Representative Tracy King, a Democrat from Batesville, would establish a grant program administered by the Texas Attorney General's office to compensate landowners who suffered property damage on agriculture land by a trespasser, specifically trespassers who are committing border security related crimes. Now, the Senate bill passed this week with unanimous bipartisan support on Thursday. Meanwhile, the House's version is still pending in the State Affairs Committee. I don't know if our listeners get on Twitter a lot and follow a lot of the border related journalists or the Department of Public Safety or et cetera, et cetera.

But all too often, nearly every day, but every week, you'll see videos of high speed chases of smugglers and human traffickers, et cetera, et cetera. And quite frequently, you'll see the vehicle go through someone's fence or destroy private property or that sort of stuff. So it's issues like that that prompted this legislation. Interesting coming from a Democrat as well. Matt, thank you so much for your coverage. Hayden, we're coming back to you. Former President Donald Trump received an endorsement from a Texas member of Congress. What did Lance Gooden have to say in his endorsement? Congressman Lance Gooden was first elected in 2018. He represents East Dallas and a portion of East Dallas and large swaths of East Texas that extend all the way down to Cherokee County.

He issued an endorsement of former President Trump's bid for the 2024 Republican nomination. Hard to believe that that is really just right around the corner. But Gooden said that President Trump is a tireless fighter, a champion of American jobs, a guardian of our economy, and a bulwark against the relentless invasion of our borders by illegal immigrants, end quote. He also said he spoke with Governor DeSantis before making his decision. He said DeSantis has done, quote, commendable work in Florida, end quote, but that Trump is the one who can save the U.S. from the, quote, leftist onslaught we are currently facing, end quote. So Gooden issuing a strong endorsement of Trump really close to the 2024 cycle, but still seven or eight months before we even have the

first election. So a very early endorsement of Trump from Gooden. Absolutely. And that's what kind of caught our attention on this was the DeSantis comment of saying he met with him when he hasn't even announced for the presidency yet. So let's talk about Trump's prospects at this point of becoming the Republican nominee. Well, Trump obviously has more name ID than any other candidate who could possibly jump in the race. But DeSantis, as you mentioned, has not announced a bid, but pollsters are still doing surveys on DeSantis' chances against Trump. And other candidates are in the single digits, so they're not really relevant at this point. But DeSantis is raking in something like 20% or 25%, but Trump is still receiving a majority in those polls. The RealClearPolitics average of the recent polling data shows Trump with 52%

support compared to DeSantis 24%. And I believe that's among likely Republican voters or probable Republican primary voters, but they are Republicans or conservative-leaning independents. At least six Republican members of Congress from DeSantis' home state of Florida have endorsed Trump. So the support is already coalescing around Trump for another, a third time being the Republican nominee if he wins it. DeSantis could still announce a presidential campaign. And as we learned with Biden in 2020, somebody starting out the presidential race as the front runner does not necessarily mean they will be the eventual nominee because Biden, I think, made fourth place in the Iowa caucus. So an early lead does not

necessarily indicate that the candidate will win. But Trump is facing those 34 criminal charges that his supporters say are a political are part of a political prosecution. So the presidential contest for 2024 already seems to be revving up. Absolutely. Hayden, we're going to stick with you here and go to your next story. Back to back. Tell us about two constable deputies who could face trial on theft charges in the coming months. by a Smith County jury on charges of theft by a public servant. He stole items from a resident of his precinct during the service of an eviction notice. At least one of his deputies testified against him at his trial. He was sentenced by the jury to a five years probation and a $10,000 fine. But now the two deputies who are with him and stealing items as well, prosecutors say, are now going to face or probably going to face trial in the coming months. And they are facing the same charges that Curtis Harris faced, who was also accused of official oppression prior to his trial.

So a corruption case that has beleaguered Smith County for a while could be reaching a resolution for the other two people involved. Absolutely. Hayden, thank you so much. Brad, we're coming right to you here. You were at a lot more detail in the article, so check it out. But the reason nuclear energy has been so stagnant in Texas, we only have two plants, both with two reactors at each, is that, I'm sorry, four reactors at each, I think, is that renewable energy, the influx of that, and then the cheapness of natural gas has kind of crowded out investment into nuclear energy. And so that's not really an issue that is being discussed a lot by the legislature.

They have a lot of power grid bills in place. Some of them include nuclear as as broader category of dispatchable in trying to incentivize new dispatchable generation. But it's not really a priority or hasn't been discussed much. So check out the piece. There's a lot more details in there on why this is happening. Absolutely. OK, let's jump into our tweetery this week. Matt, why don't you start us off? I would be glad to. So I have been glued to Twitter today. For those who don't know the exciting things happening in South Texas with moving humankind into the next generation, Starship took off. Now, T-4 or 5 minutes into

liftoff it experienced what is described as a a rapid disassembly it exploded is that the technical term? or was that the Matt being nice term?

no that's what they described it as but yeah it made a rather made a rather Is that the Matt Bean nice term? No, that's what they described it as, yeah. But, yeah, it made a rather remarkable boom kaboom whenever it got up into space. There were a number of things that went wrong during the flight. They had photos coming through where some of the tiles after it got up into orbit, you know, had come off. So they knew, you know, that there was no way Starship could come back down. Some of the engines went out as it was going up. But it was still, I mean, the videos, the pictures, everything like that.

I mean, this thing was basically like a 40-story building taking off as the largest rocket in human history. A 40-story building just launching. That's wild. And there's been all kinds of other fun little things, like pictures of the launch pad and stuff. There's been a lot of engineers commenting before and after takeoff that the launch pad that they had designed left a lot to be desired,

such as they needed a better way to vent the thrust and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, they're just showing pictures afterwards of the launch pad just absolutely wiped out. So, but, you know, as SpaceX and its owner Elon Musk has been saying, each time they do one of these, they gather lots of data, you know, on the smaller rockets that they've got extremely proficient in being able to send up in orbit and turn loose satellites and et cetera, et cetera. You know, they had a lot of those blow up during the early stages of that. So each time they do this, now you get to building these super heavy rockets this size.

I'm sure the cost for each one of these tests is a lot more significant. Oh, yeah. So I'm not excited. I know Elon's got plenty of money in the bank, but I don't know how many times he can send one of these up and it go kaboom. But he also just bought Twitter, you know. Oh, that's true. There's some big expenditures he's got going on.

Yeah. So – but, you know, hopefully they got the data that they need off of this flight to be able to, you know, successfully do the next one. But for those who listen to the podcast and everything like that, you know that I'm a big space guru. I love all things space. So it's been a pleasure following this. And hopefully one of these days I'll get to go down there and watch one of the next flights. Absolutely.

Matt, thank you. Hayden. Oh, I got Hayden mid-yawn. I'm so sorry. Why'd you have to tell on me? Because I felt bad calling on you. That's why I backed away from the microphone so everyone wouldn't hear me yawn.

I know. I just... The surveillance in this office is just something else. Oh, brother. What you got? That's all I gotta say. Oh, brother. Yeah, that was... Oh, brother, what you got? That's all I got to say. Oh, brother. You were, though. Yeah, that was.

Oh, man. I almost said, oh, brother, again, and then I knew you were going to launch it. Anyway, Hayden, I'm so sorry. Please, dear Hayden, tell us about what your tweeter is for this week. And how energized you are after drinking your coffee, which would yield no yawns. I'm just going to let you talk. I'm just going to let you continue.

I'm just enjoying this. I think I've quoted Dave Klein before in the tweeter section, but I promise I'm not receiving any kind of compensation for quoting Dave Klein or James Clear or these other authors. It's not sponsored. It's not sponsored at all. I just think they put out good content, so I have to read it. But Dave Klein tweeted, mistakes are the signal that you're stretching your abilities. Making them only once is a sign you're getting the message.

And I thought that was pithy and helpful and encouraging a positive mindset to have i like that cameron why are you laughing well you know there's some mistakes that are more costly than others hopefully you packed that parachute right the first time he's he's he's a an employment workplace management guru type guy who talks about i haven't read his book but apparently he talks about different uh career advice and ways to be more productive in the workplace so it's really in that no i know go out there take some risks you know right manageable sensible risks, I think, would be the qualifier there. Within your domain of skills.

Right. Wow. This is good. We should have an offshoot podcast of workplace tips with Cameron. She is 100% mocking us right now. We'll have some incense burning. Mocking is a very strong accusationation am i riffing with y'all trying and failing hayden that was really nice and i really enjoyed i really did okay your

inspirational quotes or whatever quotes you choose to share always i really always like them i'm just gonna keep talking about the death penalty let I'm going to go back to my dark topics. Oh, brother. True crime and dead bodies. That's my only thing now. Go take some risks. Oh my gosh. Go take some risks. Cameron, what do you got? I just got some updates on the abortion pill as it's continuing to get a lot of attention. So we've written about this, the rulings by a federal Texas judge putting a stay on the FDA approval. Then it went to the Court of Appeals and they issued a different kind of stay rolling back some of the regulations to the 2016 standards. And then it's gone up to the Supreme Court

now and they were supposed to give a ruling on Wednesday. Well, they issued a opinion that they will wait until Friday now to give, they want to wait to have some more discussions about what they are going to do. And so we've seen – It's okay, Karen. He's taking a picture of Pancho looking through the window. We've seen this abortion bill get a lot of attention and especially here in Texas. There's been lots of laws passed in regards to the pro-life, pro-choice argument. And a new report actually just came out and just wanted to give some numbers about the effects of the pro-life laws that have been implemented here.

Pre-DOBs, the monthly average of abortions, this is April and May, this is pre-DOBs, average 2,720 in Texas. Post-DOBs, monthly average number, this is July December 10. So we can see the impact is quite stark there and the outcomes appears to be what the laws are intending. So we'll keep up on the story and keep giving updates to people. Absolutely. Bradley, what you got? So we talked a lot about defamation in the specific defamation suit in this podcast. But after that happened, on the floor, there was some joking around about the situation, which I'll admit was pretty dang funny. In one instance, which I'll play the video here in a sec, and I think we'll play it on the podcast so all the listeners can hear it. But Representative Armando Wally is on the back mic,

and he goes up to ask a question of Representative Leach, who is laying out his bill. And here is the audio. Is this Jeff Leach at the front mic? The chair is advised that as Mr. Leach would Representative Leach yield for a few questions would the gentleman yield for questions

yes I will would you accept this envelope I'm not accepting anything else today from anyone and so there's a lot of joking. Right before that happens, Giovanni Capriglione sneakily handed Leach another envelope at the front mic. And Leach is like, get out of here.

But, yeah, it was pretty comical. But it shows you everybody knew what happened. And it became the talk of the entire capital at Jeff Leach's expense which funnily enough isn't the first time that's happened because of some spoof names that were

registered in his committee that he read off oh yeah he had a Bart Simpson moment yeah he's reading off names until you you actually say you don't realize it. But hey, he leaned into the joke as he did here. So pretty funny.

But I just thought that was a comical bit. Absolutely. Well, here I go. Quoting Brad on the podcast I wish I could somehow show people the face that you two just made at each other Cameron and Brad is this more libel you're about to no this is

factual reporting that you happened this would be defamation okay I try I try so hard we talked earlier about HB 900, the Reader Act, and the Democrats who voted in favor of the largely Republican voted for the bill. Nicole Collier, Harold Dutton, Tracy King, Oscar Longoria, Eddie Morales, Sergio Munez, Claudia Ordaz Perez, and Richard Raymond. We have Ramon Romero, Carl Sherman,

and Representative Sean Thierry, who's been pretty vocal in her support for the bill. She even spoke for it on the floor. I think she was the only Democrat that did that. But it was pretty clear watching the committee hearing that there were going to be Democrats voting for this bill. Yeah. And there were. Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you. OK, well, cool beans, everyone. Let's move on to a fun topic this is very short we have a lot of things going on earlier this week I used the word lackadaisical and I realized I had to look it up to spell it I had no idea how it was spelled and I always pronounce like lackadaisical is how I typically had pronounced it lackadaisical do you know what I'm talking about lackadaisical do you know what i'm talking about lackadaisical yeah did you did you know that that's how you say it lackadaisical yeah yes i thought it was lackadaisical i mean which i think is probably

how most people say yeah but it's not spelled that way at all and i was incorrect and so i spelled it the way i was saying it is there a word like that that y'all say or even that's a pet like i hate when people say especially. I just. Especially. It drives me nuts. And I'm the problem with lackadaisical. I see.

I just did it there. With lackadaisical. I'm the problem with that one. Well, that's what you get for trying to throw those Tencent words around, Mackenzie. That's true. That's true. But I thought, I also thought lackadaisical was a very like chill kind of whimsical word. I think it, I don't think it's an SAT word at all.

I think it's a i've used that word yeah um but it's also like some some people everyone's vocabulary is like different pockets of knowledge just different but is there a word that y'all forget how to spell or a pet peeve you have with somebody when they say a word? Oh, I have many pet peeves with people. You shouldn't have opened it up that way. Brad having a pet peeve? I know. I'm shocked. Shocked. Stunned. I think one of the things

that irritates me the most is when people say centered around instead of centered on. Yeah. And I noticed one of my pieces the other day had centered around in it because somebody likes to make a joke whenever that's there and edit it from on to around, and I did not catch it and accepted the edit.

So I went in and changed that. Which begs the question. That's the other one. I'm sorry, raises the question. Yes, almost every time someone says begs the question, they mean raises the question. But the thing I was going to say until all that other stuff just came to mind was that I can never spell receive correctly ever on the first one. I before E except after C. I know that rule.

And it works for all the other similar words, but never receive. I don't know why. It's a brain block I have. Yeah. words but never receive i don't know why it's a brain block i have yeah i if i'm just like quickly typing i'll spell it wrong but if i stop and think about it i'll get it right but i'll literally have to force my fingers to for which word matt received received oh that one i think was like slammed into my brain as a child vacuum i can't i don't know how to spell vacuum i think it's i just typed that word in our chat i think oh really i don't know because i've seen a video of a woman getting

scared and smashing her tv with a vacuum and it was really funny it's just easier whenever you're typing to go to the i first instead of the e oh i see like in terms of convenience yeah like what the way the keys the keys are that makes sense also i like your separate keyboard that you have i need to get one like that thank you i had to get it because my spacebar wore out oh heavy thumbs the five and the hyphen on my keyboard don't work. Although my computer is seven years old, so I probably need to just get a new laptop. My computer, my last computer crapped out the week and I guess it was a weekend. The weekend that all the Ken Paxton drama started going down. Partially because I spilled water on it.

So it was my fault. Are you saying that Ken Pason somehow zapped your computer? Maybe he knew. Nate Paul came in here and tipped over the water. No, I'm kidding. Oh, man. Cameron, do you have anything to add? Any words or things that bother you about, I don't know, spellings or pronunciations?

No, I've given up all my autonomy to the tech overlords and they can use spell correct and grammarly to fix all my writing. So I don't even worry about that anymore. I just type in an idea into AI and let it take care of it. That makes sense. AI. It's not really a particular word, but looking over here at Cameron's computer, I'm having a panic attack with how many tabs he has open. I'm a lot of tab. I'm a

mini tab person, too. Really? Do you have like a whole other browser window? Oh my god. I just had a heart attack. He has like a hundred tabs and several browser windows. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, no, I would have. Yeah, there you go. Okay. On that note, Matt's going to have a conniption over here.

We'll move on folks. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the podcast and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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