The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 23, 2021

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

On this week’s “Weekly Roundup” podcast, our reporters discuss budget night in the Texas House, a lawmaker looking to allocate money to the border wall, the status of constitutional carry, billions in subsidies given to businesses opposing election reforms, the latest federal campaign finance reports, a preview of a special election in Congressional District 6, the latest border apprehension numbers, the state launching a COVID-19 vaccine ad campaign, and the latest in Austin crime numbers.

Welcome to another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. Mackenzie Taylor, senior editor here. Our team runs through a preview of budget night in the Texas House, a lawmaker looking to allocate money to continue building the border wall, where constitutional carry stands after a pass to Texas House, billions in subsidies given to businesses opposing election reforms, discussion among lawmakers concerning Confederate and other historic monuments, the latest federal campaign finance reports, a preview of a special election in the 6th Congressional District, the latest border apprehension numbers and developments,

the state of Texas launching a COVID vaccine ad campaign, and the latest in Austin crime numbers after a harrowing shooting this last weekend. Thanks for listening, folks, and enjoy the rundown. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson. It's budget week here in Texas, so the reporting team is raring to go. We're prepping and getting ready for quite a debate on the House floor. Yes, Daniel. What do you mean by budget week? Budget week. Man, I'm so glad you asked asked you're pivoting just to the exact topic that is our first topic of the podcast oh i didn't mean to do that wow sorry

you're just you're just overtly prepared um but let's go ahead and jump right into it hayden and brad let's give a little bit of a preview of what this week will look like many amendments have been filed to the texas state budget the house the senate's already considered their budget the house is now moving forward in, you know, and following suit of the upper chamber. What time, you know, what kind of time are we looking at here on the House floor this week? Well, by the time this podcast comes out, it will, the dust will have settled unless they go well into the morning the next day on Friday. But as you mentioned, the Senate has already passed its version. It's a $251 billion budget, $117.9 billion

in the General Revenue Fund. That's important because that's mostly what will be talked about, debated on the House floor on Thursday. And Hayden, how many amendments were filed? I believe including the late amendments, it was around 248. I'd have to look at the exact number. Yeah, a lot. So it's going to be a long day. And they're starting at 10 a.m.

The only two items on the agenda are SB1 and HB2, the supplemental. So, you know, legislators will have the opportunity to amend the budget however they want, you know, redirect funding one way or another. You know, it's going to be kind of a free for all. Real fast, really quickly and kind of in just a brief overview, explain like the supplemental process, right? Why are there two budgets essentially being heard on the House floor? Well, each session, the chamber that provides the base budget changes. So this time it's the session or the Senate. And each chamber has to agree on spending you know and that's the the only other

than this time being redistricting every session that is the only constitutional requirement for the legislature is to pass a budget and both both chambers have to agree on it and so the Senate had their say with through the committee process they're very committee process oriented. The Senate, the House is also, but not, like they have this other facet of the process that the Senate does not have. The Senate does not usually amend things in a grand display of destruction. That's so accurate. That is a good description. That is what the House does or what they try to do.

I think at the end of the day, we'll see whatever the House passes will be very, very similar to what the Senate did. Now, diving into the details will be where the differences are. Let's say $3 million here from DPS gets reattributed to the TEA, something like that. Right. You know, a lot of, and that's what all these amendments kind of do. Hayden and I have started going through them. A lot of them are redirecting funding from one, either one program within an agency to

another one or from one agency to another agency entirely. So, you know, this is going to be, like I said, it's going to be a free for all on the house floor. Basically saying, hey, this department or this allotment, let's, this is going to be, like I said, it's going to be a free-for-all on the House floor. Right. Basically saying, hey, this department or this allotment, let's move it over here to something I like a little bit more that benefits my district. Right. There's going to be a lot of discussion. So, Hayden, in working through a lot of these pre-filed amendments and for folks who aren't familiar with the process, the budget, in order to amend the budget, you have to submit your amendments ahead of time. So the filing deadline, the pre-filing deadline for this week was, I believe, Monday at 10 a.m. Yes, and there were 10 amendments filed after 10 a.m., and I believe the final number was 238. I'm not sure if that includes

the 10 late ones, but that just gives you an idea of how many amendments. Right, around 240 amendments is what we're dealing with here. Exactly, yes. And they are going to be debating these, like Brad said, it's going to be a free for all. And after a long year, it's probably going to be very emotional and very cinematic, because they're going to be hashing out how the state's going to be spending its money. And in one of the in a few of these amendments that I've seen, one of the themes of some of the amendments that have been introduced is really redirecting funds from the Attorney General's office, specifically the legal services line item in the Attorney General's office.

And I think that's reminiscent of some of the fights that we've seen over elections and election security reform. That's one of the more emotional issues, along with the coronavirus and race issues. Election security laws have really been a point of contention in this legislative session. And so I think on Thursday, what we're going to see is a lot of controversy and possibly animosity directed toward the Attorney General's office. And this new mantra that we have of defunding certain departments, certain line items and programs in government.

You know, in the past, we've had the slogan defund Planned Parenthood. And then this past year, we've had defund the police. There's going to be a lot of attempts to defund certain things on Thursday. And the Attorney General's office is going to be one of them. And another one that I saw is to... Can you jump in on the Attorney General's office is going to be one of them. And another one that I saw is to... Can I jump in on the Attorney General's session? Sure, go ahead. So there's been a fight throughout this whole session over the funding for Ken Paxton's

agency. And a lot of that is stemming from displeasure about his scandals outside of the office itself. The AG's office has scandals it's dealing with? I know. Oh, my gosh. Should we write about this? I've never heard of such a thing. We should probably get on this.

We're late to the game. But one thing I've been following was the attorney general requested like $40 million it was to hire outside counsel for litigation in the Google antitrust lawsuit. I think Isaiah wrote on that first. But then the budget fight itself, that went on in the Senate committee. And Paxton faced some pretty pointed questions about why he needs this if he has already world-class lawyers, but ultimately the Senate approved the funding. And so that's another thing that I haven't seen it through making my way through the amendments yet, but I expect that to be something. I think there are a few amendments to limit outside contracts and to require a

detailed reporting for outside contracts. And I think I saw one by Jessica Gonzalez that limits spending on outside legal expenses to $500 per hour. So that may be a fight that we see on the floor on Thursday. I did not know the background information on that. I did not know that they had already discussed that to some extent. But another department that may be defunded that that they may discuss defunding is the Texas Lottery Commission, which I'm not sure how many people know this, but the Lottery Commission, and I've written on this before, actually had record breaking revenue during the Coronavirus pandemic. businesses that people were losing their life's work. We had this agency of government that's based on gambling was was literally wrecking it raking in record amounts of income. And so I think that is going to be a heated debate on the floor. And possibly other issues are going to come

up along with that, in terms of the state picking winners and losers. But that's just a taste of what I think we're going to see on Thursday. And it will be interesting to see how it plays out all day Thursday and possibly all night. Yeah, absolutely. Brad, what do you think will be the most notable thing heard on the floor on Thursday? What kind of arguments are coming out of the pipe? By far the biggest kerfuffle will be over Medicaid expansion. Kerfuffle. You know, I have a feeling this is kind of a topic every budget session, but especially now because, you know, last week, it was on Friday, the Biden administration announced it was revoking the Section 1115 waiver, which is essentially what allows Texas to operate its Medicaid, allows it to operate its Medicaid system how it does right now, without expanding it to the full 90% reimbursement rate by the federal government. But that also increases the amount of people that

are covered under Medicaid. And Texas to date has avoided doing that. Democrats are obviously gung-ho about that. And even a few Republicans have signed on. Representative Lyle Larson, a Republican from San Antonio, is the one that authored the bipartisan Medicaid expansion bill this session. So you may see a bit of, especially with the Medicaid waiver being denied, which means as of now, the state will lose out on a lot of funding for uncompensated care that the federal government gives it. And so that is incredibly important to a lot of these rural hospitals that are the only caregivers in the area and that deal with a lot of these patients that can't afford their bills. And so I went through Article 2 last night, and at least half of them dealt with Medicaid.

And I think it was— Which Article 2 is the section of the budget that would you know yeah catch all those kind of health health and human services that kind of thing Garnett Coleman was the one that I saw that had the three most specific amendments aimed at expanding Medicaid so that'll be something to watch I think that will be when all is said and done the story of the night yeah certainly and Democrats as we see now are even rallying in terms of press conferences I think that will be when all is said and done, the story of the night. Yeah, certainly. And Democrats, as we see now, are even rallying in terms of press conferences and statements posted on social media. This is an effort that is gaining momentum even among Democrats as we speak.

I will note also Lyle Larson, the Republican that you mentioned earlier this week tweeted something about the Abbott versus McConaughey potential matchup that we might be dealing with here in Texas. And, you know, in hindsight, Lyle Larson is a Republican that Abbott formerly opposed and then endorsed this last primary cycle. And there's been a contentious relationship between the two. But Abbott did come forward and endorse him during the primary this cycle and what we're seeing is a tweet from larson that was basically saying hey a governor who you know supports public education medicare expansion better roads fixing the electrical grid second amendment rights urban rejects voter suppression could win texas he's he's kind of already laying the groundwork of like hey i might be open to a matthew mcconaughey uh gubernatorial bid so interesting side note but medicaid expansion is going to be a very big issue

um not just on budget night but you know going forward in terms of the electoral uh debate here in texas hayden let's talk about a specific amendment that's a little spicy um we've seen one lawmaker come forward and try to allocate funds to the border wall uh particularly in light of the biden administration assuming office in January. Walk us through what this amendment looks like. Well, speaking of entertainers and celebrities getting elected to public office, President Trump's border wall project had about 450 miles completed when President Biden took office. And that project was the centerpiece of the Trump administration and his campaign. So Representative Brian Slayton has attempted to pass or move legislation that would allow the

state or that would require the state to finish that project on the state's coin. And he introduced an amendment to the budget on Thursday that will be included in that budget fight to redirect funds from the Texas Commission on the Arts to a border security enhancement fund. Tuesday and he explained to me that he filed a bill to make this happen or he he filed he filed a bill to create the fund right and he also filed a writer or he attempted to include a writer in this budget for that but because those two items were not successful he is now trying to move this item on the floor on Thursday. And when I asked him about why he chose the Commission on the Arts, he said, quote, our border security is so important, spending money on that would be more important than the arts. But he also argued that the Great Wall of China sees tourism, and we might have similar tourism to what he would call the President Donald J. Trump Wall here in the state of Texas.

So, at least from that perspective, from his perspective, it could be viewed as an arts project of sorts. The legislation that he originally introduced, HB 2862, would have created the fund, and it essentially would be the same policy would have created the fund and redirected the Department of Public Safety to complete the project that President Trump started and cooperate with federal authorities. But that legislation was referred to the Texas State Affairs, the Texas House State Affairs Committee, and Chairman Chris Patty, who's a Republican from Marshall, who represents some of the most eastern districts, eastern counties in Texas, told Slayton's office that the legislation would not be heard. So this is Mr. Slayton's last really his last effort. Well, I'm not sure if it'll be his last effort, but one of his wall right i think a lot of eyes are on this kind of project because of that you know alone so very interesting very

controversial and something that i think a lot of republicans will be uh you know looking forward to uh talking about daniel let's talk about constitutional carry last week one of the bigger stories that constitutional carry for the first time was heard in the texas house and then it passed but now the bill moves to the senate. Where are we at? And what kind of comments were made from Senate leaders this week? Yes, the bill has moved to the Senate. It was sent over there, I think, at the beginning of this week. It passed on Friday on third reading in the House, and then they did all the usual paperwork and stuff that they need to send it over so it got sent over to the senate uh but it's kind of hung up just um hasn't gotten anywhere since going over to the senate and uh the lieutenant governor dan patrick uh

released a statement uh earlier this week kind of saying why it has been hung up. And he said, quote, if we have the votes to pass a permitless carry off, permitless carry bill off of the Senate floor, I will move it. At this point, we don't have the votes on the floor to pass it. I plan to meet with the law enforcement who oppose permitless carry and with the NRA and GOA who support it to see if we can find a path that a majority of senators will vote to pass. So right now, the lieutenant governor is saying that he's not moving the legislation forward at this point because there's not enough votes for it to pass. In order for it to get to the floor, we need support of 18 members, also a five-ninths majority of the Senate. Very specifically, a five-ninths majority. It should be four-sevenths, just for the record, but it's five-ninths majority of the Senate. Very specifically, a five-ninths majority.

It should be four-sevenths, just for the record, but it's five-ninths. That is the hill you're going to die on, isn't it? Yes, it is. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to our podcast at the beginning of the session. So it needs 18 members, so either all 18 Republicans or most Republicans and a couple democrats in order to make it to the floor and right now dan patrick is saying that it doesn't have that right so in

your opinion in your expert opinion um and even just in your analysis of this legislation and how it's moving what's the likelihood that it would actually be heard on the senate floor at this point so and what kind of pressure are we seeing, too, on the lieutenant governor? This is certainly an item that many voters in the state of Texas care deeply about one way or another. I think your guess is as good as mine to anybody listening. It really depends on how this political pressure plays out. You know, we've seen this type of legislation pass in about 20 other states across the country. So, you know, about

half the states, I haven't gone through and analyzed which states have passed it, but I'm willing to bet a substantial sum of money that those are red states, Republican states that have passed that for the most part. And so, you know, when you look at that and you look at where Texas falls, even, you know, looking at our policies on COVID and whatnot, Texas usually falls. It's not as far right as some people like to think it is. It's usually right down the middle. And we're coming to a point now where Texas is right in the middle. It's ripe for Texas to pass constitutional carry since so many other states have done it at this point.

And there's growing political pressure. to pass constitutional carry since so many other states have done it at this point. And there's growing political pressure. In previous years, the National Rifle Association has, I think, been a little bit slower to endorse these constitutional carries, this permanent carry bill. And now they're starting to put a little bit more pressure on and back this sort of legislation. So they've come out in support of permanent carry and they're encouraging to put a little bit more pressure on and back this sort of legislation. So they've come out in support of permalist carry, and they're encouraging people to contact their lawmakers in Texas specifically to get this legislation passed. And so, you know, now that it passed the House with nearly all the Republicans voting, even some Democrats supporting

it, I think there is significant political pressure now on Republicans in the Senate, you know, who, you know, this is going to be a campaign issue in 2022, even after redistricting, you know, Republican voters. That primary is probably going to be a little bit heated for any Republicans who oppose this. So we'll see, you know, how Dan Patrick and all the senators kind of deal with that pressure if they want to kind of say, you know what, we're going to go ahead and go with the Republican line that passed in the House and pass this sweeping legislation. Or, you know, they might say, no, now is not the time. Right. So we'll see. Absolutely. or they might say, no, now is not the time.

So we'll see. And we're already seeing a lot of senators who have been vocally supportive of the legislation previously come out with strong statements saying, hey, we support it, and while others have remained more quiet. So we'll see how that shakes out in the next few days. Is there any indication on if it is moved on the Senate floor, what kind of changes, if any, would be added to the Senate side? It's not really clear what kind of changes people would like to say.

There were several constitutional carry bills that were filed in the House of Representatives. There's even been a few that were filed in the Senate that were even a little bit more wider wide wider than what what passed the bill that passed was arguably the the weakest of them um there are other bills where anybody over 18 could carry and this one is over 21 um there are other places other legislation that would take out these uh so-called gun-free zones and the legislation that passed hb 1927 leaves a lot of those in place. It leaves a lot more restrictions in place than the other bills did. So how else the legislation might change to kind of sway those people on the other side? There's been a lot of law enforcement come out against this. That's kind of what democrats are pointing to um and so we'll we'll see

yeah good stuff daniel thanks for covering that for us but we're going to come to you another issue that's been particularly controversial this legislative session where also the lieutenant governor came out with a statement regarding this time you know with in this particular instance it was a totally different kind of statement than con carry but regardless he's been vocal about the issue election integrity election reforms this week you wrote a piece detailing hey here are you know here's the you know the dollar amount that uh public money's gone to different companies that have come out in one way or another opposed to these kinds of reforms walk us through what's going on yeah so um back when this whole uh debate boiled over, when Georgia, when Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia, signed their election law, it became a real hot topic across the country.

And because Texas has two specific priority versions of election reform making their way through the legislature, that also came under the microscope um uh you know from activists across the country and uh you know a lot of there was a lot of heat thrown at texas republicans for supporting these um including by indirectly by a lot of corporations the there was i forget how many but it was like close to 100, if not more, corporations across the country signed on to this joint letter, basically advocating against election reforms without really digging in a position on it,

on any specific one. Just saying this vague statement of we oppose anything that we deem discriminatory and whatnot. Among those were some really big names, Apple, American Airlines, Uber, Amazon, ExxonMobil. And so the story we have up talks about how a lot of these companies have received state and local subsidies in Texas. And obviously, that kind of puts them in opposition to what is moving through, you know, the state capital right now, even if they, you know, would like to keep that at arm's length. I mean, you can't divorce it from the surrounding context. They release the letter at a specific time for a reason. So, you know, I spoke to or I reached out

to some of these companies. Only one of them got back to me. It was Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. And Buffett's assistant said that while he has not read any specific piece of legislation, whether it's in Texas or outside of it, he remains committed to this idea of we should all feel a responsibility to defend the right to vote and oppose any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot. And that was, that was, so it was a non-answer answer to my question, but that was a response. Got it. So two things, one, what kind of dollar amounts are we talking about with a lot of these companies? And two, what are the responses from, you know, leaders in regards to these? So first off, the grand total was just over $2 billion and um you know the berkshire hathaway was

the biggest recipient of it 802 million for its subsidiary nebraska furniture mart and i think if i remember correctly most of that was local so probably in the form of tax abatements uh property tax abatements specifically and um you you know, others, other companies that were particularly notable were ExxonMobil was the second highest recipient of $533 million. Amazon received $287 million. And a big chunk of that is from local funds or local subsidy type of things because of the, you of the property tax valuation abatements that they give out. There's another part of this, though, is the Texas Enterprise Fund. That's a state's economic development incentive program. You know, since its inception in 2005,

it's given out $677 million in cash awards. Yeah. And so among the companies that have received TEF money that were part of this letter, the sign of this letter were Apple got $25 million, Uber got $24 million, Texas Instruments had $5.1 million, and Microsoft had $4.8 million. And so obviously a lot of public money being doled out to these companies. And obviously that was before they signed on to this letter and waded into a political debate. And also one thing I asked these companies that I reached out to is what do they think the role of these types of entities is in this debate? And I didn't get an answer on that but uh it was asked in reaction to this i got a couple notable public officials comments uh dan patrick who um

back you referred to it earlier back when this all was going down um you know he he put out a statement and and urged these companies to, quote, read the damn bill. Speaker Phelan said at the time, show me where in these, point to me where in these pieces of legislation you see voter suppression. So very straightforward. Yes. Now. And then a direct quote, read the damn bill. Yes.

Direct quote from the lieutenant governor. For this article, I got a couple other statements from Dan Patrick. One, he said, secure elections are a critical component of that winning economic formula. It is offensive to most Texans that these businesses and corporations don't understand that they are criticizing the conservative government whose policies have made it possible for them to thrive. State Senator Brian Hughes, he sent a statement. He's the author of SB7. He took a lot of heat. He was on cable news shows being questioned by some of these TV anchors.

His statement was a lot more pointed. This PR stunt just exposes how tone deaf these corporations are to the concerns of the people of Texas. If these corporations are so offended by Texas policies, they could demonstrate their wokeness by returning the $2 billion of subsidies they have received from the Texas taxpayers. Just one more follow-up thing. Another question I asked them, which I did not receive an answer on, was whether they plan to, if these laws get passed, plan to return the dollars or forego future subsidies from state and local governments. So that is that. Good stuff.

Well, thank you, Bradley. Very important piece. Isaiah, we're coming to you. We have a lot of different hearings happening in the Texas House, obviously, at session. One particularly that you covered this week had to do with Texas history, different monuments, all sorts of different things that a lot of Texans have been very concerned about and that you've covered extensively. How did Texas history take center stage at this particular committee hearing? So it was the Culture, Recreation, and Tourism Committee, which does not at all have a very exciting or engaging title but it was it was

heated it was an impassionate hearing needs to be a little more clickbaity of a of a committee name right you know i think they need to spice it up a little you'll never guess what the third like culture recreation and forget about it yeah anyway so there were a few unrelated bills that had to do with the alamo and civil war monuments and that naturally invited a lot of passionate testimony on both sides one of these bills would officially recognize the Top Palom Kwabiltekin tribe, and this is a Mission Indian tribe whose forefathers lived in missions like the Alamo in San Antonio. They're small and San Antonio-based, and they're currently involved in a lawsuit against Alamo Project leadership

for religious reasons that we've reported on recently. Another bill would let citizens appeal decisions made by the Texas Historical Commission, the THC, and they're the body that determined to leave the Cenotaph in place, but they also governed the fate of the state's 1,500 or so Confederate monuments scattered all around Texas. A third bill would remove the Confederate memorials and paintings from the Capitol grounds and some that hang in the walls of the Capitol. And there are several other bills from Republicans meant to protect these monuments and others by various means. Got it. So in terms of the testifiers themselves, you know, I think there's a lot of just personal investment, personal connection that people have to these kinds of, you know,

legislation. And oftentimes there's, you know, a deeply rooted familial reason for those kinds of connections. Walk us through, you know, what they were saying about these bills and why they cared so much. Yeah. Somebody had mentioned to us, me, Brad and Daniel recently, that we all know somebody who knows somebody that has a connection to these historical events that our textbooks say are dormant and collecting dust now. But for a lot of these testifiers, it was family history. So one of the Top Palam elder members said that he remembers his grandfather. If I heard him right, this grandfather was born in the 1870s, definitely 19th century, showing around the missions around San Antonio where their people were buried.

And we actually got to hear some of the Top Palam language spoken in the Capitol at this hearing. There was also a member of the This is Texas Freedom Force, which is a group that holds armed rallies around monuments in Texas to defend them, whose family is Leap and Apache. And they're a tribe that fought the Top Palam back in the 19th century and before. And they also occasionally aided Texicans during the Texas Revolution. But they're now joining Top Palam in their lawsuit against Alamo leadership. It's a constantly tangled history there. Many of the testifiers were the descendants of Civil War soldiers.

There were a lot of sons and daughters of the Confederacy that showed up. And interestingly, one of the testifiers was a great, great, great granddaughter of one of the abolitionists that Democrat Rafael Anchia wants to rename a building after. Wow. So let's talk about hard politics. What were the general arguments, you know, for and against these proposals? Well, nobody objected in person to recognizing the Topolom tribe, but the rest of the conversation tended to have an inertia towards this constant underlying discussion towards how we're going to treat Confederate monuments, whether we keep them or tear them down, or if we do, where do we put them afterward? So one proposal to protect monuments would require local governments

to get the approval of a popular vote before changing them or removing one of these statues. And a member of one group called the Texas Reconstruction Project argued that glorifying the Confederacy is unpatriotic and un-American. Another member of the same group agreed and said that school boards, cities, counties, and so forth, these are the authorities who named their buildings after Confederate heroes. They erected these statues, and so they should just keep on reserving the right to govern them. Some wanted to destroy the monuments entirely, and others just wanted to see them placed in a museum or some other kind of contextual learning environment, something like that. On the other side of the aisle, supporters of the monuments said that they would be open to seeing statues commemorating slaves, abolitionists,

or American heroes like George Washington alongside the Confederate monuments. And Chia, Raphael and Chiaia, stay rep, he's the one that proposed outright removal of them from the Capitol grounds and renaming certain buildings named after Confederate figures. He had said previously, as he laid out his bill in the first place, that he'd be a little bit more okay with the Confederate statues around the grounds if they were just monuments to all of the Civil War dead. But they're clearly monuments to the Confederacy only. There are no Union soldiers. So along those lines, the number of supporters of these statues who want to see them in place

said that they'd be okay with actually seeing more inclusive statues to freed slaves or abolitionists or so forth around. Interestingly, one of those supporters who wants to see the Confederate monuments in place was that great, great, great granddaughter that I mentioned. Wow. So, you know, Anchia wants to name the John H. Reagan building. He was the postmaster general of the Confederate States of America after a couple of little known Texas abolitionists, Nathaniel Jackson and Ferdinand Weber. And the great-great-great-granddaughter of the freed slave that married Nathaniel Jackson showed up to testify against this bill, which was an interesting twist.

One of the Democrat members of the committee, Barbara Girvin Hawkins, pushed back on a member of the Texas Reconstruction Project who was making very strong claims about the distinctions we draw between, like, Thomas Jefferson, for example, who owned slaves and he argued deserves our recognition nonetheless, and the Confederacy. And Gervin Hawkins pushed back and asked, you know, by what metric can we judge whether or not historical figures are honorable or not? How do we do that with consistency? A lot of the supporters of keeping the monuments in place kept referring back to a snowball effect. That was, you know, a constant terminology at the hearing and pointing to, you know, for example, a number of schools in California whose the Civil War was, you know, a distant rumor. Right. So the argument being that if you tear down monuments to like Robert E. Lee, next comes the Buffalo Soldiers or, you know, the 45th, excuse me, 54th Massachusetts Brigade, an all-black union troop in the Civil War.

They've been defaced or decried in certain parts of the country. So the snowball effect. Yeah. Anyway, interesting arguments from some interesting testifiers. I like it. Well, Zay, thanks for covering that for us. Daniel, one thing that we have paid little attention to is it's not election season and it is the legislative session.

That's taken up a lot of the air in the room in terms of the news cycle is federal campaign fundraising numbers. But some updates came out recently. What congressional candidates reported the most on their campaign fundraising reports? On the Republican side, you know, the two superstars that are always raking in lots of money, and there is no exception to this most recent April quarterly filing, which covers the first three months of the year, January through March. Those candidates being, or congressmen, being Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz, and Representative Dan Crenshaw.

Obviously, they're both big, high-profile names known across the country. And so it was kind of no surprise to see that their names were at the top of the list. For Democrats, it was also interesting, but not terribly surprising that the top two fundraisers were Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred. These are both now not freshman representatives. They're going into their second term. They were first elected in 2018 when you saw lots of Democrats come out in support of Beto O'Rourke and they won some suburban seats and held onto those in 2020, they were definitely the most competitive Democrat-held seats in Texas. And so they, seeing their names at the top, kind of unsurprising in some ways. They're kind of shorting up support, you know, depending on how redistricting goes, how much they'll need to hold onto their seats. We will see. But they were the biggest fundraisers on their side. And then I think on the Republican side, also the third highest raising candidate

was kind of interesting, not a name that we see terribly often, but it was actually Representative Van Taylor. And he raised a little over half a million or close to $600,000, actually. So that was interesting. I like it. On that note, let's stay federal. We have a special election coming up for a very prominent congressional district here in the state of Texas. This is the North Texas District, Texas Congressional District 6. We're also dealing with fundraising numbers in that special election race as well.

Who reported the most? Yes. So these candidates actually had a special pre-election filing a little bit separate from the normal quarterly filing. Of course, the election didn't begin or the campaign didn't really begin until February, and that's when the special election started. And we're seeing with the fundraising numbers who the most serious candidates are. The top-raising candidates would be current state representative Jake Elsey, who raised a little over half a million dollars.

And then you also had Brian Harrison, who's a former chief of staff for the HHS under President Trump. And he raised a significant amount too, close to $400,000, which was also bolstered by him putting in his own money of 285,000. So depending on how you look at the numbers, you could say that Harrison raised the most, but a lot of that was his own money. Um, but even without his own money, he still raised a significant amount. Um, and then on the Democrat side, you have a bunch of candidates who are also running. Um, it's an interesting race because these candidates are all running together. Either if one person gets over 50%, they'll win. Otherwise, it'll be the top two candidates regardless of party.

So it could end up being two Republicans. It could end up being two Democrats. Or it could be one from each party in the runoff. We'll see. But the two Democrats who raised the most was Sean Lasseter, who was previously in the running for a Fort Worth City Council seat, but withdrew to run for this special election. And she raised a little over $300,000. And then next to that, you also had Jayna Lynn Sanchez, who also raised close to $300,000 as well.

And then Lydia Bean was a little bit further back, but still pretty high at over $200,000. Got it. So, you know, boil this down for us. Who are the frontrunners in all of that? I mean, we know who's raising the most money, but polling, et cetera, where are we at? So, I mean, obviously money is not everything, you know, we've seen in previous elections. You know, my mind goes back to the election in Texas 22 last year where you had a primary candidate pouring millions of dollars of her own money. And you had the Fort Bend sheriff who had lots of name recognition in that district walk away even though he raised hardly anything compared to the person who had tons of money.

Similar in this race, I think that name ID, people who are familiar with candidates have a better chance of winning, even though they might not have raised as much money. The name that everybody's been watching since the get-go has been Susan Wright, who's the widow of Congressman Ron Wright, who passed away in February, who held the seat. And so she's running to fill her husband's position. She did raise a significant amount of money, the fourth highest in the Republicans, close to $300,000. And yeah, so she's been seen as a front runner, but obviously with those high campaign numbers

from Jake Elsey and Brian Harrison, they've both kind of gone up in the polls. Elsey is a state representative in a large portion of this county, and he previously ran for the seat, too, against Ron Wright in 2018 in the primary, and that was quite a heated race. And so that's kind of who's leading the side and the Republican side, trying to make it to one of those top two spots. And then on the Democrat side, you have a couple candidates who stand out. Jayna Lynn Sanchez is currently probably the most favored one from things that I'm seeing based on her campaign fundraising. But then also, again, she ran in this district before. It's not her first time on the ballot in this district. So people are familiar with her name, which is definitely a help for her campaign.

And then, of course, Sean Lasseter also raised a significant amount of money, has some backing of a lot of educators in tarrant county fort worth connections to the school board there and then you also have lydia bean who ran for a state seat against matt kraus i think it was matt kraus last yes last election cycle so she's you know she's been having her signs up as well in the area. So we'll see out of those, you know, out of those six candidates, it'll probably be two of those. Got it. So real fast, what kind of, you know, fights are we seeing unfold? You know, where are the arrows slinging in this race? So we're seeing a lot more fight on the Republican side of things. You know, one of the things that

have come out, Brian Harrison is the former chief of staff in the trump administration for the hhs and you saw someone else from the hhs come out and endorse uh susan wright in the race kind of resurfacing old rivalries there and then harrison came back with a list of over 100 trump administration officials um who are backing him so there's kind of a bit of a fight there. And then I think where we're seeing a little bit more, uh, traction as far as fighting going on right now, you have club for growth pack, which is a conservative, uh, fiscal responsibility pack. And, uh, also Senator Ted Cruz who have come out against, uh, Jake Elsey even though uh cruise and the club for growth pack

haven't uh endorsed susan wright uh they had endorsed ron wright for what it's worth and um they haven't gotten involved but they are putting in a lot of money especially club for growth particularly are putting a lot of money against jake elsey right uh hitting him on the head uh over you know his his previous policies you know kind of where he's kind of trying to frame him as not conservative. And then Elzey is coming back. He has the support of former Governor Rick Perry. So he just released a campaign video of Perry backing him and saying that Elzey's the true American, the Republican in the race.

So that's kind of where the fight is right now. So we'll see. Yeah, absolutely. And we're getting closer and closer to that. Yes, May 1st. There you go. Exciting stuff. Thanks for covering that for us.

Hayden, we would be remiss if we did not talk about the border on our podcast. Give us an update on where we're at this week. Well, as we've discussed before, Operation Lone Star, which is the state of Texas response to the illegal immigration crisis, began on March 6. And since that time, the state has taken 800 criminals into custody and seized 3,800 pounds of marijuana, along with 19 pounds of cocaine and 50 firearms. And that information is per a letter that Governor Greg Abbott sent to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris last week, requesting that the administration declare that Mexican cartels such as the Las Zetas and the Gulf cartel be declared foreign terrorist organizations. And the governor requested that the federal government make those designations,

in part because there are additional tools available to the state to fight foreign terrorist organizations that are not available without that designation. And sort of ancillary to that request, Abbott mentioned that the state is having to supplement the federal government's resources in its fight against illegal immigration. And as we've reported, 170,000 enforcement encounters took place along the southwest border, not just in Texas, but across the whole southwest border in the month of March. And that is a radical increase from only about 101,000 encounters in the month of February. So illegal immigration still remains a huge problem. And Governor Abbott provided that update on the state's efforts to fight crime on the border.

I like it. So we've seen this effort by President Trump previously, correct? So walk us through a little bit of the history there. Well, President Trump in the final months of 2019 decided he was going to take this step. And one of the biggest advocates for this has been Congressman Chip Roy, a Republican from the San Antonio area. But ultimately, the president decided not to do that because Mexican authorities viewed that as a breach of their sovereignty. They did not want the United States being able to exercise those additional tools. And President Trump, seeking a good working relationship with the Mexican foreign minister and the president of Mexico chose to walk back that decision and take a different course. So whether or not President Biden chooses to do that is yet to be seen, but he may run into the same

problem. He may decide he wants to keep things cordial and amiable between the United States and Mexico, because this is the drug cartels and the illegal immigration problem is something that involves both countries. So that will be an important factor in whether or not Biden chooses to take this step. I like it. Thank you, you hayden daniel let's come back to you we saw that um the state health department started to jump in um the vaccine advocacy arena this week walk us through what happened so the texas department of state health services make sure i get my acronym right my dshs um they launched a 1.5 million dollar ad buy for i think digital television and i think there's radio ads too um basically 1.5 million dollar campaign uh encouraging people to

be vaccinated against coronavirus the covid19 um so you know they released three different digital ads videos that they have and they started that campaign this week i like it so uh specifically what kind of groups of people are these ads targeting where are they hidden yes so the department said that the campaign is quote geared towards specific groups that research tends to to be less likely to get vaccinated. Now, among those groups, it's kind of easy to see that the department is targeting minority groups, specifically African-Americans and Hispanics, especially in the border region, Spanish speaking individuals. So they have an ad with a black doctor in Houston talking to fellow black Texans about the importance of getting vaccinated. And then they had another ad with another doctor from the Houston area, as well as one ad featuring a doctor from the Rio Grande Valley speaking to people in Spanish and encouraging them to get a

vaccine. So that's kind of the groups that they're targeting. Where is the money coming from for this effort? So if you remember the federal government spending not just millions, not just billions, but trillions of dollars on COVID-19 stuff, a lot of that money was kind of set aside for campaigns like this to state health departments to encourage people to get the vaccines. So the department said that that is where the money is coming from, from the federal government, from some of these programs. I don't know if it's specifically the CARES Act or the one that was more recently passed this year, but somewhere in that trillions of dollars that the federal government spent is where that 1.5 million is coming from. Got it. So where are our current vaccination numbers sitting at here in Texas? So as of the recording of this podcast, there have been a little over 16 million doses administered in the state.

That includes some of the vaccines require two doses. Some of them require just one. So out of the people who are fully vaccinated with that one or two doses has been about 6.6 million. And then there have been a little over 10 million people who have received at least one dose of vaccine. And there have been 23.5 million doses allocated for the state with 17.6 of them coming in. And we keep on getting like about a million every week, it seems like. So the vaccine is still, they're getting it out.

Yeah, they're going through the process well thanks for covering that for us we'll continue to watch bradley we're going to come to you for some local news this past weekend austin went on high alert there was an active shooter situation here in the city what do we know about that now well um the uh there was a shelter order put in place by the austin police department in northwest Northwest Austin over the weekend. It was on Sunday. And we heard reports of an active shooter situation. What happened was a man, Stephen Nicholas Broderick, at least that's the suspect right now, and they've caught the man.

He entered an apartment complex and shot three people uh i think it was two women and one man and two of them were were kids uh one might have been 18 but uh they were both high school age one was in high school the other one had uh recently dropped out but was recently in school. Very sad situation. And it kind of, it happened on, you know, just over halfway through the month. And what really hammers home is the rising murder rate in the city of Austin. And this is happening across the country, cities, large cities all over the United States are experiencing similar crime increases for certain violent offenses, most notably murder. But Austin has kind of topped them all, at least in terms of percentages, because it is historically such a low crime city.

In percentages of violent crime rates rising. Yes. And we wrote about this last year it it really became clear once the pandemic hit i think you know a couple of the working theories are that you know the pandemic increased despair um you know people losing their jobs um turning to something else with their free time. And we just had especially assault, murder rates increase in cities across the country. And another aspect of it was back then that in the summer when things get really hot, people get irritated and they start acting violently more. That's just kind of, it's a trend that occurs every year and it happens.

And so, but in Austin, this triple homicide, with that, it represents a 53% increase over the same time period through 21 thus far as it was last year. And that's when we really saw things start to jump, especially in March and April, and then further on into the summer. And April itself has 12 murders thus far in Austin. That's like 500% above the same, the entire month last year. There were only two. Now that is one month. So it's kind of an anomaly. It's more accurate to look at the broader picture.

And that would be, you know, 2021 through, you know, beginning of 2021 through, you know, today. And so the Austin Police Department is very concerned about this. Austin community is very concerned about it. It's something that is really rocking Austin. What reactions are we seeing from, you know, state and local officials? Um, well, we are, Governor Abbott came out, he sent us a statement, uh, or his, his spokesperson did, um, very hard against the, the city's policies, uh, public safety policies specifically, you know, whether it's the homeless camping ordinance or the large cut to the police department budget. He said, you know, Austin's murder rate is skyrocketing, yet they continue to pursue their reckless agenda to defund the very police force that

protects our communities from such lawlessness. This is exactly why abbott has made defunding cities that defund police an emergency item in this legislative session so meanwhile steve adler austin mayor he sent us a statement and you know he said this is obviously concerning to them but it's coinciding withiding with what I mentioned as homicide rates increasing across the country in all big cities. So both are taking this as confirmation of what they believe about specific policies. And it's really bleeding into so many more political topics. You know, there's multiple bills in the legislature going through about, you know, banning camping, banning, prohibiting, you know, defunding of police departments, establishing a capital safe area that encompasses downtown in which the state would take over police duties.

So, um, you know, it's, it's really bubbling over into so much and, um, it's absolutely concerning. Yeah. Well, good stuff. Thanks for covering that for us. We're going to pivot to a lighter, uh, topic, which will be good and, you know, particularly appropriate after we don't have, um, um uh murder rates to talk about anymore so let's talk about what is you know we're in the heat of session here we're dealing with all sorts of crazy things happening in the state and local scene what do you guys do what kind of activities

what things do you do in your free time to alleviate stress wow don't all jump at once hayden you fix your baseball cap that makes me think that you are you know thinking that you're yeah you know some very intellectual thoughts why does the teacher always call on me i want to understand now you raised your hand man i didn't i didn't raise my house and just but see that's the thing is the teacher will call on you if you like if you put your hair back or you put a hat on or you stretch your arm and they, you know, interpret that as raising your hand. At the age of 23, I should know this by now. Correct. Yes.

You've been in school for a while here. I don't know. I am a shopaholic a little bit. Are you? I don't buy everything I shop for. But you mentioned my my hat i bought this the other day at dick's sporting goods nice and i also bought other items of clothing that i probably shouldn't have spent money on is it like clothes and hats and those

kind of things that you spend money on i mean i know that's not you know like a i don't know that's not really a gun range that's not really a guy thing. That is a thing. I did do that on Sunday. Hey, guys got to look good too. Yeah. So I shop for clothes and I go to the gun range. I haven't done that in a while, but I did do that on Sunday. Ironically, shooting guns is relaxing to me.

That does alleviate stress. I don't know why. For sure, going to the range. A lot of people are afraid. A lot of people, guns make them nervous and they don't like you know it's really loud at a gun range but if you wear your ear protection which you're required to and um you know everyone around you is being careful it can be a lot of fun so i enjoy that absolutely good stuff isaiah what do you do when you're to alleviate stress do you climb trees um i mean not habitually i do it often but i guess it's pretty spontaneous i don't like carve out time

to see a good tree tree like on the way home i don't think man i can't wait to get home and tree climb something got it except when you climb up onto your porch because your door was locked and you're trying to find your keys. Those were a trying three or four days. Yeah. I got to know my neighbor. He moved out shortly thereafter. I don't know if there's linkage. I was going to say I like playing music.

You scared him away? Yeah, probably. I haven't seen him since. And a new guy moved in. I'm sure the two incidents are not correlated whatsoever. Yeah. Yeah. Brad, Daniel, and I had a relaxing evening one time

with my piano oh yes relaxing is a very incorrect word oh is this the time you guys showed up at my house afterwards yeah it was yeah that's it yeah that's right i walk outside after my church small group saying bye to everybody and dan Daniel and Isaiah are on my front lawn. Hey, like, hi, guys. It was actually pretty awesome. I loved it. I can't remember if I mentioned this on a podcast pre, like we were talking about this. But when we were hauling this thing up the stairs, it scored a line all the way up the side of the building.

Oh, my gosh. That I didn't recognize until the next morning. Oh, man. And I thought, well, who's to say who, who left that there? Exactly.

But then I realized that it also had left score marks on the ground, curving right to my doorway. And I thought, well, I hope that it's very damn creative. Yeah. But then, uh,

that very week they sent out this mass email to everybody saying, uh, please be advised that, uh, we're repainting all the buildings this week. And so they just kind of erased the evidence. Well, that's good. I was going to say, well, the chances of your building management listening to this podcast is, I feel like, slim. So you would have been fine, right? You're admitting to the crime here on the Texans podcast.

You're hearing it here first, folks. Exactly. That was very hard to say. Watch his landlord be like a part-time text ledge yeah exactly a subscriber to the right exactly yeah that's good stuff daniel what do you do in your free time what what alleviate stress speaking of crimes oh gosh you just wanted to lead off with that to get a reaction no i mean it's definitely uh nothing too criminal but i do like to drive on a straight road going fast within the speed limit of course most of the time liar daniel you drive like a grandma i've been in the car with you before

a grandma not a grandpa yes well i don't okay grandpa you drive like a grandpa yeah there you go i mean 007 is probably a grandpa, right? Oh, dear. Regardless. So you go on drives. I like to go. I like to drive. I like to do mindless activities like driving,

even though I guess some people would say that's not very mindless, but doing that or sitting back and playing some Temple Run. Classic. I am a world champion at temple run or beating me at risk yeah that was that was fun hayden's not bitter i don't know if that was relaxing or if that just gave me like an adrenaline rush an adrenaline rush yeah i can take over the world destroyed hayden letting the power go to your head yeah he does rule the world we played some while we were playing the game

I turned on the House of Cards soundtrack yeah I made it way more dramatic wow that's very dramatic Bradley I do a few things

you play with Winston well of course yes although sometimes I miss him today not stress free yeah

the turd almost ran out into traffic the other day. I like going and walking around the river with him. That's pretty relaxing. I exercise if I need to burn off energy. I read one thing I've really enjoyed is watching baseball especially

going to games which I haven't been able to do obviously for a while but I have the MLB TV app and so I just turn on a game if I need to chill out for a minute so yeah that's what I do. Those are good things. Well, I, I enjoy that. I usually, I'm trying to think,

I go on a lot of hikes in Austin. There are a lot of good hikes here in the city, which is one of the big perks of living here. Um, that always just clears my head. I think getting outdoors is really, really helpful. Um, sometimes our roller blade, I'm'm like that was a big thing i did growing up and i still have my roller blades that are honestly pretty cool you grew up in the 70s uh no not at all nothing about me screamed 70s except for this fact that's about all i can i can say um does that say you look really good to be in your 50s hey thanks i appreciate it um it's all the botox um so that's why you don't stop smiling oh man um what else do i do guys you guys should tell me i read um you look at the second i have a follow-up question look at the budget that's so true yeah do you uh do the disco while rollerblading why are you the way that you are

i hate so many things about the way you choose to be sorry for my parents not me what is that from the office that's a michael scott quote i i know i've watched the office multiple times and i still don't know the quotes from things um well good stuff team uh folks thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter, tweet at the Texan news. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us.

God bless you, and God bless Texas. Thank you.