The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 25, 2025

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/Learn more about the Data Center Coalition at: https://www.centerofyourdigitalworld.org/texasThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Patrick Recommends Senate Concur with House School Choice Bill AmendmentsAbbott’s School Choice Victory Starts Next Chapter in Texas HouseTexas Senate Approves Nearly $500 Million for Priority Film Incentive ProgramTort Circuit: Business Community, Trial Lawyers Clash Over Tort Reform in TexasHouse Partially Passes $3 Billion Dementia Prevention Research Institute of Texas LegislationSenate Bill Would Prohibit Student Visa Holders from Supporting 'Terrorist Activity' at Texas UniversitiesBill Criminalizing Abortion As Murder 'Yanked' From Texas House Committee HearingHIV Medication Mandate, LGBT School Curricula Feature on U.S. Supreme Court's New Session DocketTexas Senate Passes $50,000 Homestead Exemption Increase for Elderly, Disabled HomeownersBill to Create Texas AI Council, Strengthen Regulations Passes HouseTexas House Gives Initial Approval to Priority Nuclear Power Legislationand more!

Howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Mary Lee's Cameron and Brad. I went the opposite way around the table today because I felt like mixing it up. That's what the listeners want. I know. They really do care about the intro where I mention your names. That's important to the flow of podcasts. I know I get your emails, I hear you, and so here we are going opposite direction. Bradley, why are you making a smirking face?

I got nothing. There's literally nothing going on in my brain at this moment. Actually, that's wrong. It's the monkey banging cymbals. You and Winston both? Yep. We joke that Brad's dog Winston has, really, I know it's like a mouth harp. Is that the instrument that we say he always has going around in his brain? Yeah. Boing, boing, boing.

Yeah. Not much going on up there, but a very big heart and a very lovable guy. Yes. You know, someday I'm going to, um to rank us based on how good we are at conversation. I'm really curious what that would be. I think it would be interesting to see. Maybe we actually we pose it to our listeners and say, you know, who fosters conversation best on the podcast. I think Cameron definitely gets the word for the best questions.

Absolutely. And the willingness to step in whenever there is a moment of silence after I'm done saying something. Well, cause the silence will just be hanging. Yeah. Yeah. But some people don't mind that and just let it hang. Yeah. But I don't like it. But it's also a podcast.

Yeah. So it's different if we're just like talking and yeah, it's a podcast. Don't be afraid of silence, Cameron. Well, it's something I've commented on in the office too. Like we'll have like a really robust, like energetic conversation for like 10 minutes and then it'll just stop and be silent. I was just like, is it because everyone goes back to work? Or is it like, okay. I wouldn't say that we're the most socially normal people to interact on the face of the planet. No, it's definitely a very unique group of individuals. Yes. In the best way possible. I think so. That's a lie. Remember last week when Cameron called us all friends and Brad scoffed at him? Just a little, a little trip down memory lane there. Was that on the podcast?

That was on the podcast. Yeah. Well, I was talking through a sleep deprived state, so maybe I misspoke at the time. So would you not call us friends, Cameron? You know, it was just, uh just as Brad was just commenting the the monkey brain the cymbals were clapping so I was just going stream of consciousness but it wasn't all there. Okay that's good to know. But maybe we're just work acquaintances Brad. Is that better? I think that works yeah. Okay. But you got a lot of plaid, blue plaid going on here. Yeah.

I'm trying to decide whether I think it works or not. Big pattern, small pattern. It works. She's got a lot of opinions over there. Mary Lise, what do you think? You know, I'm not an expert on fashion. That is such a cop out. I think the blues go nicely together.

Do you think the patterns go nicely together? Well I would say that for a reason. One time Brad wore a new suit into the office and got mad at the women in the office for not recognizing his new suit. But he made it to the very end of the day and then packed up his bag, had his little messenger bag strapped around his shoulder and just looked at me. I think it was just Mazlin. I don't think you were here at the time, Mary Lee's. Looked at me and Mazlin and literally lit into us about how he had not recognized us. That's kind of like a woman when you get a haircut

and nobody notices. Right. Well, I don't expect the men in the office to notice. I just don't. Yeah. I mean, I got a haircut a couple weeks ago and nobody noticed. Oh, not even me.

What'd you do? Just cut it. She got like an inch off. An inch? Yeah. No, it was like two inches. Oh, okay. Oh, two inches.

That's so much. Like if you had come in with like a pixie haircut. Maybe I'll do that. Just get like a bob. Yeah. We would notice that, but it's like, oh, it changed like a little bit. Rob got a haircut. How are we supposed to notice that? Like you don't have your facial hair anymore.

Rob just got a haircut. Yeah, that's the first cut. We notice that. Yeah, that's about that all the time. No, that was, that's literally the first comment I've heard since I've shaved. Well, you've done it multiple times over the last couple of months. So I will say my, my, my like, I'm more used to it now. Like, we don't bring it up. We don't bring it up as much. But the first time it happened, that was the first thing I said when I walked into the office. I was like, oh my

gosh, Cameron, you look different today. This week? No, like about a month ago when you did it for the first time in a while. Well, now that we've successfully aired our grievances, we should jump to the news. Cameron, should we chat? Let's do it. You have some updates on the school choice bill that passed last week that took up a lot of our conversation. Tell us about it.

Yeah, well, the latest update is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick read on social media that he would be recommending the Senate concur with Senate Bill 2, which means it's going to be bypassing the need for a second House vote on the bill moving forward with the current version passed by the lower chamber. And if people were listening to our coverage last week or reading on the Texan.News, they would have seen the bill passed after nearly 12 hours of debate, 86 of the 150 members

voting in favor, all of them Republicans, and 63 against. Two Republicans joined Democrats in voting against. That would be Representatives Gary Van Deaver and former Speaker of the House, Representative Dade Phelan. And Abbott actually commented on Patrick's, Patrick saying that he would concur with Senate Bill 2 in the Senate saying, ready to sign this bill into law. So this is good news for school choice supporters out there. And as we're recording right now, the Texas Senate is currently holding a session where it's expected that they will concur on those amendments.

And the next step for the bill will be to head to Governor Greg Gabbits desk for it to be signed into law. So coming to a conclusion here on Senate Bill 2. How quickly do you think the governor will sign this bill into law? Do you think it will come to his desk, he will sign it right away, literally not even hold a press conference? Say it. No, I was just gonna say they need to, you know, set up a press conference and get all the bells and whistles in order. I bet they already have everything decided for when that's happening, though. Yeah. That was a joke. He definitely is having a press conference, but I don't think he's

been more anxious to sign a piece of legislation in a very long time. Yeah, and I say the bill is coming to a conclusion, which is true, but the issue is going to be ongoing. After it's signed into law, we still have the entire process of implementation, and I'm sure there's going to be lots of stories to cover when that ends up happening regarding what schools are going to be applying for this, parents, students, opponents to school choice, how they're going to be reacting to how the bill actually happens in a real-world environment here. So the bill is coming to a conclusion yet the issue of school choice, um, will continue on.

Absolutely. And it'll be interesting to watch over the next biennium, how much the cost increases. That'll be a huge point of conversation too. Yeah. So that's something we'll have to look forward to and next session, so in two years. Fun times. Yeah. But Cameron, thank you.

Bradley, on that note, you wrote a piece, uh, kind of the political side of the school choice fight and what is coming next. Give us a rundown. Yeah. So this, it kind of hit me when Patrick and the Senate decided they would concur that this will especially happen when Abbott signs the bill, but this closes a chapter in Texas politics generally, but specifically the House, because of how much it took to get this thing across the line. You know, Abbott spent 15, 20 million dollars, a lot of it from Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff to take out House Republicans and incumbents and it worked. It was massively successful and the governor showed with it that his political machine is second to none in the state.

Nothing can match it. And if he decides to go to the mat on anything else, you know, that would be something to watch because now we know that it can work. Something that none of his predecessors were able to do. And this is the culmination of that. Can I ask something? What makes Abbott so unique in this case where he's able to create this powerful political machine? Is this similar to other governors in other states when they want to pass their pieces of legislation or is it just because you mentioned previous his predecessors might not have been

similar in creating this machine? What's unique about Abbott in this sense? Well, I think Kim Reynolds did something similar in Iowa, but on a much smaller scale. What's unique about Abbott is the massive scale, the sheer amount of money he can fundraise. Also, Texas is massive itself, and that presents just its own unique environment to do this.

You know, right off the bat, I think this will be the largest school choice program as an upstart that we've seen, right? Most of that's just because the state is so huge. But Abbott's fundraising capability is second to none. And part of that is there's no caps in Texas, right? It's a lot easier to raise money. We're gonna see that in the US Senate race. Ken Paxton's going from a state office to federal where there are caps,

and it's going to be a lot more difficult to raise money, or at least raise a large amount of money. That is another part that makes Texas unique. But Abbott has himself a good, very, just like a machine-like resolve to fundraise, and it's very good. But he also has Dave Carney, one of the best political minds in the country, running his operation. And their strategy was very effective. We've talked about their strategy that, you know, they went after a lot of these incumbents

and didn't really focus on school choice that much. You know, it was definitely part of it, but a lot of the messaging was hitting them over the border, which they were in mock step with Abedon. But you know, it's politics, everything is closest weapon to hand. And so I think to answer your question, that's, that's what sets him apart. Just the scale of this, right?

Um, also you can't divorce, uh, Abbott didn't manufacture that whole cycle himself. There were other factors. There was the impeachment, of course. There was a very unpopular president, democratic president in the white house. You had Trump's resurgence, like all of this, all of that played into this. And that's the reason we're never gonna see a cycle

like this again, I don't think. But Abbott played a massive role in it. So there's that. But then going forward, the next chapter is, at least when I focused in the piece, is on Speaker Burroughs. What does he do with, he now has the 10-ton gorilla off his back in Greg Abbott. Unless something drastic changes, he won't be a factor in the primaries, at least in the same way that he was last year, last cycle.

But now Burroughs has, he got elected by, with majority Democrats. They're all pissed about ESA's passing and particularly passing with all of their amendments getting tabled. Yeah. And Burroughs still has a contingent on the right that either don't like him outright and will never like him or don't like him outright and will never like him or don't like him on most things. How does he manage this?

How does he manage this majority that is constantly fluid? These things that are never static. Well is this just the natural state of things for a Speaker of the House to be disliked by both sides of the political aisle? They kind of have to walk the line? Of course, to some degree, yeah. I think what makes this notable is that he has delivered on the first big promise that he made to Republicans, specifically statewide Republicans in Greg Abbott and

Dan Patrick, and now he's got to manage the fault lines that have come from that. And you know, we've talked about this before, there was a huge groundswell of opposition to the ESA bill on the right for different reasons than on the public school side of things, but you you know he's got to navigate that too right so yes a speaker always has to navigate these these fractures he's got some longevity because of the Harrison motion vacate what happened where they they tabled it well now to take that back up you need a hundred votes they don't have a hundred they didn't have 76 votes to remove them.

They're not going to have a hundred votes to bring it back up. So he's got longevity here. He's not running day by day trying to preserve his speakership. Um, how does that affect his decision making? Does he lean towards the, the Republic, lean into the Republicans and you know, get an actual Republican majority, um, by passing the policy they want, or does he lean towards the preserving the Democratic contingency that was the difference

between him winning and losing? So I don't know what he's going to do. I'm sure they'll try and split the baby somehow. Yeah. But I don't know if you can do that. Yeah, because I'm just trying to think like has there ever been a time where there was a Texas House Speaker that was just universally loved? No, I mean Dan Patrick is universally loved, right? But the difference is he's

elected on a statewide ballot every four years. You know, unless he's impeached, you can't remove him. He's got it. That's not the same with the speaker, which is the position's constantly up for grabs and if things change on a dime, the members can recall you at any point. So that was the gist of it. There's more to it in the piece. I go I talk about the deal that was struck by the rural ours that got Um, esa's from you know, a slimmer majority support to 86 votes I think that's pretty significant. Um So yeah, there you go. We knew that they would certainly find a way to pass school choice by naming the Republican leadership in both chambers and the governor.

But that margin was super notable and seeing some of the names that did end up voting for school choice in the end was very surprising. Yeah. Well, and part of the deal was we're not going to have another vote on this. The Senate will concur, which is happening as we we speak as we sit here on the Senate floor and that's big because he especially you as a speaker do not want to put your members through that again and the members don't want to go through it so interesting things all around the this isn't over but even even though this chapter on ESA is pretty much is, well then I guess the other side is every little hitch in the road that this thing runs into in implementation, Democrats are going to use against Republicans in the

midterm next year, which might not be a very favorable midterm for Republicans, just given the overarching political wins nationally and the fact that now there's a Republican in the White House. So, it's not gonna go away, but the massive political fight that led up to this is now done. I'm excited to see the margins in some of those districts that did flip Republican or where Trump won or

Republican won, how that fares in the midterm. It will tell us so much about the longevity of these South Texas areas and whether or not they actually have turned red or whether it was a trend. I'm excited to see that in the midterm. Well, and you retweeted Patrick's Feed Tech this morning, right? About how the DNC is gonna be putting increased dollars into some of these races, these upcoming races. Well, I just written up the races, the parties. The parties, the state parties. Yeah, I think it's Texas, the Texas Democratic Party

will get roughly $22,000 a month. That's pretty significant for them to hire, build up an operation more than they've had. And that's interesting because the party, the Democratic Party has had to rely on the top of the ticket campaign to build out the infrastructure, whether it was Beto or All Red. They've had to rely on that.

And now they're getting some cash flow and it's notoriously difficult to raise money in Texas as a Democrat, especially the Democratic Party itself. So that dynamic kind of exists on the other side too with Republicans and Greg Abbott or John Cornyn or Ted Cruz, but I don't think it's as pronounced as it is on the Democratic side. Well, check out Brad's piece of the Texan.News. Bradley, thank you. Mary-Lise, we're coming to you. The Texas Film Incentive Program made its way successfully through the Senate. Surprise, surprise, I'm sure. But tell us about it. Yeah, so this is one of Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's

priorities, and this is the official name is the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program. And so it's right now set to allocate $498 million towards the establishment of Texas as the film capital of America. A lot of people are calling it the new Hollywood. And so it would offer essentially tax breaks for certain categories of filmmakers. And this grant that just passed the Senate floor has two different kind of parts to it. You

have new tax credits which could be as high as 450 million for productions and then you have 48 million that will be designated for TV and then TV commercials and small films. So this yeah passed the Senate floor just a couple of days ago and now it's been brought before House committee which we watched yesterday. It was very interesting. There's really been some big names behind this, not to mention Dan Patrick's, but there's been Taylor Sheridan, Dennis Quaid, Matthew McConaghey shown up to both the House and Senate committee hearings really pushing for this. So some of the concerns that we've heard expressed by members about this legislation is that it is an abuse of

taxpayer funds or misuse, not the role of the government to step in here. They've argued that the film ministry should be able to stand on its own two feet instead of getting this grant from the government. And another big concern that I've been watching closely is the residency requirement because so the residency requirement is the amount of workers you hire that are from Texas so the where your workers from is what the residency requirement is referring to. And this used to be at 70% and last session it was dropped from 70% to 55% and this legislation drops it to 35%. So you can

see there's a big drop there and that's why people are kind of pushing back. And I've heard that Taylor Sheridan and some other out-of-state individuals have been really pushing for this to be dropped because they've complained there's not enough talent in Texas right now there's not enough workers for us to hire in Texas for this to be feasible so one thing this got passed out of Senate but one thing that they're now considering and talking about is doing a 2.5 incentive for groups that will hire 70% Texans. So that would, it would still keep in the standard 35% residency requirement, but then

it would offer an additional incentive for folks to hire mostly Texans. So that passed on the Senate floor with 23 in favor and 8 against. There were two Democrats that voted against it and then there were six Republicans that also voted against it. And the folks that were against it were Senator Brandon Creighton, Sarah Eckhart, Roland Gutierrez, Bob Hall, Brian Hughes, Lewis Kohlkirsch, Mays Melton, and Charles Perry. So those were the folks that voted against this. And it's now and pending in the House Committee and Representative Todd Hunter he's brought this forth over on the House side. He is mulling over a lot of different options to address the

concerns related to residency requirements and the potential incentives so we'll see where this goes if this progresses out of the House committee and what it looks like when it gets to the House floor. Absolutely. Well, I'm sorry, I'm just jumping in again. It's just interesting because like I've been seeing a lot of commentary from different actors upset with California and how they've managed the film industry there and how a lot of films and television are now being produced in other states.

For example, in Georgia, I've heard that a lot of films and TV shows are now being produced in Canada or even in Europe because they are offering these film incentives. And so it's sort of this showdown now between California where it has Hollywood and everything is really centralized and located. Now other states are trying to offer these incentives to bring new industry into their states. But, you know, some red states are offering these film incentives, but like for example here in

Texas, there seems to be some pushback against it. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. And interesting to watch it kind of make its way over to the House and see what that chamber will do with this legislation. It'll be very interesting to see Marylis, thank you for your coverage Bradley. Let's talk about your piece on the tort reform clash That's going on this session preview your piece for us. Yeah, so this was took a lot of time and effort into this piece it's a fascinating fight the Policy long and short of it is there are a few bills moving through the legislature

that aim to limit the amount that plaintiff's attorneys can secure in judgments against the defendant, usually a company, in a personal injury lawsuit. You know, think truck driving accidents. I don't know, anything where someone gets injured on the job or because of a business. And there's a lot of back and forth about why this is necessary. At least allegedly so, but from the business community about plaintiff's attorneys gaming the system

I Have that all in the piece run through it, but they basically these two sides The trial lawyers plaintiff's attorneys and the business community and defense attorneys They are in a perpetual state of political war have been for decades Texans for lawsuit reform on one side the business community in a perpetual state of political war have been for decades. Texans for lawsuit reform on one side, the business community. Texas Trial Lawyers Association on the other side. They're not the only ones involved in this, but they're the two faces of this fight. So there's a few bills. SB 30 is the big one.

It's called the CAPS, referred to as the CAPS bill. It's not a direct cap on non-economic damages But it kind of goes about in the same way you have the trucking bill, which is trying to alter a bill that was passed in 2021 I believe also called the trucking bill And then you have a couple others that are either working their way through or not being worked through at all but the most interesting part of this is the political fight and You've got this it's kind of a Historically the trial lawyers were all Democrats part of that was Democrats ran everything in Texas for two centuries, right?

But ran everything in Texas for two centuries, right? But, eventually the business community started pushing back and they created TLR, got a lot of funding, and have gradually, as Republicans have taken over, TLR's influence has increased substantially. But we're now seeing kind of a reverse, where Republicans, who used to all be pretty much lockstep behind the business community and TLR, a good chunk of them are not.

In fact, they very much dislike TLR and what they're going for. I was talking to a friend the other day and he said, you know, rise of the right wing trial lawyer is this new phenomenon. You know, example of that is Speaker Dustin Burroughs. He's a trial attorney. He's also very conservative in his personal politics. So that's one example. The amount of money being pumped into this is insane.

We see TV ads being run for and against this these bills because the amount of money on at stake here is massive. Whichever way this goes one side is gonna lose a lot of money. And Mark LaHood who is a state rep in the house, freshman Republican, he's on the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee. He is also a trial attorney. He's also the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee. He is also a trial attorney. He's also a former Democrat. He said in a committee hearing, basically, y'all want this because it'll help you keep

more of your money, and they want this because it'll help you take more of their money. That's as simple whatever it is. And it's bleeding into the political fight. Texas Family Project, which is a Tim Dunn funded conservative group. They've been big on like opposing gender modification, things like that. They put out a tweet that's now been deleted, not sure why, opposing SB30 because they say that it'll prevent people who have gotten

gender modification surgery from suing and getting made whole against their doctors, right? So there's a lot of different wrinkles to this. Read it, you can check it out in the whole piece. But really this boils down to a bloody political fight between two sides that have always been on each other's throats. But you see the fault line starting to move

and meld a little bit because over time even if there are big policy wins for either side on certain issues they have to keep fighting for something right? These are important issues to these groups but it doesn't always mean that you will be in lock step with those who previously supported you wholeheartedly. Right, right. Very interesting. Bradley, well done, thank you. Mary Lee's coming to you. The house progressed the dementia prevention and research institute of Texas. That is a mouthful. Yeah.

What do we call the accurate? Is it DIPRIT? It's DIPRIT. That's what they were calling it on the floor yesterday. So I'm gonna go with DIPRIT. DIPRIT. That passed on Wednesday. Give us the details. Yes. So yesterday, another priority of Dan Patrick's DIPRIT passed the Texas House. So that was Wednesday afternoon, and then it had a pretty smooth path through the Senate earlier, just about a week before. And so this will be, this center will be modeled after our Cancer Prevention and Research Institute,

which has really brought us to where we are now as being considered a leader as far as cancer research and the medical professionals we have dealing with cancer and how Texas has really become one of the best places to come for cancer treatments, research. So it'll be modeled very similarly to this program and it will receive three billion dollars. So of course we have critics of this who are talking about again that this is not the role of the government and that this is a misuse of taxpayer funds even though it's a very well-intentioned program, it could, the money could be given back to the people. You know, those are the standard arguments

against this $3 billion grant. And so Patrick first proposed it back in November 2024, and then Representative Joan Huffman filed this in a bill five, once the, a little bit before the session started. So we had yesterday on the house floor a few different people stand up to talk about it. State Representative Brian Harrison spoke against it and he was arguing he said I would love to find a cure for dementia right everybody here wants to find a

cure but he was arguing that it's instead growing the government he He said, I don't know what part of stop growing government and give people back their money, this body clearly does not understand. And then he said he accused Texas of attempting to establish its own National Institute of Health while President Donald Trump is simultaneously seeking to shrink in that. And so he was telling the Texas house that you, you're working against the president's priorities. And he was suggesting that the money could be used by Texans who want to donate to charities or want to take care of their own loved ones with dementia.

These $3 billion. He said, when free Texans invest their own money, they have a much stronger incentive to get results than government bureaucrats do. So he first brought up this idea of incentives. And then state rep Tom Oloverson stood up at the back mic and he spoke about this knee. He said, you know, I do know that I have deep concerns about the status of medical research in this country, where its funding is coming from, and then whether it's free of ethical conflicts.

And he responded to Harrison, he said, you know, we're on the same page here, I don't wanna grow the government either, but he then raised the point that he thinks that this state run program would be more incentivized to find a cure and to produce very honest research than these other groups like pharmaceutical companies who might be doing research. And they might be incentivized to shape their research results to produce an outcome that then would make the patients take this treatment that they're selling. And so he was pointing out that there's that conflict of interest there and he was saying Oliver Sen was arguing that this state agency would be less prone to that. There'd be

less incentives for them to be dishonestly shaping their research. And so a record vote was taken and that produced 127 a's and 21 nays and all of the nays were Republicans which is worth noting. But then Chairman Craddock moved to postpone the Senate joint resolution which is part of SB 5 and it's a constitutional amendment that would allow it to materialize. But that was, so since that was postponed until April 28th, although SB5 was passed, it's going to need this SJR to also pass for it to actually be able to be applied.

So that's why we put in our headline partial legislation because a part of this was passed. There's been, we've seen on the House floor, a whole lot of constitutional amendments, particularly since school choice was passed that have been delayed, which is interesting. And it's a demonstration of leverage on the part of Democratic members to delay these constitutional amendments, because Republicans are shy of a 2 3rds majority. And Craddock was,'s also worth noting Craddock was told it appeared that he was told that he had the votes to get this across

But he did choose to instead delay it until April 28th This SGR wild and that two-thirds Conversation really has stemmed after the passage of the ESA bill where Democrats certainly were not pleased with the passage of that legislation and said okay well you know you need us to pass constitutional amendments so let's see how this goes right so that will be interesting to watch going forward how many more of these constitutional amendments see that kind of action from Democrats. We just saw one Candy Noble amendment get postponed again on the floor. This morning? Oh, just now.

Where's the funding for this Center coming from? I'm sorry if I missed that. That is an excellent question. I actually am not super familiar with where exactly. I think they're pulling it from either the surplus or the economic stabilization fund. The amount of money the state has just sitting there in reserve because consumption tax collections were higher than expected and larger than what they budgeted for this current biennium. Is it possible they're pulling from both for this program? Maybe. I mean, it's all basically the same bunch of money at least as far as this budgeting cycle goes

Now it's afterwards when they decide what goes where that's when it kind of splits but From my understanding it they're pulling it from that Well, cuz I'm just interested if other states have, maybe not dementia-focused, but other sort of disease or generative type disease centers for research like this, and how they sort of manage that with the state funding, or if they're using some sort of dual state

and federal funding, because a lot of medical research is not actually done by these states individually. It's done at university medical centers. And it's not actually, majority again of the pharma research is done by these medical centers, not by the pharma companies themselves. And so it's just interesting how the state wants to get in on this and try and put some money into solving the dementia problem. But just one last comment before we move on,

because it's something I've looked at before, is the issue of dementia can be identified through a gene sequencing technique. If you have a sort of certain gene mutation, it puts you at a much higher risk of having dementia later in life. And so it's interesting if people want to identify if they're at a higher risk for dementia, they can have gene testing done. And then there are preventative measures to do earlier in life so you can try and not

just delay the impact of the dementia, but actually try and mitigate it. And so should the state have a role in helping people identify if they have this issue with their, to identify the gene that they might have and then implement measures? Like should the state step in and try and help people in that way or should it be done just through personal responsibility going to your doctor

and checking it out. The other thing about the funding is from my understanding, it's like 500 to 600 million dollars a biennium. So they're budgeting out for multiple biennium, right? This is not pay as you go. They're putting in this 3 billion dollars in to make it last for, you know, let's say 6, 8, 10 years. So, yeah.

So yeah. So yeah, there you go. So yeah. Well, Marylis, thank you for your coverage. As always, folks, we're gonna take a quick break and hear from one of our sponsors. Did you know data centers support 364,000 jobs in Texas and contribute $3.5 billion

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state's booming economy, businesses are expected to generate twice as much data in the near future, making data centers a vital investment for the future of Texas prosperity. To learn more, visit centeryourdigitalworld.org slash Texas. And we're back and we're back. Camera going to come to you. A state senator is proposing a bill to create greater enforcement measures on college campuses. Tell us about it. about it? Senate Bill 2233 authored by Adam Hinojosa seeks to quote, enhance the security integrity of public institutions of higher education by focusing on individuals holding non-immigrant visas prohibiting them

from engaging in or supporting terrorist activities. This, the bill itself was interesting but it became even more interesting after Governor Greg Abbott commented on it on social media saying let's get this to my desk and make it law in Texas. So why is this important? Well there has been increased attention being paid to college campuses regarding protests and the increase in rhetoric in certain types of activities that have been going on and the federal government has reacted

in such a way where student visas are being terminated. We've seen that at a number of Texas universities. We've had comments from President Donald Trump. We've seen that at a number of Texas universities. We've had comments from President Donald Trump. We've had comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio on this issue of revoking student visas. And so this is essentially creating a state enforcement mechanism to where this law being in place would mandate that Texas universities adopt a policy of prohibiting these students or even employees enrolled at these Texas institutions

of higher education who hold non-immigrant visas from publicly supporting what they are labeling terrorist activity. And I break down that definition of terrorist activity. It's being used through the definition in federal statute. And also I break down the subsection that defines what it means to actually engage in terrorist activity. So if people are interested in getting into the deeper nuances of the bill legislation itself,

I encourage you to go check it out on the Texan.News. The Texan.News. Cameron, thank you as always for your coverage. Mary Elise, we're back to you. An abortion abolition bill was pulled from its committee hearing this week from the docket the committee was reconsidering. Tell us what happened. Yeah.

So this was a little bit of a dust up this week. It's House Bill 2197 by Representative Brent Money and some folks are calling it the Abolition of Abortion Bill, but the big thing that it does is that it closes this one exception in our Texas Penal Code that does protect women who have an abortion, an elective abortion, from facing criminal charges that would otherwise be given to someone found guilty of murder. So this is, so would criminalize abortion for women who get abortions and so it's kind of closing a loophole there. It also prohibits the

sale of chemical abortion pills which is another aspect of abortion legislation in the state that has not been, well there's been legislation filed to address it but it hasn't been officially addressed by the state yet and this has been filed a number of times in different sessions it was filed by state rep Brian Slayton which was Brett money's predecessor and then it was once filed by representative Tony Tinder Holt so but it's never made its way into committee hearing and so this was pretty significant that I had a hearing scheduled for it but then the night before, I believe it was the night before, it was polled from its scheduled hearing.

Brent Money described it as being yanked from its committee hearing and he said that it was unclear whether Chairman John Smithy or the Speaker's Office made the call to pull the bill. A lot of folks, different activists who perhaps have been planning to travel there the next day were voicing their opposition to this online of course and other folks were saying you know this is good it's not getting a hearing this is going nowhere. Money said that he was told by Chairman Smithee and the Speaker's Office that they both said that it was told by Chairman Smithy and the Speaker's Office that they both Said that it was the other's decisions the Speaker's Office said this was Smithy's call

This was his his choice and then Smithy said this was a Speaker's decision So money released a statement. He apologized all the activists that are traveling to Speak on the bill or to show support for it and he talked about how the second principle of the Republican Party of Texas is, quote, the sanctity of innocent human life created in the image of God which should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death. So he was pointing out, hey this is a Republican, this is in the Republican Party platform. So he was using that to

support his bill. And actually last night there was a joint letter released by a few different conservative leaders in support of this House Bill 2197. And one of the people that signed it was the chair of the Republican Party, Abraham George, which is notable. So it was last night. And Dan Patrick, so Brad had written about this previously, but Dan Patrick had very strongly voiced his opposition to this bill. He said essentially we shouldn't punish women.

There's a few people that think we should, but they don't speak for our party. They don't speak for Americans and he called it ridiculous. So very clearly against it there. And then Money filed his list of co-authors after the bill was pulled from its committee hearing and it included 18 co-authors and then one joint author which is representative Andy Hopper. And prior to the bill it only had money listed as author because he hadn't filed the list of co-authors. So that was a big dust-up. There were activists the next the the morning

that the hearing had been intended there was a group of folks in the rotunda that were talking on a speaker about different things. They were singing some hymns and it sounded like they were praying at one point but they were holding signs that were that displayed graphic images of what an abortion looks like of the baby and then they also were holding signs that just were expressing general support for House Bill 2197. The big thing about this was like this bill was not passing. It was not going to pass. Dan Patrick saying so tells you right there but it wouldn't

even get to Dan Patrick. It was not going to pass the house. Um, but in these long-term political policy fights, just like we see with casinos, it's all about, um, advancing the ball a few yards of recession and then preserving that ground. So this was so big for the people who want this because this was the first time they would have gotten a hearing. And that could set the table for next session to make some more ground right slow but Smithy pulled the bill at the last moment moment I mean a very odd set of circumstances and decisions like if you're gonna set the bill

Probably should hear it if for no other reason than to not step on a hornet's nest and just kill it silently in committee or just not set it in the first place, which is what's happened before. You kind of pick the worst of all the options and now the opposition on this piece of legislation is revved up and pissed off.

Well, because it would have gone over pretty quietly if it had never gotten a hearing, right? Because this bill never gets a hearing, and so it wouldn't have caused quite the dust up it's causing. Certainly not as big of a one. Yeah. I mean, the people backing it, they make noise every session about it, right? Because they want the legislation, just like any other group that don't want a piece of legislation but yeah it's been suffocated in its crib in the last few

sessions whereas here so many horrible baby analogies. This is podcast. It was kind of let out and then... I'm just kidding. Yeah, that analogy can only go some places. Oh my gosh. Wow. Any other odd things to say, Radley? How is that odd? My lanta. Okay. I now realize it. That wasn't an unwise... Like in any other bill we're talking about that would have been fun. Yeah. My gosh. Can't let this guy out anywhere. My goodness. Who put me on a podcast? Well Mary Lee's great coverage. Thank you. Thank you for

persevering through that segment, despite your editors proclivity to make it weird. Cameron, we're coming to you. Let's talk. The U S Supreme court started its new session this week. What's on their docket? Number of big cases. Um, the first one I'll mention here here Kennedy versus Braidwood management. I

point everyone to Kim Roberts coverage of this. She broke down the oral arguments that were had on Monday I believe it was. But this is a case that stemmed from a challenge to the Affordable Care Act's mandate that insurers cover certain HIV preventative drugs where Braidwood management followed a lawsuit in opposition to the rule on religious grounds. And just like with any case I'm going to be talking about here, there's been a long legal process. I'm not going to go through each case entirely. I'll just get a very broad overview. But this case has progressed all the way up to the Supreme Court, where the justices are going to be tasked with

answering the question, does the structure of the US Preventative Service Task Force violate the Constitution's Appointments Clause? And if so, is the provision that insulates the task force from Health and Human Services Secretary's supervision severable from the rest of the statute. So this really comes down to Senate confirmed versus non-Senate confirmed appointments in this task force.

Another case, Mahmoud versus Taylor. This one had oral arguments, I believe it was on Tuesday. The justices were being asked to consider the extent of parental rights and religious freedom in public school curricula regarding LGBT themed books. And this comes down to a question if the ability for parents to opt out of certain curricula

that was being offered offered if it violates their religious convictions. And so that is going to be another case with a lot of people paying attention to it. There's another important case that's actually two consolidated cases that focuses on whether schools are, quote, state actors, whether their exclusion violates the First Amendment Free Expression Clause. This stemmed from an Oklahoma case where Oklahoma rejected a publicly funded Catholic Charter School, which raised questions about whether states must allow religious institutions to participate in charter programs. So another education slash religious freedom case that people are going to be paying attention to.

And then there was a number of other cases, a mistaken FBI raid, some environmental rules, tax law, procedural issues, and appeals. So a very stacked docket, but the ones I just mentioned are really the big ones that people are going to be paying attention to. Again, Kim here at the Texan.news, she has already covered the Braidwood Management HIV drug case, because that actually began here in Texas. So people should go check that out if they want to see what the oral arguments were in that case. Absolutely, Cameron, thank you.

Shout out, Kim. Bradley, back to you. Texas Senate advanced another property tax item. Give us the details. So we kind of heard this alluded to by Lieutenant Governor a few weeks ago in a press conference but the Texas Senate passed a $50,000 homestead exemption increase for elderly and disabled homeowners. That is a category of exemption. Most of those are obviously

over 65 individuals. They get this additional exemption. Currently it's $10,000. So you get that on top of the regular existing standard exemption for school district tax property taxes. Patrick is pushing this. The Senate loves Homestead Exemptions. Their goal is to basically eliminate property tax bills for most of over 65 homeowners. And because over 65 homeowners, their tax bill is frozen at the time that they bought the house, that they first got the exemption. The more of an exemption you add, the lower their bill goes. So you can actually, the argument is, and it's true, you can actually buy their property tax bills down to zero dollars. It's doable. It depends on the house, right? The value of the house, all that stuff. But that's the goal here. It passed 30 to 1 this week. Patrick said

because property taxes are frozen for seniors the combined $200,000 homestead exemption means school property taxes would be eliminated for the average Texas senior homeowner. Working with Speaker Burroughs I believe we have a real opportunity to deliver this historic victory for Texas seniors. Now they keep saying 200k it's not exactly that. That's kind of inaccurate because there's the standard exemption and this elderly and disabled one is piled on top of it, stacked on top of it. So the standard one currently is $100,000. The Texas Senate is hoping to increase that to 140k. Then with this, they're hoping to increase it from 10k

the elderly one from 10k to 60k so add those up it's 200k that's where they're getting the number but it's not the only part of that is in this bill but they passed it through it sounds like the house is in favor of this. We'll see what the house gets in exchange for that in this property tax negotiation that's going on. But yeah, another homestead exemption increase. As the Senate tends to do. As they tend to do. There you go, Bradley, thank you.

Who's the Lenovo? State Senator Nathan Johnson Johnson and there was actually an interesting dialogue between him and Betancourt. Johnson was asserting basically that because take compression, which is the state buying down rates, that can ebb and flow with how much money they allot in a budget, but a biennium to a biennium. But with the Homestead Exemption, you have to amend the Constitution. So it's effectively making it permanent. So therefore you have to commit the finances every session to that unless you repeal the

Constitutional Amendment. So his argument was, well, what if we're in a recession next biennium, we're adding to our financial commitments, it's probably not smart to do. And also, this is favoring one kind of elderly taxpayer, homeowners, instead of renters, and it's leaving them out to dry. So they went back and forth on it. There was no persuasion one way or the other, but yeah, that was the lone no vote, which was interesting apparently because that was the first no vote on a homestead exemption increase

in recent memory in the Senate. So, Johnson setting himself apart there. Absolutely, Bradley, thank you. Let's talk some AI, Cameron. Let's do it. There's a new AI framework bill passed this week. Walk us through it. Yeah, this is the Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act and this was authored by Representative Giovanni Cabriglione and he's really been front and center on all things AI in the House.

This bill was originally filed as House Bill 1709, but it received a lot of pushback specifically from some free market organizations. There was actually a letter that was issued by 20 different policy groups saying the legislature should, quote, choose a forward-looking market-driven AI policy rather than what was originally being offered in the original bill. And since then, it has been revised and filed as new legislation in the form of HB 149, which passed on the House floor. And so as part of this bill, not only is it establishing a Texas AI Council, it's also creating a mandatory disclosure to consumers for when a government agency actually utilizes an AI system. And within that disclosure includes when certain quote dark pattern interactions, which is defined as when a user interface

designed or manipulated with the effect of substantially subverting or impairing user autonomy, decision making or choice. So that's really for why that's important is there's been lots of discussions surrounding how AI is going to become ubiquitous in our day-to-day activities. People are concerned how much control will AI have on just our daily interactions, how we interact with not just our technology, but in our in-person interactions as well. So this has that carve out there. Also the bill would prohibit government entities from using AI to develop social scores,

also prohibit biometric data being collected without consent. So a very robust framework here. And Cabrillon, like I mentioned, he's spoken about this bill on multiple occasions. I highlight that in the piece that people are interested. But AI legislation is still going to be something that's going to need to be focused on and developed moving forward. This is just the first broad framework we're seeing passed here in the state.

Got it. Cameron, thank you. We have two more stories, Brad and Cameron, I want you to hit these very quickly because we're at 55 minutes. Okay. Deal. Brad, the House gave, or passed a priority nuclear power bill.

Tell us about it. State Representative Cody Harris said of his bill, today the Texas House resoundingly recognized that we were in a race with China and Russia to become the worldwide leader in advanced nuclear development and that Texas must win that race. In doing so, we will create thousands of high paying jobs and slingshot the Texas economy in a way we've never seen before. Governor Abbott has previously called for a nuclear energy Renaissance in Texas.

This bill would create a, uh, an office to facilitate permitting with the federal government for agencies, for companies here in Texas to build typically small modular reactors. And also would create a fund that would be a part of the broader Texas Energy Fund to subsidize the development of these. I've talked about the economics problem, the reason that nuclear power has stagnated across the whole country, but in Texas too. They're hoping that the combination of things here, along with the technological change, can kind of jumpstart that and provide more baseload power.

So we'll see what the Senate wants to do with it. They were less keen in the committee hearing there, but I'm sure they'll come up with something. And this seems like something that the House will get as a horse trading item, whereas the Senate has dip rates or the Hollywood Fund, whatever it is. So we'll see how that matches up. But both the House and Abbott especially want this, and I don't think Patrick's opposed. We'll find out though what what the negotiations look like. Absolutely Bradley thank you. Cameron very interesting bill addressing

what are weather modification was brought up in a committee this week. Tell us about it. Yes and this is a bill authored by representative Westford Hall actually has 17 co-authors and it would prohibit quote solar geoengineering in Texas. Dang. Make it a felony offense. And I just thought this was interesting for the fact that there it's initially for most people the question of weather modification, cloud seeding, solar geoengineering sounds like something that is on the fringes of conspiracy theories. Yet we saw in the committee the Texas Department of Licensing and what is regulation? Regulation, I'm sorry. They explained that there is cloud seeding being done. Solar geo

engineering is something that takes place and so this was it was confirmed in the committee. There was also a number of Texas residents who came out to talk about their own personal issues with the weather modification that is occurring. So it was it was a robust discussion, but it was interesting nonetheless. There is currently one state that has adopted a ban on solar engineering that is Tennessee, so we'll see if Texas becomes the next. There you go, Cameron. Thank you. Let's move on to the Tweetery section. Y'all. Bradley, let's start with you.

I saw an announcement from the dispatch. It's a national publication, center-right publication in DC. But they bought SCOTUS blog, which has been for a long time the go-to resource on Supreme Court news. I didn't really see it coming, but the interesting part is not really the acquisition. It's What they were buying and SCOTA's blog was pretty Notable for having left Twitter after Elon Musk. I don't know whatever he did bought bought the thing. They've been gone for years Whatever he did bought the thing. Well, I don't know if it was him buying it if it was him joining the administration of

Basically, I think't know if it was him buying it or if it was him joining the administration of basically Trump stuff. I think it was the purchase. I think it was the purchase. So they were there. They've been gone for a while now They mysteriously returned like a month or two ago. Yeah Discussions with the dispatch Yeah, and it's just it was silly because Twitter is where a lot of most the news happens, right? And for them to just take themselves out of it I'm sure there was there were a couple founders of this and only one is going to the dispatch I have feeling there's a reason for that. There was a break Maybe it was over the Twitter thing. I don't know but

Yes, go to splog is back And it will remain a thing or remain a thing and it's pretty good like their coverage is quite good Yeah, I these cases. Yeah, I go to their stuff when I'm trying to parse out the issues in a Supreme Court case Do we know have they indicated if they're gonna put it behind the paywall because isn't Dispatched behind a paywall Yeah, what's going to plug was already? I think they were behind a paywall one thing. Oh, maybe I just been skirting around it Maybe with certain parts are certain parts aren't they basically said it's gonna remain as is Oh, that's cool. Very cool Mary Elise. What you got? Well, this one's interesting

We were discussing it before the podcast started, but Donald Trump is thinking about him and his administration, or thinking about doing a $5,000 sort of incentive for women to have children so they would get a $5,000 check if you have a baby, if you're an American woman. Yeah, but it's to address our current birth, birth, our population crisis, so we'll see if they actually move forward with that, if it's to address our current birth birth or population crisis. So

we'll see if they actually move forward with that if that's just something that they're talking about but Something a number of countries have been trying to solve the issue of declining birth population and how successful do you think that's been? Not so much So yeah, it's a financial incentive, there needs to be a cultural change or whatever the cause is. You know, it's something people are still searching for answers about. Yeah. Can policy really impact it big enough to rescue us from our population crisis? Yeah. I wonder, when is this going, if this were to to go into effect when would it go into effect? I don't know because I don't think that they've proposed anything official. They've just been publicly mulling this. Yeah

The only clip I've seen is one where a reporter asks Trump in the Oval Office Hey, tell us about this and he's like, oh sounds like a good idea Like it's probably wild and he's broke yesterday Yeah, skirting around it kind of not skirting around it, but not giving any details. They're not committing to anything at this point. Well, you know, before July 20th might be nice. Oh yeah, the news is out now. Get a piece of the pie. Yeah, it is. It is out. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The news is out. Yeah. Cameron? Yeah, exactly. The news is out. Yeah. Cameron. I'll be quick. Just someone who I've mentioned multiple times in newsletters before a geopolitical analyst, George Friedman, he appeared on the Tucker Carlson show. If people are interested

in civilizational cycles and rises and falls. He's a very interesting guy. His book Storm Before the Calm, like I said I've mentioned multiple times in newsletter so I just recommend people go listen to that if they are into that stuff. If they're into that stuff that's exactly right. I want to talk about a giant fish for my Twitter. Giant fish. I do. Um, headline man catches massive 153 pound alligator gar in Lake Livingston. Oh, that's scary.

Yeah. You know about alligator gar? Well, they're a hybrid of a fish and an alligator. They're insane looking. Have I shown you guys pictures of this before? Never. Okay. Also like Livingston. Let me find it on a map a map isn't like a fish with the head of an

alligator and the teeth of an alligator totally and apparently the weight of a whale now I don't tell tell you this they don't typically it's like north of Houston East of College Station like literally if you were to draw sounds like a monster well let me. Well let me show you. Let me show you. Also have yours. Oh my gosh. See those things are really weird. I've never seen that before. Took him four hours to reel in. I remember when I was first in Texas there was like a dead alligator gar on the side of a lake. It was the fourth of July. A bunch of friends rented a boat. I saw a dead, it was probably two feet long alligator gar just sitting on the, you know, beach and I was shocked that that

thing had come out of the lake. Now they're very harmless, they don't attack people, but the fact that that is in lakes in Texas is insane to me. It took me nearly four hours to reel in in it was a two pound test fishing line So that's even wild in itself that line didn't break. Yeah, this is a seven foot three inch behemoth 153 pounds took four hours to reel in he said they chased the fish two miles before hauling it in oh my gosh True, what do they do with it? That's a great question. I don't think you're gonna eat gar no. No, I'd imagine it's pretty gross. I don't imagine you eat gar.

Because what do they eat? Depends on how you plan on preparing it. Weston claimed the massive alligator gar was the largest freshwater fish caught on an ultra light tackle in international game fish association history. He said it was the sixth largest if you include saltwater species. Interesting. So insane. These photos are just wild. It looks like some prehistoric monster. Yeah, that makes you want to go tubing. Just real dead on a two pound line. I know. Well, that's the thing we were literally tubing on a boat and that's when I saw my first alligator guard. I was so shocked. Now they stay like really far down with their dark water. Like they stay in the lower depths of the, they don't eat you.

Just the fact that this like alligator fish hybrid is just rolling around in the water with its big teeth. Yes. Yes. Under your little feet. Yeah. I don't like it, but I've always been fascinated by alligator gar and this is where we're at.

Come for the Texas politics news and you stay for the gar coverage. Stay for the gar coverage. That's exactly right. Brad, did you see the photo? Yes. Okay, good. Do you have any thoughts about it? I don't know.

Okay, great. Well, folks, on that note, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Weekly Roundup and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news.

Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at the Texan.News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.