The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 3, 2026

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Harris County Civil Court Judge Draws Statewide, National Attention for Abrasive BehaviorTexas House and Senate Priorities Compared and Contrasted in 2026 Interim ChargesHere's a Look at the Public Education Priorities in the Texas Legislature Interim ChargesHarris County Commissioners Honor Houston Rodeo, Quash Resolution Calling for Hidalgo's ResignationDallas ISD Approves Free Pre-K for All Three- and Four-Year-OldsHUD Sued Over Houston Affordable Housing Project Located Near Toxic SitesHumble ISD Field Trip Takes Students to Spanish Islamic Center 'Centro Islamico'Texas Man, Convicted Rapist Pleads Guilty to Involvement in Online Child Sex Abuse NetworkJohnson County Sheriff Indicted with Second Aggravated Perjury Charge Amid Ongoing Sexual Harassment Case 

Well, happy Thursday ladies and welcome to another episode of the weekly roundup. Folks, I'm McKenzie here with Meredith Hawley and Mary Elise. Thanks for joining us in this week's episode. I want to say if you're watching on YouTube or any of, I think that's pretty much where we put our video podcast at all. You see Holly wins with the best background by far. Us other three, you know, we just basically have walls and windows and it's nothing to the right home about. Holly has this. I'm a little older.

Burgess bookcase. behind her and as she said before we started recording it's also real this is just a portion of my book collection and yes i uh annoy people when i move with all the books that have to be true it's all my i think it for some reason they're beautiful what's your do you have a favorite book behind you oh let's see what's behind me probably my t s elliot books and one is a collector's edition and I just love T.S. Eliot. Who is a distant cousin of mine? What? I did not know that.

Okay. That's something to write home about. My gosh. He's just going to throw that out there. Just casually. Yeah, just casually. I love it. I love it.

Well, Holly, we'll start with you this week as well, because there's a big story that's been making a lot of headlines, both nationally and statewide here in Texas, having to do with a judge in Harris County making some remarks that certainly did not bone well for him. We'll walk us through this story. Sure. So there's been this absolute media frenzy this week

over a Harris County civil court judge. And this guy was elected in 2024. He's one of nine Republicans that won in Harris County, even though Harris County chose Kamala Harris at the top of the tickets. So, you know, he's kind of new to this bench. But video first surfaced of him just absolutely berating an IT worker that was trying to help him in his courtroom. He does live stream his courtroom from time to time. And so that first caught attention. And then there

started to be all of these other videos where they're showing him just dressing down attorneys in his courtroom. Now, to be fair, some of these have been shared without much context. It doesn't show you what happened before he starts dressing down the attorney. And in one case, the attorney had no-showed in his courtroom six times. So you kind of see a judge being a bit irate about that. But after that, then we started seeing screenshots of social media exchanges, one in which he kind of, I don't know if you can definitively say this, but it kind of sounds like he's threatening to issue a bench warrant over a social media disagreement. And he was very angry with Republican Party officials in Harris County at this instance because they did not attend his

investiture ceremony. And I think there were some threats to sue over that, which is a bit odd. And then you have other email exchanges showing him interacting with the court administration in Harris County and he's very abrasive and so forth. And say a lot of people have been seeing all these things and probably the one of the more serious things is that one of the other attorneys in Harris County who does not have a case pending in Judge Nathan Milron's court, sent him an email saying you really should apologize over the berating of this IT worker to which Milron replies to him, this is an ex parte communication and I order you to appear in my courtroom. So that guy is scheduled to appear in his court on April 9th just next week. So that is a very kind of strange

series of events there. More we're seeing is that he has some campaign finance issues and another outlet is reporting today Thursday as we're recording that some of those finance violations could bring criminal charges, just misdemeanors, but still, you know, you see a more serious case building here. A lot of people are calling for him to be removed, but here's the thing that's not included in a lot of other media coverage of this. It's really, really hard to remove a judge. And there have been several attempts in the past in the article we published at the Texan. We talk about the case of a Harris County judge, Franklin Bynum. He was someone who said, and I'm paraphrasing something along the lines of, I want to blow up the judicial system, the criminal justice system,

because he is, you know, far left progressive. He calls himself a socialist, and he believes that, you know, prisons are immoral and so forth. It took years of adjudication and complaints to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to even address those issues. They were not successful in removing him. He was voted out in the Democratic primary, and continued to fight the few sanctions that were applied to him for a couple of years. It was just last year when a tribunal upheld the sanctions that came from the State Commission. Another really serious case involves a criminal court judge in Harris County. A woman by the name of Natalia Cornelio, we've written about her,

and she issued a bench warrant with false information to bring a death row inmate back to Harris. County for some medical tests. This is a very serious offense. And even with those complaints, she was just given some reprimands from the State Commission. And she's even fighting those reprimands. So, you know, everybody's kind of jumping on this bandwagon. I've talked to a couple of people this week about the circumstances here, notably Representative Mitch Little, state representative. And he said, you know, he's been in a lot of courtrooms. He's seen judges who have

great temperaments. He would never act this way and others with really bad temperaments. And then some that are just having a bad day can be a little caustic. But he's not sure that that kind of thing rises to the level of requiring the commission to even act. But there are some more concerning things

that still need to be investigated. and he said that outside of the State Commission, you could actually have the Texas House investigating committee look into it and investigate him. He said there's been some talk amongst state lawmakers about how they might jump in with some of these problematic judges. I also talked to the Texans for lawsuit reform. They've done a lot to try to get some of these judges elected,

and they too, and Patrick, the CEO, is calling for an investigation and says, you know, this guy could be removed and we probably need to do more to address these, you know, problematic judges. I think what it's going to come down to is an investigation as to whether or not he's actually violated the law or, you know, the court procedures that are standard in Texas statute. You can't remove a politician for being a jerk, or there would be a lot of people who would be removed from office here in the state of Texas and beyond. That's just a great point.

Can you quickly define a bench warrant for listeners, just so folks don't understand what that looks like? Yes. So that's, you know, the judge signs basically a warrant forcing someone to appear. And in the media exchange or social media exchange with this Republican activist, it looks like he was, he said he was considering issuing a bench warrant. It's unclear as to who he's planning to issue this for, but to issue it over a heated social media exchange could rise to be an abuse of his office.

You know, it's certainly outside of the norms. Judges issue bench warrants all the time. In the case of the judge that sent one out for the death row inmate, I mean, that's an order that police have to carry out. So law enforcement had to carry out that order. They're not allowed to question whether or not it's legitimate. You know, that's on the judge. And it's just really interesting in that case that despite her even admitting before the state commission

that there was false information. So they'd put on the benchwork for the death row inmate that there was a hearing at midnight in Harris County that he had to be at, well, that was fictitious. There was no hearing. So big problems there, but it's a very serious matter to issue a bench warrant. Yeah, mentioned twice in your segment. Thanks for defining that. Last question. What kind of issues are presided over in a court like this that Milron is overseen? Oh, okay. So this is a civil court. It's not a criminal court. You know, we hear a lot in Harris County about the criminal court judges, and that's part of how Milron got into office is because when people go to the ballot box and vote, you know,

they were responding to a lot of the bad behavior or behavior that they disapproved of from some of the criminal court judges who release, you know, criminal defendants on bonds. And sometimes in Harris County, we've had some of those criminal defendants go out and then actually commit a homicide. So it's been a real problem, but that's not the kind of case that Milron presides every. He's presiding over lawsuits and civil matters. So it's a very different part of the legal system. So yeah, probably a lot of voters, you know, pulled the, believer, if you will, in the old school terms for Milron. Interestingly enough, he was endorsed by the Houston Chronicle editorial board over the Democrat incumbent in that case. The Democrat incumbent

had a very slow courtroom and had a very low clearance rate in there. And so, you know, he was, he was supported in a bipartisan fashion when he was elected in 2024. Fascinating, especially in Harris County. Holy, thank you for your coverage. And folks, I'd encourage you to go read her story at the Texan detailing not just this case, but several, you know, these instances, Holly, ran through in this segment, a very interesting judicial conduct to say at least. So, Holly, thank you for your coverage. Mary Elise, let's come to you. We've seen both the House and Senate dropping interim charges in the last week. The Senate, this is their second round of interim charges for the House. It's their first. A 53-page docket of interim charges,

nonetheless, walk us through how they compare and contrast. Yeah, so like you said, they both dropped interim charges last week. And for the Senate, this was the second round. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said there may be more forthcoming in the following months. As far as the House goes, this was the first time they had put out interim charges. Speaker Dustin Burrows put them out. So we saw the Texas House put a particular emphasis on oversight of legislation that's already been passed, particularly legislation passed during the last session, and then also oversight of state agencies. And then the Texas Senate leaned a little bit more on the side of progressing towards a specific political agenda, then also addressed lots of different lifestyle issues for

Texans and a lot of issues where the House and the Senate kind of overlapped. So Dan Patrick released this second round of interim terms the same day, actually, that Dustin Burroughs announced the ones for the lower chamber. And like you said, Dustin Burroughs used 53 pages to appoint these specific duties out of various committees. And then Patrick's list, the second list, was about 19 pages, although like I said, there might be more coming in the future. So these are really just interesting to look at because these are going to define to kind of how the lawmakers are, you know, focusing on the different topics leading up to the 90th legislative session. They have these leadership designated focuses now.

So they're very interesting to look at to kind of get an idea of what the lawmakers will be working on and what the session might kind of shape out to be the 90th legislative session. Something I put in this piece were some comments from both Patrick and Burroughs, which I feel as though gave a good insight into how they were viewing these interim charges as they were releasing them. So Patrick said, the Senate and I will work energetically to advance the priorities of Texas's conservative majority. And then on the other hand, Borough said, following a legislative session defined by historic solutions,

it is critical the Texas House remains engaged in thoughtful policymaking and oversight as our states continue to grow in advance. And he mentions it here, but oversight was a really big emphasis for the House. He put in, for each of the, almost all of the committees, they were charged with overseeing the various agencies that are relevant to that committee. and ensuring that waste, fraud, and abuse are not occurring, and then identifying ways to minimize that if it is occurring in those difference to agencies.

When it comes to AI, they both addressed AI, which, of course, is just such a huge topic right now as it just progresses. The House took a little bit more of a positive stance in the AI-related charges in this list, focused a little bit more on how AI, how this technology can be used in different fields. they mentioned medicine and law and asking lawmakers to kind of identify how AI could be used in these different practices for the good of the practices, how AI could be applied within law and health care. The Senate, on the other hand, charged its Economic Development Committee with, quote, preparing the Texas workforce for AI. and that included instructions for them to look into what it might look like adopting these technologies in different industries, and then also kind of evaluating the impact that using AI in these industries will affect economic competitiveness, and then asset lawmakers will go ahead and make recommendations to ensure that Texas's economic workforce remains in the lead for both growth and opportunities.

So kind of identifying how AI could be used. but also keeping an eye out for how to make sure that the workforce is benefiting positively from this here. Another really hot topic that was addressed is data centers. They both address these in their own ways, but data centers are just growing and both scale and demand. And the house really honed in on the impact of data centers in the areas that have a lot of water poverty, so they're struggling with water. And the Senate did reference that as well, asking the members to make sure that we're balancing

the growth of data centers with landowners' rights and then, quote, water infrastructure and community integrity. So they both kind of addressed that there in their own ways. There were a couple social issues, which I find particularly interesting addressed by either chamber. The Senate had a very notable charge that wasn't included by the House, which addressed the surrogacy industry.

Members of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services were asked to examine, quote, the unethical and foreign interest exploiting the surrogacy and fertility industries in Texas. So it's pretty significant, and it'll be interesting to see that topic unfold in the next legislative session. On the House's side,

they did acknowledge one pretty hot button social issue related to gender modification of minors, but specifically the health care liability that's involved in those procedures. And that's a topic we've been covering recently because there's a lawsuit that's pending currently in the Texas Supreme Court on that issue related to health care liability involved

with the health care providers who helps somebody get gender modification procedures, treatments, and then if that individual and so regretting it or experiences adverse results, just the liability of those health care providers involved in that in the statute of limitations. Abortion was not mentioned in the House's charges, staying on the line of social issues, but the Senate did instruct its State Affairs Committee to continue to study chemical abortion pills being shipped into Texas. It described it as the threat of those pills being shipped into Texas, and then also asked that the legislation

that was passed during the last session to crack down on the providers, the distributors, a chemical abortion pills into Texas to make sure that that bill is monitored and to kind of keep an eye on the implementation of that. And that was a theme that we saw in both the Senate's interim charges in the houses, identifying some key pieces of legislation, which were passed during the last session and asking members to monitor how they're being implemented and what are some maybe holes that were missed when the bills were crafted that need to be addressed. Another interesting aspect of these interim charges was related to property tax plans or just general tax plan. Patrick laid out a very specific tax plan, what she's calling

Operation Double Nickel. And then the House took a little bit of a different approach, charging members to study the issue of property taxes, and also just study the possibility of significantly increasing the homestead and business personal property tax exemptions. So instead of a very clear policy that they'd be studying, it was more so studying the overall issue of property taxes. Patrick's plan, which is a bit at odds with Governor Greg Abbott's, would lower the age to qualify for senior homestead exemption. And within his charge, he mentions that, and says, quote, that the change would freeze home values 10 years sooner for over 3 million homeowners,

saving 55 plus homeowners, thousands of additional dollars. So he kind of inserted in there that he believes that this is definitely going to be a good plan, that this is so kind of a very clear policy that he wants to move forward on as compared to the House, which will be more so studying the topic overall. Another aspect of these interim charges that I'll mention is Patrick established a new committee. Burroughs also established three new select committees, but this one established by Patrick, the Senate Select Committee on Religious Liberty was particularly notable because he has been chairing President Donald Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, which has been in the news quite a lot recently.

So he's been serving in that commission at the federal level, but he's now established this one for the Texas Senate. And then Burroughs, of course, like I mentioned, established three new committees. So this is, of course, just like I said, very interesting because it's defining what the lawmakers are going to kind of be honing in on leading up to the 90th legislative session. and it shows that, you know, we've got the Senate kind of delving to more, or the House, excuse me, delving to more detailed research on developing policy, and then the Senate a little bit more aimed at addressing hot-button political and ideological issues, and they already have some policy frameworks kind of already determined. So there's some interesting differences, but also a lot of overlap, of course.

So it'll be very fascinating to watch this. unfold and see how the lawmakers go about addressing these charges. Absolutely. I think property taxes were primed for a fight on property taxes between the chambers. So that will be interesting to watch. I mean, the House, even though they are saying, yes, we're kind of taking a step back. Let's study what approach might be the best. I think that it's fair to say that the governor in the House have kind of been a little bit more in lockstep in terms of their approach to tackling this issue. So we'll be interested to see. And of course, Patrick has made it very clear his approach and how much it differs from the governor. And I mean, I think back to the, you know, THC debacle of last cycle and the incredible odds at which the governor and Patrick were at.

And, you know, this kind of being the new issue and the new front of which we'll see them kind of go at it, which is a new thing for the governor and to the governor to be this at odds over policy issues. So we'll keep an eye on that. And I think, you know, just for clarity, interim charges are really just kind of like Mary-Lise was saying, topics in which the leaders of the chambers are tasking their members with researching ahead of the sessions that legislation can be prepared. And, you know, all the approaches during the session can be thoughtfully done. It's very interesting to watch this, kind of see where the focus will be

and how legislation will be filed come sessions beginning. So Mary Lise, thank you for your coverage. go read all of her work there at the Texan. Meredith, let's come to you. Let's keep talking interim charges. Let's talk about education. This is always, always, always going to be one of the major issues focused on by the legislature in each session. Walk us through a little bit of a deeper dive of what each chamber is looking at in terms of education this cycle. Yeah, so both of the chambers had, you know, overlap and then chamber specific focuses that they were going towards. And it goes right in line with what Mary Elise was saying of the Senate, having a more

like some broader like lifestyle cultural ideas and obviously I clear like a shorter actual document and then the house was a little bit more detailed and logistical and some of the things that they want people to be looking into. So both of the groups are going to be focusing on monitoring some laws that were passed last session specifically HB2 which talks about teacher pay, the retention allotment with trying to retain teachers by trying to pay them more. It was a huge bill that was passed last legislative session. Also, they both talk about SB2, which relates to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts, which just ended the extended student application on Tuesday. And so that's just going to be an ongoing continual constant thing in the future. They both talked about the

teacher pipeline oversight for how to retain teachers, how to develop them. That is, how do you get the best talent. How do you make sure that they are on track to, you know, become leaders of the schools and things like that? They both also discussed over, um, oversight of TEA and the State Board of Education and monitoring the TIFA program as well. So the House, um, whose chair is Brad Buckley, brought up a couple of bills that the Senate did not. One of them was HB8, which had to do a testing, ratings, accountability, just evaluating like, are these performance systems that we're using? Are they effective? Are they working? Do we want to keep using them? Do we need to change them? They also talked about the cell phone band, which had gone into effect during the school year and monitoring that. So they'll be

kind of re-looking back at the last, the rollout, how it worked in different districts and things like that. So the house had a couple of things that stood out. And one was that they talked about specifically, like really focusing as a main priority on middle school outcomes. And so they're seeing that there is something happening in middle school. and they want to be preparing students to go to high school. You know, what is the coursework? What are the supports and interventions for students at that age group specifically? So I'm really interested in what that will look like and what kind of legislation can come out of that.

They talked about special education, which kind of is pushing me down a rabbit hole, which I won't get into, but that I'm very interested in about it. Just the rise of a special education nationwide and specifically in Texas is huge. So it's risen 72% since 2017-18. And then it was, at that time, it was like 498,000 students to now 857,000 students that are classified as special ed. So the house is like, we want to look at the funding impact policies of this. Are these students being prepared for the workforce,

transitioning to adulthood, things like that? So I'm excited to see what they're going to talk about with that. And then the house just mentioned pretty quickly the role of AI and the emerging classroom, but they're the only one, they're the group that brought that up. So that's a huge topic in, well, the world, obviously, everyone. But with education specifically, it's like, what are we going to do about this? How is this going to work? Even educational technology in the classroom is starting to be critiqued from different sides.

And they also, the House also mentioned closing the rural pay gap when it comes to teachers. And so that is something that they have cited as an issue that they want to look into. So the Senate had this, you know, more ideological, heavy focus. Donna Campbell is the chair of that committee. Before it was K through 16, and so they have split it up into a K-12 public education and then a higher education group. And Brandon Creighton was formerly the chair of that. And so Patrick has assigned Donna Campbell to fill this vacancy for the 2026 interim. And so they, there are bills that they focused on were the more cultural ones the SB 12 parental bill of rights monitoring the DEI ban the social transitioning things like that they mentioned those issues and they also talked about

SB 13 which was student parent access to student library like library checkout and what they're doing with library books approving books for the catalog things like that and they also wanted to focus on declining enrollment patterns those were kind of their legislative things I wanted to look at. They also had a couple standouts of reviewing like schedules for schools and they specifically talked about 40 schedules, 40 school weeks, hybrid academic systems, just like, are we maximizing instructional time? Are there other ways to go about this? And they want to really look into that. So yeah, kind of tracks with what the general idea of both is, as a set, it is looking more into the social issues. The house is more focused on kind of the technical side of

what's happening in schools in the everyday life. So we'll see how they all discuss that and how it all balances out. Absolutely. Meredith. Thank you. Holly, also, you mentioned your newsletter. Folks, go subscribe to the text and get report card in your inbox. We appreciate that, Meredith. Holly, coming to you here, let's, you know, the never-addle moment in Harris County. Let's talk about the rodeo. We've talked about it before. Let's talk about it again. What's the update here? Yeah, rodeo gate. And just to refresh everyone's memories. Lena Hidalgo, the chief executive of Harris County, so she's the county judge. And for those who are uninformed about how this works, she's actually, doesn't have a judicial function. She's that

chief executive, kind of like a mayor of the county. So Lena Hidalgo has much been in the news. She's a nationally known figure. She's been in vogue and all new things was a rising superstar of the Democratic Party. But especially in her second term, she's exhibited. some kind of erratic and difficult behavior for the public, we'll say, it would kind of be an understatement. And in this latest incident, had gone to the rodeo for a concert and had been told that she could not access this VIP area and she tried to anyways along with her guest.

And there was a big exchange with rodeo officials, after which she accused him of manhandling her when she was really, removed from the vicinity because she was being disruptive. And so what happened at Commissioner's Court, one of the commissioners, a Republican by the name of Tom Ramsey, introduced a resolution honoring the rodeo for all they do, which they provide tremendous amounts of scholarships. And it's, you know, it's a pretty big deal. Houstonians would say it's a bigger deal than the state fair, but, you know, we'll let somebody else fight that out. But he wanted to, you know, honor the rodeo, but he also had a paragraph condemning Lena Hidalgo's behavior,

saying it had brought yet again embarrassment to Harris County and the people of Harris County, and it was disrespectful to the rodeo officials who had to take their time out to address this issue. And he called for her, said, you know, basically these are grounds for resignation, and called for her at minimum to apologize for the incident. Now, Lena Hidalgo has not been attending commissioners' court meetings. So she wasn't there the first time he introduced this resolution. That was at one of their regular meetings. And Tom Ramsey couldn't get one of the other Democratic commissioners to second his motion.

They told him he could bring it back this week. And he did that on Tuesday of this week. And he, you know, kind of ran up against the, two other Democratic commissioners that were there, Rodney Ellis and Leslie Breonna said that, you know, while they agreed with honoring the rodeo, they could not support the part about condemning Lena Hidalgo's behavior. And Brionas actually had some pretty thoughtful comments.

She said that, you know, she agrees with the sentiment. She thinks, you know, bad behavior and bad manners need to be called out. But she said the right way to deal with that is basically at the ballot box. And if people don't want Lena Hidal going on, office, then they need to go to the ballot box. Well, Lena Hidalgo is not running for re-elections, so she'll be leaving office at the end of this year regardless. Rodney Ellis also said, you know, he didn't support it and suggested instead that they include a pairing measure, also condemning President Donald Trump and calling on him to resign over what Rodney Ellis said is bad behavior,

and he cited multiple examples. Ultimately, they dropped the language condemning Lena Hidalgo and passed just the resolution honoring the rodeo. Tom Ramsey didn't vote for that. He really wanted to make an issue of Lena Hidalgo's behavior and what's going on there. And there have been a lot of elected officials and local personalities calling for Lena Hidalgo to resign. Not so much just out of bad manners, but concerns over. her increasingly erratic behavior. She did take a leave of absence for a while to seek inpatient treatment for severe depression and mental health issues. And so there is a concern there.

And she does preside over emergency operations for all of Harris County with its 4.7, 4.8 million people. So that is what a lot of people are expressing concern about. She went on a radio interview this week, I'm sorry, a TV interview this week and defended her actions. She said people were mischaracterizing her behavior at the rodeo and left it at that. But ultimately, you know, she wasn't able to verify her side of the story even with the surveillance video from the rodeo. One interesting tidbit that kind of came out in some text messages that were published by another outlet this week is that one of the people with Lena Hidalgo that night was Commissioner Rodney Ellis's wife, a woman by the name of

Lisa Green, who's been his longtime wife. And so some are speculating that's, you know, maybe why Ellis didn't want to jump on that bandwagon. But yeah, so the saga of Lena Hidalgo continues in Harris County, at least for the rest of this year. And oftentimes I feel like criticism levied at her can be partisan, right? It is certainly divided based on party oftentimes. And this time it's needed a little bit more broadly based. It's a very different, you know, a different approach.

And you go up against the rodeo and you're going to make a lot of people angry here. The rodeo is a beloved institution. This is a very different, very different thing that we have going on here. Yeah, a whole different set of constituents there are now upset with Lena Hidalgo. But, you know, it's, it is what it is. It's like, don't mess with Texas. Rodeo. Yeah.

Don't mess with the Houston Rodeo. I'm curious, maybe we should do, maybe that's my poll for the newsletter this week is the state fair versus Houston Rodeo, which one is a little bit more? I think that's a great idea.

I think there's a clear answer, yeah. What's your answer, Mary Elise? Oh, Houston Lifesawks Show and Rodeo for sure. See, she even said the real name. That's right. That's right. That's good. And it's a big deal.

So interesting to you, the dynamics have changed a little bit with some different kind of concerts. Everybody thinks of, you know, George Strait at the Houston Rodeo. But there's a lot of these, you know, pop artists, rap artists, just all different genres of music. And those concerts are a really big draw and a big deal there. It's kind of like how big of an artist can you get they'll be at the rodeo. Like they can get just about anybody. Absolutely. When I first moved to Houston and went to the rodeo, I was just a lot of,

so surprised at the diversity of people wearing cowboy boots and cowboy hats. I just had a thought in my mind of like a typical Texan and it was just such a random group of people. And I embarrassingly, now I know this, I was wearing a pair of writing boots that I had bought at a thrift store and I thought they were cowboy. I didn't know. And I wore them and later I was like, oh my gosh, Meredith, that you had no idea. I do have rid. They did have to impose a dress code this year because of some of, how should we say, a very provocative dress that left very little to the imagination. So that was a change this year. We share that in laughing, Kim was like, I hope that's not put, like, or she said, I hope that applies to pajamas, which was a whole other office debate.

This is a whole other realm of inappropriate attire. It's so true. I would prefer pajamas to some of the things I've seen at the Houston or some of these rodeos. pajamas are okay as long as I want to see most of someone's birthday suit. It's not what I love. There you go. I love it. Well, Holly, thank you for your coverage. Meredith, let's come to you here. Let's talk about Dallas ISD and Universal Pre-K, walk us through what happened locally this week. Yeah, so Dallas ISD voted unanimously. They did have one trustee not present. So it was an 8 to 0 vote to approve tuition-free, full-day, pre-K for all three and four-year-olds, effective in the fall. So the reason that this is a big deal is

because there's only a few districts that are offering this in such a widespread open, open enrollment for anyone in the district to have this free service offered to them. So the Texas Education Code says that free pre-K eligibility for students three and up would be, like there's a list of things that include like cannot speak or understand English, educationally disadvantaged, homeless. they talk about service members and foster care and children of service members. So there's a lot of things that can help you qualify for getting free pre-K. Usually the requirements are if there's 15 or more students that are four years old in a district, they have to offer one of their free, they have to create like a free pre-K classroom or program

that is full day. It's optional if there are qualifying children that are three years old, that they could have a half day, but that is not required by law. And so typically what happens is districts have the flexibility that once they have the amount of students that qualify for the free program, if there are other students that would like to be a part of it, they can charge tuition if you're not eligible. And they can use district funds, they can or charge tuition. And so the tuition under the law has to not exceed the cost that it would be to run that. So it's not something that they can jack the price is super high and have this crazy competition. It has to be within. a reasonable amount, but they do leave that up to the district. So a couple of examples right now for districts are like, Fort Bend ISD, for example, it is about $6,600 a year for pre-K-4 class if you were paying tuition for that. Leander ISD broke it down monthly 325 a month for pre-K-3, 650 a month for pre-K-4. And there are a couple of districts that are Dallas ID, Dallas,

ISD has joined, including Arlington and McAllen, Lake Dallas, that offer some kind of free pre-K to anyone. And so Arlington and McAllen give free pre-K for all students in the district, but only for the four-year-olds. And then Lake Dallas does both. So it's a small group of districts, but it is starting to grow. And the Texas Education Freedom accounts has a huge demand in the pre-K area and section. That was the group that actually had the highest amount of applicants. And so at the time of reporting, it was about more than 32,000 students were pre-K students that were applying. That was when it was like 30,000 applicants ago. So we'll get some updated numbers coming, but it was the largest group that wanted to be able to access those funds.

The superintendent in Dallas, Elizabeth Elizalde, she talked about how just managing the cost of these tuition payments is even more than the revenue it was generating. And so to them, they wanted to open and expand it. And although she said they did talk about this idea before the TIFA program came into being, she did want to, she's hopeful that it will kind of like entice or bring other students and keep them in the district and that Dallas ISD wouldn't lose as many, as many families to the TIFA program. So we'll see. Like I said, I keep saying we'll see. But this TIFA program, as it's being rolled out in real time and it's going to continue, it'll be very interesting to see actually how many students it takes from different districts in different categories and who's affected the most.

And so we'll see, yeah, are more people going to be offering free pre-K to try to get people to come into the district and stay in the district after that. Yeah, absolutely. We'll keep an eye on. It means something that's been attended at the state level years ago. And so watching it at a local level kind of make us with the process is always fascinating. So, Meredith, thank you so much for covering that for us. Holly, let's talk to you about some legal action having to do with Houston.

the Houston area affordable housing. This is kind of a saga you've been following for a little while. It was an update. Sure. So I've been following this, as you said, for years now. And this is all about a housing project built in Houston. It's a new construction. It was meant to replace an old housing project that had been flooded in Hurricane Harvey and then was declared to be demolished so they could do an I-45 expansion project.

So they had to find a new location for these people. And this is, you know, you're seriously poor people who really have no choice about where they live because they are government dependents. So the city, years ago, arranged to buy this piece of property. And, you know, long story short, they knew at the time of the sale that it is adjacent to contaminated land if the land itself is not contaminated. So it sits next to a former city incinerator and ash dump, a former lead battery recycling facility. There's an active lead smelter still operating in the area.

And some of the property is separated from these contaminated areas by just a fence. And so the city was going to move these families in here. They've already opened it up. It was halted multiple times when Houston mayor. John Whitmire came into office. He halted it. The TCEQ has been involved, and they did find, you know, toxic materials on the adjacent land, including carcinogens and lead.

And, you know, there's just a lot of problems around here. But some of the activists were still upset about what's going on here and how this could play out in the long term have now sued the U.S. Department of housing and urban development because they gave the green light for this. Everything had to go through them and be approved by them. And what this lawsuit points out is that this property appears to violate HUD's own rules about where you can put this kind of housing, the Section 8 housing. It says that it cannot be in the vicinity of a known contaminated area.

And there's a lot of restrictions. that's probably the easiest part of this to understand. There is a second part that these activists have sued over, and this gets a little more complicated. But early in the negotiations for the sale of this land, the city of Houston's housing department, it used to be called the Houston Housing Authority. They've given it kind of a jazzy new name

and an attempt to kind of rebrand over bad publicity, I think. but the Houston Housing Authority had paid the property owner, which you call earnest money, for lack of a better term, it's non-refundable, and it violates the federal rules because the federal rules say you can't pay non-refundable money on this property before it's been approved for this purpose. It's something they call choice limiting. So it limits the ability of the housing authority to find a more appropriate.

appropriate site because they've already paid a couple million dollars to the property owner. And HUD knew that that had happened when they approved the project going forward and did not do anything to discipline. The whole lawsuit really brings up a lot of questions about, you know, who approved the sale? Why was the Houston Housing Authority just so sure that they had to buy this piece of property, knowing that it had to all. all of these environmental issues, when the plaintiffs in this lawsuit say there were other properties that met the criteria. They were close enough to the former housing project to still accommodate the people that

had to live there, closer to a grocery store, had better traffic and parking and so forth. So this was filed in federal court. You know, it's really hard to sue a federal agency, but they, are looking to move forward with that and are asking for an injunction to stop letting residents occupy this particular piece of property until this can all be resolved. It does, you know, create new headaches for the city of Houston, which has already sunk quite a bit of money into this project. And some of that, of course, you know, is taxpayer dollars and will continue to be taxpayer dollars. But it really is just an incredible story. And there are a lot of questions

about who and why and why this property and not another. Well, if you're interested in this debacle, which you should be, go and read all that Lee Hanson's reporting. It's been a longstanding story of hers. Well, I think you're covering it so thoroughly for our readers. Okay, Meredith coming to you here. Let's talk about humble eyes. students recently took a field trip to a Spanish Islamic center. Tell us more what happened with the situation. So 30 plus high school students from Umba ISD from Kingwood High School and Ataskaseda High School visited something, a place called Centro Islamica, which is run by a group called Islam in Spanish. This happened on February 17th, but they put out a video a little bit more

recently that showed an umbil ISD bus dropping the students off at the center and it came out that this field trip took place during the school day so they left says on one of an instagram for the Muslim student association for kingwood high school that they left after second period and returned at about 3.45 p.m. So majority of the school day was spent on this field trip. They got lunch at a halal food truck. They had a midday prayer, a tour and then different presentations from speakers from the group Islam in Spanish. They posted on there on Instagram that they said that we will have scarves, obviously talking about head coverings for women.

And they said it won't count towards the districts for absence exemption rules. So students have things they have to meet if they want to be exempted from their final exam. So it's a school approved absence that they were going on. And so the video was titled, 30 plus students visited a mosque and left changed. It was made by the group Islam and Spanish. and they just talked about how they were excited to have an opportunity to speak with the general community about Islam, that this group was mixed, Muslims and people from other faith, and it really highlighted that the teachers wanted to show the students a different side of Islam.

They saw it as an opportunity the group did. They said specifically to wipe away many misinformation and stereotypes. So in the video they talked that they shared with the students like what Islam is, how it impacted their lives, the center in particular, and that's the same. and that they were really excited that these students would have a hopefully positive situation that they could go back to their friends and family and share about what they learned about Islam. On their website, Islam and Spanish lists some of their partners, which are included the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, things like Islamic Medical Association of North America.

They have worked with Rice University in the past, so they wrote about that. And then they also had the East Plano Islamic Center, or Epic, which is the organization that, Because you've probably heard Epic or Epic City. It's the group that initiated the development of the Meadow, which was formerly known as Epic City, the Islamic Residential Development. So on their website, they described their partnership with them, and they said that they were a very multi-ethnic and racial open community, they said, committed to the full and equal participation involvement of men and women who are community members of Epic and subscribe to its rules, its regulations, and procedures. So the meadow is this housing development that was designed to meet the developing needs of, or the evolving needs of the Muslim community.

It's come under scrutiny by Texas lawmakers, federal agencies. It's projected to be over 400 acres with plans for more than a thousand homes, a mosque, private schools, businesses, and things like that. And just recently, when we have coverage of all of this on the Texan, Hunt County denied it. an approval for the Platt application for the proposed subdivision. We know that Attorney General Ken Paxton has investigated them. Abbott has announced an investigation last year. The DOJ reviewed them, then closed an investigation, and then the housing and urban development also open an investigation in February. So they're, like I said, all of that's covered on the Texan, if you're interested in the ongoing coverage that we have of the Meadow or Epic City. Another thing that the Muslim Student

Association posted on their Instagram was that a representative from CAREFRA, Houston had come and spoken to the students as well, where they, quote, the students said they learned about their, quote, rights as Muslim students and allies. And we also know and have coverage that Governor Abbott has designated care and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorists and transnational criminal organizations. So this isn't the only school day approved absence that the students, you know, them doing these types of activities during the school day. They have another, things they've listed on their Instagram would be they had a prayer time during during the school day that was designated for them. A couple of years in a row did a hijab social where students and teachers tried on head

coverings and that was during the school day. And then they also had another field trip where they went to like an Islamic sort of sermon and prayer that was also excused as well. So Islam in Texas is this growing concern for mainly Republican lawmakers. We've seen the formation of Sharia Free Texas Caucus, these legal disputes that are going on with the Texas education, freedom accounts with Muslim schools. And so this just adds to some additional information of what's going on in public schools when it comes to Islam. Yeah. It's absolutely a huge story statewide, nationally, but in Texas we're seeing a Republican lawmakers

really engaged in this issue. So we'll continue to keep an eye on this. Meredith, thanks for homing in on that for us. Mary Elise, let's come to you. let's talk about a Texas meeting who recently pleaded guilty in a case involving an online a child exploitation network crazy story tragic story give us the details yeah this story definitely has some disturbing details so um you're forewarned but this is a texas man who's pleaded guilty um to his participation in this expansive child sexual abuse network um and this is after he was

named in a federal indictment while he's already serving out a sentence for child rape. So this is 26-year-old Caleb Christopher Merritt. He's originally from Spring, Texas. So he pleaded guilty to account regarding his involvement from the years 2019 to 2022 in Colt. So it's pronounced Colt. It's spelled C-V-L-T.

This is a group that operates online, essentially to seduce children into creating sexual content, specifically child sexual abuse. material, CSAM, and then sadistic material. The methods that the organization has are very disturbing. They specifically target young girls but minors overall, and they expose them to different ideologies, including pedophilia, which is the United States Department of Justice was alleging this, and then they manipulate the children through various methods to then produce sexual content.

This group first began on the messenger platform, and then later they expanded to Instagram, Discord, and Telegram. Merit, the individual who's pleaded guilty, had usernames including ETER or 09A.Eval, which have some references to some satanic cults. So he was described as having risen to the rank of an administrator in this group in cult. The DOJ was alleging that the purpose of this group's child exploitation was to establish an army of sadist followers. They said that Colt espoused neo-Nazism, nihilism, and pedophilia as its core principles, among others, and exposed children to material depicting and promoting these principles.

There's other details in here about what the child victims were allegedly exposed to. there were several other defendants who were also within leadership roles in Colt. They already had pleaded guilty and they're in federal custody as they're awaiting that final sentencing. There's at least five minors combined to believe, who are believed to have been harmed by Merritt, the man from Texas, and then the other members. So he officially Merritt pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise. as did the defendants that I just mentioned there. He was previously convicted, as I mentioned earlier,

of committing sexual abuse of children in 2020 and 2021 and Virginia. And for that, he's been serving a 33-year prison sentence after being originally arrested in the winter 2021. He's now being held in federal custody in Los Angeles as he's awaiting his sentencing, which will happen in 2027, for his cult activity, and he was charged for that while he was in custody in 2025. So his sentence will be at minimum 20 years in federal prison, and then there's a possibility of a statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment. So that'll happen in 2027. He'll see

what his fate is there. So definitely a disturbing story. I think you can all agree, but you can go check it out at the texan.com news for some more details on this case and what exactly he's pleading guilty too. Really, thank you for your coverage. Meredith, let's come to you here. Talk about the Johnson County Sheriff. This is interesting story. Indicted for a second time with an aggravated perjury charge

in an ongoing sexual harassment case. Walk us through the latest update. Yes, this has been going on since August last year. And so I'm going to try to run through it as quickly and uncount, like, simply as possible just because a lot of things have happened. So the Johnson County Sheriff, Adam King, this is an overview of what he has been charged with. He's been allegedly sexually harassing multiple female employees with unwelcome sexual advances, comments about their appearance, weight, clothing, body parts, allegedly threatened an employee

and tried to find her home address and also allegedly threatened a chief deputy who cooperated for cooperating with the Texas rangers. So that's the background. It's pretty messy and some serious accusations there. So in August, the sheriff turns himself into the Texas Rangers. He goes on a voluntary administrative leave. In September, he loses his license with the Texas Commission on law enforcement was suspended. And then in October, he had one more charge added, which was the initial aggravated

perjury charge. And so that brought it up to four. And so he pled not guilty to all of them. And in October, the allegation with the aggravated perjury charge was that he lied under oath about changing the work schedule of his accuser, saying that he had no idea about that. He didn't do that. But then there was witnesses that said he said that those were his intentions, sort of in like a retaliatory way. So on October, he is, even after he pleads guilty and he's immediately allowed to return to work after Judge John Weeks changed the conditions of his release

and lets him go back to work for three days a week in the office, 10 to 4. And there's so many restrictions on him being in the office. He's prohibited from contacting seven different witnesses except through a specific captain. And then he has to have a chaperone during work. hours. He has to submit to drug and alcohol testing, can't access GPS or tracking tools. He can't conduct background checks on county employees. So he is restricted from many things, but he is back in the office with his accusers. So in November, District Attorney Tim Good requests a legal opinion from

Paxton asking, like, is he eligible to serve as a sheriff? He doesn't have this peace officer license. And, you know, in the Texas Local Governance Code, it says that you have to have that as a requirement. And so Paxson declines to issue any kind of formal opinion citing the pending litigation that's going on and said that one can be requested after the case has concluded. So in December, that initial aggravated perjury charge is dismissed because they said that it was secured illegally. The sheriff's attorney said, you know, it was dismissed because the same grand jury that heard his alleged false testimony is the one that brought that information forward. and if it was done by a second grand jury, he potentially could be recharged for it. He was also later in December,

a Texas ranger came out and accused him of violating his bond conditions. You know, he went to the restroom without a chaperone. Sorry, I'm laughing just because the chaperone part is something you hear with children, but he went to the restroom without a chaperone. He appeared to make contact with employees. He wasn't supposed to be contacting. He allegedly appeared to be at an unauthorized meeting, those kind of things. And just saying like these employees that work with him are scared.

They're nervous about being, at work with someone around facilities. So the judge does not allow him to continue working and tells him, tells the sheriff like this is your first and last warning. So fast forward to last week, March 25th, he's indicted on that second aggravated perjury charge. They're able to come back and they did it in the legal technical way where they were able to bring back the same charge.

And so King, his statement about all of this, he said, you know, as you know, the previous case was dismissed as being illegal and an awful indictment. And he said, you know, this is just more of the same and it's all laughable, petty, and unprofessional. So he has a trial that is set for May 18th. It was moved up quite a bit. And so we'll just be watching and see what happens with all of these allegations and with this interesting work environment situation that has taken place in Johnson County. at the least Meredith, thank you. Let's go on to our tweeterie section, ladies, and I think it's just going to be Meredith Mary Elise and I, Holly had to skiddle,

but I think we all want to talk about the same thing here. Where do we even begin? Maryleast, we will start with you. Okay, so we're sending, I really wish this was getting more attention and people were more excited about it. And I have a theory about why people

aren't quite as excited. I think that we're able to consume a lot more of concurrent events. than we were able to before. But we're sending humans back to the moon, although they won't be on the moon. Artemis II launched yesterday, and they're planning to do a route around the moon,

if I'm not incorrect. They won't be landing. So this is pretty exciting. It launched yesterday evening. The launch looked just incredible from even just a live stream. And yeah, just fascinating to see this happening. I mean, it's the first time in over 50 years that we've sent humans this far. So pretty wild.

I know Meredith, you want to talk about it too. Yeah, just some of the, I haven't, this is where it is true. I'm guilty of not following it in the way that we would have, you know, back when the last one happened, just because we have so much stuff. Kids nowadays have seen videos of rockets and, you know, Elon Musk's, you know, landing rockets, things that are so impressive that we could only have imagined the last time that we went to the moon. But one was the Washington monument, like projected lights on itself that looked like the moon rocket. And someone had said, have we ever done that before?

And I don't remember seeing anything projected on the Washington Monument. It was a really cute, cool picture. I thought that was creative. And then also someone had recorded it from an airplane. And I thought that that was also very interesting. So it is cool. as much as there's like the double-edged sword of technology that maybe were numb to these things, they're like, okay, I mean, we've all, at this point, the percentage of people that have been

using airplanes so frequently, seeing all kinds of videos of things that are pretty amazing. But we also do get to see things that we never would have seen before and from different angles and different perspectives of how everyone's appreciating it. So, yeah, it's so true. The access we have almost makes it almost makes us numb to these kinds of things of time where we like have everything at our fingertips. And I mean, I think it would be fair to say that if this was, if we were in a different world or this is happening a little, even a decade ago, everyone would have been tuned in to watch the actual launch. But I was guilty of this too. We were on a walk outside and I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot that the launch is happening right now. Like I'm not even home to watch it.

But it's okay. I'll watch it later. which would not have been an option, you know, in the same way that it is now. So, but it is fascinating. And I haven't gone down the rabbit hole yet, but I know y'all are the same way like, I'm a rabbit hole person. I want to go read everything about it. I want to like get to know.

Even yesterday I had on for, it was not very long because work just kind of took over. But I was like, I mean, in the background, I'll have some of this like, pre-roll information about the mission to kind of just listen as I'm going about my work day. That did not work. and I was not able to focus on it. But I haven't gone on the rabbit hole, but I plan to. I plan to go down the rabbit hole and kind of engage in all of it. Yeah, Meredith.

I definitely miss the communal experience. And I know that even like in our generations, we didn't experience as much as our parents did. But like, I mean, 9-11, I think was one of the last like big communal experiences pre all of, you know, so everyone kind of like glued on the TV to watch the same thing at the same time. But I think that on the movies, when there's anything space related or the moon landing or they're all like everyone's sitting at the TV, everyone's like, you know, they're all, you know, everyone at the exact same time was watching the same thing. I think that that's really cool. And it does. It kind of makes you a little sad that's gone. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And like, where were you when? Right. Where were you when this happened? And I think we've we've lost a little bit of that. I think the exception would be for tragic events or it's not planned like a long. like that, like 9-11, I think falls into that category. But we really don't have that same, I don't know, reverence for big events that we use. Look at us all talking as if we're old timers. But we're kind of getting, we kind of are old timers, at least me and Meredith are.

I feel like I straddled the, you know, millennials, they talk about who we straddled the both world. So we've seen them both. But yeah, I agree. We're getting old. I agree. We're getting old. I know. Really just like, yeah, me too. No, you don't count dear. Yeah. Totally. You don't count. Not quite. Is there anything specific about this launch that y'all are like specifically interested in? I mean, aside from the historic nature of it and it being the first time in, you know, 50 plus years that we've said people, like, explain, give me a tidbit that I can kind of hold on to.

Well, something that, I don't know if this answers your question, but something that I've enjoyed seeing is that, There is, for the excitement that is out there, the excitement's very much bipartisan, and that's super refreshing, especially when you work in politics. There were some Democratic Congress members, like came out with Republicans, and they're all just pumped and kind of, you see like that patriotism, like they're proud of their country together, because this is something that, you know, if people are excited about it, it doesn't matter which party's ruling at the time. it's just exciting that we can send it a rocket up that far that we're going to the moon. I mean, it's wild. Or going to the moon. That's so crazy. Like, we can say so flippantly in some ways.

What about you, Meredith? I don't know if I have a specific one. I do feel like I fall into the same category where I'm like, I need to go. Down the rabbit hole. I've seen so many things. I'm like, okay, I need to like listen to that, listen to that, listen to that. I am curious. It was like really sweet to see some of the, like, one of them was a dad, his daughters,

and some of those interactions. I'm just curious once they get up there, like the messages they'll send down, which will be way easier to access and what they'll say about their experience. And yeah, I'm curious. I love it. I mean, I don't even know when they're coming,

like, expected to come back. I don't even know how long it takes to get. Like, I just have done zero research. So I need to go up there. I'm part of the problem, ladies. I'm part of the problem list. Okay, do you think they are supposed to come back in 10 days? Okay.

there you go 10 days I don't know if that's longer shorter than I'm expected for a trip to the moon but it feels it feels right yeah you know yeah I don't know doing the math there I should probably do the math on how many millions of miles that is yeah I wonder I guess

I wonder how long it will take for them to get to the moon I heard something like six days to get there okay and like the descent is I know the descent's easier I think in some ways or faster that's probably why it would take less time maybe easier is not the right word but maybe faster. More efficient. More efficient in some way.

Okay, ladies, well, I think that wraps up our podcast, folks. Thanks for listening to another edition of the Weekly Roundup, and we will catch you on next week's episode. 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 the Texan. News.

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