The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 30, 2021

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

On this week’s “Weekly Roundup”, our team discusses the governor’s position on constitutional carry, census numbers and how they’ll affect Texas’s congressional districts, a proposal addressing critical race theory, the Texas House reevaluating its mask requirement, homeless policy comparisons, a local official chiding the president’s border policies, two Texans receiving nominations from the Biden administration, the challenges facing broadband expansion, and two lawsuits from state officials.

Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here, Senior Editor at The Texan. On this week's Weekly Roundup podcast, our team gives updates on the governor's position on constitutional carry, the latest census numbers and how they'll affect Texas's congressional districts, a proposal addressing critical race theory making its way through the legislature, the Texas House re-evaluating its mask requirement, homeless policy and number comparisons in Texas's biggest cities, a local official chiding the president's border policies. Two Texans receiving nominations from the Biden administration. The challenges facing broadband expansion in the state.

And two new lawsuits from state officials, one from the attorney general and one from the agricultural commissioner. Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Isaiah Mitchell, Hayden Sparks, and Brad Johnson. We have all sorts of things to talk about today. And I also want to note that today we're recording on April 29th is the second anniversary of the Texans. So congrats guys for sticking it out. I know we're two years old. We are entering the terrific twos is what I've been told. But on that note, let's go ahead and get into the news daniel we're going to start with you the governor made waves this week after he specifically

talked about a bill that a lot of republican activists in the state care very deeply about as we can tell by you know numbers as soon as we publish a piece on it walk us through what happened so during a radio interview, I think it was Monday, actually Tuesday, the governor said that he did support constitutional carry. It was a clarification from previous statements that he's made. And he said that he kind of explained the process of where constitutional carry is. Of course, it was passed by the Texas House, and then it has moved to the Senate, where now it's headed to a Senate special committee that was just created with the majority of the members in favor of constitutional carry. Though it does supposedly face some opposition from Republicans in the broader House that could possibly prevent it from being passed.

So it's still a little bit up in the air. But Abbott said that once the Senate passes it out, the House and Senate will convene and work out any difference and get it to my desk and I'll be signing it. So that is just a clear, straightforward statement from him that he is in support of HB 1927 and constitutional carry in general. So this is a little bit of a change from, I mean, there's been a lot of hubbub surrounding con carry just in general and back and forth between the house and the Senate, different bills being filed. We talked about this last week of just the, you know,

the yo-yo mechanism of the Senate creating just a brand new committee out of the blue. Where do we think constitutional carry stands now? What are its chances of passing the Senate? So if you were listening last week on the podcast, I said it was basically up in the air. I'm saying the same thing right now. It's not really clear if it will pass or not, or if it will pass or not this session. I imagine that Republicans will come back in future sessions if it doesn't pass now and try to get it through. But right now, it really depends on if it can make it to the Senate floor. If it has the 18 votes it needs to get to the floor, that super majority so that it doesn't get filibustered to death. Filibustered being a loose term.

Yes. Yes. Not someone out there standing um now if it can get those 18 votes uh or if it can find another way to make it to the floor without necessarily needing those i'm sure there's some parliamentary tricks that people are looking into we'll see what happens yeah so how did this clarify a previous position from the governor? So the governor was asked, I think it was last week, if he was going to sign constitutional carry, if he was going to sign HB 1927. And he basically shrugged off the question and just said that he

was focusing on his emergency items that he listed at the beginning of the session. So, um so you know all those uh disaster related ones and um ercot eventually also became a priority ercot reform in the energy grid in general after the freeze we had and constitutional care is is not one of those priorities that he listed so it wasn't really sure where he stood on it. But, you know, the statement makes it pretty clear. Yeah, certainly. Well, thanks for covering that for us. And I know we'll be continuing to watch what's going on. The Senate is moving on it.

So we'll see what results from that, if any changes are made. I think that will be, you know, what a lot of folks are curious to see is whether changes are made to the bill as it moves in the Senate. So very good stuff. Daniel, thank you for covering that for us. Bradley, we're going to come to you. And Daniel, I want you to hop in on this one as well. This is usually your beat. But Texas finally received news of its congressional reapportionment from the Census Bureau.

Give us a little bit of detail of what went on there and what we can expect going forward. Well, Texas was the big winner i think you can say it was the only state that gained more than one congressional seat uh gained two and so yeah after redistricting we'll have uh texas will have 38 congressional districts uh it means 40 electoral votes when you add the two senators and um you know, it was the only the only state that clearly had a massive, massive enough population increase to go above one one increase, one congressional seat increase. And the way it works is it the makeup of the Texas or the state federal legislature, House of Representatives is constitutionally set um at 4 435 and so um you know seats can be uh moved elsewhere but they can't be created or destroyed and so there are only so many seats in dc there are only so many seats in the chamber so many desks well there's and i am worried about social distancing too i. I know. It's getting difficult.

Maybe we should just cut our congressional delegation in half. There's a funny, fun fact. There's a burgeoning movement to try and get Congress to be apportioned based on the original population set, which I think was like 50,000 people. And so that would increase the size of the House of Representatives to like 5,000. Oh, can you imagine? Oh, my gosh. I don't think it's going anywhere, but it's fun to talk about. It's fun to talk about for nerds.

Yes. Yeah, nerds like us. In terms of Texas specifically, it gained nearly 4 million residents in the decades since the last census in 2010. Its constituents per district will go from just under 700,000 to about 767,000. So size will increase there, and Texas is the big winner. But not as big as some people expected. There were some projections thrown out that Texas would be picking up three seats. Um, but that did not happen. Some people are blaming that Texas didn't push hard enough for the census and encourage enough people to, to,

to, um, kind of fill that out. I saw, I saw similar lines of criticism aimed at just the federal government in general for all States, not just Texas. And I think it was the number I saw similar lines of criticism aimed at just the federal government in general for all states, not just Texas. And I think it was the number I saw, Texas was 190,000 people away from getting that 39th congressional district. I think there were some other states that, you know, they might not have lost or gained a seat by just like a few hundred people. Or it was 90 somewhere. 93 or something. Yeah. New York was 89 residents away from keeping its seat that it lost.

And Minnesota was 23 residents away from losing its seat that it kept. So very thin margins. Got it. So, yeah, let's dive into that a little bit more. We've alluded to it. But what seats lost or what states lost seats and what states gained seats? So the ones that gained one seat were Florida, Colorado, Montana. Is that empty?

Yeah. You're doing great. It's early. North Carolina and Oregon. And then the ones that lost were California, Illinois,inois michigan new york my home state of ohio pennsylvania and west virginia nice little token throw in there yeah it was all because it wasn't being from ohio guys huh take that being from ohio is not a personality trait bradley i didn't say it was. Yeah, I'm just saying. Daniel, in terms of your thoughts on this, I mean, how sure were you? I think a lot of folks thought we would be gaining

three congressional seats here in the state. How probable did you think that was? How much of a surprise was it that we didn't get that third seat? It was a little bit of a surprise. I would have leaned to thinking that we were going to get a three that's what everybody was saying um what turned out that we got two but that was also something that people were basically in two or three and then as the days went on people were leaning more towards three so a little bit of surprise not much the thing that struck me on mond Monday as they were announcing these numbers. I just kept thinking, man, it feels like December 31st because that's when the numbers should have been released. Yeah. So, yeah, this is actually the first set of numbers that are going to be released. This is just the state totals for the state total population, The specific data that's needed for redistricting that tells you

how big each neighborhood is and really gets down to those very small blocks of geographic data haven't been released yet. Traditionally, the Census Bureau releases this set of numbers to the White House on December 31st, and then in the following spring, on a rolling basis, they send out the redistricting data, which is the nitty gritty stuff that lawmakers use to draw the new maps. They're not going to be doing it on a rolling basis now. They're going to be releasing it on all states at once. They've had some various data problems. I think it's probably the biggest mess up for a census in recent history, has been in 2020.

I know you can blame coronavirus, you can blame government responses to that, you can blame whatever you want to blame, some incompetence, probably a mix of everything yeah but um the data will be released later this year supposedly currently it's projected by no later than the end of september so probably in the summer months or early fall we'll see lawmakers in texas get those numbers and then um I assume Governor Abbott will call a special session for lawmakers to go and draw those maps and get those ready before primary season next year. Yeah. And speaking of primary season, and I think it is notable, you know, what we're hearing in Austin right now is special session will probably happen in October-ish is what we're hearing. And

a lot of that just has to do with the logistics of when the numbers will come out and be ready for lawmakers to deal with. But in terms of primaries, you know, what can we expect with redistricting going forward? This, I mean, these numbers affect a lot more than just drawing state maps. So there are some, there's some House bills or Senate bill right now passed the Senate from Senator Joan Huffman, who's the redistricting chair. And her bill, if passed by the House, would kind of adjust the primary dates based on when the maps are drawn. So that could keep it the same as it is and just shorten the window for candidates to be able to file.

Or it would push the primary date back and the runoff date for the primary back as well um and keep those in line with all the the the major state uh elections that don't need redistricting like the governor and uh lieutenant governor attorney general most the districts for those for those seats are very straightforward if you if you look at the maps for for like the governor's district, it's so gerrymandered. Like it's just a weird shape. It looks like identical to Texas. Now, what's interesting is even though redistricting hasn't been, the maps haven't been redrawn, we're already seeing candidates come out and say,

we're going to run for this race. I think down in, uh, down in, in South Texas, there's a candidate who came close to beating, um, I think it was representative of Santa Gonzalez and she announced that she was going to be running. She's already got the endorsement of Ted Cruz and Dan Crenshaw. Um, even though we don't know where that district is going to be. Right. Um, congressional districts are a little bit different in that you don't have to live in the district, right? There's some flexibility there.

Now, do you want to be from the district? Does that help? Does that mean a mailer won't go out that says this person doesn't live in this district? They're not a true, you know, congressional district X candidate. Yes, but it's a little more flexible. The state districts, the state Senate, state house are a lot more stringent on how that works.

Although you can get an apartment. I mean, there are ways to work through that loophole with residency. But regardless, that's something that also is worth noting. But we're also seeing some people join some state races. You know, this week we saw in Representative Dan Huberti's district, there was a candidate who filed for his seat as a Republican. So there's now going to – people are starting to look at what they're going to do. I think a lot of it will still be up in the air until after the new maps are drawn, after we start hearing more about which congressmen are going to be retiring and which state lawmakers might not be coming back. Which has already started.

It's already started. And as we see more of that, I think we'll get a better picture of, you know, what districts might be gerrymandered the most, might see the biggest changes, and where people might be going and what candidates might come out. But it's really hard to tell. One interesting thing from another state that happened

that pertains to someone in the state, Allen West, now the Texas GOP chair, back when he was in Congress in 2010 when they redistricted, he had to run against an incumbent when he was an incumbent. In Florida. He got knocked out in Florida, yes. So it happens a lot, and it'll be interesting to watch. Yeah, and I think that would happen more,

especially in states that are losing a district, because they have to pair some districts up. With being in Texas, if a district is split, a congressman could go run in a new district, which I think Representative Lloyd Doggett has been in Congress years on end, and he's changed districts several times, like gone to a new district that they've created in the austin area there's talk that they might throw in a new solid blue district in austin in travis county in addition to doggit's current one or yeah or like i don't know how they would redraw the map but uh you know if that happens if they put in texas 37 in

travis county there's a pretty good chance that lloyd doggett will go to that district yeah um you know it all depends yeah well i even too we're dealing with you know uh valley districts that are you know held by democrats that have switched slightly to the republican side there's talk about okay well how you know how will state Republicans, you know, stitch together the more red portions of those districts to create another Republican district, right? So the chances of more Republican congressional members from Texas going to DC in a, you know, come 2022 are pretty high, right? So we'll see how that all works. And it's worth noting that particularly on the state level the political ramifications right if you know you aren't in with leadership or you're a democrat and

you don't have good standing with the leadership of the texas house or the texas senate um your seat could be in somewhat of jeopardy right you could be districted out of your own district so it'll be interesting to see who gets the short end of the stick in that regard um and it isn't always politically um malicious but sometimes it is. And it's interesting to watch that all happen. Well, boys, thank you for covering that for us. Isaiah, we're going to come to you. Let's talk about critical race theory.

The Texas House held a hearing on two bills, two authors, but one of them made its way through the process. Walk us through what happened and tell us what critical race theory is. Well, this is probably the first time that a lot of these classes I took for my major have actually become handy for this job. Because we went over critical theory a lot. And what we're now calling critical race theory is really just one component or branch of that. To a lot of people that follow reporters like Christopher Ruffufo or other other similar beats this is already a familiar term to y'all but for those of y'all who don't critical race theory is essentially an academic

discussion based on premises that have solidified into really a system of belief as it's become more popularized outside of universities and such it asserts that racism is kind of baked into the batter of the country and into the American subconscious very inextricably. It defines racism in broad terms of disparity, meaning a gap in achievement between two racial groups is either evidence of racism or just racism itself. And this grows out of the belief that impartiality or equal treatment are either impossible or just false.

Again, because racism is so baked into the country and into the American subconscious. So what would this bill, who is filed by, you know, folks you'll talk about here in a second, but what does it actually require or prohibit? Right. I forgot to mention that this bill in the House is carried by Representatives Steve Toth and James White. In the Senate, it's being carried by Brandon Creighton, who's got a lot of education-related bills. And it would require the State Board of Education to adopt TEKS, and that's the Texas Educational Knowledge and Skills, i.e. our curriculum.

They'll develop an understanding of the country's founding values and the philosophical background behind them and our founding documents, including, you know, the big ones, the constitution and the declaration, but also the, uh, the federalist papers. And, um, and we've talked about a separate bill that would require knowledge of like letters between the founders to you. This one doesn't, but, um, you might contrast this with a history based education that sees the motives behind the founding and purely practical terms like slavery and taxes and stuff like that. That was mainly what mine focused on, although we did end up reading, I think, some enlightened philosophers, like paragraphs from them and AP government or whatever. It prohibits a number of topics in the classroom. And I will just read a few of these here. It calls them concepts. So a few of the concepts that would not they'll be prohibited from being taught in the classroom one is that one race or sex is individually superior or

inherently superior to another race or sex notions of inherent or subconscious racism or sexism that would be prohibited um the notion that an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex. And the notion that meritocracy or traits such as hard work are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another. And again, this goes back to critical race theory and the idea that what we would call impartial or universal values are actually, you know, social constructs that have a racial bias to them. So it would ban those in the classroom. And it's a smaller line in the bill, but it would also ban a lot of the same stereotyping for teacher training, which is interesting, too. Yeah. So what is the most recent progress on this bill? Where does it stand? Well, when we wrote about it, we wrote that it passed its House committee, which is a big step. And then, you know, almost right after publishing it passed the Senate too. And I thought they're going to take some more time in other business,

but we'll probably write about that again. And so it just passed the full Senate and made it out of the House committee. Now all it awaits is a House vote on the full floor. Got it. Well, good stuff. Thank you for covering that for us and certainly something that we'll continue to keep an eye on. It's actually become kind of one of the bigger topics this legislative session in terms of social policy, critical race theory has.

So conversations in the budget, different bills, it's all happening and we'll see where it goes from here. Hayden, we're coming to you next let's stick on the texas house um the texas house this week has which over the course of session you know masks aren't allowed or aren't required rather in the capital um are masks controversial i don't know why we're talking about this you know i've heard that they might be so i figured we should probably talk about it it's a rumor i don't know if it has any validity um but this is you know the capitol does not require masks but both chambers the senate and the house have different rules regarding what they require talk to us about what the what the texas house talked about this week well if you've been around the capitol you know that currently

there are parts of the capitol where you do not have to wear a mask and other areas where you do. I don't know when they stopped requiring masks in general at the Capitol. That was probably a couple months ago that they stopped requiring that. But the House gallery and committee rooms are still masked up zones. So you have to wear a mask when you're sitting in on a committee hearing unless you're testifying. And you also have to wear a mask in the House gallery. The same rule that requires a mask in the House gallery, though, also requires state representatives to wear masks. But anyone who has been watching the House floor closely knows that that rule has

not been adhered to consistently. And if they're enforcing it, then state reps aren't following it. Some are, but there is a lot of arguments made for legislation and rules at the Capitol is this is something that's already going on. So we might as well legalize it. And I think that argument probably comes into play a little bit in the mask debate. But the Texas House Administration Committee voted 7-3 to cancel the House's mask requirement in committees and on the House floor. The decision is not final because it has to go to the full chamber for a vote of the entire house. Although I haven't, I just took a look at the TLO file on HR 133, or HR 333, which is the resolution to cancel out the mask requirement. And I don't see that it's scheduled for a hearing. So I'll have to go back and see if it's on any of the house calendars but it is not finally decided

yet they will still have to it will still have to work its way through the process and be approved by the full house but the three state representatives who opposed it in the committee were Cheryl Cole a Democrat of Austin Aaron Zwiener a Democrat of Dr, Aaron Zwiener, a Democrat of Driftwood, and Armando Wally, a Democrat of Houston. So those were the three votes in opposition to canceling this requirement. Yeah. And I'll say too, this does seem like minutiae probably to a lot of our listeners who are living their lives out the state doing what they're doing. But I do think it's worth noting in that, you know, lawmakers here in Austin only come here, you know, for five months every other year. And they're making policy while they're here from whatever perspective, you know, whatever culture the Texas House or the Texas Senate is engaged in at the time.

Right. So if they're making policy in a chamber where they think masks are required or should be required, even if it's political or, you know, in terms of of optics that's worth noting right because that might affect how policy is affected from the state level what bills they pass what they're willing to do in terms of public health those kinds of things or i think it's worth noting the culture that lawmakers are you know enacting legislation from right and in all honesty what just if you go to a committee hearing and the you see what's you see what's going on when you're in the committee room watching, you might not be able to tell from the cameras, but some of these committees, they're separated by plexiglass and committees where they're separated by glass or plastic, they don't have to wear masks either. But they're up there,

they're interacting with each other, they're necessarily socially distanced all the time so what you're saying really goes to the core of this whole issue and that is this is something whether they're for or against it for them to discuss on social media right and for them to go on the record and say you know i was against the suppressive mass requirement or i'm for the science or whatever line they want to use around election time. Yeah. This is an opportunity for them to go on the record. Yeah.

So the doctor, you know, they had doctors testify against it, against repealing the requirement. They didn't necessarily say that they would never be opposed to it or opposed to repealing it. But they when they considered this in March, they wanted to delay it. But of course, we've had doctors speak to us who think that the mass requirements are not necessarily doing anything to slow the spread.

And Daniel's reported on this before. After the statewide requirement was repealed, hospitalizations continued to trend downward. So a lot of this has to do with politics and it's not necessarily always a scientific discussion right absolutely and i think you know i talked to a member last week i was in over at the capitol and they came out and were wearing their mask and um very conservative member and one of their staffers was like you know boss you don't have to wear your mask on the floor like or you know you're you're a state rep why would you

why would you feel the need to wear your mask on the floor and the state reps like well the sergeants in the house they're you know it's just this young girl she's she's nice she's just doing her job by telling me to put my mask on so i put my mask on right so there's kind of this weird dichotomy in the house where there are folks who are employed by the Texas house telling state reps, Hey, you've got to put your mask on some, some adhere to it out of,

you know, either kindness or, you know, belief that that's the right thing to do. And others, you know, if they're in the middle of the floor by the back mic and the dais, there's only,

you know, they can't really be reached. So they're not going to be wearing their mask. It's a very interesting environment. And plus an employee of the house may not recognize a state rep especially if they're a new employee um i don't know how often that occurs but this is on the floor right so they're the only people on the floor that are the state reps and and sure but yes it's it's an interesting it's an interesting. I have wondered about that, though, how, how consistently or how assertive the that they've

been enforcing the requirement for state reps. But I do know that if you're in the gallery, I know I've seen, I've seen them enforce the master requirement in the gallery. Oh, yeah. On multiple occasions. They're very, very assertive about that. So that that is something to think about yeah certainly well thanks for covering that for us brad we're going to come to you we've talked a lot about homeless policy in austin and throughout the state um and particularly in that the legislature is looking for ways to ban um you know camping in line ordinances like those enacted in austin

um you did a piece this week talking about that all in light of where the legislation is, but particularly looking at all the cities in Texas and how their homeless population percentages compare. Walk us through that. Yeah. So Austin famously rescinded its camping and lying ban in July of 2019. Since then, you know, it's become quite renowned for its homeless problem because it's so visible. It's everywhere. You know, if you drive down 35, you can see, you know, homeless encampments and down by the river, all just all over the place. And so it's, you know, rightly so has gained a lot of attention. And I think part of that is because it's the state capital and people come here from around the state. But also, you know, it's a good political weapon to wield, especially for state Republicans.

But also, you know, conversely, the local Democrats, more progressive types have have done it as well. And, you know, to hit back against the state. So this weekend, there's an election. And that has kind of brought this all into fold here. But Austin, I went through and looked at their, based on the most recent counts, homeless counts in each of Texas's most populous cities. And those are Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas, El Paso. So, of those, Austin topped the list in percent of its homeless population being unsheltered. And this was a huge, I don't think it's only because of the camping policy that they rescinded,

but it definitely coincides with it. The last homeless count they did was in January of 2020. And by then, since the previous survey they had done, the total homeless population had increased by 11%, significant but not massive. But there was a massive shift from sheltered to unsheltered. The unsheltered percentage went up 45%, while the sheltered percentage went down 20%. Clearly, there was an incentive to leave the shelters and go live on the streets. And anyone that isn't blind can see that, can see how that has played out in real time. And so Austin, compared with other places, with those other cities, it's top of the list. It has, it has 163 unsheltered homeless people per capita

and per capita is, is per a hundred thousand people. Um, but you know, next up next behind that is Houston that has a 49% of its total homeless population being unsheltered, uh, followed by San Antonio at 43. Now in terms of total population itself, Austin is not at the top of the list. That's Dallas. But per capita, Austin is the second highest, 260. So clearly there's a trend here. And I don't think it is entirely prescriptive, but it is definitely part of the equation. And Austin voters, we'll see what happens come Saturday.

But if the early voting totals are an indication, people are motivated. You know, we'll find out which side, one way or the other. But, you know, for a progressive city, very progressive city, to kind of be rebelling against its city council like this is certainly notable. Yeah, absolutely. So walk us through, you know, Prop B on the ballot in Austin. I think it's fair to say, just based on turnout alone, that this is something voters care very deeply about. Where are the battle lines drawn?

Well, obviously, city council is in favor of or they're against Prop B. They obviously were the ones that rescinded it in the first the policy itself in the first place. They have not. While they have slightly backtracked on that in terms of in October of 2019, they kind of backtracked by limiting camping in line to outside 15 feet from entryways to businesses. And that was essentially all they did, all the tailoring they did after the initial move. And it's been that way ever since. Mayor Adler has said that what's going on is not working. He coincidentally said that immediately after it became clear the petition effort to get this question on the ballot was going to succeed back in February, I think it was.

But they're not in favor of going back to the pre-2019 policy. Now, on the other side, you have a lot of different kinds of people. Obviously, you know, Greg Abbott, governor, has thrown a lot of weight from his political machine behind this so far. And I've seen they've been paying for digital ads and I think broadcast ads as well, urging people to vote for Prop B. The Travis County GOP and its chairman, Matt Makoviak, were instrumental in getting this on the ballot. But it wasn't just a Republican project.

There were one of the co-founders, Cleo Patrasek, I think I pronounced that correctly, he's a Democrat. And there are Democrats on this side of the issue. They don't subscribe to the same belief that city council does. And so what has been a very uniformly progressive city in recent years is starting to ruffle the feathers of its citizens, both with this camping van policy. And we saw a similar rebuke come with Mackenzie Kelly's election to city council, the first conservative on council since 2017, I believe. So, you know, people are getting fed up with this and there's still, you know, I'm sure

we'll see a relatively close percentage when the dust settles on Saturday. So there will be a sizable portion of the city that wants the way it is to stay in place. But we'll see if it's outweighed by the people that want it rescinded. Yeah, good stuff. Well, Brad, thanks for covering that for us. Hayden, we're going to come to you. You know, border, border, border, something that we've always covered here at the Texan and that you've covered extensively in your tenure here. But there have been a bevy of local elected officials coming out with different statements and saying, hey, this is affecting us, criticizing the Biden administration for the policies that they're choosing to enact or choosing to follow. Walk us through your piece on the Kendall County District Attorney.

Well, Kendall County District Attorney Nicole Bishop and Congressman Chip Roy, who represents a district in Central slash South Texas that extends from the San Antonio area up to Austin, wrote an op-ed in National Review about illegal immigration and the fact that drug cartels and trafficking is not just a problem on the southern border, but it is now extending up into the interior of the state and of the country. And Bishop actually criticized the federal government's response to trafficking and smuggling cases, because there is a current policy in place that if the feds are contacted for a smuggling case, they are told, local officials are told, quote, to get as much information as possible and then

to let everyone go. What is essentially taking place is they are releasing material witnesses at the behest of the federal government. So they don't have the witnesses they need to make a criminal case dashing any hopes for a meaningful prosecution. And Bishop, Nicole Bishop, the DA in Kendall County told us that this is making it excruciatingly challenging for them to obtain confessions and for them to prosecute offenders, even though lower level officials are perfectly willing to do their jobs. They are not able to do their jobs because the federal government is has enacted these policies that are obstructing them, so to speak.

So what her specific comments were, quote, state agencies are ready and willing to do what we can to protect our communities from having the cartels operate, but lack the resources available to the federal government. Local jurisdictions like Kendall County have an extremely difficult challenge to effectively handle these crimes without state or federal assistance, end quote. And the remark that stood out to me the most was that they are not just facilitate or they're not just enabling this activity, but she said they're allowing if not promoting it. Quote, the federal government, which has the resources to bring these criminal enterprises down, have created policies that make it difficult or impossible to prosecute. These policies are allowing, if not promoting, the cartel's business of smuggling and trafficking. So in terms of her perspective as a local official, she is sounding the alarm as to the federal government's effect on local communities' ability

to prosecute criminals in their districts. And she's not the only one. Polk County Criminal District Attorney Lee Hahn also said, quote, I shudder to think about the future for many of these children in the most recent border surge who believe they are coming here for a better life. Sex trafficking and forced labor are real and shame on our government for not recognizing it or ignoring it in the interest of scoring political points, end quote. And the state of Texas has battled the federal government

over policy differences. And I'll talk about that lawsuit in a little bit. But there had there was a lawsuit that we've talked about before, over rescinding the remain in Mexico policy. But there are a variety of views on how immigration should be handled, and to what extent we should allow immigration, to what extent we should allow unaccompanied minors. But from a law enforcement perspective, these law enforcement officials are saying that they do not have the tools with the current policies in place as it relates to witnesses to prosecute drug smugglers and human smugglers because they cannot pursue these prosecutions if they don't have the witnesses they need. And that is the essence of this DA's criticisms. Yeah, good stuff. Well, Hayden, thanks for covering that for us.

Let's stick on the border theme here. Daniel, a Texas sheriff this week was tapped by the president to serve in a very different capacity on the federal level. Walk us through that. President Biden announced earlier this week that he was nominating Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez to be the director of ICE. Of course, this nomination will still have to go through the U.S. Senate and be approved there. There's a 50-50 split with Vice President Kamala Harris being the tie-breaking vote. So it's a pretty good chance, I think, that Gonzalez will be the next ICE director. He's worked in the Houston Police Department. he's also served on the Houston City Council before being elected to his current role in 2016. So he has a, you know, Gonzalez has a history with ICE. Walk us through what he said about the agency in the past and kind of what his response to different policies have been. So he's been pretty critical of ICE, especially ICE under the Trump administration, which he served as sheriff or worked as sheriff under during the same time period as the Trump administration.

So it makes sense that he would have some a little bit more clash at that time. He's done a few different things. He ended a program where the Harris County Sheriff's Department was working with ICE to the ICE raids. And he said, quote, I do not support ICE raids that threaten to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom do not represent a threat to the US. The focus should always be on clear and immediate safety threats, not others who are not threats. Diverting valuable law enforcement resources away from public safety threats would drive undocumented families further into the shadows and damage our community safety. Um, so, you know, that's basically the, the extent that I've seen between his, uh, criticism on ice. Um, so we'll see, I'm sure more details will be brought up, uh, as he goes through the nomination process

and, uh, goes towards that confirmation from the Senate. But he certainly wasn't a big fan of ICE under the Trump administration, which is probably partly why he is nominated for the role now. Yeah, that kind of tracks. So in terms of other details, other background information, what has Gonzalez done in the past? What capacities has he served in? So he worked in the Houston Police Department for many years before then being elected to the

Houston City Council, where he worked there for a number of years, too. Now, one of the things that's notable that our colleague over in Houston, Holly Hanson, who covers all the Houston stuff for us, that she noted for us, back when he left the Houston Police Department for his job in the city council, he actually lost or he had a bunch of files on his desk. He was in the homicide department at the HPD and he put those files, took them with him,

didn't realize that one of those was an active case, that the murder files were not put in the system. And so it just got kind of lost for years on end until years later, the Houston Police Department circled back to the case and were looking into it, trying to find these missing files. And so they contacted him, know fortunately he still had them um and was able to to return them but uh you know that's the one of the oversights that uh people have brought up in uh criticism of him you know just the the uh that kind of a big mistake yeah losing a murder file that hasn't

been put in the system a big deal um well good stuff daniel thanks for covering that for us we'll continue to watch and and see what happens with this nomination brad let's talk about broadband expansion something you've covered extensively um the legislature has made you know very clear this is a priority for them, this legislative session in, you know, a multitude of ways in both chambers. But that's not easy, right? The expansion of broadband is not an easy task. Yeah, there's a reason it hasn't been done yet. Exactly.

So walk us through that and what are the biggest challenges facing the state? Well, yeah, like you said, they've made it a priority. And the main legislation behind their effort just actually passed the Senate this morning on Thursday and will now head to the governor's desk. But as far as the biggest challenges, the state's geography presents the biggest. And it is the reason for the second biggest challenge, which is the cost. You know, expanding Internet access, meeting the 25 megabits per second download, 3 megabits per second upload threshold that the federal government has set as the, you know, the kind of the standard for minimum broadband to be considered covered. That would require traversing hundreds of thousands of miles, square miles across the state of Texas, if you were to go through the traditional way through fiber,

which is very difficult and just, frankly, logistically impossible. And so I think what we're going to see is kind of an all-of-the-above approach from the government and the companies invested in expanding broadband. One of the reasons the state is going to be involved is because a lot of these companies can't make a profit on their own if they were to just do it themselves because there's not enough um uh potential customers out there to justify building the infrastructure and unless you're willing to charge people you know four hundred dollars a month for for internet which

obviously no one's going to pay for right a very small sum right yes some people would pay that much some yeah yeah yeah maybe maybe the one guy way out in the middle of nowhere funny you mentioned Elon I'll get to him um so but anyway the the piece of legislation that passed today that will not like I said will now go to Governor Abbott's desk which I expect to be signed pretty quickly um it creates the state broadband development office which will facilitate the issuance of grant grant money. And I think the state will issue some as well, but not nearly as much as the federal government will. And facilitate that down to, you know, divvying out to these companies that will agree to expand in certain areas. And we may see something like a universal service fund that's already in place for telecommunication expansion where in that case you get charged

a fee for every call you make on the infrastructure and that goes to the state and then the state divvies that out to these companies that reinvest it into their networks out in very rural areas. So that's the state's role but then obviously you have all these companies, you know, you have the big ones like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile that will all play a role in this. And, you know, they have collectively most of the infrastructure out there. And so I have a feeling that they will be a big part of this. I believe each of them

testified in front of the committee when this bill was heard. And I spoke to AT&T and they said that they already have 15 million miles of fiber throughout Texas and they have plans to expand more, but they're also utilizing 5G, which is basically a wireless broadcast signal of internet to places you can get it through a dish or various other things, your cell phone that kind of thing and so that's part of the strategy another interesting one I spoke to

was this company called Electrify that is it's a startup they're doing a pilot program in southeast Texas and they've covered a few different counties in the range population range of 12,000 to 35,000. So it's kind of the mid range, not for the guy way out in the middle of nowhere, but, uh, those smaller towns that, uh, have yet to, to get any access to the internet through

traditional ways, because it's,'s like i said too costly to justify and so what they do is they use 5g quite a bit and but they use piggyback off of existing infrastructure which allows them to you know lower the cost quite a bit you know they'll if there's a cell tower in the middle of nowhere they just essentially pay for their own equipment to put on the cell tower and obviously rent space. And that broadcasted out to like a 10 mile square radius, a 10 square mile radius. And so that covers a lot of people in, in the area that they're in right now, they have plans to expand, uh, rapidly, uh, the, the founder told me. And so, um, that's something that will play a role. And then another option to Daniel's Elon Musk comment,

for those people way out in the middle of nowhere, this company called Starlink, it's a low Earth orbit satellite. And so that's where the broadcast comes from. And so that can traverse more miles and get around more obstacles like trees and hills and whatnot that cause issues for 5G that is located closer to the ground. And so they say they can provide above standard service. And, you know, it's still in the development stages. But there are people that use it and they seem to like it. So overall, this is going to be very costly, but the state is hell-bent on accomplishing it.

And, you know, we'll see where it goes and how long it takes. Well, thanks for covering something that I feel is so far above my pay grade. I'm so glad you understand all of this. Isaiah, we're going to come to you. Let's talk about lawsuits here for the next couple of segments The Agriculture Commissioner Made some waves this week Filed another lawsuit He's been very actively a part of different lawsuits here in the state

Walk us through what he's alleging now Sure So there are certain federal aid Distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture That only goes to Socially disadvantaged groups Socially disadvantaged farmers and ranch. And Sid Miller is suing in his private capacity. That should be noted. He is the Agricultural Commissioner of Texas, but that role is not involved in the

lawsuit. And he is seeking declaratory relief that certain laws and USDA rules are unconstitutional, which direct this aid to only non-white farmers and ranchers. Got it. So what does the law actually say about this? What is the rulemaking precedent here? Well, federal code defines socially disadvantaged group a bit more broadly than the USDA's specific racial terms. In federal code, as Miller notes in his lawsuit, the term socially disadvantaged group means a group whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities. And that's it. But in USDA terms, they actually list out in particular terms racial groups that include African Americans, American Indians American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Hispanics, and Pacific Islanders.

So Miller argues, making three particular claims, that this interpretation leaves out white farmers. is that the lawsuit, excuse me, is that the law and the USDA's racial exclusions violate the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination on the grounds of race, color, or national origin in any program that receives federal funds. So in layman's terms, because there's a lot of federal aid that cannot go to white farmers specifically because of their race, Miller's claiming that that's unconstitutional. And there he's seeking a declaration that that's unconstitutional. Alternatively, if the court will not declare that rule unconstitutional in that law, he asks that they at least include white ethnic groups which have suffered racial prejudice in the term socially disadvantaged and tack that onto the list.

And he lists in specific terms the Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews, Eastern Europeans, and any other ethnic group that has suffered racial and ethnic prejudice. And as a third alternative, if the court doesn't bite at the first two, Miller claims that they should at least declare that farmers with any discernible trace of minority ancestry can be included. Got it. Well, good stuff there, Isaiah. Thanks for covering that for us. We're going to stick on the lawsuit beat here. Hayden, there's a new lawsuit, again, from the Attorney General, surprise, surprise, against the Biden administration, surprise, surprise.

Give us the details on this newest lawsuit. Yeah, that's literally his job is to sue people. I'm just kidding. Particularly when it's the president of the opposite political party. This is just kind of how the, just kind of how the cookie crumbles. Yes. And this is only the latest confrontation in what will probably be many confrontations over the next few years. Which has already been many confrontations.

Yeah. Yeah. There have been a couple. Attorney General Ken Paxton. And contrasting with Sid Miller's lawsuit, Ken Paxton is not suing in his individual capacity. He's suing on behalf of the state of Texas because Ken Paxton serves as the state's lawyer of sorts. Um, well, not of sorts. He is the state's lawyer. Uh, so he filed this suit in the U S district court for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth. I believe his

last one was filed in Amarillo. But he has filed this lawsuit because in his view, or in the state of Texas view, the CDC prematurely altered criteria for COVID-19 protocols as it relates to illegal aliens on the southern border. And this lawsuit describes a timeline of events dating back to the beginning of the camp, the campdemic, I don't know, I must have my mind on your homeless camping ballot initiative, from the beginning of the pandemic, that began with special Title 42 rules that were put into place to govern immigration during this time of communicable disease spread. And the CDC has been updating and altering its guidance. And in October, it released complete guidance on how immigration is to be handled, and how family units and unaccompanied minors and single adult illegal aliens are to be

repatriated under these special immigration rules. And of course, when the Biden administration took over, they decided they weren't going to expel unaccompanied minors any longer. And now we have a ton of unaccompanied children from out of the country that are now the federal government is now having to serve as sort of a public global foster care agency for these kids and placing them with individuals who may or may not have good intentions in terms of what they're how they're going to care for or not care for these children, as we discussed earlier with the DA comments. But this lawsuit argues that we should go back to the October rules, and that the federal government should be ordered to expel all illegal alien, well, not necessarily all illegal aliens, but to have as a general rule of thumb that we're not going to have,

that we're going to expel most individuals during this time of a pandemic. Good stuff. Well, Hayden, thanks for covering that for us. We're going to end real fast on this, Daniel, or end this part of the podcast. There was another Texas nomination that happened this week. Walk us through the details of this. Alongside the Harris County Sheriff, Biden also nominated Gina Ortiz-Jones to be the undersecretary of the Air Force. If you're familiar with that name, it's because she ran for Texas's 23rd congressional district, one of Texas's most competitive seats. She was kind of expected to win. It's a very swing district. But in the election with the open seat, she lost against Tony Gonzalez.

And so now she has this opportunity to go to the Pentagon again. She has had a career in the military and national security roles, so this wouldn't be her first foray into the national security position. But yeah. There we go. Well, all sorts of nominations happening.

Quite an interesting development. We'll continue to keep an eye on where these end up. Thank you, Daniel. Okay, gentlemen, let's talk about something fun. Don't worry. I won't make you talk about the Texas budget as a fun topic this week. We're not going to, Isaiah is so pleased with that. But I think during the legislative session and particularly just in reporting in general we are glued to our phones right we have a lot of folks coming at us with a lot of different things phone calls texts all that what is your

biggest pet peeve when it comes not just professionally but in you know personal relationships as well like your number one cell phone pet peeve right do you is it when someone sends instead of just one text saying it all like you know five or six individual texts is it um you know you see a missed call and you don't have a voicemail i got brad smiling over here i don't know why he's grinning so much um what's your yeah what's your deal i have a good friend that constantly texts lots of messages about something that could have just been in one yes oh dude that's the worst one especially if it's like a monosyllable for each one it's like eight messages yeah they'll just say like yes sure but for i don't i don't

have the creative power to stretch that on great messages but some people do so they should be proud of that i guess yeah certainly dan, certainly. Daniel? What I really dislike is when someone sends me this long text message with a list of items and they don't include an Oxford comma. Wow. Why are we unsurprised? Oh, God. That silence was filled by Daniel just grinning at all of us seeing our reactions to that statement um is that really your pet peeve when it comes to

communication um i mean i have many pet peeves that i don't really realize that i have until it happens um all these spam calls i don't know if you would lump that in there, but that's really annoying. I got a call from someone with an Oklahoma number, which I know to avoid because I know those are all spam. I answered it. It wasn't a spam caller. It was someone who was calling saying that I had called them when I had not called them. Oh, yeah. I had a friend had that happen to them. Yeah, exactly.

Where they got a call from somebody and said, hey, your number called me. So this spammer was using their number somehow to call people. I remember back in high school, somebody named Joanna put my number on some medical document. And I've been getting calls about important medical news for her for eight years. Are you serious? Yes, I'm serious. And so just yesterday, I was in the Senate gallery, and my phone rang, and it was a 214. And so that's usually spent, because that's my home area code.

You know how it is. And so I didn't answer. Then it called like three more times. And so, whisperingly, I'm like, hello? And they said, oh, yeah, this is from Baylor, Scott, and Wyatt. We're trying to reach Joanna such and such. I'm like, you've got the wrong, yeah, this is from Baylor Scott and Wyatt. We're trying to reach Joanna such and such. I'm like, you've got the wrong number again. Wow.

And this will continue. Lord in heaven. That's kind of scary, though. Medical information. I think my biggest pet peeve is autocorrect. It makes so many errors. I've noticed that in text, I have a lot more misspellings than I used to. And I attribute that to autocorrect.

I'm sure to some degree it's my own fault. But I can't tell you how many times I've typed a word out. You know, you can turn autocorrect off. Whoa. My mind is blown right now. Oh, my gosh. That makes sense. But I never thought about it.

That's interesting. I feel like I'm usually the perpetrator of these pet peeves i am not good at texting people back just in general um i'm just i'm not i'm not super good at it i think does it bother you i think i have like 140 unread texts on my phone right now holy moly yeah i don't understand does it bother you when if you don't respond to someone, if they keep on bothering you until you respond, like me, maybe? No, because your text, I try to be better about, it's different if I'm working with somebody or living life with them just day to day. That's an easier text and a necessary text to respond to. But I think group texts,

I mean, and I like group texts. I like to be in the group text, but then I get annoyed at how many texts are in the group text. Hayden, what's your pet peeve? I don't like it when people do not leave voicemails. Yes.

When I call and then say, or they call and then text and say, call me when you get a chance. I'm like, tell me what it's about what am i heading into like are you are we just chatting or is it something important like i want to know what i have to mentally prepare myself for right so i like it when people leave voicemails but that's just me yeah or another thing i just remembered if this has to do with the oxford

comment then no we don't want to hear about it. No, it doesn't. I already listed that as the top priority, which it should be. But when you have previously texted someone and you tell them who you are, and then you text them again, maybe weeks later, maybe months later, and they reply back, who is this? Honestly, I thought that's what brad was gonna say because he was talking about this the other day just scroll up you can see

this is daniel friend with the texan you should have put me in your contacts i don't know maybe they delete their messages after a while yeah i sympathize with the people in this problem because sometimes people have like 30 day auto delete oh yeah oh that was savage i really got brad's funny bone sorry zay i've got no comeback i've got no comeback oh my gosh um well good stuff gentlemen folks thanks for listening we'll catch you next week thank you all so much for listening. We'll paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us.

God bless you, and God bless Texas. you