The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 9, 2021

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

On our Weekly Roundup podcast, the reporting team covers Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s comments on the corporate reaction to election integrity legislation, a bill to make Texas a “Second Amendment sanctuary,” Governor Abbott’s jab at vaccine passports, COVID-19 numbers post-mask mandate rescission, the future of border wall construction, and a statewide elected official setting the stage for a challenge against Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here, Senior Editor of The Texan. This week on our weekly roundup podcast, more discussion surrounding election integrity legislation rocks the Texas House and Senate, and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick blasts big business while Governor Abbott declines a first pitch over corporate objection to such proposals, a bill to make Texas a Second Amendment sanctuary makes progress, the governor takes a jab at vaccine passports. Legislators discuss whether college athletes should take home endorsement money. COVID numbers remain steady post-mask mandate rescission.

The Biden administration considers resuming border wall construction. The Texas Senate passes its version of the state budget. A Houston synagogue sues the city, arguing unfair enforcement of land use laws and a statewide elected official sets the stage for a challenge against attorney general ken paxton thanks for listening folks and enjoy the rundown howdy folks mackenzie taylor here with daniel friend isaiah mitchell hayden sparks and brad johnson we're coming off quite a march madness weekend was it a weekend that was earlier this week i don't know what day it is. It was Monday. And Daniel, as our, you know, as our token.

Well, yes, of course. Also over the weekend. But we're talking specifically about where Baylor won. But Daniel, as our token Austin reporter, Baylor fan, you know, we'll talk about this later in the podcast. But how are you feeling? Come on. I am feeling high and mighty. Pr proud of my bears yeah proud of your bears now we'll get into the intricacies of this and you know daniel's long history as a as a bailer

yes yeah very long so stick around for that but in the meantime we're going to pivot to hayden hayden we've talked a lot about different election integrity proposals that have come through both the house and the senate walk us through the finality of the hearing that went down last week. Well, the most recent hearing was this morning, and they reported favorably out of the committee House Bill 6, which is the Texas Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021 by Briscoe Cain, a Republican from Deer Park and a slew of other co-authors. Cain's legislation has been dubbed by social media commentators as voter suppression legislation, but supporters believe it is necessary to make sure all votes are legitimate and it would give more protection for poll watchers. The bill would also prioritize voter fraud claims in Texas courts, as well as increasing

criminal penalties and adding additional criminal offenses for certain election violations, including a prohibition on unsolicited mail ballot applications and paid vote harvesting. It would also require more detailed records of people who assist voters and would tighten up other laws pertaining to the transfer of ballots, the transfer of electronic information relating to ballots. And it is a really not necessarily a comprehensive reform of the election code, but it does add in a lot of new provisions in election law to govern elections in Texas following probably the most contentious presidential election in history, as well as widespread suspicion among mostly right of center voters that last year's

election was less than legitimate. So that legislation has been passed favorably out of committee after some pretty eye-opening testimony by the Texas Attorney General's Office last week. Yeah, tell us more about that. I think that was potentially one of the more noteworthy testimonies during that committee hearing. Walk us through what was said. Well, a member of the Texas Attorney General's office, the election fraud unit of the Texas Attorney General's office appeared. His name is Jonathan White. And he testified that election fraud prosecutions are in fact at an all time high since the unit has been established higher than our historical average by a long shot, he said. There are currently 510 alleged election offenses

pending against 43 defendants. Now, to put that in perspective, McKenzie, there have been 534 offenses prosecuted successfully against 155 individuals since the unit started 16 years ago. So that is 96% of the total offenses that have been resolved are currently pending. The 96% of that number are currently pending against 43 defendants. So you have this uptick in voter fraud prosecutions. But to put that in perspective, there were 11.3 million votes cast in the presidential election last year. So that number is really dwarfed in comparison by the number of votes. Also, the Attorney General's office did not testify that voter fraud and election offenses are a systematic or a widespread problem. He said that he's not going to testify that the system is that broken. However, it's also important to remember that local races can be considerably closer than a statewide race. And races can be decided by only a handful of votes, which means that election fraud can be more pernicious on the local level. And the example that I always think of is the case in 2017 in the Virginia House

of Delegates race. Now, this didn't happen in Texas, obviously, but the Virginia House of Delegates is much like the Texas House, where the balance of power in the whole state was decided by one vote in one race in the House of Delegates. And not only was that seat decided, but the balance of power in the chamber was decided. And if that one vote had gone a different way, then the Democrats would have had control in or there would have been a tie in the chamber rather than the Republicans having control. So that's kind of a mathematical rarity. But additional arguments that have been presented in favor of this legislation is that undetected fraud is not prosecuted. So prosecuted offenses are not necessarily a reliable indicator of how much fraud is

occurring. And one fraud offense can also involve multiple votes and multiple schemes. So just because 510 offenses doesn't necessarily mean 510 votes. So those are some of the arguments that have been presented for and against HB 6. And now we'll see how that plays out on the Texas House floor. Yeah, and we'll be awaiting to see when that hearing will happen on the House floor. I'm sure it will be quite a colorful day when that piece of legislation comes to the floor. Let's keep talking about election integrity legislation.

Let's talk about the Senate and the lieutenant governor specifically. Daniel, something quite spicy this week happened at a press conference. Just some comments from the lieutenant governor. Walk us through what happened. Yes. So this is also kind of related to those election bills that are going through. There's the House one, HB 6, and then you also have the one in the Senate, which is SB 7. SB 7 has a lot of similar kind of policies in it as HB 6, some different ones, but broadly it follows the same line of trying to kind of tamp down on these possible

routes of voter fraud. So it's really kind of an election security bill that Republicans are pushing for. Certainly not the first election bill that Republicans have pushed for in the past. In the past three sessions, there have been election legislation prioritized by Republicans, by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. And quite frequently, there is opposition to these bills from Democrats who point to this and claim that these types of bills are voter suppression, that it will discourage people from participating in the voting process. And so Dan Patrick's press conference on Tuesday was really kind of in response to these claims of voter suppression. And he was just essentially trying to refute this, the idea that the bill is going to dissuade people from voting.

And so, you know, one of the big points that he brought up was the similar claims that were made surrounding a voter ID law in 2011 when Democrats were in opposition to that. And since then, if you look back at the records of voting, there has been a much, much more, much larger increase in the number of people who are actually going out to the polls and voting as far as turnout. And then also the number of people who are registered to vote. We are seeing, you know, records break consistently in different elections. And so, you know, records break consistently in different elections. And so, you know, if you look at the policy changes made with that voter ID law and compare it to the policy changes in SB7, you know, those voter ID laws were much more significant in the things that they were changing. A lot of the things that are changing in SB 7 are policies

that were kind of accepted by the state generally, but it wasn't actually put necessarily codified as clear in law. So, you know, in the last election, we saw Harris County make several different actions to try and expand the people who were voting. So you had the voting administrator, Chris Hollins. I forget the proper title. I think it's the county elections administrator. And he was the interim at the time. Yes. And he sent out, or he was planning on sending out mass mail ballot applications or kind of soliciting people to get these mail ballot applications or kind of soliciting people to get these mail ballot

applications. And they also experimented with some with drive-through voting and 24-hour voting. And so this bill would, you know, one of the things that it would do among some other things, it would basically put it in code and say that local election agencies can't have that be in law. So that is, you know, it's not as wide sweeping as other proposals previously. Yeah, certainly. Now, this is one thing that we've heard a lot about is different corporations, both, you know, Texas based and otherwise coming out and saying, hey, we're not going to do business in Texas, if this is what, you know, the Republicans are going to be proposing in the, in the House and the Senate, walk us through, you know, specifically American Airlines, there's been controversy about that we've talked about it

previously, but a lot of what Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said during this press conference related to, you know, these kinds of companies, and specifically American Airlines, give us a rundown of specifically what was said and, you know, the controversy surrounding American Airlines. Yeah, so a number of companies have come out against this, but the one that Dan Patrick really focused on and honed in on was American Airlines. And this is probably one of the first companies in Texas that I think came out in opposition to the bill, Dan Patrick said that some of their legislative workers, officials, contacted his office and told him beforehand that their opposition, they were going to come out in opposition to the bill. And Patrick said that they said it wasn't personal in any way. And that they were doing this just as a policy standpoint. But Patrick says that he did take it personally because essentially what the statement was,

was that this election bill is racist, targeting minorities to suppress them from voting. And Patrick says, no, that's not what this bill is doing. You know, that's essentially calling him and all the 18 Republicans in the Senate who voted for it racists. And another thing that he said, emphasized during the call or about the call was that the officials had not actually read the bill and that the ceo of american airlines had not read the bill and so dan patrick said uh quote you have a right to your opinion but read the damn bill so that kind of tells you his his sentiment it was very kind of a passionate um press conference yeah he was very you know very animated the whole time. Yes, perturbed, yes.

Very lively. You know, I think I went back to, Brad and I went to another press conference with him a little bit ago with the ERCOT stuff. And he was, you know, I think there were some points where he was a little bit perturbed about different things. Certainly firm about his stance. Yeah, but he was much more calm in that. This, he was mad. He was very mad at the way that businesses and Democrats have labeled this bill as voter suppression. So, yeah.

I like it. There's this complicated relationship between the state and these big companies. Is there going to be any pushback against these companies going forward just in terms of, you know, tax incentives or those kinds of things? It's unlikely that we'll see that. Now, Dan Patrick was very, very adamant about businesses not getting involved in politics. You know, he chided them for different things. And he said that these companies keep meddling in issues that are completely unrelated to their business.

You know, election laws don't affect American Airlines whatsoever. You know, and so he says, you know, by doing this, it's going to hurt the companies themselves. They're going to turn off

50% of their voters or customers customers rather. But when asked if he was going to kind of retaliate with cutting tax incentives or, you know, subsidies for these corporations, all these incentives that Texas has to get businesses to come to Texas and set up shop here, he said, this isn't quid pro quo. We don't punish businesses for disagreeing with us. So it looks like, you know, those policies to kind of incentivize businesses to come

to Texas. And, you know, lots of Republicans like Dan Patrick, Greg Abbott, they emphasize this need for jobs in the state and wanting to have more companies come here. That's something that they touted a lot. But it'll be interesting to see how they walk that line going forward when you have all these companies who want to have their cake and eat it too and come to Texas and get involved in politics that go contrary to the other policies of these republican leaders and so you know there's not there might from from the press conference there's not going to be pushed back as far as tax incentives go right there is no threat made necessarily which is like hey stay out of your stay out of things that don't pertain to you it's kind of the attitude well daniel thank

you for covering that for us and it's interesting too to watch just the narratives play out because in light and even though these proposals maybe aren't as heavy handed as previous proposals in terms of election security or reform, you know, in light of the 2020 election and the narratives that came out of of November in terms of, you know, hey, election fraud, you know, concerns from folks about that on on the right and the left saying there was no fraud. You know, these kinds of bills are going to be politically charged, certainly. We're going to stick on this topic just tangentially. So Brad, the governor, said, hey, you know, usually he goes in and does some sort of first pitch kind of situation. Not usually, but he's done it in the past um for the rangers with the you know that's pretty frequently yeah with the mlb coming up and saying hey it's time i know you and phil specifically phil burton are uh our founder's husband are very excited about these developments but with abbott specifically season generally yes yes just generally speaking just

baseball period america's pastime um but you But something this week was a political flashpoint. Walk us through what happened. Yeah, so like you mentioned, Governor Abbott has before and was set again to throw out the first pitch at the Texas Rangers home opener. That was set for Monday. And it wasn't the beginning of the season because the Rangers had an away series last week. But this was the first time they were going to play at their new home field or their field that was built just before last season, which fans were not a part of because of COVID and it got delayed. But Globo Life Field, the governor was set to throw out the first pitch alongside various, they call them frontline heroes, nurses. I think there were a few police officers.

Teachers were included in that. And that was going to be the ceremony. Now, after what Major League Baseball did last week, where they moved the All-Star game that was set to happen in Atlanta at the Braves Stadium. They moved it out of there eventually to Colorado, Denver. And it was kind of in a protest against the election reform bill that had just passed and been signed by the governor there in Georgia. And it's very similar, not exactly the same legislation, but certainly similar to what Texas is trying to do right now. There's multiple bills in the works in the legislature at the moment for that. And Governor Abbott, like Lieutenant Governor Patrick, took issue with the way these corporations were framing the bill, both in Georgia and the prospective Texas bills.

And so not as a protest against the Rangers, but against Major League Baseball, Governor Abbott declined his appearance. And his statement was, I was looking forward to throwing out the first pitch until Major League Baseball adopted what has turned out to be a false narrative about the election law reforms in georgia and based on that false narrative move the mlb all-star game from atlanta it is shameful that america's pastime is not only being influenced by partisan political politics but also perpetuating false political narratives this decision does not diminish the deep respect i have for the texas rangers baseball organization which is outstanding from top to bottom. I wish the team great success this season. And that last part is,

you know, an important point. You know, it's not the teams that made this decision. It was the league itself. So in terms of Texas's legislation, where specifically did Abbott draw the line, you know, there,

what did he mention? What kind of relation is there between this bill and texas's he there was no direct um statement about that but he did uh take note of you know various other corporations like american air that daniel talked about um that have been you know pushing whatever narrative they have been about this and he took issue with that just as he did with um with the major league baseballs but with the baseball aspect it's more of this is clearly um something that could have happened to texas had they you know hosted the all-star game this year or were they set to because of the legislation that abbott is supportive of um not only that but it's in his emergency item list um you know it's it's drawing a firm line

there and um you know trying to it's a rhetorical defense essentially of what texas is working on right now in advance of any potential criticism from major league baseball certainly so the groundwork is being set at this point awesome thanks brad daniel we're coming back to you the governor has been also supportive of a particular second amendment sanctuary bill that has made progress this last week give us an update yes so the second amendment sanctuary is this idea that a governmental entity will either pledge to not enforce or prohibit the enforcement of unconstitutional firearms enacted at a higher level. We've seen this largely at county levels. Kind of before the pandemic began was really when it spread across Texas and I think over 70 counties

passed some sort of resolution that was basically county commissioners courts pledging not to enforce any unconstitutional firearm laws if they're passed by the state or federal government um and so earlier this year governor greg abbott said that he wants texas as a whole to become a second amendment sanctuary state and there's been different pieces of legislation that would um basically turn tex Texas into such a Second Amendment sanctuary where the state and all the local government entities would be prohibited from enforcing new firearm laws by the federal government. Got it. So what kind of proposals is the legislature looking at now that we're in session? So there's two big ones that are being looked at. The first one was just approved by the House State Affairs Committee this week, and that is from Representative Justin Holland. And essentially what that bill would do, both of these bills would do the same thing as prohibiting state agencies, local law enforcement.

You know, Harris County officials couldn't be able to enforce any new federal firearm laws that would be enacted. And that would be retroactive from January 19th of this year. So when the Biden administration came in, any new laws enacted, any new gun laws enacted under that administration that are not on the books in Texas would be prohibited from being enforced. Now, in the Texas Senate, they're looking, it was actually heard on Thursday, a bill from Senator Bob Hall, and it was actually originally filed in the House in, I think, 2013 by Representative Steve Toth, which Governor Greg Abbott helped write when he was Attorney General then. And this is the Texas Firearm Protection Act, and it would basically do the same thing. I think it'd be a little bit more forceful

in imposing penalties directly on individuals who do enforce these types of laws. So it'll be interesting to see how the House and Senate go about that. Back in 2013, the Texas Firearm Protection Act did pass the House in a 100-member vote, so two-thirds of the chamber voted for it, but it didn't ever get brought to the Senate. So now that these are both being heard in the House and the Senate, it'll be interesting to see which version might make it through the furthest and which could potentially be signed by the governor, and the Senate. It'll be interesting to see which version might make it through the furthest and which could potentially be signed by the governor. And the governor has indicated that he wants to sign such a bill. Got it. So in terms of enforcement, I mean, how would this actually

work? Do these bills have teeth to be able to enforce these kinds of ideas? Yeah. So those resolutions that I talked about that had been passed at the county level really have not had much teeth to it. It's basically just the county commissioner's court saying, we're not going to do this. Now that, so for the most part, they have been very symbolic. Now it's basically just saying the sheriff has come through and like, we're not going to waste our time doing this.

So it has some relative action, but I think the bills that are in the legislature right now are going to have a little bit more of an effect if they're passed. Because this is basically tie the hands of these large urban counties, which are probably more likely to want to enforce these new gun restrictions, whether it be mandatory buybacks, gun confiscation programs, or background checks, requiring background checks for private sellers, and different things like that. So in a case that a local entity tries to do that, this would prohibit them from doing that. It would open up the avenue for these cases to be brought to the courts and basically stop those policies from being enforced. Got it. Thank you for covering that for us, Daniel. Brad, we're going

to go to you. We've seen a lot of chatter at the federal level about vaccine passports. This week, Governor Abbott came out with a move of his own relating to that. What are the details? Yeah, so he issued an executive order this week prohibiting the use of vaccine passports. Now it's more complicated than that. Naturally. Um, it is a prohibition on government entities requiring them for people to access, you know, those buildings and, um, private businesses that benefit from taxpayer funds in some way, uh, as a condition of those funds being issued they those places cannot require vaccine proof of vaccination essentially uh vaccine passports is the term that has been popularized but it's you know it's not like it it's not just wouldn't just

be a passport you leave in the country and you know you'd have to show it to enter a store. Theoretically, that's the, you know, the realistic application of it. But Governor Abbott prohibited with his executive order the issuance of those now private businesses that do not receive political or public funds are not part of that. They were not mentioned in the order. So unless something changes, they would be able to do that. Now, there are some that argue that people choosing to do with their property what they want. Other people argue that this is not something that anyone should be doing. And therefore, there's the role of the government to prohibit it. But Abbott's statement when he issued this, he said, every day Texans are returning to normal life as more people get the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. But as I've said all along, these vaccines are always voluntary and never forced. Government should not require any Texan

to show proof of vaccination and reveal private health information just to go about their daily lives. So in terms of Florida's order, you know, we've seen a lot of comparison between Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and, you know, Abbott here in Texas. There was a lot of chatter about the, you know, the two different approaches these governors took. What's the difference, the primary difference? Well, the main difference is that DeSantis' order also prohibited it for businesses writ large, you know, whether they receive public funding or not. So that's the main difference. is drawn between them because of the 2024 presidential implications. Both seem to be at the very least interested, if not already contenders in that race. And, you know, that'll just continue to bubble up as we get closer to the election. But, you know, I'm not

aware of any places in Texas right now that, that you know fitting that carve out for abbott that do require vaccination proof um at the moment so maybe it's just a distinction without a difference um you know in the practical applicability of this um but it's certainly something that could come into play certainly thanks for you know making sure we have all the information on that isaiah we're coming to you um i know it's been a while since we got to you. Let's talk college athlete endorsements, sponsorships, all that jazz. Always a hot topic with a lot of hot takes but there was a you know specific piece of legislation discussed in the texas senate this week that would deal specifically with this issue what is the current law regarding athlete endorsements in college here in texas so right now in texas as in most states college athletes cannot do paid endorsements there are six states that have passed laws to allow them and california

naturally took a lot of the press when they passed theirs called the fair pay to play act in 2019 and so the controversy controversy is that on one hand the schools make all kinds of money off their athletic programs and the athletes never get a dime of that in the in the states where you know where that's prohibited on the other hand schools of profitable athletic programs have good athletes that often get scholarships to attend and a lot of people see that as pay. That's your compensation is, you know, you're getting to go to school for free, free athletic ability. The NCAA has opposed legislation like this to allow paid endorsements for college athletes at the state level, because they say it'll create this regulatory patchwork

that'll tilt the playing field to better funded schools and better funded states where potential athletes can make more money. And so that will just, you know, roll all of the good athletes or the better athletes to the better, more well-funded schools and bigger states. And it'll be harder for smaller schools or states that don't have these kinds of laws to compete. Yeah, certainly. So walk us through, this is a bill filed by Senator Brandon Creighton. Walk us through his proposal. So his bill would prohibit colleges or universities from adopting rules that forbid athletes from making money off their own name and likeness. And interestingly, he admitted that he opposed this idea in the past before learning more about it. He pitched it as a way for Texas's big schools like UT and A&M, whose athletic directors were

there as testifiers, to better attract students. And that kind of became a source of contention at the meeting. UT's athletic director, Chris Del Conte, they're still hashing it. That's what committees are for. They're hashing out the legislation in the idea stage. Both athletic directors supported it, but Del Conte said that he wanted to keep the focus at the individual granular level and not see the bill as what he called a recruiting inducement to where, you know, the motive for lawmakers or schools is to pass this bill so that UT and A&M can just rake in the good athletes. Because, like, as Senator West brought up in the meeting, that could be a potential conflict with the bill text itself. As he put it, West, he supported the bill very avowedly, but said,

if indeed the purpose of the bill is to recruit students to attend the university to play, then by using the bill to do that, it would be illegal as the bill is drafted. And so Del Conte, West, both of them wanted to see the bill reorganized and tweaked somewhat to a more individual standard that's just saying athletes have the right to profit off their own names and their own likenesses. And if people are making money off of that, then that money should go to the athlete. Got it. So it's more endorsement based than, you know, other proposals we've seen. Now, a lot of famous athletes have a lot to say about these kinds of proposals. What, you know, give us kind of the argument for and against.

Sure. So just to pull from two big ones, Tim Tebow, former NFL quarterback and current minor leaguer opposes it. And LeBron James basketball store supports it. So LeBron James, it should be noted, went straight to the NBA without a collegiate career. And he says that he made that skip because it just wouldn't have made fiscal sense for him and his family growing up. He said, I understand what those kids are going through. I feel for those kids. And this was all in 2019 after California passed their version of law. That's where all these quotes come from. He said, me and my mom, we didn't have anything. We wouldn't have been able to benefit at all from going to college.

The university would have been able to capitalize on everything. So on the other side, we've got Tim Tebow opposing it because, in his words, he thinks that college sports should be about the university and about the team. And he doesn't want to see collegiate sports moving towards what the NFL looks like today. So in his words, he said, when I was at the University of Florida, I think my jersey was one of the top selling jerseys around the world. It was like Kobe, LeBron, and I was right behind them. And I didn't make a dollar from it, but nor did I want to. I know we live in a selfish culture where it's all about us. We're just adding and piling it onto that, where it changes what's special about college football. We turn it into the NFL where who has the most money, that's where you go.

Good stuff. Isaiah, thanks for covering that for us. Daniel, let's talk COVID numbers. In the last few weeks, we've seen a lot of movement in terms of statistics, specifically in light of the mask mandate that was lifted just about a month ago. I think a month ago, almost on the dot. What are the numbers looking like now that that mandate has been lifted? I believe March 2nd was the day that Governor Abbott announced that he was going to be pulling back on his mandates and all his lockdown to opening everything up to 100% capacity. And that was scheduled and happened on March 10th, was when that went into effect.

And in that week in between, you heard lots of outcry from many different people, lots of Democrats in Texas, Beto O'Rourke, the chair of the Democratic Party, even President Biden, come out against this policy from Governor Abbott, saying that this was way too early, that this was going to be essentially signing a death warrant for lots of Texans. And, um, what we've seen is that that has not turned out to be the case as the COVID numbers, both the hospitalizations and the cases, um, all of the, the trend lines are continuing in a downward trend. Um the, you know, average hospitalizations was a little less than 5,000 when that order went into effect. And then now it's gone down another 33%. So it's just

continuing to go down. Now, keep in mind, you know, the hospitalizations were already going down. They really reached a peak in the probably about early January was when we saw the high of hospitalizations and cases in Texas. And then things started to go down and things just continued going down. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of this is determined or success or failure on this front is often determined by how this compares to other states' numbers. Now, every state's different. The response is different. But in terms of what we can actually see and compare, how does Texas compare to other states numerically?

Yeah. So I think we've all seen Republican states and Democratic states take it in two different extremes. So you have Republican states at you know, one end with states like South Dakota and Florida taking much more lax precautions, whereas you have other states like Michigan and California that have taken much more strict precautions. And I think these latest numbers are showing that, you know, with or without those precautions are really not, with those mandates or without them, really doesn't affect the trend lines of the numbers as much as people like to believe. Now, that's not to say that it doesn't do anything. I think the jury is still out on that. But by and large, it really doesn't seem to have as big of an effect because

as Texas numbers are going down right now, after we took out the mask mandate, the cases in Michigan and kind of in New York, New York to some other Northeast, Northeast states like that, you're seeing the numbers go back up. You know, they had this winter surge, it went down and now those cases are starting to go back up again, even though they still have those lockdown policies in place, even though they still have the mask mandate. Now, that's not all Democratic states that are like that. You also have California as an example where the cases are continuing to go down and you haven't seen an uptick. It's very similar to Texas. And I think and this is something that I really haven't seen anybody talking about.

Granted, I haven't been following COVID numbers as much as I was last summer. But that was almost a full time job last summer. Yeah, we were dealing with a lot of that on your plate. So, you know, with the legislative session, I've been paying much more attention to that. But something that I still haven't seen really anybody talk about is, you know, when you look back at cases last summer, you saw a rise in cases in Texas and California. Michigan didn't have that summer surge. They didn't have a wave of cases there. They saw a wave of cases come in like November, December in this winter surge. But before then, they really didn't have much of an uptick. So there were, I think in Michigan, it's probably safe to say that there were a lot of fewer people who had already had the virus compared to Texas and California. And also in New York, New York didn't have a summer surge.

Now, New York did have one of the worst cases in the spring. And, you know, that was talked about quite a lot back in March and April. You know, they had a big surge then, but they didn't have one in the summer. And so, you know, with New York, you saw the cases go up in the spring. They came down, no surge in the summer. Then you saw a surge in the winter and then stuff started coming down again. And then it picked back up just a little bit these past few months. And now it's going down again. So, you know,

I think it's kind of reflective of the really more of the herd immunity than these policies. And so as, you know, vaccinations continue, I think we're going to see far, far fewer cases than we have. And, you know, these policies at this point are just, I don't know if you want to call them the cherry on top or trying to stop these cases, but it's largely based on, you know, who's had the virus already, where the cases have been. Awesome, Daniel. Thank you so much. So one quick question before we move on to the next segment, I want to know, you know, in terms of lawmaker response, since the, since the mask mandate was lifted, have we seen much conversation about it from legislators and

committee hearings on the floor, on social media? Has that quieted down largely? Where are we at in terms of the political discussion? I think the political discussion has really quieted down for the most part. Now, you're still seeing it play out somewhat in the legislature where the legislative house and the Senate have their own mask mandate still in place. So you're seeing it talked about some there. But by and large, everybody has kind of stopped talking about it. And I think we'll continue to see this. I think, like many things in the news cycle, you know, you're talking about the George Floyd protests one week, and then two weeks later, as cases go up, it's back on COVID. Right. And I think as the cases go down, it's in Texas, it's continuing to go down,

with not really a sign of any new surge coming. And so, you know, that being the case, I think, you know, as we start seeing more stuff on these election bills on I'm sure there'll be some more gun legislation. President Biden just made some executive orders regarding that on Thursday. We're going to see more talk about other things and people's focus is shifting somewhere else. Awesome. Thank you for that. Hayden, we're going to come to you with some federal news. The president, President Biden, this week said some controversial things about the border wall. Give us an update on where we're at with that. Well, as you all know, the border wall has been a little bit controversial, just a touch.

And President Biden, on his first day in office, decided to stop construction of the security barrier, or the security system. And I say system because it is not just a wall, it is also technology and surveillance and other components, things that I am not an expert in, that contribute to securing the border. And what occurred this week is the Washington Times reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is signaling that the department may restart construction on at least portions of the security barrier, what he referred to as the gaps in the security barrier, because really, this was a total pause on border construction. So the Times reported that there was a communication

directed toward employees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that indicated they were mulling options to finish construction on at least a portion of the project. Got it. So in terms of, you know, let's talk about specifically approval of the Biden administration's handling of the border since he, you know, since President Biden took office, some pollings come out about that, right? And folks are constantly checking in the borders becoming increasingly, you know, hot topic here in the US? Where are we at in terms of approval for further response? Well, people are worried, to put it simply, 55% of Americans, not Texans, but Americans disapprove of the president's handling of border

security, according to an Associated Press University of Chicago poll. And if you want to check out that poll, you can head to the texan.news and it is in the article. Biden administration may resume border wall construction after halting progress on first day in office. Check out that article. You can see the poll, but in addition, 56% disapprove of his handling of immigration to distinguish that from

border security. And ironically, to distinguish that from border security yeah and ironically 55 approve of his foreign policy while only 43 disapprove and i say ironically because foreign policy and immigration really do go hand in hand yeah because central american countries well i say central america foreign countries are the the decisions made in other countries and conditions in other countries, according to Homeland Security, significantly contributes to illegal immigration and human suffering elsewhere across the globe that causes people to come to the United States because we are a better place to live than Central America. So while Biden is getting higher marks on pretty

much every other issue, immigration and border security is the one issue where people are worried. And as it relates to illegal immigration itself, 45% of Americans are extremely or very concerned, and 27% are moderately concerned. Only 26% said in this poll that they were not at all concerned and this poll has a margin of error pardon me while i check my notes of 3.6 percentage points give or take so more than two-thirds of the country is worried about illegal immigration is the is the takeaway takeaway from that and biden is possibly tempering his position on the border wall in view of those numbers, because the cease and desist on the border wall was very much a political decision that I think was fueled by a political mandate from his base, just like

Trump's zero tolerance policy was a political decision maybe less of a tactical decision and and more of a political decision campaign promise those kinds of things yeah and so the any candidate wants to show that they're delivering on their campaign promises but they after discussing with border patrol officials and seeing these numbers there may be a new mandate and that is to temper their administration's position on border security to be a little bit more assertive. Certainly. Hayden, thanks for covering that for us. Brad, one of your beats is the budget. And believe it or not, we are back in the season in which that is a hot topic. The Senate passed their budget. Walk us through the details of that. Yeah, so I think we talked about this last week and nothing much has really changed,

but I can't hurt to go over it again. So especially because it is the most important part of every legislative session. And the Senate passed a $250.7 billion budget. A large portion of that is non-discretionary funding stuff that they have to finance like it's an entitlements but 117.9 billion dollars of that is discretionary funding of which they have a lot of you know discretion over how it is spent and so um among that includes $3.1 billion for the growth of student enrollment in Texas. Now, as most people know, the state has a sizable role in financing public education K-12. And so every session they adjust the amount they pay based on student enrollment and how much it grows.

And obviously, Texas is a growing state. And so that comes with more students. Another factor of it is $1 billion in continued property tax compression. And that's important. That's a continuation of what we saw last session, along with the school finance injection. The state uses around $5 billion to compress property taxes down at the local level. It's essentially a buyout of the portion of funding that ISDs have to pay for their operations. And so it reduces the local property tax rates. Those are the two biggest things right now. We're still waiting to see what comes out of the House. And they are expected to vote out the budget probably next week. That's what I heard on the Preparations Committee hearing this week, today being Thursday. And, you know, after that, it'll go to the floor and the house will have a long,

very long process of trying to amend every whole night of it. Um, it's a much longer process than the Senate, uh, which voted this out unanimously this week. And, um, yep,

that's where it sits. Once, once those two, uh, once the two houses pass, uh, their own version, it will then go to conference committee and they'll hammer out the differences.

Awesome. And we'll go from there. I like it. Thank you, Bradley. Isaiah, we're coming to you. Now, there was a story you wrote this week specifically relating to a Houston synagogue and just some land use action taken there. Walk us through the details of that story and what the lawsuit is about. Sure.

So, it centers around a synagogue in a Houston residential youth neighborhood. And right off the bat, if I misrepresent Jewish theology, Orthodox theology, I apologize because I don't know much about it. But the congregants of the Hamish synagogue are suing the city of Houston, claiming that it enforced its laws selectively. Basically, they are bound by their faith to worship within a small geographic zone called an Erev at a place of the walking distance of their homes. And they set up shop in a home in a residential use-only neighborhood. And they've been there for a little bit over two years.

The homeowners association confronted them about it and spoke to a rabbi. And after that conversation, decided to let them continue worshiping there. Later that same month, over the summer, I believe it was in July, the city confronted them about it and ordered them to shut down and threatened them with fines and other legal action. The problem is that there are other businesses operating in homes in this neighborhood, including a law firm, a hair salon, and a wig stylist, but those have remained untouched by the city. Got it. So, in terms of, you know, going forward and just what we're dealing with here,

why did the city want to shut them down in the first place? That's actually kind of an important question, because according to state law and federal law, too, the city needs a compelling interest to substantially burden the free exercise of religion. So one would think, well, isn't enforcing the law enough? But compelling interest would really take the shape more of, say, trying to ease traffic in the area. If you have a lot of people walking around in this era to the synagogue, then the city of Houston might argue that that's posing a traffic hazard or something like that.

That's more of a compelling interest. And the term compelling interest comes from the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which echoes a similarly named law at the federal level, which prevent governments of any kind from burdening the free exercise of religion without such a compelling interest. And again, what further muddies the water is that there are other businesses operating in this presidential neighborhood that the city has not touched. Got it. Well, Isaiah, thanks for covering that for us. It's quite an interesting situation. We'll continue to monitor it. Brad, we're going to come to you. There was an interesting

announcement made this week. An announcement is a strong word an interesting acknowledgement rather that happened this week um of one statewide elected official saying hey i'm open to primarying another statewide elected official um and it's shrouded by all sorts of controversy all sorts of um you know bribery and abusive office allegations walk us through what happened yeah so it was a statement of fact that we all generally knew was the case, but it finally came out. Of the horse's mouth. Yes, it did. George P. Bush, the Texas Land Commissioner, announced on

Mark Davis' radio show, Dallas Radio Host, on Thursday that he is seriously considering running for Attorney General, whether that's against Ken Paxton or not, depending on whether he runs again, which all indications show that he will. And in the radio spot, Bush, he didn't really focus much on political differences

because, as he said, there aren't many between him and Ken Paxton. And more, he said, it will focus on how the office is run, specifically citing the allegations of abuse of office against Ken Paxton. And, you know, it's setting up a pretty serious clash. Like, it'll be a most-watch we, if that does come down the pike. So yeah, another Bush legacy is looking for higher office. Potentially advancing. So on that note, I mean, how hard did he hit Paxton in this interview? Pretty hard. You know, he said, we need a top cop that the law enforcement of our great state can

confide in and trust in. He mentioned that he spoke to various attorneys general across the country that all expressed their embarrassment of what has been going on in the attorney general's office. He, Bush, lamented the, quote, excellent attorneys that left Paxton's office, most of which, I think, Daniel, were all of them fired eventually, or did any of them, one of them left, resigned? Yeah, I think a couple resigned.

Mix of resignations and firings, yes. The spots were vacated. Yes. And there's been a lot of criticism of Paxton on that. He was actually pressed, Paxton himself was pressed on it in appropriations committee hearings or finance committee hearings in the Senate. And his statement was that, yeah, we had good lawyers leave, but we've replaced them with even better lawyers. And so, you know, this is not a new case that has been made, and Bush appears to be really honing in on it. Yeah, and Paxton's doubling down on his intent to run as well.

Yep, yep. So I think, you know, if I were a betting man, I would say that these two will square off in the 2022 GOP primary for attorney general. And there has certainly been whispers of other candidates, other potential candidates as well. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of statewide races we're dealing with in just a couple of years. I think it'll be interesting to see also, you brought up the whistleblowers, how there's currently a whistleblower lawsuit pending, and it looks like it could take, you know, potentially a long time to make its way through the courts, um,

just through the different stages of appeals. Um, so it'd be interesting to see how that the timeline of that case overlaps with this election over the next two years. If, if they do run against each other, what comes out during that, during that race,

you know, something's going to come out. Something will. So, um, you know, how serious will it be? Yeah be yeah and timing it'll all be very very interesting um well gentlemen thank you let's pivot to daniel's favorite topic sickum yeah that's what i'm talking about so daniel explain to us your history with this um you know with this with this famed team now yeah i mean i have been we've talked about this on the podcast now we haven't been obviously

last year college football was a little bit different than previous years yeah um so we didn't spend much time talking about it on the podcast but back back in the heyday when it was brad and i and sarah mcconnell we would talk about all the all the college football stuff. We each adopted a Texas team. Yes. Well, you all did. You all adopted a Texas team. I was there for all of this. I adopted teams as well. What team did you adopt? Oh my gosh. I don't

remember, but I was part of it. So thanks for... This was back in my reporting days. This is unreal. I feel so left out of this conversation. All that to say... What an oversight, Daniel Friend. Oh my. That was also was back in my reporting days this is unreal i feel so left out of this conversation all that to say what an oversight daniel friend oh my well that was also we were like circling through like who was on the podcast so you weren't i think you were on there less frequently than oh yeah certainly than brad and i so anyways anyways, y'all adopted teams.

I didn't have to do that because obviously as it came out, then I had been a lifelong Baylor fan just with the whole scandal stuff. I hadn't really, you know, publicly come out multiple scandals. Yes. So, but that was the appropriate time to, you know, come out of the closet so to speak and say that I am. Profess your Baylor fandom. All that to say, that was when I really made myself, everybody know how true of a Baylor fan I have been my whole life. And so just leading up to this moment, it was really, I don't know.

It was special. You did watch the game, right? I did watch it from beginning to end. It was not a very good game. I didn't think it was a national championship as I was watching it. I had to ask Phil, like, is this actually a national championship? You really asked Phil? That's amazing.

Yeah, it was on Slack. Oh, look at that. I've got one real quick question. First of all, is Sarah McConnell, who I've never met, is she from Texas? She's absolutely from Texas Yes Okay Interesting

She's an Aggie Alright Because I was going to say She also did an adoptive team She went to school there She was born there Molded by it Yes

Forded by it Texting through and through Brad Now I know you're still grieving Some here Yes So you know Tell us

You know Not slowly Quickly about your about your grief here oh well thanks for bringing that back up um it's slightly better now that baseball is back but uh michigan my favorite team uh my boyhood team they uh they were knocked out by UCLA, ironically, who's coached by the former coach for my alma mater while I was at school. Nick Cronin, yes. Oh, the turntables. That was an atrocious game all around.

So, yes, I'm still grieving, and I do not appreciate your insensitivity to this. Oh, I'm so sorry about that. I mean, you say it cacklingly. Yeah, exactly. You can tell the sorrow in my voice. I guess you wouldn't have to be insensitive if they, I don't know, played better. That's it. Being a Michigan fan, I am used to disappointments.

There is a gif that is fantastic. It encapsulates being a Michigan fan and things like basketball, going up, being shot, and just rolling around the rim, falling out, having a bowl of cereal and your spoon falls into the bowl of cereal, things like that, just getting so close and then being disappointed. That's a real tragedy. or serial yeah yeah thanks for horrible painting that picture for us that was that was really special you're welcome yeah i'm glad my my misery can uh entertain you i just like that you explained to our listeners a gif that you enjoy yeah well that was good good content say this gif that

shows disappointment no the best part of it is seeing the things that happen in the gif you tweet it out tomorrow um wonderful uh isaiah do you have any thoughts on march madness first of all i thought we were going to talk about whether or not pop tarts or ravioli and so no i don't have any comments on this because i've never watched a full game of basketball because i'm not very sporty what's your comment prepared comments for the pop tart ravioli no that's a long it's a long discussion that ends with all those arguments are wrong because words mean whatever the speakers of the language you know say whatever thought jumps into your head when you hear the word that that's how you determine the meaning.

And so when you think of the word ravioli, when you think of the word pop tart, nobody is ever thinking of the same thing without great effort to make a dumb internet meme that blossoms into these stupid conversations. I've got strong feelings about it much stronger than I do about basketball, which I guess seems kind of cool. You might as well call macaroni and cheese cereal. Yeah.

You've got one thing swimming in another thing. Yeah. Yeah, cereal. They're both grains. Oh, my. Well, on that note, folks, we're going to wrap this up.

Thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would

review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter, tweet at The Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you. So it's important we all do our part

to support The Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you, and God bless Texas.