The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 11, 2023

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Texas flag hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/texas-flag-hat/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: State Rep. John Raney announcing he will not run for re-election in 2024The Office of the Attorney General appealing a district court’s ruling that the Heartbeat Act is unconstitutionalThe Texas Legislature failing to pass a judicial compensation reform bill in the 88th Legislative SessionA Texas man sentenced for threatening mass shooting against Arizona election officialsProtesters assaulting and spitting on attendees of the signing of the Save Women’s Sports ActDPS officials sound off on the dangers of illegal border crossings between ports of entryACLU Texas suing to block Texas ‘drag ban’ on sexually oriented performances with children in attendanceMembers of a San Antonio family pleading guilty to bribing government employees for million-dollar contractsA breakdown of Texas A&M’s bungled hiring of journalism professor Dr. Kathleen McElroyLeander ISD parents holding a rally over a board trustee’s sexual assault allegationsAngelina County authorizing a ‘planning study’ to consider building a new courthouseA first grade teacher in Mesquite ISD resigning after her ‘anti-white’ online posts went viral

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses a state lawmaker announcing he will not run for re-election in 2024. The Office of the Attorney General appealing a district court's ruling that the Heartbeat Act is unconstitutional. The Texas legislature failing to pass a judicial compensation reform bill in the 88th legislative session. A Texas man sentenced for threatening mass shooting against Arizona election officials. Protesters assaulting and spitting on attendees of the signing of the Save Women Sports Act. DPS officials sounding off on the dangers of illegal border crossings between ports of entry. ACLU Texas suing to block Texas's drag ban on sexually oriented performances

with children in attendance. Members of a San Antonio family pleading guilty to bribing government employees for million dollar contracts. A breakdown of Texas A&M's bungled hiring of journalism professor, Dr. Kathleen McElroy. Leander ISD parents holding a rally over a board trustee's sexual assault allegations, Angelina County authorizing a planning study

to consider building a new courthouse, and a first grade teacher in Mesquite ISD resigning after her anti-white online posts went viral. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks.

Mackenzie here with Cameron, Hayden, and Matthew. Brad, how's it going? I think that silence speaks volumes. I think it does as well. Well, I managed to not laugh. You almost did it. You almost did it. I almost did it. Brad has nothing to contribute to this podcast.

And just generally speaking has little to contribute. But, you know, today we will. I can't even keep a straight face saying it. That was really rude. Brad was on vacation and so now he's back. And you were on vacation. I was. It was awesome. I was in Italy. It was beautiful on vacation. I was. It was awesome.

I was in Italy. It was beautiful with family. We saw the Colosseum. Awesome. A lot of really cool historical sites in Rome. I will not bore people

and list them all. It was very hot. We ate good pasta. Some good pizza. Yeah. And now it's very good to be back in the office. We're glad to have you back.

Thank you, Cameron. And everyone handled my absence with flying colors and made me feel as though I do not need to even work here. I could just sit in my office, my feet propped up, and you guys would handle everything with ease. So thank you for allowing that to happen. Please don't leave, Mac.

That makes me feel a little better, Hayden. Thank you. It was fine for a couple of weeks, but I don't know we can do that permanently. Okay. Well, I'll take that. Hayden and Brad were specifically at the helm, our senior guys doing their thing. So I'm super grateful for that. Even though I did just needlessly berate Brad right off the bat here, which I do feel guilty about. He'll hear this too. He's in the other room. This is his first day back, so he doesn't have articles that he's written to talk about here. Maybe we'll call

him in later and he can berate me and then we'll be even. Okay. Okay, great. Well, let's go ahead and jump into the news for the week. Hayden, we're going to start with you. An incumbent Republican announced he will depart the legislature after the current term. Tell us about the announcement. State Representative John Rainey announced that he would not seek another term in the Texas House. He was first elected state representative in a special election in December 2011. He won after a five-way primary that went to a runoff that he won with almost 60% of the vote. Rainey replaced former State Representative Fred Brown after he announced his retirement and left in the middle of his term. House District 14 is a district in Brazos County that leans

strongly toward the GOP. It has nearly a 60% rating on the Texans Texas Partisan Index, favorable to Republicans. The district also includes Texas A&M. So that's obviously something that candidates running in that district are going to emphasize. And we already see Rainey touting the fact that he is an A&M grad and other candidates will probably allude to their connections to a Texas A&M as well. Have any notable candidates said that they will run to succeed Rainey. I mentioned Rainey replaced former state representative Fred Brown after he left during his term. Fred Brown announced that he would run for his old seat, which he occupied from 1999 to 2011. Fred Brown announced, quote,

with the announcement of the retirement of state Representative John Rainey, I would like to announce that I plan to run for State Representative for District 14, a seat I held for many years. I will have an official press conference and announcement in the weeks ahead. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers in the days ahead. End quote. Also, businessman Larry Hodges announced he would run for the seat. He included the fact that he was a founder of Copy Corner, which is a print shop there near the campus of A&M. And he included that in the headline of his announcement. He was one of the co-founders of Copy Corner when he was a student at A&M shortly before he graduated. Rainey said that he hopes to spend more time with his family, and that's the reason he's leaving office. And it's fascinating that the very individual that Rainey replaced in a ledge is now a contender to return to a seat that he held more than a decade ago. Well, there you go, Hayden. Thank you so much for your coverage. We'll continue to keep an eye

on all these retirements. As happens after the legislative session concludes, Cameron, we're coming to you. This appeal from the Attorney General's office came on the heels of a ruling by a Travis County District ruling, specifically talking about the Heartbeat Act being unconstitutional here. Tell us a little bit about how we got here and what the AG's office did. Yeah, so the initial lawsuit, which was announced in March, concerned a group of women and physicians who claimed that Texas's pro-life laws were confusing and lacked clarity and that the law was aiming at holding the state, not the law, rather the lawsuit, was aiming at holding the state accountable for the complications the women had suffered due to issues they had attempting to obtain abortions in the state. So the Travis County District Judge wrote in the injunction that if a physician has determined in, quote, good faith that an abortion is necessary if the pregnancy poses a risk to the life or fertility of the mother, then the physician is permitted to carry out the procedure. So in response to this, the Texas Appeal. It's a lot of words, folks.

I'm trying to get through it here. That was me a few weeks ago. I couldn't say the words like, I don't know, tiny little words. It just happens sometimes. You know, yeah, some of these law words, they can get confusing. Yeah, you have more reason to be struggling than I did. But this appeal will effectively block the district court's ruling and will leave the pro-life legislation intact. So what happens next is all the rulings issued by the district court are, quote, stayed until a determination and resolution is made on the constitutionality of the appealed ruling. And that constitutionality aspect is in regard to the district judge ruling that described the enforcement aspect of the Texas pro-life laws

as being in violation of the Texas constitution. So a judgment will be needed to be had on that aspect. There you go. Well, thank you, Cameron, for your coverage. Matthew, we are coming to you. Also, am I the only person in this office that you call you ever by your full name? I think I am. Probably so. Okay. Well, it doesn't mean you're in trouble.

It just means that I call you Matthew. That is my reaction to get called by my full name. Okay. You think you're in trouble? Yes. Okay. Well, then I will try to pare it back a little bit i don't want you to freak out every time i just say your name at least you don't use

his middle name oh oh i do know matthew's middle i know all of your middle names that would mean i was i'm in deep trouble yeah maybe i'll maybe that's what um we'll do. And yeah, I think it would be good. OK, well, let's go ahead and jump into this. Texas lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to increase compensation for Texas judges. What were the competing plans during the State of the Judiciary address earlier this year, where he stressed the importance of the legislature addressing judicial compensation, pointing out that Texas falls far behind the rest of the nation, only behind the state of West Virginia and the U.S.ory of Guam in judicial pay. We pay our judges very low, apparently.

He described how this is causing problems with attrition. We're getting competent attorneys to serve who could make way more money in the private sector as opposed to serving in the state's judiciary. Several proposals were filed, including legislation by State Representative Jeff Leach, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, that would increase the base pay of state district judges slightly over 20%. That's up from $140,000 to roughly $173,000. This bill passed the Texas House of Representatives,

but as we explain in our story, measures like this come in two parts. The first being the enabling legislation, such as Leach's bill, and the other is that a proposal like this must be funded in the budget. So there must be a line item somewhere that allocates an appropriation that sufficiently funds it. The problem that Senator

Joan Huffman, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, pointed out in a statement to us regarding Leach's bill is that the House failed to sufficiently add enough funding in their version of the budget. So the Senate opted to take another route and build on a tiered pay scale that rewards judges with base pay increases the longer they serve. This proposal came in at roughly a third of the cost of the House's plan, approximately right up to $30 million versus just over $90 million. However, after the Senate passed both of those proposals and sent them over to the House, the House refused to concur, causing everything to die on this front this session. Now, during the course of this, several issues kind of intersected with the judicial pay problem. One we learned of was bail reform, stemming from Harris County judges who've been dumping violent criminals on the streets on little or no bail.

During our research on the story, we found early in the session in February, during a committee hearing on bail reform, Huffman quoted that she couldn't vote to give judges like those in Harris County an outright 20% pay increase, giving an example of how she couldn't go back to a constituent mother whose child was murdered by a violent criminal dumped out on the streets and then tell them that I not only put a 20% pay increase in the budget for that judge, but I voted for it. Now, listeners can read about the other examples that we highlighted in the story that intersected with the judicial pay increase, but also while we spoke with Senator Huffman on this story, she did point out that she kind of made a general effort this session to address state pension systems. A lot of our state pension systems had unfunded liabilities coming due in varying degrees of years. The judicial pension system was only going to be solvent

for the next 46 years. So she described how she was able to push through and pass a measure that came in at around $100 million to ensure that the judicial pension system for current retirees and future retirees was secure for generations to come. There you go. A good example of how after the legislative session, you think a lot of these bills are buttoned up and set aside and the issue is put to rest for a while. And that's just very rarely the case, even when bills do pass the legislature. So Matt, thank you so much for your coverage. Hayden, we're coming back to you. A Texas man is on his way to prison for making violent comments online. What are some of the more shocking details in this case?

Federal prosecutors said that a 52-year-old defendant pleaded guilty to making intimidating comments against election officials and others in Arizona. He commented online that he was going to commit a, quote, mass shooting of poll workers, end quote, specifically targeting those in areas where he did not agree with the reported election results. He grotesquely said that he specifically wanted to target the children of election workers because it's more emotional and would get people's attention. Prosecutors produced evidence that he interacted with others online, and those users even pushed back on his statement that children should be targeted, but he doubled down that targeting children would be a more effective means of accomplishing his political objectives. And I'm not going to read the specific quotes. They are in the piece, but they are shocking that an individual would say this about someone's children. The Department of Justice said that federal judge James Wesley Hendricks sentenced him to three and a half years in prison, plus three years of supervised release. And I again reiterate that his age is 52. So by the time this whole ordeal is over, he will still only be 58 or 59 years old. Again, this is a person who threatened children online. He did not act on these threats. According to the DOJ, they only included the comments that

were produced online. But even with everything that he said, the sentence will still be up by the time he is 60 years old. And another notable part of this case is that these threats were directed out of state, making this seemingly implicate more federal issues. Did prosecutors have anything to say about the significance of this case? One of the individuals said to be an election worker who was threatened, appeared in court and provided an impact statement. I believe that person was one of several people who gave impact statements, and those were quoted by the DOJ.

One of them said, quote, when threats are made against any election workers, the impact reverberates through the whole community. It creates an atmosphere of fear and apprehension. If those who step forward to serve their community, typically an older demographic, are concerned about intimidation or threats, it could discourage them from participating in future election cycles, end quote. And that points out the reality that many people who volunteer their time to be election workers are older. And this, therefore, threatening election workers is a crime that affects the elderly or an older population more than other groups. So the DOJ certainly highlighted that

these types of threats impact the ability of elections to be administered safely and fairly. But these despicable actions by this individual will be punished, as I mentioned, with the three year federal prison sentence to be followed by, or excuse me, three and a half year prison sentence followed by those three years of supervised release ordered by that federal judge. Hayden, thank you for your coverage. Karen, coming to you, a ceremonial signing took a turn this week, a bill signing in specific. Tell us what happened. Yeah, so Greg Abbott had planned a ceremonial signing of the Save Women's Sports Act this

week at the Texas Women's University in Denton. State lawmakers, women's sports advocates were all in attendance, but a large group of the pro-transgender protesters had gathered outside. This was before and after the signing. As attendees were walking in and out of the event. The protesters were yelling, holding signs, chanting, throwing water, and even some were spitting on the lawmakers and these advocates and attendees. So the response online was pretty swift, and a lot of what happened was captured on video and posted online. So everyone has had a chance to watch and see for themselves what happened. The real fallout is not much because the bill is set to go into effect September 1st.

And so the protesters didn't really have a huge impact on what the law is going into effect, but we can all anticipate that this bill will see some legal challenges going forward. Yeah. And to remind folks, September 1st is the almost like default effective date for a lot of the bills that are passed during the legislative session. So be on the lookout for just a lot of new bills coming in to officially become a law on September 1st, which is just a couple of weeks away. So tell us about what the response has been after this all went down. Well, just online, there has been a lot of people speaking out condemning the actions of what happened, specifically the attendees at the event. People like Mays Middleton, who was... State Senator, Republican State Senator.

That's right. He captured a lot of video and posted it online. Riley Gaines, the swimmer from University of Kentucky who swam against Leah Thomas, and she's been a vocal advocate for this legislation, not just in Texas, but across the country. She has posted videos and spoken out about what happened at this signing. So there's been a wide response to what's been going on. Yeah, absolutely. Cameron, thank you so much for your coverage. Matt, I almost said Matthew, but I said Matt. Oh, my goodness. We're coming to you. News of two bodies being found in the Rio Grande has brought continued attention to the buoy barrier system erected by Governor Gray Abbott.

But DPS says illegal crossings, not the buoys, are causing this harm and death to illegal aliens. Give us a rundown of your story. Well, the buoy barrier system placed in the Rio Grande through Governor Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star has provoked staunch opposition from both the Biden administration and the government of Mexico, with opposition rhetoric cramping up after this discovery of two dead bodies near the barrier. Opponents say it increases risk for those attempting to cross the river. However, DPS officials pointed out that those bodies died attempting to cross the river upstream. They also explained how increased illegal crossings between the points of entry are responsible for increases in injury and death.

Some of the statistics cited by DPS show that the border has been, in fact, a horrible crisis before mainstream media decided to focus on the two recent deceased bodies floating near the barriers. Just before the buoys were erected, as a matter of fact, and I believe we even reported on this, a family of four drowned while attempting to illegally cross the river near where the buoys were put in place. This was just earlier in July, just before the buoys went up. According to the National Border Patrol Union, they noted that 341 aliens have died crossing the Rio Grande since President Joe Biden took office. Last year, the Texas National Guard Specialist Bishop E. Evans died while trying to save two foreign nationals crossing the river between points of entry. He was attempting to save them from drowning. Now, the two individuals that the National Guardsman was able to rescue but then ended up drowning himself were taken into custody and charged with transnational narcotics trafficking. The statements and data released

by DPS shows that the border crisis was in place long before the buoys that prevent people from taking the risks were put into place and that the danger from illegally crossing the river remains in place. Yeah, absolutely. Matthew, man, I said I almost called you Cameron, and then I called you Matthew. That's two strikes. I need a third and I'm out. Oh, well. Well, Matt, thank you so much for your coverage.

We appreciate it as always. Cameron, we're going to come back to you. Another bill set to go into effect September 1st is Senate Bill 12. Tell us a little bit about the bill. Remind us and then talk to us about what this new lawsuit is challenging. Yeah, so SB 12 bans sexually explicit performances with minors in attendance. And this bill garnered a lot of debate surrounding some different types of definitions in the bill, like what is deemed sexual conduct and what is prurient interest in sex. And so this lawsuit from the ACLU, they are representing a few different LGBT

groups. They argue that the bill is in violation of the first and 14 Amendments, and they're saying threatens the free expression of the individuals they are representing. And so what is happening next with this lawsuit is it's set to have a conference hearing on September 28th, which is after the bill goes into effect. But the fallout online from this has been seen by different lawmakers speaking out, many of them stating confidently that they don't see this legislation being overturned just because of the extensive debate that was had in the conference committees leading up to this. There was lots of changes to definitions to make sure that it wasn't targeting any groups specifically. And so many of those speaking out online say lawmakers were very confident that they don't see this lawsuit going forward, but we will see. Like I said, it's set for an initial hearing on September 28th.

And another example, as you mentioned earlier, Cameron, you know, talking about other bills, the Save Women's Sports Act in particular, that lawsuits and legal challenges are to be expected. And here's just another example of that, right? When these more social, controversially social bills are getting ready to go into effect, you'll usually see a bevy of legal challenges. Yeah. And we've expected this. We were talking about this months ago as these bills were going through session that these lawsuits were going to happen and here they are. So we'll keep up on it and we'll keep reporting on what happens. So our listeners can expect that. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as we continue to watch for some of these legal challenges,

I'll say too, that this is something that lawmakers are incredibly aware of during the legislative session. These are conversations, just like you said, that do happen in conference committee that happen on the floor. It can be reasoning for lawmakers to not accept an amendment to a bill that maybe some would say make the bill stronger or more effective. They're really trying to hone in, home in on what exactly would make the bill susceptible to a legal challenge. Now, that also, too, can be a way for lawmakers who don't want to make the bill stronger as an excuse to not accept an amendment right so that goes both ways but this is something that is very much on lawmakers minds

as they're going through the legislative process um so cameron thank you so much for breaking that down for us hayden we are coming to you members of a san antonio family are facing prison time after pleading guilty to participating in contractor fraud. What are some of the facts of this case? Federal prosecutors said that three members of a family in San Antonio could be going to prison after pleading guilty to charges of defrauding the U.S. government and paying a gratuity to public officials. And this was part of a fraud scheme seeking to eliminate competition for contracting for, quote, housekeeping and janitorial services at army hospitals and medical centers, end quote. 50-year-old Kenneth Flores is facing five years in prison. 54-year-old

Christopher Flores is facing two years in prison. And 74-year-old Irma Flores, who was the bookkeeper for the companies that offered the bribes, is facing two years in prison. Prosecutors said that these individuals offered bribes to federal employees, Marissa Waste Pappy Kelly and John Chip Mathis. At least $216,710 was paid to a company controlled by Mathis, and $57,907 was paid to a company controlled by Kelly. Of course, these companies may have been just dummy companies that were set up in order to accept these bribes. The news release the Department of Justice published did not say what they were, said they were consulting businesses, but it's very possible that the

quote-unquote consulting business could have been set up for the purpose of accepting these bribes. As part of the guilty plea, they have agreed to pay $3.7 million in restitution and then are facing those prison sentences that I mentioned. This occurred over the course of a couple of years from 2018 to 2020, right as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning. And this was seemed to be a classic scheme of trying to rig a process that was supposed to be fair and open in order to secure millions of dollars worth of contracts for their own businesses instead of competing in a fair system. Yeah, pretty wild. So you kind of alluded to this, mentioned it earlier, but explain what might happen to the employees who did accept these bribes. I said that these bribes were accepted by two federal employees, Caressa Kelly and Chip Mathis.

Those two individuals, according to the DOJ, have already pleaded guilty, so they could also go to prison as well. But interestingly enough, another family member was also charged with the schemes. Antonio Flores Jr. initially faced charges as part of this, but the DOJ ultimately dropped the charges against him. So there were originally four family members implicated in this, but ultimately only three of them were convicted. There you go. Hayden, thank you as always for your fraud coverage. That's one of your always beats. Literally has been since you were still living in Dallas and writing on a part-time basis for us. This has been since the beginning, Hayden.

It's kind of my thing now. We should have a true crime podcast as part of our offerings for content here at The Texan, and you should be the host. A weekly roundup spinoff. That would be pretty fun. Okay, Matt, coming back to you, and I said your name correctly this time, the botched hiring of a journalism professor at Texas A&M sparked a media firestorm. I'm sure a lot of folks saw on Twitter, Facebook, and the news, and accusations were made that the hiring failed because of racial discrimination. But now an investigation

revealed that that was not the case. What did investigators find? Documents released as part of an investigation into the bungled hiring of Dr. Kathleen McElroy at Texas A&M University revealed how the school's former president, Kathy Banks, was concerned that hiring the professor to lead the university's journalism department would draw criticism due to McElroy's advocacy for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI measures, which are contrary to recently adopted state law. Lawmakers were in the middle of passing the legislation banning DEI at public universities when now former President Banks decided to delay the hiring announcement until after the legislature adjourned in order to avoid scrutiny from lawmakers.

Then, when a story by Texas Scorecard broke highlighting McElroy's advocacy, regents began calling expressing their opposition to the hiring. During the course of this saga, McElroy had been offered tenure continued upon Regent approval, but Regents expressing concern the hire would be difficult to square with state law, and at least one other expressing an interest in seeing the journalism school shift towards a more conservative standpoint, it became clear that the tenure offer would not be approved. Banks and another school official then proposed offering McElroy two three-year contracts to both teach and lead the journalism

school, which didn't need region approval. Banks decided to whittle that offer down to a one-year teaching author and change the terms to at-will employment status. McElroy, who presently enjoys a professorship at the University of Texas with tenure, became upset over the evolving job offers and went to the media, where she alleged that the job changes she rejected were probably based on race and maybe gender. Now, during the course of the media firestorm that ensued from that initial story that broke on this, the A&M Senate faculty conducted a hearing where they spoke with Banks and questioned her regarding her knowledge or involvement in the process. And during that hearing, she stated that she wasn't aware of what caused the changes in the changing job offers.

Both Banks and the dean of the journalism department both resigned at their positions. Now, despite the investigation showing that the saga was prompted by an effort to evade lawmakers and regents not based on race, A&M decided to settle the threat of a discrimination lawsuit by McElroy by paying her $1 million. Both McElroy and the school then released a statement indicating they had settled their differences and all was well. Wow, what a saga. And $1 million is no small payout there for one professor.

Matt, thank you for reading all the documentation and breaking it down for us so we can better understand exactly what happened over at A&M. We appreciate it. Cameron, we are coming back to you. Parents have increasingly become much more vocal when it comes to their children's education in the past few years. Tell us about this rally you wrote about and what is the impetus for it? Yeah, so the rally is being held Thursday by parents at Leander ISD who are calling it a call to action over what they say is a serious complaint that was filed by a school board member. The complaint has to do with a sexual harassment allegation that actually occurred between two board members, which we detailed in the piece, but involves Because what was interesting, too, is I had an opportunity to speak with one of these concerned parents that is helping organize the rally.

And they said they just want accountability from the rest of the board. And they will be actually asking the Texas Educational Agency to conduct a full investigation of this complaint. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we'll continue to keep an eye on this. And this is a pretty wild story. And I'd encourage folks to go to the Texan, the Texan.news and read all about it. But thank you, Cameron, for your coverage there. Hayden, we are coming to you and East Texas County is considering building a new courthouse. Tell us about what the commissioner's court decided. Angelina County commissioners approved a preliminary step in exploring the possibility of constructing a new county courthouse. The commissioner's court considered the item of business on Tuesday in its meeting and said that the planning study

could include input from various professional firms, such as an architectural firm, an engineering firm, and that they would have more details after they negotiated a fee and got that planning study produced for the county. I also would remind everyone that the commissioner's court, though it is called a court, functions more like a legislative body or even an executive body. So the county judge is not a judge in the traditional sense, but is the chief executive of the county. And the commissioner's court, this board of directors, if you will, for the county authorized the county judge to seek proposals from different planning firms to begin exploring what it would look like for the county to construct a new courthouse there in its county seat in Lufkin. Does this mean commissioners have made an absolute commitment to this project?

Is this begged to finalize or are they still in the process of figuring that out? We reached out to the commissioner's court and county judge Keith Wright to clarify what exactly this decision means. And those two, Judge Wright and Commissioner Jeffrey told me in emails that this decision is not final and that they are more or less weighing their options and could make a decision later on to begin accepting bids for construction or approve other stages of process. But at this point, the project is in its earliest stages, so they declined to answer any questions about how much the project could cost. They did not speculate during the meeting on Tuesday about how much this could put the county in debt. To compare this to a different county that has more population,

Smith County voters approved their own $179 million bond to build a new courthouse. That measure was approved last year. Of course, Smith County has more district courts and more county courts of law that need housing, and Smith County has considerably more population. Angelina County is less than 90,000 residents, and Smith County is closer to a quarter million residents. However, that's a good reference point for what these projects usually end up costing taxpayers. I imagine that this will require a bond at some point down the road if commissioners move forward with this plan. But all of those details are to be determined because at this point, they are simply in the planning stages of the possibility of a new courthouse.

There you go. Hayden, thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, we're coming back to you. Do these education stories ever surprise you anymore? Sometimes. This was one that surprised me. Was it? A little bit. What would you say if your surprise was a pie chart? How surprised or unsurprised are you on it? Like typically, like 60% surprised, 20% surprised. I think just because I read the news all day, every day, that I really don't get surprised all that often. And also just growing up in Sacramento with parents that worked in government and worked in law enforcement, they would tell me stories about things that were going on. So now that I'm older, you know, I'm like, I knew about stuff going on like this when I was a kid. This is nothing new. Yeah.

Maybe volume, but things happen all the time. Things happen all the time. Crazy stories happen all the time. All the time. Okay. So this story. Crazy stories happen all the time. All the time. Okay, so this story was everywhere this week. Mesquite ISD, give us a quick breakdown and update on what happened. Yeah, it was a series of viral posts that were uncovered this week of a Mesquite ISD elementary school teacher that was revealed to have a history of making these anti-white comments on her social media

profiles. The profile came into question after the account Libs of TikTok posted a thread that showed this teacher making racial remarks on a variety of issues. I won't go into them here. Again, I detail them in the piece. I link everything back to the sources so people can check that out for themselves. But people online were asking, what's Mesquite ISD going to do? There was lots of comments and people saying they reached out to the school or tweeted at the school. And we finally got an answer the following day. Mesquite ISD actually penned a comment to their social media feed stating that they had become aware of, quote, a series of alarming racist statements, end quote, made online by this teacher at one of their elementary schools. And after they conducted an investigation, they determined that, quote,

the employee is no longer a part of the teaching staff and is not eligible for rehire. So this was really a 48-hour story. The thread came out by Libsyn TikTok. There was outrage online people were contacting the school and then the next day um mesquite isd um said the teacher is no longer a part of the staff uh we found out that the teacher resigned from the position, so it was interesting seeing things come to light and then closure on the story very quickly. Very, very quickly. Um, Cameron, thanks as always for your coverage. Okay. I do want to plug really fast here. Um, Holly Hanson has been in the middle of listening

to election contest hearings for the last, I don't know, 72 hours, something like that. Um, so shout out Holly. She was going to join our podcast today, but she's literally listening to the closing arguments from both sides for the first of 21 election contests being heard in Harris County. So definitely go to the Texan and read her work there. All sorts of craziness going on post Harris County elections, paper ballot shortages, temporary restraining orders for polling sites, like some really wild stuff that is now causing 21 elections to be contested. So definitely worth going and checking out. But wanted to shout out her coverage there. Also, really fast, Hayden, I wanted you to tell our listeners a little bit about a conversation you had this week with Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi, and discussed his views on the impeachment proceedings

against suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was impeached in May on 20 charges and is facing a trial next month in the Texas Senate that could result in his permanent removal from office and truly the end of his political career if the Senate decides to sustain those articles of impeachment. Rinaldi and I talked about some of the political fallout that could follow this, what consequences there could be for Texas Republicans, and the dynamics between Republicans in the legislature and Republican voters. Rinaldi gave very strong opinions about this during the interview, and I encourage everyone to head to the texan.news to watch that interview. It was illuminating as far as where the Republican Party of Texas stands

on this matter and what could be some of the political consequences going forward. A lot of divisions within the Republican Party, which is not new, but I think are highlighted, especially right now with an impeachment trial of a statewide elected GOP official looming over everyone's heads. So great conversation, Hayden. Thank you so much for plugging that for us and for your work on that. Let's move on to our tweeter-y section. Cameron, let's go to you. Well, I was smiling and laughing over here because I came across the finalists for the Big Tex awards. And this is at the State Fair of Texas. They give a award for these crazy

concoctions of combinations of things. So let me just highlight some of the past winners. I'm ready. I'm ready. Well, I don't know if I'm ready, but I'm telling you, want to try to be ready. Yeah. Things like fried jello. Oh gosh. Won best taste in 2016. Yes. They can even deep fry beer if that is possible. I don't know how they do it. I don't even know how they deep fried jello

and that has slightly more. Fried beer, fried gumballs, deep fried jambalaya, a fried Thanksgiving dinner. So anything you can dip in batter and throw in hot oil and seems to win. But some of the things that are going to be up for the savory finalists, you can get a deep fried cheesy crab tater bite hold on deep fried cheesy crab tater bite yes so cheese crab tater cheese crab tater got it loaded pizza fries uh turkey ribs i don't know we all know the turkey leg yeah but we don't know about the turkey rib yeah this is something new i had no idea but my husband tried a beef rib the other day oh beef ribs but it's but they're huge

oh yeah dinosaur bone literally it was wild and it was at stylus switch now you're giving me iron works withdrawals iron works yeah matt you'll be back soon. But the beef rib was huge. It literally looked like a dinosaur bone. Anyway, turkey probably would not look like that. No. But I've never heard of turkey ribs. I've never heard of the turkey rib. But again, it is fried.

And they serve it with a stuffing seasoned fry. So you're getting the whole thanksgiving experience there interesting i you know the state fairs are fun though you get this sort of stuff all sorts of rides and bright signs cotton candy the food is my favorite part oh yeah so good i've never been to the texas state fair and that's probably going to offend some people. Where is it? Dallas area. Okay. Yeah, DFW. Maybe you got to take an office trip out there.

Honestly, I'm game. We went to the State Fair every year when I was a kid. It was always fun. What was the best part? Man, the food's always fun, and there's always this huge car show. And when I was little, well, I say when I was little, even when I was a teenager, it was fun to crawl around in the brand new cars and just play around on the car show. And then there was always a concession stand.

So we would usually play around in the car show for a while and look at all the different dealerships. And then we would go to the concession stand for a snack. And that was always fun. I enjoyed that. There's always lots of different games and activities at the state fair and different booths give away free stuff, free t-shirts and ink pens and that type of thing. And we would always make a day out of it. We would go really early and then stay until we were absolutely tired and couldn't walk anymore.

And so going to the Texas State Fair was always a highlight for me. Oh, I love that. I just looked it up, which I knew the State Fair of Texas was the biggest in the country. 2.25 million attend each year, it says. But the Minnesota State Fair, 2 million.

Whoa. Yeah. That's kind of wild that 2 million people show up to the Minnesota State Fair. But do they have deep fried butter? Probably. Well, actually, I bet they might. I feel like state fairs across the country have deep fried butter. I also feel like deep fried butter, I've seen it.

It actually looks pretty good. Like deep fried jello, I cannot get on board with. But deep fried butter. How about the fried bacon cinnamon roll? Yes, bring it on. Cinnamon rolls are my weakness. My goodness. Cotton candy taco was a previous winner as well.

I don't know. Not as old as that one. No. Yeah. Okay. winner as well i don't know not as old as that one no yeah okay well now that i'm sufficiently hungry for my lunch that is not nearly as unhealthy or tasty as all of those items um matt why don't we come to you next well yesterday i saw an interesting historical post by one of my favorite presidential historians, Tara Ross. If y'all have never heard of her, check her out. She has some fantastic books on covering early American history, but she's also one of the foremost experts on the presidency. Um, and she had a post reminding readers yesterday that in 1974, uh,

president Nixon resigned from office over the Watergate scandal. And, uh, when I saw the, uh, thread yesterday, I had to read through it because, um,

I was generally aware of the Watergate scandal and what all in entailed, but I had no idea like how just like over the top it was. And I, I was reading about it and I reached kind of a interesting fun fact that when the burglars were going into the Watergate building, they had this guy that was supposed to be their lookout in a hotel room across the street. And I guess when somebody saw the flashlight or when a security guard guy saw that they had taped the door latch to where they could get in and out of the back door and he'd

call the police a police car rolled up right on the front uh uh entryway of of the watergate building right where the watchman was supposed to be was watching and was supposed to call if you know police showed up or something like this but but he didn't because he got distracted watching a movie called Attack of the Puppet People. I had to look and see what this movie was like. What on earth could possibly be so distracting that the lookout wasn't doing his job? Well, it was this movie, kind of this early black and white sci-fi movie where this mad

scientist was capturing kidnapping people and he had a shrink ray and he was shrinking them down into tiny people and then these tiny people had to go on you know survive like being chased by cats and things you know like this was early filming technology so it was absolutely wonderful and all this stuff and next thing you know i got distracted watching uh attack of the puppet people and i was like oh i guess that's that's how burglars get caught and the president gets corny sounds like a like a honey i shrink but just different. Yeah, kind of a different take on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. sort of sci-fi movie, so to speak, caused him to not see the police roll up to the building. The police got the burglars,

tracked it all the way back to the White House. President ends up having to resign from office. Just absolutely incredible history. Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you for sharing, Matthew. Matt, it's just part of my vocabulary. It's just to call you Matthew. She finds everything for me, so it's just natural.

I get it. I'm the go-to. It's like I call Brad Bradley. I don't know what it is. It's like this 70-year-old woman lives inside me me and I just go for the long versions of people's names. Oh, well. Okay. Hayden, what do you have for us? explained there was a letter offered by the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus to House Speaker Dave Phelan complaining about Governor Greg Abbott's buoy barrier system, or as we call it, a dewey decimal system. And notably, only three of the eight members of the Texas delegation representing the Rio Grande Valley area signed on to the letter. Democrats Terry Gonzalez, Mando Martinez, and Aaron Gomez all signed it.

But there were five other members who did not sign it, Ryan Gann, Sergio Munoz, Oscar Longoria, Bobby Guerra, Janie Lopez, and Janie Lopez did not sign the letter. And that includes a mix of Democrats and Republicans. And I thought that was interesting because it further highlights how South Texas is politically dynamic and is certainly not a political monolith. So the South Texas delegation was not necessarily united against this Bowie barrier system. Obviously, we're not sure about the reasons that they declined to sign this letter. But it was an interesting data point to me that not even a majority of the valley area state reps signed on to the letter complaining about this barrier system that is now the subject of litigation against the Abbott administration. topic. And I'm going to do some gentle, kind interrogation about how things were while I was gone. And I brought Brad and Rob into our office here. Now, I do only have two mics on, and I don't

know if I'll mess up the whole system if I turn the other mics on in the middle of a recording. So we're going to have to just share mics. So Rob, why don't you come over here? I just want to hear who caused the most trouble while i was gone i just want you guys to like turn on each other with violent strokes rob yes it's a trap definitely hayden as it always is hayden did you hear that it was you as it always is Hayden did you hear that it was you as it always is is what Rob said you know what

I I'll just let Rob be wrong that's fine let Rob be wrong he has the right to be wrong he has the right to be wrong oh my gosh Brad what about you there was no shenanigans in the office there was no shenanigans in the office.

There were no shenanigans? It operated like a well-oiled machine. In fact, you're the one that always causes trouble. And so you being gone for two weeks. Was it just peaceful and calm and nice in the office? Yeah. Everyone was nice to each other. There were no insults thrown around.

We also got a lot of pieces out in those two weeks while you were going back we did yeah yeah it's going the way you expected it to is it mac no it's truly not actually it is i just assume i'll be turned on that's just my assumption is that i'll be turned on when I bring things up like this. Okay. Although we, we all co-conspired to make you fearful of your office when you got back. That was everyone's idea. We all went in together on that one. Yeah. Someone bring me in a couch to lay on. I literally thought that we had,

you guys were making it seem like you'd booby trapped my office to where I'd walk in and some like tarantula would fall on my head and nothing happened. Mac has still not found everything in her office and she never will. He says everything as if I found anything. I found nothing. We made it sound like we put something really scary in her office. And in fact, we had done nothing. And so it was really funny to watch her hesitate and walk into her office so slowly and look at the ceiling and the floor and her desk and behind the curtain. Yeah, I was scared. And it probably took her 10 minutes to finally get settled with her desk because she was afraid of what we said that we had done,

but we did nothing. Yeah, that's true. Cameron, do you have anybody to turn on other than me? No, I thought it was a crazy week. People were saying things were slow. I'm like, no, this is a lot of stuff going out this week. And everyone handled everything pretty well, I think. So I have no complaints. There you go. Well well that's good um

matt do you have anything to add nope nothing at all okay well that's smart um we did um do something to brad's desk when he was gone tell us about that that's okay tell us about it i don't know what you're talking about when he was gone. Tell us about that. That's okay. Tell us about it. I don't know what you're talking about. Brad, don't just make us... It wasn't my desk. It was my whiteboard. Okay. We did something to your workspace.

What happened? Well, I showed up today after a very peaceful week away from everybody and there was a picture of me on a barbie movie poster what did it say well actually i don't remember first of all what did you do what did you do a lot of while you were in georgia huh what did you do a lot of while you were in georg I hiked. Yes. And drank a lot of beer. Okay, well, we didn't know that part.

Well, we should have assumed. That's a given, Brad. Yeah, that's a given. I will say, no, it said a picture of Brad, movie poster, and it said, this Barbie likes to hike. Yes. I wasn't part of this, by the way. I had no knowledge. This is the first time hearing about this.

I didn't see it either. I missed out. Indeed. That is definitely the 100% only thing that was done to Brad's workspace. That's true. It was the only thing. Okay. Is that all you found? You think this gaslighting

is going to get me? It's not. I don't care what you did. Hayden and Matt, I'll message you guys later to tell you what else we did. Maybe. Actually, I don't want to. Did you put a dangerous animal in one of his drawers? What?

Did you put a dangerous animal in one of his desk drawers? Yes. Winston. Winston is a terrifying creature, that is for sure. He is a terrifying creature. Oh, man. Okay. Well, welcome back, everyone.

It's good to have everybody back in the office, or at least back on the podcast, even if some people are not actually in the office. Any final thoughts, anybody? Great. Figured. Awesome. Well, thank you for steering the ship well while I was away. Super appreciate it. It was awesome to take some time off.

Brad, I'm glad you got some time off as well. And next week, you know, you can contribute to the podcast. Not looking forward to writing the docket again. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I did berate you at the beginning of the pod so i did want to confess that to you um without you being in here to defend yourself that's supposed to be something that's new no i just thought i would turn in over a new leaf and tell you about it oh thanks for your honesty thank you that's new try oh gosh i've missed this the past couple

weeks oh man folks thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the Texan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you, so thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.