The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 12, 2022

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses Governor Greg Abbott accusing President Joe Biden of “squelching dissent” with an FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Abbott’s offer to hire FBI agents dissatisfied with the organization, a former Richardson mayor sentenced to prison for corruption, the Texas Comptroller’s investigation into a bar that hosted a “drag for kids” event, an unauthorized and possibly illegal performance of the hit musical Hamilton, the city of Reno’s upcoming vote on whether or not to disincorporate itself, a conflict between Governor Abbott and the agricultural commissioner over the Texas power grid, the upcoming debate between Abbott and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’ Rourke, Texas Republicans petitioning to have some Libertarian candidates removed from the November ballot, Republican Faith Johnson outraising her Democratic opponent for Dallas district attorney, a court ruling for how the University of North Texas charges tuition to illegal immigrants, and Wise County joining other counties in declaring an invasion on the southern border. Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

Howdy folks, it's reporter Brad Johnson here with the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses Governor Greg Abbott accusing President Joe Biden of squelching dissent with an FBI raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. Abbott's offer to hire FBI agents dissatisfied with the organization. A former Richardson mayor sentenced to prison for corruption, the Texas Comptroller's investigation into a bar that hosted a drag for kids event an unauthorized and possibly illegal performance of the hit musical hamilton the city of reno's upcoming vote on whether or not to disincorporate itself a conflict between governor abbott and the agriculture

commissioner over the texas power grid the upcoming debate between abbott and democratic gubernatorial nominee beto o'rourke texas republic Republicans petitioning to have some libertarian candidates removed from the November ballot, Republican Faith Johnson outraising her Democratic opponent for Dallas district attorney, a court ruling for how the University of North Texas charges tuition to illegal immigrants, and Wise County joining other counties in declaring an invasion on the southern border. As always, if you have any 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. Hello, everyone. It's time for Dodger baseball.

Just kidding. That was my my ode to Vin Scully, the Dodgers broadcaster who just passed away. And none of these people at the table understand what the heck I'm talking about, but hopefully a listener will understand it. Of course, you would start this podcast off with sports. Yes, yes. Now that there's someone else in this office who appreciates sports, even though he didn't get my Vin Scully reference, it is on balance better. And so I'm taking advantage of it. Welcome, guys. This is Brad Johnson, reporter with the Texan, here for the Weekly Roundup podcast. I've got Hayden Sparks, per usual, Rob Lausches over there on the other side of the table, and newbie Hudson Callender. Welcome. Hello there. It is Hudson's first podcast uh the inaugural podcast as it were um with isaiah flying the coop

he is replacing um isaiah mitchell and so we will uh have him from here on out we had a tearful farewell dinner last week for isaiah yeah yeah many many tears were shed oh that was more than a week ago so we've already recorded since that happened and we're still talking about it yes at least i am they've already forgotten about him yes now he's uh he's got his nose nose buried in uh phd english philosophy whatever books that's uh learning education something like that yes yes so that is the status for this week mckenzie taylor is out she is on a beach in florida enjoying some much needed time off so i am filling in please ignore the awkward transitions to my own topics because i have stories to talk about yet i

am you know hosting this podcast so most of this pod is just going to be brad talking to himself in other words so so yeah per usual it's how it normally is this will be a muttering to myself in the corner a window into brad's uh brain for all yes yes so with that preview let's get right into it hayden we're going to come to you first uh this week the fbi rated president trump's mar-a-lago home that was the news nationally this week, I think. What did Texas Republicans have to say about the development? Well, they weren't too pleased, predictably. Shocking.

Yeah. They were coming to the aid of the former president, at least politically speaking. And the governor of Texas had a pretty big thing to say about it. He called it Nixonian, next level Nixonian, and said, never before has the country seen an administration go to such extent to use the levers of government to target a former president and political rival. This weaponizes power to squelch dissent. Such abuses must have limits." And I think that's a pretty staunch condemnation from a pretty powerful person. I mean, this isn't just a blogger spouting off or somebody really- Or a low-level elected official. Right. Or somebody trying to get press coverage for their startup political campaign. This is

the governor of Texas saying that the current administration is using the Department of Justice to target a political opponent. And of course, President Trump said that he believes the same thing, that Democrats are scared that he's going to run again in 2024, and the DOJ is being used more or less as a campaign tool for the Biden administration. Yeah, and Abbott has sparred rhetorically quite a bit with the Biden administration since it took over in 2021. This is just another step along that line. A lot of people offered immediate comments, but Lieutenant Dan Patrick did not. That was one thing that was kind of an interesting theme to follow. What did he ultimately say about it?

It was bizarre that Lieutenant Governor Patrick, or Governor Patrick, excuse me, was so quiet right after it happened because Patrick has been one of President Trump's strongest supporters. He's the chairman of his campaign committee in Texas. And last year, I remember at the border, we were down there for the border press conference and they were talking about the border wall. Trump pointed at Dan Patrick and said, are you going to chair my campaign again if I decide to do this again? So Patrick has been at President Trump's side for a long time. And so his silence was a little weird, especially since Abbott had already spoken out and some others. And by the way, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and several state

representatives, state lawmakers also came out and condemned this. But what Patrick said, he tweeted yesterday morning, if Democrats will weaponize the DOJ, FBI, IRS against a former president, they will think nothing of weaponizing them against the American people. That means you. Biden wrecking the economy, Biden's wrecking of the economy is nothing compared to the pain of 87,000 new IRS auditors and their new spending bill, end quote. And it reminded me a little bit of the dust up during the Obama administration with Lois Lerner and the DOJ under Trump apologizing that they had targeted groups that were right of center slash libertarian. And it seems that this has, to Republicans at least, an air of political persecution. And Patrick is echoing what many

Republicans have said, and that is that these new IRS agents and the Biden administration's efforts through these federal agencies constitute political persecution. And I think we'll see a lot more criticism of Biden as the election gets closer and the much anticipated answer to the president, but most of the endorsements from Trump in Texas came at the behest of Dan Patrick. And so not only are they just kind of buddy-buddy, they are really close and they talk frequently, as they've both indicated. So, um, Patrick has obviously issued a statement now, uh, but it was just a very odd thing to see unfold going into after what's, uh, unfolded in Florida. So, um, next up, we are going to talk about, um, another story actually related to what we just discussed. Following that, that whole situation with the, the FBI raid, Governor Abbott said on Chris Salcedo's radio show, a Houston radio host, that Texas would hire any disaffected FBI agent if they

cannot work under the Biden administration any longer. He said, quote, if you're an FBI officer looking for a different opportunity in law enforcement, Texas needs a lot of it. And we got a lot of investigations. If there's anybody in the FBI who is dissatisfied with their working condition, with their leadership, which, by the way, is not just Border Patrol and may not just be the FBI, there are so many people working under the Biden administration that see how this administration is completely going off the rails. That's not really a finished sentence, but you get the point that he's trying to make uh if you don't want to work for the binding administration anymore as a federal agent of any stripe texas will hire you and this isn't the first time abbott has made such an offer

after the events in del rio last year when border patrol agents were accused of whipping haitian migrants who illegally crossed the border what was the total number there was like 10 000 of them at one point well it was there were estimates of you know 15 000 at one time but i think the and in some it was 30 000 a total came over the border there was just there was there you saw the pictures i'm sure you know massive people under the international bridge in del rio um but during that whole fiasco there were border patrol agents accused of whipping these migrants um there's one viral photo yeah it was it was pretty much all based on that photo and some some clipped video footage of you know him swinging a rope he was on a horse and it was most of it was the op were the optics

yeah of the rope swinging and the person in front of him i think it was a rain wasn't it or yeah sorry it was like but people who didn't know any different thought it was a whip and i mean obviously you could whip somebody with rain but that's not its purpose and uh there was a report that came out later that um an internal, I think, that said there was no whipping that was done. Right. It was Border Patrol's investigative arm. Their Office of Professional Responsibility conducted an investigation that, as I understand it, pretty much exonerated them to the extent that they did not whip them or physically abuse them as they were accused of doing. And so right after that happened, I think the president came out very strongly with some harsh words for the Border Patrol agents. And Abbott hit back saying, come work for us.

You know, basically the same thing he did here. And again, how bizarre is that? A governor saying, you know, if the if the sitting administration, if the sitting administration fires you, then we will our state will hire you. Yeah, that just that dynamic is so I don't know if did you come across anything like that that's happened before? Do you or can you think of anything? No, no, I can't. And I did ask the governor's office if any border patrol agents took them up on that offer. Didn't hear back, but I couldn't find anything in just the news or anywhere online about that happening. I'm sure there have been, you know, how many border patrol agents are there that probably have left in a short amount of time, you know? But it's probably not something that's really tracked that much. Um, but yeah, so we'll see if anyone, any FBI agents take them up on this.

Obviously Texas has its own medley of security issues, not the least of which is the border. Uh, so I will probably, someone will probably take advantage of that i bet and um yeah we'll see if any other offers come down the line on future issues but um moving on hayden we're coming back to you a crime a crime couple is headed for prison soon for various federal offenses who are laura max is it maxka masca masca and mark jordan i was looking forward to you uh trying to pronounce that i tripped up over it yep you got me laura masca or she goes by many names laura masca jordan is what i call her in my pieces because she is now the wife of mark jordan this is a crime couple laura is that a term i've never seen that term i believe i've seen that term before i started using it a while back so bonnie

and clyde would be considered a crime couple too that we'll call these people the bonnie and clyde of richardson texas we'll we'll make that distinction right now laura Masco was mayor from 2013 to April of 2015. She was convicted of several federal crimes. She accepted bribes from a real estate developer named Mark Jordan, who she later married in 2017 after she resigned and after the federal government began investigating her. She voted in favor of this real estate project being the area that Mark Jordan wanted to construct these apartment complexes. She voted in favor of changing the zoning regulations so that he could build apartments near residential areas. What makes this stand out, what made this stand out to Richardson voters is she had campaigned fervently against doing that and based her campaign on

not building additional apartments near residential areas. And as soon as she got into office, she began working with Mark Jordan and getting those zoning regulations changed so he could proceed with his real estate project. Clear corruption there. The city charter was changed after a citizen-led ballot initiative in 2012 to make the office of mayor directly elected rather than selected by the city council. So she was the first one to occupy the seat having been directly elected by the public. So they went from, I don't know the term, but to a strong mayor system essentially. I'm not sure what that constitutes but she was um or the mayor just has more authority than it would under whatever the term is for the kind of government that they had before but anyway their their city charter went back to the 50s it had

long been the case that the city council elected the mayor and it was i spoke to one of the people yesterday who put in motion this ballot initiative it's not something the city council wanted it was definitely opposed by members of the city council and ultimately it was voters who passed it in the election the presidential election between barack obama and mitt romney and presidential elections are higher turnout than other types of elections would be uh started one more question on that would the uh the person selected as mayor by the council do they have to be a councilman i think they did have to be a council member and

then they were selected from their own group i'm not i'm not positive about that but it was it was a change that was was ushered in laura masco was on the city council if i understand correctly and she ascended to the office of mayor and, per her convictions, began accepting bribes from Mark Jordan. These bribes included lavish vacations, hotels, travel upgrades. The sexual relationship between them also was at issue in the trial. It was contended at trial that Mark Jordan having sex with her was actually a thing of value that he provided to her as part of the bribe. And he, throughout all of this, according to the court documents, they were lying to friends and family. They were trying to conceal the relationship.

They were carrying on this affair. They were both married to other people at the time. And in some, they were convicted at a trial in 2019 of honest services wire fraud, of defrauding the US. They were convicted of tax counts on their second trial during their second trial. But during the first trial, they were convicted of honest services wire fraud. And then in a second trial, they were acquitted of those counts, but convicted on tax counts that they were convicted of honest services wire fraud and then in a second trial they were acquitted of those counts but convicted on tax counts that they were not convicted of in the first trial so it was legally very complicated and that's why it's dragged on for years okay is that the same reason why it's taken so long for them to be sentenced? More or less. The first trial was thrown out by Judge Mazant up in Sherman because a court security officer had made a comment to a juror

that could have swayed the outcome of the trial because somebody was really having trouble with convicting them. And he was trying to comfort this juror and said something that crossed the line in terms of interfering with the jury's deliberations. So the judge had to throw out the entire trial. And then there was another trial last year, and that's when they were convicted of conspiracy, accepting bribes, defrauding the U.S., and tax evasion counts. Interestingly enough, right before the sentencing, after the pre-sentence investigation, they sought to get these overturned. And one of the claims was that the feds had engaged in vindictive prosecution by adding tax fraud charges in the second trial that were not part of the

first trial. But ultimately, the judge ruled that it was proper for them to do that because the reason it wasn't included in the first trial was it would have taken them too long to get all their ducks in the row with the treasury department and the DOJ. But when they appealed their first trial and it got overturned, that bought the federal government some time to get that all straightened out. And they were able to do that. But the judge in this case sentenced them both to six years in federal prison. And if I understand correctly, there is no parole in the federal system. So even with good behavior time, they will likely serve a vast majority of that sentence. And Judge Mazant wrote a pretty good conclusion to this case. And I think I'll read that now. Quote, the people of Richardson, Texas, elected Laura Mazka Jordan as mayor and trusting her to serve with integrity and deliver on her promises.

But Laura Mazka Jordan abused her position of power and Mark Jordan profited from it. This betrayal of public trust was a crime punishable under the law. Neither Mark Jordan nor Laura Mazka Jordan is mostly coming to an end. You've been following it for a couple of years now, at least. So if any other developments pop up, I'm sure you'll be on it. Thanks for covering that, Hayden. Next one we'll go to is one of mine. After a Dallas bar hosted an event called Drag Your Kids to Pride in June, Texas comptroller Glenn Hager announced this week, or announced last week, actually, that his office is looking into their tax status. It centers on whether the bar must classify as a, quote, sexually oriented business due to the events in which drag performers danced around in

front of uh and with with children and so um if that if the comptroller decides finds that to be applicable here the bar would be liable for fees associated with that status, namely the $5 per entrant fee. So those supportive of this push, ideally, they would levy this back taxes, essentially, on the bar for $5 per entry. That probably would be a lot of money, especially over an extended period of time. I'm not sure if it would just apply to that one day, or if this would kind of end up affecting however long it's been open. We'll see. That's actually probably something that the comptroller is looking into. But the reason I think this is most interesting is there's a dynamic in code between the, you know, at first blush, you might say, yeah, obviously that makes sense.

Drag performance might or would meet the qualification for a sexually oriented business. the and you know at first blush you might say yeah obviously that makes sense drag performance might would meet the qualification for a sexually oriented business but code is kind of convoluted on the question um because the sexually oriented business designation is tied to quote nude performances which is defined in the code as clothed in a manner that leaves uncovered or visible breasts below or if if the person is female or any portion of genitals or buttocks are shown and that is that is literally in code which is kind of crazy to think about, but that's what the definition is. Okay, so just to be clear, because I think there is a gray area when it comes to this, and Isaiah checked, because some of these businesses, when we say drag shows, what we're really talking about are, I don't know if I should use this term, but we're really talking about are i don't know if i should use this term but we're really talking about strip shows like it's not it's not just men dressing up as women it is people

behaving inappropriately in front of children i mean drag in general yeah is is just is basically men dressed up as women yeah um but many of them take the turn towards that, that you're talking about. I clarify that because I think we've looked into this before. And the reason why they haven't been going after these venues prior is because they're that type of thing was not going on as some of these venues. So they were bars regulated by the Texas alcohol commission, not the comptroller's office am i reciting that correctly right you are correct um but this is a new question um that the comptroller is looking at here

and based on the video if you watch it drew a lot of uh controversy there were protesters there taking video um there's kind of a fight outside a bit between protesters of the event and supporters of the event. But if you watch the video, questions of whether especially one part, the buttocks, are showing, that is at least up for debate. And that's something the comptroller is looking into. And the reason they have to analyze this so much is because it's required to figure out whether to levy the tax to punish this business for hosting the event they did. Now, the legislature could eliminate all of this and pass a law, which Brian Slayton, representative of Brian Slayton, wants to do next session to ban children at drag shows. Any kind, whether they're sexually explicit or not. I'm sure legislators will also try and kind of fix this loophole.

But code right now is not very clear on this. And I spell it all out in the article more. If this interests you, I would go read it. If it doesn't interest you, that's a okay. I understand that. Um, this was definitely not something I was looking forward to reporting. So we'll see what the legislators do next session. This is going to continue to be an issue. Um, I, I don't know exactly what shape the leadership in both chambers will take on this, but this is going to be a recurring issue in the legislature, if not more in the public square, too. I have a feeling these kinds of events are not going to end anytime soon, and we'll see more examples to varying degree of sexual explicity. So moving on, Rob, coming to you.

So there is a story you wrote on this week that involves the musical Hamilton. And it's funny that Mackenzie's not here to discuss this. It's also funny that that was essentially the preface for Mackenzie and I's big arguments on the podcast a while ago. And odd that we have another development in this realm. So tell us about what happened with the McAllen Church and the Hamilton musical. Right. So on Friday, August 5th and Saturday, August 6th, the Door Christian Fellowship Ministries of McAllen put on their own version of the 2015 musical Hamilton, Broadway hit very successful show. On Saturday,

the team behind Hamilton caught wind of the Friday performance. And they sent the McAllen church a cease and desist letter. But there wasn't they apparently negotiated that the McAllen church could under certain conditions perform their Saturday show that they were intending to perform. What made this controversial? I mean, it's just a musical, right? It's a church performing musical. Oh, if only. So what happened is the church posted video clips of their Friday performance

on Saturday. So on Saturday, they're posting these performances. And what it has revealed is that first of all, the church may have been violating copyright laws because they were using the costume designs and the set design and the music from the show, which would not necessarily fall under any kind of fair use or anything like that. And second of all, they actually changed certain lines in the show to make them more Christian. They actually added a scene where Hamilton, the main character, is apparently saved. And they took out some of the more explicit lines in the show. This got some backlash from fans of the musical. Shocking. Right?

The fandom of the musical and the creators are rather progressive. And so we're not really – they weren't happy with some of the changes that were made. After the show as well, one of the pastors got up and gave a sermon about how you can, about how people can struggle with things like drug addiction or money or homosexuality. And then this was taken as McAllen Church compares homosexuality to drug abuse and all their sorts of stuff so it got a lot of backlash and that was why the hamilton team actually had to respond and and figure out what they were going to do here did they at least have permission to perform this show or what how'd that end up depends on who you ask it seems the uh what it seems to it is at his

sunday sermon the uh main pastor of the church thanked the hamilton team for giving them a license to do the performance but we know that they did not have permission to do their friday show uh their friday show is what got them that cease and desist letter but they were given permission by the hamilton team to do a saturday show so it seems that when he was thanking them on Sunday, he was speaking about the permission that they got for the Saturday show. It's unclear. Some people think that some people seem to think online that he was lying and claiming he'd had permission for the Friday show, but it's unclear if he is pretending to have had permission for Friday or if he is solely speaking on the permission they did actually have for Saturday, which they had that under the condition that they not record

the show or post any material from it online and that they don't perform it again. But as of this moment now, the Hamilton team has said that they are going to meet with the church to decide what to do once all the facts have been vetted. That's what the statement from the Hamilton team said. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Yeah. And, you know, you've got this Hamilton musical beat on lockdown. So I expect you to pump out many an article on this one topic. I am very excited about it.

Yeah. Looking forward to it. That makes one of us. Just kidding. All right. Hudson, we are moving to you. This is your inaugural discussion on the podcast um it's actually this article is actually trending atop our website's trending

board that we've got running so uh you're killing it with it um but i this is a very interesting story. Um, the city of Reno is trying to do something kind of non-unprecedented. I hate the word unprecedented as you all know. Um, but it's very rare to see this happen among localities. What are they trying to do? So, uh, recently Reno voters, uh, submitted a petition that got almost 500 signatures from the community, and they're looking to dissolve their city charter. This is something that is relatively uncommon, but is legal under Texas Government Code 62 and then Texas Election Code 277 as well. And so once they reach that mark of 400 signatures, they can submit that to be put on the next ballot. And so this will be voted on next May in their local election. And so upon disincorporation of their city, Reno would

fall under the jurisdiction of Parker County and would hold a very unique unincorporated status within that county. And in a town of about 3,000 people, the support for this petition is significant. What are the reasons that they're pushing this? So earlier this week, I actually had the opportunity to speak to the former Reno City Mayor, Eric Hunter, about the background and reasoning behind the movement. He gave me a myriad of reasons for this push for disincorporation and primarily cited mismanagement on the part of city council. They've also dealt with serious turnover and inexperience with their police department,

which is also connected to that level of mismanagement that Mr. Hunter is citing. And so the mismanagement is kind of like unkept roads, things like that, and as you mentioned, the turmoil in the police department. Yeah, he directly mentioned the lack of upkeep with the physical infrastructure of the city and an inexperienced police department that was hired by that city council. And so that's kind of where they're going with that. Okay. Are they confident that this will benefit them?

So Hunter and the larger Facebook group that is organizing this position, they claim that they want to move towards a more rural status as a community. They like that aspect of Reno, and they want to continue that, but kind of subtract the municipality that they have. He has been assured by the Parker County Sheriff's Department that they will take over all law enforcement duties and that the increase in response times will be minimal. Additionally, he believes that paying taxes to the county instead of Reno will yield better management of their roads and physical infrastructure. There will be someone that needs to take over their water public utility and i could not get a statement regarding who would be doing that but um i think that a private company would take over

and that they are very confident that it will it will benefit them in the long run yeah and you know this isn't an unprecedented move um as i like to emphasize but um it is rare and um this is they're kind of walking down they're charting their own path on this, and there's a lot of things that will have to be ironed out if this passes next May. Last one for you on this. Where have we seen a similar push for disincorporation? Well, for this action about disincorporation, we've seen this in 1987 with the town of Crystal Beach, which is located in the Bolivar Peninsula in the Gulf Coast of Texas. And they actually accomplished the goals that Hunter and his petitioners have. At that point, their police department of 12 officers was disbanded and other utilities taken over by other companies. And still

to this day, they maintain their unincorporated status. And outside of a town that pushed for the actual act of disincorporation, the Woodlands near Houston has always been an unincorporated township. And they have been incredibly successful throughout the time that they've been around. And their population is nearing 120,000 residents. So it's definitely something that's uncommon, but like you said, not unprecedented, and we'll see what happens with Reno, Texas. And as we saw last year, the Woodlands voters actually rejected an effort

to incorporate the town. So we may see some more towns take this route going forward. This week, there was a feud that bubbled up between two state officials. They have fought before, and this one is, it is Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Governor Greg Abbott. The two have sparred kind of frequently, especially for members of the same party as statewide officials. But in a campaign email,er blasted out and he the premise of which was the power grid is not secure specifically he criticized quote cozy relationships between regulators and industry too much reliance on low capacity alternative energy meaning renewable wind

solar power and profit seeking at the expense of safety and security, such as winterizing natural gas infrastructure. So, it's pretty pointed words for a member of the Republican Party to levy at the governor, the sitting governor of his own party. Abbott hit back through a spokesman who said, Anyone who says the Texas electric grid is not secure is not aware of how well it's performed under recent record-breaking weather we've experienced as a result of the reforms passed by the legislature and signed into law by governor abbott and you know i've covered this ad nauseum um since the the 2021 blackouts there have been no power grid failures there it's been close multiple times um as the governor's office is indicating here a new demand record has been set 26 times just this summer since may that's a lot because it's

been so hot and this summer there have been two conservation alerts but they didn't go anywhere beyond that and so um it was interesting to see, with the exception of the renewable power part, the comments by Sid Miller wouldn't look out of place in a Beto O'Rourke rally. Now, that's not to say that he is a Democrat. He obviously is not. It's just that that is one issue that especially democrats see crossover appeal on and one of the the crossovers they see there is no sid miller is criticizing the sitting governor for um the state of the power grid but um they have they have tussled multiple times uh most notably sid miller sued the governor for unilaterally extending the early vote period in 2020 during coronavirus.

He was one of multiple Republicans. He wasn't the only one. But he also flirted with a primary challenge to Abbott. Now, he ultimately decided to just run for reelection and one is primary easily but um this is probably going to continue to be a theme and miller is not afraid to throw punches and abbott is not afraid to throw punches back so i i don't know how this is going to continue but um it is interesting to see especially on the power grid issue that um this this level of disagreement is occurring at such a high level in the republican party and this isn't the only issue that they've butted heads on forgive me if you already said this but they also

back when abbott suspended commerce at the border miller was not reticent about saying that was having a detrimental impact to agriculture in texas and he encouraged abbott to stop that policy which he did but not before making those agreements with mexican states right or right on the other side of the border so abbott and miller have feuded on other matters as well. Yeah, it's not just this one issue. So we'll see where it goes, but I think this is going to continue to be a theme here in Texas. Another feud is between Abbott and O'Rourke,

which is more obvious because they're running against each other for the state's top office. But everyone can now set their calendars because Greg Abbott and Beto O'Rourke will clash in what is likely to be the only debate between the two during this election. That will come on Friday, September 30th in the Rio Grande Valley. I believe it's at the University of Texas in Edenburg. And immediately after, O'Rourke agreed to the debate, but then he called for three town hall style debates in addition to the one currently set. Those are unlikely to happen. The statement from

the Abbott campaign indicated that it will be the only debate. So I have a hard time believing they'll budge on that, although crazier things have happened. One interesting thing of note is that it is on a Friday night during high school football season. And that seems to be strategic. No one in Texas is going to watch it. No one except us but I'm sure it'll be full of fireworks and

if it's the one time O'Rourke has a chance to go at Abbott he's not going to pull any punches and Abbott's going to punch right back so if you're not watching football which probably sounds better anyway, um, you'll have this to watch and, uh, it's, it, it will be an interesting clash.

So I was exaggerating when I said no one's going to watch it, but in the minds of many people, high school football takes precedence. I mean, there's a governor's race. There is a reason that it was agreed to on Friday nights. So, um, there's a reason that U. presidential debates are always on Tuesday, Wednesday, or even Thursday. I don't remember everyone being on a Friday. So, okay. So moving on to the next one.

Rob, we're coming back to you. So the Republicans, 23 Republicans have filed to remove libertarians on the ballot. Tell us the details sure thing so yeah 23 texas republicans uh one of those being lieutenant governor dan patrick filed a petition of mandamus against 23 libertarian candidates who are running for the same offices as they are they claim that the libertarians have not paid their filing fees to run for the offices, and they have also not submitted a signature petition that you would need to submit in order to get out of paying the filing fee. And I don't think I explained this in the article. A petition of mandamus.

Mandamus basically just means they're trying to get the court to do something. Without having to go through steps of lower courts. Exactly, yeah. through steps of lower courts yeah exactly yeah so they're trying to get the court to do this to force the libertarian party to now remove these 23 candidates uh from their ballot because the republicans claim these candidates are ineligible why do the libertarians have to pay this fee and as you indicated they didn't pay it right they did not know so the republicans and democrats choose their candidates by primary elections, but some parties in Texas choose their nominees by convention and the libertarians are one of these. And so parties that choose nominees by convention have to pay a filing fee. The

libertarians objectivists, they claim that it's something that the major parties use to sort of keep the minor parties down and they shouldn't really have to pay the filing fee. In fact, in the petition, which is linked to in the article on our website, you can actually read the emails between the Republicans representative, the Republicans lawyer and the libertarians lawyer. And the libertarians lawyer says that they just disagree with the Republicans interpretation of of uh the election law well uh there is a law passed in 2019 by the legislature that set in place this fee requirement right and or uh petition threshold correct exactly yeah and so before then that applied to the republicans

and democrats but not the libertbertarians and Green Party. So that bill kind of put them on the same level of the major parties. And that is what sparked this fight between the Republicans and Libertarians. And as you'll talk about in a sec, the Democrats and the Green Party. So as I mentioned, this is not the first time something like that has happened. What occurred the previous time and what is the reasoning for doing this? Sure. So in August 2020, the Republicans filed a very similar petition against the Libertarians in that election cycle for not meeting certification requirements, which included not paying their filing fees. That started at a lower court and eventually went up to the state

Supreme Court, which is where this current one is filed as well in the state Supreme Court. This time, the Republicans seem to have gone straight to the Supreme Court. But so the in 2020, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Republicans had filed their petition too late to kick the libertarians off the ballot. But this year, they explicitly note in the petition that they made sure to file it before the deadline, which I believe is August 26, to make sure that they can have these libertarians declared ineligible. There was a similar thing in August 2020, with some Democrats trying to kick Green Party candidates off the ballot. And so the reason why it is in the interest of the Republicans and the Democrats to have, for example, the Libertarians

and the Greens removed from the ballot respectively is because of what's called the spoiler effect. And this is where a minor party, for example, like the Libertarians, could siphon off enough votes from the Republicans to whom they have ideological similarities, and they could actually split the vote and therefore allow the Democrats to win the largest plurality of the votes, even though, in a sense, if it had not been for the libertarian option, the majority of votes would have gone to, say, the Republicans. And so, well, you know, if you look at the returns of these races, most often the Libertarian or the Green Party member does not even – the amount of votes they get does not even come close to reaching the margin between the two major party candidates. But it does happen. whether they'll admit it or not, these Republicans are trying to avoid. Is there an example of this happening where the margin was lower than the amount the third-party candidate got? So there is. In the 2020 race for the Texas House District 47, a Republican,

Justin Barry, lost by around 1,300 votes, while the Libert, uh, over 3,300 votes. So, yeah, it's certainly not something you can assume that all the libertarian voters would go vote for the Republican if there was no libertarian option and same with the green party. But when you have such a, um,

a low margin, uh, compared with what the third party got in, it is possible that it would at least come close to the margin it's certainly in the interest of the republicans and the democrats as well when talking about the party that's more similar to them those being the greens it's in their interest to see if they can get voters who would have voted for third parties to vote for themselves instead and there's also just the question of following the rules whether they're set in statute and Republicans argue that the libertarians have not done that. So Hayden, moving on to you, Dallas County voters will have

familiar choices on the ballot for district attorney. What are some of the differences between Republican Faith Johnson and Democrat John Cruzzo? Well, I had a chance to speak with Faith Johnson last week. She is the former district attorney of Dallas County and a former state district judge. John Cruzot, the incumbent, we interviewed him or I interviewed him earlier this year. And they have a few very important differences, primarily as it relates to prosecutorial discretion, they have different philosophies. Johnson believes that if somebody commits crime, they should be prosecuted. And if there is a restorative justice or rehabilitative opportunity, then that should be taken on a case-by-case basis. On the other hand, Cruzot has implemented broader policies that are intended to be conducive to rehabilitation and cost efficiency. For instance, he does not prosecute theft cases under $750 if that theft is not committed for, quote, economic gain. He also does not prosecute first time low level marijuana offenses for a similar reason, to save money, and because he believes that doing so has a racially disproportionate impact and criminalizes poverty. So District Attorney Cruzzo defeated Judge Johnson in 2018, that general election, and he has been in office since January of 2019.

Johnson implemented policies during her administration that were different but not like cruzo's she had a marijuana site and release policy which was not like i don't believe it was like writing somebody a ticket for possession of marijuana but they would be cited then and there and then they would have to appear in court instead of arresting them and putting them in louis d'arraud or one of the other other facilities in in d. So her policies were designed to change the way that it was offenses like marijuana possession were prosecuted, but not the same way Cruzzo has done, which he contends that his policies are consistent with data. I also asked Judge Johnson about abortion because D.A. Cruzot, who also was a state district judge, so both of them could be called judge, but D.A.

Cruzot has said that he will not prosecute abortion under the new pro-life laws that have been enacted by Governor Abbott in the legislature. I asked Faith Johnson directly if she would prosecute doctors, and she didn't make a commitment to do that explicitly. And I wasn't obviously asking her to do that. I was asking her position, what her intentions were when she's DA. And she broadly commented that it's the legislature's job to write the laws and it's a prosecutor's job to enforce criminal statutes. So that was what she committed to doing to the voters of Dallas County. And of course, Judge Cruzot has committed as DA that he is not going to,

as he would characterize it, infringe on reproductive rights or a woman's right to choose. So lots of stark differences between these two candidates. And this is a rematch. And while Cruzot has the upper hand in terms of electoral history, Johnson and her campaign finance documents for the first half of this year, reported something close to $71,000 more in fundraising than Judge Cruzot. He reported $87,000, and I believe her total was north of $150,000. So she has a fundraising advantage in a rematch where Cruzot has the electoral advantage. Probably helps that she's been in office before, but it's interesting that a Republican actually held this office at one point in recent times. How did she become DA in such a blue county?

Well, Dallas County is rated D63% on the Texans Partisan Index. So it is a blue county and she faces an uphill battle as any Republican does in Dallas County. Governor Abbott appointed her to the seat in December 2016 after her predecessor, Republican Susan Hawke, resigned because of personal challenges. And Susan Hawke got elected in 2014 over Democrat Craig Watkins. She barely won against him, but there were people in both parties were upset with Craig Watkins. She barely won against him, but there were people in both parties were upset with Craig Watkins. He also had done some things that were questionable in the office. And there were weird things too, like he kept wrecking his car and other things. People lost faith in his ability to run the office well. And so if I understand correctly, there were a lot of crossover votes and Susan Hawke was able to win in 2014. And by the way, this is years after Democrats took over

the county courthouse in Dallas in 2006 and 2008. So even in 2014, it was bizarre for a Republican to win a county-wide race, but somehow she pulled it off. And then unfortunately, she had personal difficulties that she had to step down from the office and Governor Abbott appointed Johnson to step in. So lots of familiar names on the ballot now because this is an office that Cruzot took from Johnson and now she's trying to get her old job back. Thank you, Hayden Hudson coming to you. So you wrote a piece this week on a court case involving the university of North Texas and the young conservatives of Texas, a student group there.

Give us some background on this case. Well, uh, this was actually pretty cool as my first, uh, article that I wrote for the Texan. So I was really excited about that. But like you said, the plaintiffs in this case are the Young Conservatives of America, and they sued the University of North Texas earlier this year. And they are represented by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank. And they claim that a 2001 Texas law allowing illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition

is unconstitutional. In April, a federal district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and stopped UNT from offering in-state tuition to illegal immigrants while still charging out-of-state students more. The court and the plaintiffs cite a 1996 federal immigration law that supersedes the Texas rule. What part of the statute does that court cite? So the court cites this from the law, and it reads, So if you look at the bill text, it's very clear that this court decision holds up.

So with this, can the university just stop offering illegal immigrants in-state tuition in order to charge out-of-state students more? How will they try to get around this. So the court believes that unless the guiding Texas law is repealed or changed, the hands of those universities are tied and they must abide by the rule. This essentially means that UNT will not be able to make more money from out-of-state students until something changes with the law. This seems more wide-reaching than just affecting the University of North Texas. You agree with that? Indeed, it may be. Public Texas universities are bound by both the federal and state laws. And so this is going to be an interesting story to continue to follow in the future because, like UNT cites in their appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court, that their financial impacts of this are already significant,

and they heavily rely on those higher out-of-state tuition funds. And so for smaller public Texas universities that don't have as big of a budget as, say, a University of Texas or a University of A&M, this might have wide-ranging impacts for them. And so it might be something that the legislature picks up in the session next year. Yeah, certainly set up to have wide ranging fiscal impacts on these massive public universities. Hudson, thank you for covering that. Hayden, last one coming to you. North Texas County recently passed a resolution to send a message on border security. Tell us about the document passed by the Wise County Commissioner's Court. Really quick, Wise County Commissioners passed a document that condemned methamphetamine

trafficking specifically in the county, and they unanimously signed on to calling illegal immigration an invasion and encouraging Governor Abbott to invoke the provisions of the Texas Constitution that allow him to activate the military of Texas to quell, to suppress and repel an invasion, excuse me, and turning illegal immigrants away, repelling them. That has been language that is familiar in this debate. And Chip Roy and others have called on him to variations of shut down the border, close the border, turn illegal immigrants back, deport them, however you want to characterize it. And Governor Abbott did issue an executive order early last month calling illegal immigration an invasion. However, he did not order state

officials to conduct their own deportations because as he contends, that would result in federal prosecutors filing charges against those state officers. But Wise County did not necessarily prescribe any policy recommendations calling on deportations or things like that, but encouraged him to invoke all these constitutional provisions and take, quote, necessary steps to get this crisis under control and to deter illegal crossings. We've seen other counties do this. I think if not all of them, most of them were closer to the border and Wise County is up DFW area, correct? And so this shows, you know, Republicans say often that it's not just a border issue, it is a state and national issue, that of border security. And so Wise County is jumping in on this. We'll see how many more do that.

So moving on to the tweeter-y section. Rob, I'm coming to you first. There was a death of a notable historian. I've read multiple of his books. They're fascinating. I've got another one coming soon on my reading list. Who passed away this week? So David McCullough, a Pulitzer Prize winning historian and presidential biographer, one of those people who could bring history to life in a way that anybody could just pick up

one of his books and read it. I remember reading the John Adams biography that he wrote and just being absolutely blown away by it. It might be one of my favorite history books I've ever read about, frankly, a rather obscure president making him seem like the most interesting guy in the entire American founding. And the John Adams HBO documentary is modeled after McCullough's book, which is amazing, too. It's one of the best pieces of cinematic product that I've ever seen. It was amazing. I would absolutely agree with that. All the actors in that show do an amazing job.

And the whole thing just makes it, it brings it a very human level. You know, you can see the founders as the people that they were, not as the sort of perfectly legendary figures that they are often made out to be, but as the very impressive human beings. And that's something McCullough's work really did a great job in.

And I'll give him credit. You know, that's another thing that the Hamilton musical did. They didn't just, although there was some lionization of alexander hamilton they showed a lot of his faults too so it seems like that's uh coming back into fashion and no doubt in part due to david mccullough's work so hayden what about you what you got the tweet that i chose is from our own holly hansen and this was a couple weeks ago so i'm a little late uh with this one but she just tweeted another day of experts say and it goes to an annoyance that we have around this office and that is journalists and reporters using the term experts say as a catch-all term for

things, data, information, opinions, whatever you want to insert after experts say, without specifically listing which experts they're referring to. And I'm not sure what Holly read right before she tweeted this, but anytime there's an event that journalists and reporters are unpacking and writing articles about, inevitably they start to say, experts say. And it always, you want to know who the experts are. And so you Google experts say, and you find more articles that say experts say, because it is rarely specified. And when it is, it's, you know, it's often people expressing their opinions. So that's why we do our best around here to specifically quote which experts were referring to and actually let people decide if they are an expert on the topic they're speaking on. And so Holly tweeted about that a couple weeks ago and it caught my eye yeah it is certain the experts say crutch is definitely the most weathered crutch of all the uh the journalistic crutches as it were um there might be one which is worse which is studies

have shown that's fair that's up there too yeah so, it's just, it's just generally lazy and I get, you know, why they started to use it because it's an easy way to fit something in a headline, but it has gone, it has extended far beyond that. And it's just, we try not to do it. I think we've done a pretty good job of not doing it. It's just, it is one of our pet peeves here and uh experts agree is another one because experts rarely agree and also even if they do agree in five years they might change their mind even if you find two experts that agree there's bound to be another expert that doesn't agree right that's why it's so frustrating because sometimes they'll even they'll even say you know we spoke to two or three people okay you spoke to two or three people. That doesn't mean the entire field agrees with that particular sentiment. That's why, you know, in school, they don't let you use papers that are more than five years old. And you would never get away with saying something like experts say, you know, when you're turning in an assignment. So it's amazing what has been normalized in journalism

that wouldn't be accepted anywhere else, whether it's academia or in a courtroom, or even if you were just reporting something to your boss, you would never be able to be that vague when it came to important information. But it happens every day in this profession. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we here at The Texan will continue

to shake our fists at the sky whenever we see this expert say it is clearly something that is just so overused and overdone. Hudson, over to you. What do you got for us on this section? So I actually tweeted this this morning. And your first tweet, right? My first

tweet. I've been staying away from Twitter for a while, but you know, I'm joining it up now. But it was a report that I saw that the Texas Robin Hood program, which is based on a 1990s Supreme Court case that essentially was for redistribution of educational tax funds. It took in a record amount of funding this year of $3.2 billion. And so that's something interesting to watch as people on both sides of the aisle have criticized both the court decision as well as the policy that followed the court decision. Some people don't believe that it does enough, and some people don't believe that it does, does enough. And some people don't believe that it's necessary or constitutional, but the fact that it took in this amount of money is, is interesting to see and is something colloquially called, um, they take property tax collections from wealthier districts and redistribute it to poorer districts. And, you know, on the one hand you have, uh, the givers, the, the, the large high valued school

districts that, um, have to pay all this money. They see it as, uh, inhibiting their ability to provide a good education to their students. And then you have those on the flip side who benefit from this, who say they need it. They need it in order to stay afloat and provide their students with a suitable education. Now, this has been an issue for a while when we first launched in 19, uh, the school finance bill that, uh, the marquee bill of, of the legislature, in addition to the property tax side, um, that had that touched on the Robin hood program. There was some kind of, some kind of rebalancing that was done. I can't recall all the details, but this is going to continue to be an issue.

It is, and it's definitely something that touches close to home for especially a lot of these school districts. And it's interesting to see school districts who are normally rather united on political, especially political lobbying on issues in the legislature, they are very divided on this one particular thing. And it's unclear how that's going to shake out. Hudson, thank you. Mine is something I happened upon this week in looking up something else. I don't even remember what I was looking up, but happened upon contributions made by the made by Texans for Greg Abbott to the Republican Party of Texas. Now, this is centered on the issue from convention of whether the governor's campaign was going to sponsor the convention this year. They did. They also hosted their own party, a separate event from the texas gop and we finally have some numbers for you that's what makes this notable um the direct sponsorship

that texans for greg abbott uh donated to the party was 7 500 um you know in in terms of what the governor has in his in his bank he's a prolific fundraiser that's that's not a lot and it's less than what other state officials donated uh but then you have the the event that they put on that was um amounted to 178 000 for this event they had at a brewery i think it was a brewery yeah uh right outside the convention hall and there was i was there there were there were so many people there i i've never seen something so packed um unless it was like a literal concert um but it's just interesting to see now after we have the i've done some reporting on the fundraising reports that the governor's candidates put out, both pulling in so much money.

I just kind of happened upon this while I was looking for something else. And now we know what the governor actually donated to the party and spent on his very large in-kind catering event. So there's that. Hudson, since this is your first day, let's have you introduce yourself a bit to our listeners. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Awesome. So yeah, my name is Hudson Callender and I've lived in San Antonio, Texas for my whole life. I was born and raised there. I went to high school there and I actually just recently

graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Trinity University is a small liberal arts college. And there I studied economics and political science. Absolutely loved my time at Trinity and graduated in May. And I'm very excited to be joining the Texan and getting to write news and help to keep everyone abreast of things that are happening in Texas right now. And so I love football, just like Brad. And like he said, there's now one more sports guy in the room.

And so I think- We've doubled. Yeah, we've doubled. That's awesome. So somebody to talk sports with. You're a Baylor bears fan right i am a cowboys fan a baylor fan and then for as far as basketball is concerned i'm a san antonio spurs fan um and so i uh i'll ride and die for those teams i love going outside i do a lot of backpacking and stuff and once again i'm'm excited to be here, excited to be on the podcast and getting to talk and be a part of this whole thing.

Well, Hudson, we look forward to having you here. Glad to have you aboard. It'll be nice to have someone take some of the writing responsibilities off Hayden and I's back while it's been so short staffed. But glad to have you. Welcome aboard. And Brad will enjoy having someone in the office to talk about sports finally. Yeah, at the very least.

So even if you stink at your job, you have that going for you. So no, you've done great already. Especially that Reno piece was very interesting. So with that, we're going to end it. Next week, McKenzie will be back. that's a reno piece was very interesting so with that we're going to end it next week mckenzie will be back um and i'm sure we'll have some more news to report at least i hope so if we don't that's a problem mckenzie will also probably be very very excited to have her first podcast as

well with hudson so yeah i'm sure she'll pepper a bunch of questions at you so come prepared she'll have a lot more a lot more questions than we were able to come up with yep or she might just proctor a personality test i believe as she i hope not i want to sit through that all right well thank you everyone for listening we will catch you on the flip side uh try and stay cool 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 thetexan.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.