The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 19, 2022

Episode Date: August 19, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/  The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: - A poll of registered voters on top statewide races- ERCOT’s new permanent president and CEO- The sharp rise in homeschooling last school year- The Corsicana City Council’s adoption of the no-new-revenue rate- A judge denying a Texas senator’s request for Uvalde documents- Tyler County declaring an invasion at the southern border- Border patrol agents cleared of supposedly whipping illegal immigrants- San Antonio reducing its police and fire departments’ share of the city budget- Confusion over how to apply the state’s “critical race theory” ban- A Texas lawmaker filing challenges against 23 books in the Frisco ISD library- Texas politicians’ responses to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses a poll of registered voters on top statewide races, Urquhart's new permanent president and CEO, the sharp rise in homeschooling last school year, the Corsicana City Council's adoption of the no new revenue rate, a judge denying a Texas senator's request for Uvalde documents, Tyler County declaring an invasion at the southern border, border patrol agents cleared of supposedly whipping illegal immigrants, San Antonio reducing its police and fire department's share of the city budget, confusion over how to apply the state's critical race theory ban, a Texas lawmaker filing challenges against 23 books

in the Frisco ISD library, and Texas politicians' responses to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks. It's McKinney Taylor. I'm back from Florida. Gentlemen, thank you for covering the podcast last week. I do want to pick some bones with y'all though. I do want to say that oftentimes, Brad, of course I'm coming to you. Shocking. We will talk about how you have just such an allegiance to the dodgers they are your baseball team that you love so much and you refute this you say that no it is not the dodgers whose

allegiance you pledge and last week right off the bat at the very beginning of the podcast yes you talked about the dodgers and you act as if i'm the crazy person you clearly did not listen to the podcast very closely because i was talking about the dodgers broadcaster vin scully who's a baseball legend who passed away again all i'm saying is that you immediately i am sorry talked about the dodgers when you see an old english d you think it means dodgers instead of detroit i'm sorry you are uh athletically illiterate athletically oh you are so proud of yourself for that one that is infuriating so yes there you go but you have to understand the like how ridiculous it was to me that immediately as i'm gone i

enter podcast and you talk about the dodgers i knew exactly this would draw this reaction from you and it is quite entertaining oh my gosh and i also want to mention you use the phrase as it were multiple times that was also put in there it's so ridiculous i listened to this and i'm like he is literally saying as it were just to bug me there were there were some things that i scripted beforehand as it were, just to bug me. There were some things that I scripted beforehand, as it were. Unbelievable. Wait, as it were doesn't even fit. I'm just throwing it in there.

I know, okay. I'm just an irritator. All right, now, yeah. It was ridiculous. Hudson, did they, it sounded like they didn't haze you too bad on the podcast. No, they did not. That's good.

It was good. It was good. That's awesome. That's because we like you hudson we didn't want to be too mean so thank you that's really nice hayden i just think it's really interesting i don't know i don't know someone can come back from florida whiter than they were before that's good oh my gosh you should have seen the layers of sunscreen i applied to make sure i didn't come back as a lobster i did eat some lobster though which was unbelievably delicious it

sounded like a fun trip oh it was awesome it was so good okay well let's get into the news and we'll get into the rest of this later on um brad a new poll came out this week which showed some very interesting trends what are the top lines? So the Dallas Morning News and UT Tyler put out a poll this week. I think it was released on Sunday of registered voters. Now it broke it down a little bit in other categories later, but the top lines they showed were registered voters. Keep that in mind when listening to these numbers because usually polls assess likely voters. That way it's not just people that are not even going to show up to the polls but it had abbott at plus seven percent over

beta aurora dan patrick at plus eight percent over mike collier and ken paxton at plus two percent over rochelle garza the their democratic challengers now when you account for certain when you move it to just certain voters abbott's abbott and patrick's leads go up to 10 so double digits but paxton's remained flat at two regardless of how they siphoned off these these poll uh these individuals surveyed yeah so it also compared governor candidates on various issues what did that show i thought this was the most interesting part of the poll um it showed it asked voters to assess the governor candidates on five i think i'm doing my math correct my counting correctly five different issues um and they were in order reducing crime securing the border handling the electrical grid improving our economy and quote

bringing people together which is kind of an issue i guess it's not like it's not policy but it's um a feeling voters have um that the results showed that on reducing crime abbott was at plus 13 percent in voter trust on securing the border abbott was at plus 19 handling the electrical grid abbott was at plus two percent improving our economy abbott was at plus ten percent and bringing people together o'rourke was at plus five percent a theme of his campaign in 2018 regardless when he ran for senate was touring all 254 counties uniting texas as a whole and he's taking that approach in large part again but he has run on a national level and a lot of the policy positions that he was you you know, not willing to take or did not take on his 2018 during his 2018 bid. He's already taken on a national stage.

Yeah. And right now he's in the midst of running this last week in the midst of a tour of rural Texas going to small communities that are typically Republican strongholds. And he's trying to pull away the advantage that Republicans have had traditionally in those areas that has allowed them to run up the score on their Democratic opponents statewide. So we'll see if that has any luck, any effect. But that's his strategy right now. School choice has been a big topic of conversation leading into the 2023 legislative session. What did the poll show there? Yeah, so this was probably the highlight on the issues that were polled in this survey.

It showed two-thirds of registered voters supported, quote, allowing parents to use state funding to send their children to charter or private schools. And so this is, we don't know what form this legislation is going to take next year, but there is a lot of momentum building for some sort of school choice legislation. And this shows that registered voters are largely in support. Absolutely. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, a state district judge recently decided a motion in a lawsuit between a state senator and state police. What are the documents that Senator Gutierrez is trying to access?

Well, just for some background, Senator Roland Gutierrez is the state senator, a Democrat who represents Uvalde County and, of course, the site of the Uvalde shooting at Robb Elementary School. So he has been an outspoken advocate of the victims of that massacre and their family members. He is seeking documents that pertain to the investigation and to the shooting, specifically from the Texas Department of Public Safety. And he, of course, we don't know what we don't know, right? We don't know what's in these documents that he's seeking. That's one of the reasons why he's trying to get them out into the public is so people can read what the contents of the investigation has been so far.

But Senator Gutierrez sued the Texas Department of Public Safety because they have been tight-lipped on their inquiry into what happened on May 24 of this year. And he sought to have a state district judge here in Austin force the state police to produce that information. He also involved District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busby in this suit because she is the District Attorney responsible for prosecuting any potential criminal violations that arise from this tragedy. She has also said that she wants to keep many of these documents under wraps because they pertain to the investigation and they need to keep that clean and private for the sake of making sure that it is able to go to trial if there are criminal charges that come from it.

But Senator Gutierrez claims that the state police are seeking to paint a narrative, were his words, and defend the law enforcement response to the massacre, which has been almost universally criticized at this point by politicians and members of the public, people in DPS itself, including Director Steve McCraw. So the documents Senator Gutierrez is trying to access would probably illuminate many of the details of the investigation. But the people involved want to keep these documents sealed. And that's why he got the legal system involved. Yeah. So why was that request from the senator to force DPS to disclose those documents denied. The judge that is presiding over this case is Judge Catherine Mazzi. She's a Democratic State

District Judge here in Travis County, and she presides over civil cases. She determined that the request that Senator Gutierrez submitted did not comply with the requirements of the Texas Government Code. In other words, he had submitted this request as a legislative inquiry instead of a Public Information Act question. Consequently, the request was not properly submitted under the Texas government code, and he was directed to resubmit it under the guidelines of her order. At least that's what he says he's going to do from this point forward. I'm sure he could drop the lawsuit if he wanted to, but he is seeking to have the courts force dps to turn these documents over but judge mazzi did not decide the question of whether the public is entitled to read this information or whether senator gutierrez is entitled to it but instead decided it more or less on procedural grounds

the um texas department of public safety reportedly had offered him a deal that he would be able to read these documents as long as he signed an agreement that he would not publish them for the entire public to see. He turned that down because the reason he's trying to get this information is so that the victim family members and others can read it. The state legislature has conducted its own investigation through primarily in the Texas house and the Texas Senate is also her testimony. But his purpose in doing this is not so that lawmakers can have more information, but so that the public can read this and make their own decision regarding what law enforcement did and did not do that day that they should have. Is this the end of the lawsuit? It is not. Senator Gutierrez has said that he will refile the request to comply with Judge Mazzi's order and hopefully have a more favorable outcome on the merits of the case

instead of on this procedural issue. The suit is part of the fallout of the shooting that took the lives of 19 children and two students. And while no one but the perpetrator is responsible, the law enforcement response has been universally criticized as being inadequate, with more than 400 officers taking nearly an hour and a half to confront the shooter. And it was ultimately a team of federal agents, border patrol, tactical agents that went in and killed the 18-year-old gunman who was using an AR-15 style rifle to massacre a classroom full of children. So this only happened a few months ago, and this lawsuit is just one of the items that are still outstanding from the investigation. And of course, the Texas House

has already published a preliminary report of its inquiry that blamed everything from the law enforcement response to lackadaisical school security on that day. But Senator Gutierrez is continuing this legal fight to get these documents public. And I would encourage anybody interested in the findings of that Texas House report to go read your piece on the details, Hayden at the texan.news. Thank you for that coverage. Rob, we are coming to you. President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law this week. What's the story behind the bill? because Senator Joe Manchin, who is the Senator of West Virginia, did not appreciate some of the coal mining unfriendly ideas that were in the bill. So the Senate ended up when it went to the Senate, they ended up amending the entire text of the bill, replacing it with the new

Inflation Reduction Act. So this goes from the $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act to a $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Got it. So a lesser price tag here. But what's in the text of this new bill? So the new bill has a lot of stuff that the old Build Back Better Act had in it. So the purpose of this new bill is to invest in healthcare and renewable energy. There is a goal to raise corporate taxes to pay for the new investments. I believe they're raising, um, they want to raise over $700 billion to pay for 369 billion in expenditures. Uh, the goal is to lower prescription drug costs and insulin costs for Medicare recipients. Uh, they want to have tax credits for electric vehicles and personal solar panels and rebates for energy efficient appliances,

uh, build more solar panels, build more wind turbinesates for energy efficient appliances, uh, build more solar panels, build more wind turbines, reduce emissions to address, um, the Biden administration wants to address climate change by reducing the CO2 output of the country. Uh, they claim that in raising corporate taxes, no one making over $400,000 will see any new taxes and something that's actually been kind of controversial. Well, the rest of it has been politically controversial, but something that Republicans have really jumped on is this $80 billion in funding to the IRS that the act provides. On the sorry to jump in, but on the emissions target, I think it's important to note that the 40% reduction that the Biden administration wants to hit by 2030, we're already halfway there. And that's below 2005 levels.

And we've reduced emissions from that about 20% from that point. So we're halfway to that metric set by the Biden administration. But they want to reach, I think, total carbon neutrality by 2050. So that would itself would be a huge jump. But in terms of the near term goal, we're already halfway there without this bill. Certainly. Brad wrote a really good article actually discussing the environmental policies in the build back. I'm sorry, in the Inflation Reduction Act before it was passed. So I would highly recommend reading that article. And so, yeah, the administration also claims that this act will reduce inflation because it will

reduce the federal spending deficit with higher taxes. And on the White House fact sheet online, they say that over 100 economists have agreed that this that this will reduce inflation. How did Texas lawmakers specifically respond? Passionately. Many of the Texas Republicans generally are opposed to it. Every Texas Republican in Congress and the Senate and the House all the Texas Republicans generally are opposed to it. Every Texas Republican in Congress and the Senate and the House opposed the act. Representative Kevin Brady claims that this $80 billion in funding for the IRS will allow them to hire 87,000 new agents to enforce tax

collection. This number has been thrown around a lot of the sort of social media sphere, this 87,000 number. This comes from a May 2021 report by the IRS saying, what would they do with $80 billion in funding? And one of the things they said is over 10 years, they would hire approximately 87,000 new employees. Some of those were tax collection, some of those for IT, but not every single one of those would be like a collection agent. So, so our representative Myra Flores said that this bill would not lower inflation, which is also a very common thing. You know, the conservative Republicans are opposed to the tax and spend model of government where

they believe that spending more money is going to increase inflation because there'd be injecting more money into the economy and therefore lowering the value of the individual dollar. Representatives August Pfluger and Chip Roy said it was unfair that the act would subsidize corporations just because they're producing green energy. So this is another big thing that if people are opposed to is the way that it seems to just be handing out money to those companies. Yeah. Both Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn came out against it as well. But Representatives Henry Cuellar and Colin Allred both said the new law was good. Both Democrats.

Absolutely. And Cuellar said, in his opinion, it's not a perfect bill, but he thinks it's better than nothing to have a bill that at the very least is pursuing policies that Texas Democrats are interested in. Because, of course, this is a definite, from a Democratic perspective, this is a definite step down from the Build Back Better Act. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Rob. Bradley, we're going to come to you on a story that you broke this week. A suspect in an Austin homicide early this month was discovered to have been out of jail on personal bonds in not one but two counties, a common theme in some of Texas's bigger cities, specifically Austin and Houston.

We hear a lot about this. Tell us about the details. So Nathan Neva Ramirez, age 18, allegedly shot two people on August 6, killing one and paralyzing another in the midst of a street brawl occurring by the Arch Homeless Shelter in downtown Austin. The man who was paralyzed was actually one of ramirez's friends so he fired at the person this guy was brawling with intending to hit the other guy and he did but he also hit his buddy ramirez was arrested later that day while found at his apartment with a loaded Glock 22, two and a half ounces of marijuana, 44 grams of cocaine, about $8,000 cash, and a box of 40 caliber bullets. He was then, he was arrested and then charged with unlawful carrying a firearm and possession of a controlled substance, a theme with this guy. Um it would in charge he was charged with those after police

connected him to the scene of the crime and then staked out his apartment and found him entering and found all this contraband on him um but they did not connect him to the shooting it's as the shooter itself until two days until august 10th in the meantime he was arrested for those charges and released on personal bond then he is now charged with murder and aggravated assault and being held on one million dollar bond in travis county and as it turns out when at the time of the shooting ramirez had been out of jail on personal bonds in both travis and hayes counties for the same for unauthorized or unlawful carrying of a firearm and possession of controlled substance offenses got it so what does this guy's criminal history look like so his first criminal conviction came last year i think it was in june of 21 when he and his brother a known gangbanger returned fire

at a vehicle which shot at the group they were hanging out with. They both were seen on video firing. One had an AK-47. The other one had, I think, a machine pistol or something like that. I have the details in the article. But they fired at these at this car uh during the firefight two women that were with the group with the ramirez brothers group were hit they weren't killed they were just injured um but uh after that he was uh arrested and no sorry he was not arrested. He was charged with unlawful carrying of a firearm as an under 18-year-old.

And he was out on the lam for a year until May 26th of this year when he was finally arrested and then released on personal bond from a trap an austin municipal court then on june 10th ramirez was arrested for the same charges again a theme yeah um the guy likes to carry around uh firearms and lots of cocaine basically that's that's what he's been arrested for um obviously that points to him being a drug dealer, but that is not, that is not the issue in this, in this case. On June 10th, Ramirez was arrested for the same charges in Hayes County,

for which he was also released on personal bond. Then on August 6th, he allegedly murdered one person and paralyzed another. Wow. So we talked about the broader trend of this happening in cities here in Texas specifically. It's happening nationwide in certain areas. But why is this happening? There's a broad movement, especially in large cities, as you mentioned, to grant low or personal bond.

Personal bond is where defendants are let out of jail and just expected on their own recognizance to show up to the court for their date. But it's prioritized for defendants that are deemed indigent, a category that's mainly poor and minority individuals. It also encompasses homeless people. In 2017, the Austin City Council passed a directive to the municipal court to prioritize personal bonds for these defendants and they fired judges who objected this was something i covered back in 2020 i believe i don't believe anyone else has written on it um but that is something that has greatly affected the way these judges issue bonds to especially violent criminals um violent and repeat additionally after winning office in 2020 travis county district attorney jose garza released relaxed bail and sentencing guidelines

that his office would recommend to the bench in criminal proceedings that was something he campaigned on he is one of these up-and-coming prosecutors whose biggest priority is to, A, prioritize low bond for as many defendants as possible, and B, prosecute police more intensely. And he's delivered on both of those so far. Among the items in this guidance that he released is an emphasis placed on presumption of release with least restrictive conditions necessary for higher level felonies this is not just someone gets caught with an ounce of weed on them these are people that are repeat offenders and or violent offenders

that are getting released holly's covered this a great deal down in harris county just by sheer number it's a bigger problem there because harris county is a lot larger of a city, but it's happening here in Austin too. And I'm sure it's happening in Dallas and probably even Fort Worth a little bit. It's a really big problem across the entire country. And while judges set bond, ultimately, these policies are certainly influencing their decisions. Well, thank you, Brad, for covering that and great job on that story. Hudson, we are coming to you. Let's talk about the critical race theory ban bill that was passed in the last legislative session. There has been a very contentious issue. Update us on how the law has been affected or has affected classrooms so far.

Well, the results are mixed. Some educators are incredibly concerned about the law and they fear that they will not be able to discuss difficult topics like American slavery and the Holocaust. There's also some confusion on how the law should be applied. Some lawmakers and other advocacy groups believe that it's not being applied and they point to new draft of social studies and history curricula as evidence. So who believes this and what are they saying? So I had the opportunity to talk to Representative Steve Toth, who authored the original bill, House Bill 3979 in the Texas House. He believes that the State Board of Education is actively attempting to maneuver around the law with new TEKS. Those are the Texas Essential

Knowledge and Skills, which outline the curriculum for Texas public schools. And those are being discussed right now and drafts have just been submitted as of last week. He told me that the drafts of these new history and social studies TEKS are filled with CRT-esque topics. He also argued to me that the State Board of Education has manufactured confusion over matters like discussing the Holocaust and slavery and other difficult historical discussion topics. He assured me that the bill does not prohibit or discourage the discussion of these topics and actually clearly states them in the text of the bill. Yeah, well, and I think that was even crazily enough a huge argument used by Democrats when the bill was being pushed through the legislature. That was the argument that was being had on the House floor. And so interestingly, now that the bill has passed, those arguments remain. Have there been any

efforts to enforce the bill? Well, in my research, I've found very few instances of publicly available guidance explaining those changes outlined in the bill to teachers. One person I talked to, Wade Miller from the Center for Renewing America, does not believe that the legislation has teeth to substantially change anything. He claims that there has been no effort by the governor or the Texas Education Agency to enforce the content of the law. So also included in my article are instances of school officials trying to skirt around the bill. One video I saw showed an assistant superintendent informing her staff that as long as you don't use any buzzwords that are going through the media, you'll be fine.

Interesting. Yeah, it just seems that there's a lot of stuff going on and it's unclear where this is going to be going in the future. And I do know that there are rumblings in Austin about, you know, some sort of critical race theory, you know, bill that would address this more specifically, perhaps in Austin about, you know, some sort of critical race theory, you know, bill that would address this more specifically, perhaps in enforcement terms is being discussed prior to the legislative session that will begin in January. So we'll see what happens there if the legislature tackles this again.

But Hudson, thank you so much for that coverage. Just a quick note to our listeners. If you enjoy listening to Texas news without the spin, consider subscribing to the Texan. We are not funded by big donors or corporate interests, so we rely on subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep churning out the details about state politics. When you subscribe to the Texan, you'll get access to stories like all the ones we've been talking about as soon as they're published so that you can stay informed and up to speed. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription

for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month. And for a limited time for new subscribers, you'll also get a free long-sleeve t-shirt with a quote from John Steinbeck. Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. For more details, visit the texan.news slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Now back to more stories from this week. Brad, let's talk about some data about public schools and students leaving public schools for homeschooling during the 2020-21 school year. We have some new numbers that have been released. What did those show? So keep in mind that the TEA only tracks this, the Texas Education Agency only tracks this data for 7th through 12th graders.

So the full picture is probably much more expansive. But it shows a 40% increase in the number of students leaving non-charter public schools for homeschool. The total number was 25,000 roughly in the 2020-2021 school year. Withdrawals from charter schools itself increased 44%. So the percentage increases are basically on par with one another. Now the raw number is much lower at about 4,000. That's because there's much fewer students in charter schools than in traditional public schools. At the same time, the number of homeschooled students re-enrolling in their public school remains low and largely flat. During that school year, there were approximately 5.3

million students enrolled in public schools. So overall, this is a very small percentage of the total student population in public school, but there's a clear trend developing. And in the article that we posted this week, there's some charts that show you the trends more clearly. Recommend you check it out if that interests you. Yeah, absolutely. So what's causing this change? So other than the obvious school closures that we saw in response to the pandemic that resulted in a lot of people pulling their children out because they could not deal with online school, it wasn't suited for them. There were many children with that issue. We saw a lot of degradation in the quality of education during that time and as we're returning to in-person classes almost exclusively in the state the texas homeschool coalition has identified a couple other causes drivers of this this trend

things like critical race theory in schools and other racial sensitivity themes in curriculum along with the heightened exposure of sexually explicit materials in school libraries. They say those two things are driving even more of an exodus from these schools. Now, we don't have, the data is delayed. This is, like I said, from the 2020-2021 school year. It's about a year delayed. So, about this time next year, we'll be able to know what the trend was for the most recent school year, not the one that just started. And that will give us a better picture of does this have staying power? Do these more cultural issues in curriculum, does that still have a driving force away from public schools? Or are we going to see kind of a reversion back to the mean yeah absolutely well um bradley thank you for that coverage hudson we're coming back to you

once again library books in public schools are back in the news there was a challenge uh filed this week from a state lawmaker why did representative jared patterson uh file these challenges to these books well um Patterson alleges that these books can contain obscene sexual content and that those books are not appropriate for high school age children. This is also not his first time doing this. He has been meeting with school districts around Denton County for the better part of the year and have been pushing them to remove books with inappropriate content. Got it. Do the books contain the content he's alleging?

Well, there's no question that many of the books he challenged do explicitly mention sexual acts, sexual abuse, drug abuse, and other mature themes. But there is a question that asks, where is the line for age appropriateness? Should we shield high school age students from sexual themes? Many of these students are on the edge of adulthood. Additionally, groups opposed to banning books claims that doing so limits the intellectual freedom of students. Regardless of the content, they believe that books of all sorts should be available to students to enhance the free exchange of ideas and information. Yeah, definitely both sides have,

you know, these arguments that they are they're going to bat for and it's interesting to watch them at war. How would the lawmaker, Jared Patterson, respond to these criticisms? Well, Patterson would agree with the notion that the free exchange of ideas is necessary and constitutionally protected. But he would argue that this content should not be available in Texas public schools because of its obscene nature. He asserts that it is not appropriate for the school district to prevent these sexually explicit themes to their students as a part of instruction. Got it. Well, Hudson, thank you for picking up that beat for us and continuing to watch this go down. We'll continue to kind of watch what happens with this whole debacle. Hayden, we're

coming to you, a border story shocker. What other counties in Texas have called illegal immigration an invasion? The Tyler County Commissioner's Court recently passed a document that called illegal immigration on the southern border an invasion. They followed a series of counties that have taken similar courses of action as of late. Those counties include Parker County, Goliad, Wise, Atascoza, Terrell, Kinney, Uvalde, Burnett, and Medina. Some of those have local officials that have spoken out recently and called on Governor Abbott to take more aggressive action against illegal immigration. And all of this, for those who have not been following the invasion argument, is to raise the justification for a stronger response. There are constitutional provisions

that require the federal government to defend states from invasion and give state governments recourse if it does not. The Texas Constitution as well has a provision that allows the governor to repel invasion, and that provision has been cited in many of the resolutions that have been passed by Texas counties, and that's about a dozen or so so far. Many border officials and Congressman Chip Roy met in Brackettville in early July, right after Independence Day, and called on Abbott to declare an invasion. He did, but he did not order the state to conduct its own deportations. Instead, he ordered state police and National Guardsmen to take illegal immigrants back to ports of entry.

And the governor's office indicated last week that about 3,900 illegal aliens have been taken back to ports of entry. And the governor's office indicated last week that about 3,900 illegal aliens have been taken back to ports of entry under that executive order. This is in addition to the busing program, which has resulted in thousands being taken out of state. But all of this, of course, is dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens that have crossed into Texas and been apprehended by the U.S. government in the past few months. So what other counties have called illegal immigration an invasion? Just to reiterate, that's Parker, Goliad, Wise, Atascoza, Terrell, Kinney, Uvalde, Burnett, and Medina. And I'm sure that others are considering that as a course of action as well. I'm curious your perspective on this, Hayden, but it's interesting to watch the governor make that call to not directly deport these

illegal aliens, but basically just kind of return them to a port of entry because Democrats are immediately, you know, depending on who he's trying to win over with decisions like this. And oftentimes, you know, these political decisions aren't just policy-based, right? You have to consider the broader reception by your voters and your citizens and like the safety that they are expect. But Democrats immediately criticized the governor for, you know, being extreme on immigration. And Republicans immediately criticized the governor for not going far enough. So it seemed like, oh my gosh, this decision made by Abbott didn't really do him any favors on either side here. I'm curious your

perspective on that politically looking at this going into the election. Well, a lot of this is semantics because the legalese remains much the same. These counties did not specifically prescribe a policy response that they want the governor to adopt. It's primarily a philosophy that they are requesting that illegal immigration not just be treated as a policy problem, but as an attack because of methamphetamine trafficking, fentanyl trafficking, and the crime that goes with it. Because Governor Abbott has enacted several measures such as Operation Lone Star, and the documents that these counties are passing support Operation Lone Star. So they're supporting the governor on one hand, and on the other hand, raising the stakes politically for his response. So yes, Democrats say that this is all an overreaction,

more or less, and it is contributing to an unfair perception of foreign individuals, foreign nationals, and an unfair perception of communities along the border. But Abbott has really responded to the stronger border security arguments. though, that if the state were to begin turning people away, as it's been described, or moving people to the Mexican side of the border, that that could be a federal crime, and state police and others would be prosecuted for that. So that's why Abbott has not crossed that line. And legally, it is a federal responsibility. But the whole argument is not that the law is giving this responsibility to the states. The argument is that the feds are not doing their job and the Constitution then gives states the authority to step in and do it for them. Got it. Hayden, thank you so much for that coverage. Brad, let's talk about ERCOT. Again, border ERCOT. We're hitting all the big topics here.

For over a year, ERCOT has had an interim president running things after Bill Magnus was terminated in the fallout of the blackouts in 2021. But they finally announced a permanent hire this week. Talk to us. So Pablo Vegas, a former Texas and current Ohio utility executive, shout out Ohio, I guess, will take the reins on October 1st. He said in a release, I'm excited to return to Texas, both personally and professionally. Texas is the fastest growing electric grid in the nation with peak demand larger than any other state and leads the nation in advancing reliable resources. So that right there lays out the task ahead of him. I've reported on this quite a bit, but the Texas grid is massive and growing, and the stresses on it are going to continue compounding. So he has a lot ahead of him.

He's a graduate of the University of Michigan, go blue, and the Harvard Business School. And he spent the last roughly decade, I think, in Ohio working at KnifeSource Utilities. Currently, he's the executive vice president. So he'll start on October 1st and take over the state's power grid. What does his contract look like? I should have been not saying this. This power grid that encompasses most of the state, there are two others that's certain parts but urquhart is the biggest one so his contract he will be paid a salary of 990 000 per year so basically just shy of a million yep yep just shy um it has up to 420 000 dollars in uh per year and performance-based incentives there's also a medley of different payments laid out for moving

expenses, make whole payments, and a one-time lump sum payment to be given to him before the end of this calendar year. So there's a lot of money on the table for this. Why is that? Why is a contract worth so much money? Well, running a power grid, texas's power grid is an incredibly difficult and demanding task if you want someone who can handle it it will cost money money obviously the jury's still out and whether he can do the job um but they are putting up quite a bit of money to pay for that now i should note that the ERCOT, the payments ERCOT receives are kind of like their fees from electricity transactions from generators to retail electric providers. So

it is not at least mainly taxpayer funded. Now, everything falls down to the rate payer. So ultimately, rate payers will be paying his salary um it just goes through a few steps because it's directly paid by these companies that are engaging in the wholesale electricity market so there's that um also his base salary is more than what magnus was making i think think that was $700,000 to $800,000 per year, and substantially more than interim CEO Brad Jones has made since starting last year. That was about half a million. And so they are ponying up quite a bit for him.

One interesting fact is that the company from which Vegas is coming operates heavily on coal. That's a lot different than what Texas has. We're actually retiring coal plants. And the percentage of coal generation in terms of the overall generation output is shrinking because we're seeing a lot more renewables come on online. So there's probably going to be a learning curve for him. Once he starts, it will be out of the summer peak demand period. Doesn't mean won't still get hot.

I mean, it's Texas. It's hot. Much to your chagrin, personally. But we will not be seeing quite the peaks that we have over the last few months. So he'll have some time before the winter and before the next summer to get ready thank you bradley hudson we're coming back to you let's talk about san antonio the city just released a budget proposition for fiscal year 2023 tell us about it well uh the budget the proposed budget is the largest in city history and that's mostly due to rising home values in San Antonio. In the proposal,

the property tax rate does drop. However, those rising home values have significantly increased the revenue generated by the city's property tax and give the city a larger budget for this next year. What is particularly notable about this year's budget? So in the budget, the city's public utility, CPS Energy, wants to return approximately $50 million back to customers in the form of a one-time rebate on their October power bill. The proposed rebate comes from a windfall of about $75 million in additional CPS revenue from the fiscal year 2022. And most of San Antonio City Council actually did not agree with this.

And only two members of the 10-person council even expressed interest in the prospect. Interesting. Public safety was also a very interesting portion of this discussion. Explain that portion of the budget. For sure. You know, in the proposition, there is a lower percentage of the budget allocated to San Antonio's police and fire departments. And this is actually the lowest percentage in a decade. This is particularly interesting because San Antonio's crime rate has also spiked in that same 10-year period. From 2020 to 2021 alone,

there was a 25% increase in homicides. Additionally, San Antonio residents ranked police funding as the second most important budgetary item in a survey of 11,000 conducted by the city. Got it. How does the city leadership feel regarding the proposed public safety budget? You know, they seem mostly content with the move. Mayor Ron Nuremberg has previously supported cutting SAPD funding, and the loudest voice against increasing SAPD funding has been Councilman Jalen McKee Rodriguez. And he made headlines last year when he was vehemently opposed to

increasing the total numbers of officers in the San Antonio Police Department. Well, Hudson, thank you for covering that for us. Good to have San Antonio back in our rotation here. Hayden, let's talk again about the border. What was the overall conclusion of the report on border agents actions during the Del Rio surge? Some of our listeners may remember the September 2021 surge of nearly 30,000 illegal immigrants on the Del Rio area. They presented at the border because in part because of a misunderstanding over temporary protected status and a deportation pause that had been enacted and caused an over cause they overwhelmed border patrol resources in that area but there was controversy over the treatment of those illegal immigrants by

border security agents specifically horseback officers. And President Biden condemned those individuals and said that there would be consequences. Again, this was before the investigation was completed. But last month, the Office of Professional Responsibility, not the Inspector General, the Office of Professional Responsibility within Customs and Border Protection published a report that exonerated these agents of whipping individuals as they had been accused with the long reins for their horses. But instead, they exhibited unprofessional conduct was the terms that the report used. And it didn't only ascribe blame to the individual agents, but also to the agency itself for failing to properly plan for the surge and

have the resources adequately organized. So there were actions taken to modify, or the agency stated that they would modify horseback units responsibilities and they would modify their crowd control tactic tactics and their guidelines for use of those tactics during surges on the border. So this report that was published last month did not completely clear them. But it did say that some of these agents showed unprofessional conduct and ascribed partial blame to the agency itself. But the commissioner, Chris Magnus, noted that most agents acted honorably and did their best with what they called an unprecedented situation. Yeah. Why is this back in the news? stated on Chris Salcedo's radio show that he would hire, quote, dissatisfied FBI agents and border agents and other federal employees who might be frustrated with the Biden administration.

But specifically, he mentioned border guards, and that the state of Texas would possibly hire border guards if they were fired by the Biden administration after this inquiry, which is, we talked about this last week. It's interesting that a state would announce or basically put a we're hiring sign on the front door for those who are fired by the federal government. And it goes to how politicized border security has become in this climate. Got it. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that. I i appreciate as always your border coverage here at the texan let's move on to some tweets bradley what caught your eye on twitter this week i've got two first one um we uh we give our our competitors in the legacy media

quite a bit of well-deserved crap here and there um but i read an interesting one this morning um if you can get past the clear uh you know bias on this issue um but the texas tribune ran a piece by eleanor kilbinoff on the history of texas's current well as we know them the pre-Roe abortion restrictions. Um, the, uh, they were, the common knowledge was that they were passed in 1925, but actually they date back to 1857 when the state, um, actually created a penal code. Um,

but the reason everyone thought it was 1925 is that they recodified everything in the criminal procedure section of uh state code and that's so that's the date that pops up with it but it actually dates back a lot further than that it's an interesting history um like i said if you can get past the other stuff um i recommend you give it a read um then i also wanted to point out smith and wesson came out the uh the firearms manufacturer with a very strong statement criticizing um the general discussion of um of gun reform right now and i they posted on twitter, you can read the full thing, and talking about how especially these DAs are blaming, big city DAs especially, are blaming rising crime on just guns rather than like what we discussed earlier with the bail policy. Yeah. Things like that. It's the reason I thought it was notable is that we don't see many of these corporations really pushing back publicly against whatever the issue of the day is, the talking points of the day.

And I'm not surprised to see Smith and Wesson come out doing this, but it's just not something we've seen quite a bit. Yeah, absolutely. Hayden, your your tweet from this week has to do with a big national story. What do you got for us? I felt like we couldn't not talk about Liz Cheney this week has to do with a big national story what do you got for us yeah i i felt like we couldn't not talk about liz cheney this week um for those who haven't been following liz cheney is the at-large congresswoman for wyoming and she lost the republican primary i think on tuesday right um yeah but lauren bobert who is probably the opposite of Liz Cheney in many ways. Uh, she's either a fresh freshman, a member of Congress or second term.

I can't remember. Uh, huge Trump supporter, um, both Republicans, but on the like vastly different spectrum. I mean, different, different universes in the Republican party. Uh, but she tweeted good morning to everyone except for liz cheney this is the morning of the election good morning to everyone except for liz cheney who gets thrown into the trash heap of irrelevance today oh wow so of course you know really gentle and calm criticisms of liz cheney but um i i think this just really encapsulates the rift that has grown in the Republican Party and the two different, I mean, could not be more contrasting attitudes toward whether to carry forward the Trump legacy and his style and attitude toward the left and Liz Cheney's very probably small wing of the Republican Party that is seeking to move on from Trump and have a reckoning of sorts for what happened on January 6th of 2021.

And Liz Cheney just represents so much of what used to be in the Republican Party, and that is working with Democrats and reaching compromises and really what they would describe as a more conscientious approach to politics, a principle-focused approach to politics that a principal focus approach approach to politics um whereas lauren bobert uh and others would be more inclined to the you know uh the ends or the the end of winning oftentimes justifies uh certain tactics and an election and um certain criticisms rhetoric you know i don't think it was normal. It's always been normal for politicians to criticize each other. And, um, any, anyone can go back in history and look at, you know, just wild criticisms. I'm not, you know, people who say that we've never, you know, it's never been this bad or our country's been in a civil war. Yeah. And, um, you know, if you go back to our founding they were they were slinging all kinds of insults at each other um but you know maybe in the past couple

of decades it hasn't necessarily been that way and so that type of political that type of politicking has come back and it's become very vitriolic like it used to be and um i think just this this highlights how there is no more goodwill between the two sides within conservatism and Republicans who want to take that party into two different directions for the future. Yeah, absolutely. And there are big policy differences between the two as well, you know, aside from just the rhetoric and the Trump of it all, right? I mean, there are two very politically different people. And even just when it comes down to policy

and what they're willing to sign their name on in terms of legislation, it's just very different in that regard as well. So two different wings in terms of rhetoric and two very different wings in terms of what they think is best for the party politically and legislatively. So very fascinating. Hudson,

what do you have for us? So I was going to bring in a tweet that I saw that said that in the fiscal year 2022 alone, there have been 20 or 2 million, sorry, that's a lot more, 2 million encounters with migrants at the southern border. That includes those encounters include border arrests as well as interactions at field offices. And I think it's notable in the sense of like like Hayden was talking about, some counties around Texas are declaring an invasion and a lot of people are pushing Abbott to do the same to invoke that constitutional protection. Um, but it's, it, I, I see every day on Twitter that there's just a continuous stream of, of, of, of people coming at the, at the Southern border and it's not stopping anytime soon. Um, and it's, it's just, it's, it's an issue that, that is, uh, unresolved and is going to continue into the future. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, I, um, I'm actually just going to move on to our fun topic here because we're getting a little bit short on time hudson you thought last week was your

initiation onto the podcast but the boys were correct when they said that just wait until mac gets back nothing too crazy and i'm even putting the questions i know i have the questions here so you can kind of prepare exactly i'm giving you a little bit more um i don't know grace than i would probably any of these boys but um she just said the quiet part out loud that's right uh okay easy stuff we're gonna start out with what's your favorite article you've written so far so that's easy uh that the first one that i wrote was a unt piece um regarding a a court decision decision and a tuition requirement that allows them to give illegal immigrants in-state tuition. And there was a wide-ranging court

decision that had a lot of constitutional law and stuff like that. And that's stuff that I'm really interested in. I'm a political science major. I love taking constitutional law, understanding these court decisions and how they have such wide-ranging effects on our society, especially this one particularly, which is going to presumably change the way that the in-state tuition is done in Texas. Yeah, that was a really fun article for your first round as well. What surprised you during your first week here, whether it was interacting with these crazies around this table, including myself, or just doing the job, reporting, reaching out to sources? What surprised you about your first week on the job? I think the first thing that surprised me was the serious commitment to facts and actual reporting.

Because I think that I've been reading the news since as long as I can remember. And for that entire time, it's been sensationalist journalism that's not really committed to facts. It's not linking court cases or bills. And it's kind of that journalist explaining it to you. That doesn't happen here. There's always an emphasis on making sure that you're not putting in the flowery language that's just sensationalizing an issue. You're providing both sides here. So that's one thing that I was really surprised and pleased with. And I think that another thing is the latitude that is afforded to the journalists here to be able to pursue stories that interest us individually,

to kind of to go at it in our own way. And I guess that that that latitude was really interesting to me. Yeah, I mean, Rob and I talk about this a lot is that, you know, the reporters at the end of the day are the ones who have their names on the pieces. So it's important to us that y'all feel comfortable with the work that's published. So, um, yeah, we certainly love to have y'all kind of, uh, delve into the topics that you enjoy and, you know, find ways to tell the story that, um, kind of align with how you, how you've done your research. Okay. I know you're a big outdoorsy guy. What's your favorite place to travel for outdoor activities? Easy. Um, I would say that the that the Yellowstone Grand Teton area in Northwest Wyoming, been going there for the past four or five years. That place is near and dear

to my heart. I've done a lot of climbing over there, backpacking. And I just think that it's one of the coolest areas in the United States and just pristine wildlife everywhere that's awesome i love wyoming is beautiful i i went to i've been to yellowstone i've been to grand tetons and i remember at one point i was driving to jackson hole and pulled over on the side of the road and there were these yellow wildflowers in this field leading up to the grand tetons and the the fence along this i don't know how even to describe the fence, but it was one of those like kind of hacked together fences on the side of the road. It was just so picturesque.

It was ridiculous. I was waiting for an elk just to gallop across. It was unreal. It was so beautiful. Have you been to Pacific Northwest? You know, I haven't. And that's on my list. I like to do a lot of mountaineering,

which is actually getting on glaciers and stuff like that. And so that's so cool. It's it's a it's the airfare is a little expensive to get from from Texas to over there. So it is maybe a little bit. It's I'm being from Washington. I've always loved hearing where people like to go to, you know, find some good mountains. So love it. OK, personality test is something I had you do on your first day here, I believe, was take the Enneagram

test. What's your Enneagram type? So I'm actually familiar with the Enneagram. Oh, good. I've done some tests in the past, and I'm actually a three-wing four. And so very committed to accomplishing things, very goal-oriented. But then there's that introspective four also there. Yeah, some self-awareness with some achieving.

That's kind of what I would add the three wing four for sure. That's awesome. We love a good three around this office. Okay, so your first, or this week, you've gotten a couple of different emails from folks who've not been so pleased with uh what we've published so i think the first email you received was just a here's a statement we want y'all to include and we did we included the statement and you were like man

you know this is an angry email and then today you got a whole different kind of hate email that i think you now realize this is more of what, uh, what actually is a hate, a hate email. So how has that been kind of dealing with, uh, outside voices and criticism? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, um, I mean, it's exhilarating. Like it, it's, I mean, it shows me that, that, that, that piece is, is, is meaningful, you know? Um, and that the individual that sent me that, that, that mail that are, they're incredibly passionate about it, but I know in the way that I, I like went about going and researching this story that I provided both sides of the argument. And so, um, I'm,

I'm confident in the fact that I'm doing the right thing, but it's also very interesting and a, uh, uncharted waters for me, not, not really like stepping on toes in the past and, and kind of having my work go in and criticize people publicly. Now it's, it's, it's in the forefront, you know? Um, it was, it was definitely interesting and, and we'll see how much more hate mail I can get in the next couple weeks i will say too the the last piece of hate mail you got the the pretty angry one was from someone who was not a direct subject of the story and should not have been reached out to for the sake of the story and um it's pretty interesting just to watch and i think uh hudson really was like

what is happening and ranted almost as well as brad does he was almost on your level brad you may have to watch out for like the rant king title in the office over my cold dead body okay this is a question on boys if you have questions for hudson feel free to jump in but this is a question from brad what's the least interesting thing about you so you know there's not many things that are uh not interesting about me especially your humility yes um but i would say that amid my uh my interest in traveling and and going all over the country to do outdoor escapades i have not lived outside of the i-35 corridor between san antonio and aust. I think that's pretty boring.

That's a good answer. That's a really good answer. I've been between the couple area codes for my whole life. And you know what? I'm proud of that. That's right. Native Texan. We love to see it.

Least interesting, but you're still pretty damn proud of it. I love that Hayden just said damn that makes me so happy oh my gosh also i do want to say we've said the word activities a lot in the last like five ten minutes broad what does that make you think of oh stepbrothers yes okay i just watched our brothers oh have you never seen it i had never seen it oh my gosh when i was in i was in florida with my masterpiece oh seriously but i was in Florida, I was my... Will Ferrell's masterpiece. Oh, seriously. But I was in Florida with my fiance and his family, his parents, and him and his dad were

like, we need to indoctrinate you with Will Ferrell movies. We watched Stepbrothers, we watched Talladega Nights. We watched Blades of Glory, which I'd seen before, but it was quite something. Talladega Nights, I think, was the first R-rated movie I saw in theaters. Really? My dad took me to see it That's pretty awesome Did you guys watch Elf? It is not time for Elf yet

It is always time for Elf That is the one Will Ferrell movie that Mackenzie has Actually watched Dozens of times Because it's Christmas You haven't experienced this yet but she will start the christmas countdown and she hasn't already pretty soon all right well i am excited for that i've got my bluetooth speaker so we can start blasting christmas

music in the office starting pretty much right after halloween exactly that's exactly when it is appropriate how many days until christmas 129 did you just okay wait wait wait pause did you just look that up or did you know that off the top of your head i just wanted to be sure i used to have a countdown in the office you know original listeners not that that would have been a terrible thing no but i i usually i used to know the date and then I got so much flack for it that I've kind of laid off. So much criticism. The criticism that is lobbed and levied at me by you gentlemen sitting around this table is so much.

Well, you never criticize us, right? Never, ever. I'm so nice to you guys all the time. Any other questions for Hudson, y'all? Why are you named Hudson? Is it like the Hudson River? I don't know. Just curious. It's a good name. Solid name. Okay. No more. No more questions, gentlemen.

Your mom is going to listen to this and email you the whole story. That's amazing. That'd be pretty fun. Okay, folks. Well, 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.