The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 20, 2021

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” our team covers the disputes between localities and the state over mask mandates, Texas lawmaker responses to the Afghanistan conflict, a judge ordering the Remain in Mexico policy to be reinstated, the long-awaited release of census data, school finance accountability grades, renewed conflict among state officials over the power grid, Governor Abbott testing positive for coronavirus, three new sanctuary cities for the unborn, and a battle over police staffing ballot language in Austin.

Happy Friday, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here on this week's edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup. Our team covers the disputes between localities and the state over mask mandates, Texas lawmaker responses to the Afghanistan conflict, the Supreme Court ruling on whether House Democrats can be forced to return to work under civil arrest, a judge ordering the Remain in Mexico policy to be reinstated, the long-awaited release of census data. School finance accountability grades. Renewed conflict among state officials over the power grid.

Governor Abbott testing positive for coronavirus. Three new sanctuary cities for the unborn. And a battle over police staffing ballot language in Austin. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson. We have a full slate of news, so I think we're just going to jump right into it, unless one of you has something profound to start off our podcast with. I have nothing profound. All of my insights are very dull. Nothing profound. That is absolutely untrue.

For Bradley. Well, we'll start with you, Bradley. We're going to talk right off the bat. A lot of what we've been covering here at the Texan has involved masks, court orders, lawsuits, etc. Start with the Supreme Court ruling that was handed down. Yeah, so we've seen kind of a back and forth coming up to this week on masks. Some school districts saying they're going to implement mask mandates for when their students return. Cities actually implementing that. stay on specifically a couple mask mandates, Dallas County, City of Dallas, and Bexar County

and the City of Houston. Now, it's kind of unclear whether this applies to everything across the state or just the specific mask mandate policies. Attorney General Ken Paxton is of the opinion that it applies across the state to everybody. But it's just a temporary stay on these orders until the Supreme Court can rule further on whether they violate Governor Abbott's executive order prohibiting such mandates. And that's still being worked out. We'll see what the Supreme Court decides ultimately. So on that note, Isaiah, we're going to come to you. But San Antonio ISD announced that staff will have to be vaccinated for this upcoming school year.

What is so significant about that? Well, first off, they may be the first school district in Texas to do so. I mean, if there's another one, it's not being reported. So San Antonio ISD is kind of the first public school district. Well, I meant to say public as in it's publicly announcing kind of front facing that staff are going to have to be vaccinated. It's also a bit of a unique rebellion against the governor's order because with, I mean, the governor's order against mask mandates has been around since May. And so GA 38, the most recent one, just consolidated that and added it to a bunch of other orders about vaccine passports and things like that. Wonderful. Thank you, Isaiah.

Hayden, now let's talk about Dallas ISD. Let's go up to North Texas. But they have kept their mask mandate in place. And what was the superintendent's argument after the Supreme Court's first order? Well, the Dallas lawsuit originated when Commissioner J.J. Koch sued County Judge Clay Jenkins over a commissioner's court mask mandate. Of course, a much more broad mask mandate has been implemented by Jenkins since then. But the Dallas ISD mask mandate implemented by Michael Hinojosa and company stayed in place because he said, as Brad mentioned earlier, he disagreed with the Attorney General that the Supreme Court of Texas ruling applies statewide. And he said to CNN and a TV appearance that he didn't believe that the ruling applied to

his district. And unless the Supreme Court specifically tells him and Dallas ISD not to enforce a mask mandate, then he is going to continue to, in his words, benevolently but firmly enforce the students and staff at Dallas public schools wear masks while they're on campus. After this, a lot of folks were, I think, surprised to see after Dallas County was named that the school district then said, OK, we're out. And it's interesting legal footing. We'll get into that later. But did any notable people weigh in on the school district's decision? Well, as everything was falling apart in Afghanistan, President Biden took the time to call Superintendent Hinojosa and personally commend and congratulate him for uh contravening the executive order that abbott handed down and i think that implicates national politics and shows just how how much

politics have gotten wrapped up into these mask mandates and of course as you mentioned earlier the legal arguments and justifications are really muddled and of course if the law was black and white there'd be no need for lawyers so we'll'll have to see how the Dallas lawsuit plays out. Which, you know, a lot of people would say would be a benefit. Yes, many would say that. Wonderful, Hayden. Isaiah, we're coming back to you. Let's talk about El Paso. A mask mandate took effect in El Paso earlier this week. Explain the process behind that. Well, what's interesting about this case,

I mean, it's not terribly unique, but there was no vote to implement the mask mandate. Their local city and county health authority, Hector Ocaranza, just announced that he would implement a mandate. And he announced this at an emergency city council meeting. So at the meeting, what the actual council voted on was to indemnify that mandate. And in other words, they're going to defend him from the inevitable legal action that's going to take place. It was a little bit vague at first, but eventually their city attorney came right out and said that she had expected to have a lawsuit filed that evening. But since it was after five, it wouldn't technically be considered filed until the next day. And she hopes to be in front of a judge pretty soon. Now, El Paso's got some history with COVID, COVID response,

and lawsuits against the state. What happened last fall? Last fall was not the city in this case, but the county, the county judge Ricardo Salmaniego instituted a shelter in place order that got him in a legal fight with Ken Paxton, who joined a bunch of business owners in the El Paso County area that sued, calling the order unconstitutional. And time was a factor in that case. And we discussed it, there are articles in LinkedIn, this most recent article that ended up in Ken Paxton's favor, but a lot of it had to do with the clock running out. El Paso has been at the, you know, unfortunate forefront of a lot of this COVID nonsense from the get-go, even in terms of numbers.

And there's a lot going on there. Daniel, real fast, if you're able, give us a little bit of context for El Paso's coronavirus numbers. Yes. So like most of the parts of the state, there have been surges in different areas at different times. You know, if we remember back last summer, we had this huge surge in Houston. I think before that, we actually saw some surges in like Amarillo and some parts of West Texas. There was a, I don't remember the exact time, but there was a pretty big surge in El Paso sometime before really like the vaccines got out. And right now, El Paso is actually one of the lowest or actually, I think, the lowest hospital region in Texas for the number of coronavirus patients in the hospital. Wow. So it's actually pretty low right now.

There is a kind of an uptick. Like most places across the state, there's an uptick in cases and hospitalizations, but it is one of the lower things. And another thing is the vaccination rates across the state. I know that especially along the Rio Grande Valley and a lot of those border districts and more Hispanic communities, the vaccine has been able to get out a little bit more than, you know, West Texas rural areas. So there is more vaccination there, lower hospital numbers. And there was also the surge in cases earlier. I don't remember if that was this year, like last fall. Yeah, but it made it made news and people were talking about El Paso big time. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Zay. Brad, let's talk about

Austin ISD.d it like other districts issued a mask mandate of its own but it is you know the district said that it had different legal footing than maybe others uh walk us through that yeah and that's that different legal footing is really just that they were not named as parties in the two suits that the supreme court issued their halt on, um, Austin ISD hasn't come out and said that specifically, but the local, uh, officials, mayor Steve Adler and, uh, Travis County judge, Andy Brown have both said that, that, you know, until there is a suit that addresses us specifically, we are not going to, um, we're not going to change course. And, you know, the ISD issued somewhat of a more diplomatic position on it, just that, you know, until further review, we're going to continue requiring this as policy. We'll see what the Supreme Court decides, you know, lick with all of this.

Do they issue a statewide order? Do they explicitly say it's a statewide? It applies to everyone across the entire state. Or do we have to have a bunch of different legal challenges for every mask mandate? I don't know. But I'm sure, you know, after this initial decision is made, Austin, if there needs to be specific legal challenges to each, I'm sure Austin will be front and center of those challenged in court once that need arises. I think that's what we're all waiting on here with bated breath is, okay, well, what does the state do next? Yep. Thank you, Brad. Isaiah, back to you again. You're our education reporter, so you've had a very busy week. But let's talk about the more creative,

I think, of the approaches to circumventing the governor's executive order or the Supreme Court's ruling. Talk to us about Paris ISD implementing a mask mandate. Well, it's been a busy week, but formulaic up until Paris ISD, because unlike the other school districts, they set out with the, I suppose, admirable goal of trying to not break the law, at least overtly, while implementing a mask mandate. And so what they've done is their school board has decided to codify a mask mandate in the dress code instead of handing down a temporary order. A fascinating approach.

It is. And there's an interesting wrinkle to it um they refer to chapter 11 of the texas education code which gives the board the authority to determine uniforms and dress code and things like that but way down there in the code it says that dress code takes effect in a particular district 90 days after the school board adopts it. So again, I mean, I set out hooks for this, like kind of on Twitter in public and said, if there's another chapter that's more relevant to this, let me know. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't look like their mask rule can properly take effect for 90 more days until at least November. Wow. At least in enforceable measures,

right? I mean, I think a lot of students show up to school and say, yeah, we're dressed for dress code. But if students opt or their parents say, you know, you don't have to, what can the district foreseeably do, right? So what kind of impact might these mandates have on funding for these districts? Just to kind of tie this whole mass discussion together, at least with regards to schools, we just learned yesterday, so that would be Wednesday for listeners, from the Texas Homeschool Coalition, that there has been a really, really considerable spike in homeschooling interest. So I've been interested to see some polling with regards to homeschool interest since like 2020,

when a similar spike happened, but this one is much, much larger. My description can't do justice to the visual that they put out of the spike. How is it measured? Today, it's measured by call and email volume. And what we wrote on last year was the use of their withdrawal tool and the frequency of that use. They also rolled in call and email volume to that prediction too, but it ended up correctly predicting an enrollment drop that happened in Texas and across the country. So it looks like that might happen again for the school year. And I don't know if it's for concern for COVID or concern for COVID response. It's actually those two things kind of rise concurrently. But there's certainly an appreciable chunk of it that has to be because of these mask mandates. And that's going to dent

schools' ADA funding, attendance funding that they get from the state. If you've got fewer students, you're going to get less money. Well, thank you, Isaiah, for making sure our readers are informed. I think it's important to emphasize that Governor Abbott's order, some people have asserted that it bans the wearing of masks in school, and that's not the case. It prohibits these schools from issuing mandates writ large. And there's just, I think it's worth repeating because there's a lot of people that are saying no masks in schools because of AVID.

That's just not the case, flat out not the case. Yeah, no, certainly if a family chooses to send their child to school and have them wear a mask, then they are able to do that. And you've got to imagine that there's a lot of peer pressure that comes along with it, too. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. Even just the dynamics between students, that's an entirely different thing, and that's very immeasurable.

But regardless, that's just what we're dealing with here as public school children. Daniel, let's talk about the biggest story in the world. Give us a summary of what has happened this week in Afghanistan. Sorry, my brain was not functioning because you said the biggest story in the world, and then I was thinking really literally what to do, and there was an error. But in Afghanistan, there has been quite the conflict. This has been going on for years and years and years now.

Of course, you have the Taliban, some radical Islamic extremists wanting to take over the country. And they haven't really been able to do that for the past 20 years because the United States has been over there giving support to the Afghan military, pushing back against the Taliban. But in recent years, there has been more of a push for the U.S. to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan. And so both the Trump administration and now the Biden administration looked at doing that. It didn't actually happen completely under Trump. He did pull back some of the troops, but he left some on the ground there. A small force, I think it was down to like 2,500 when he left office. But President Biden continued that plan and moved forward on it to pull troops out of Afghanistan. And the hard deadline for moving all troops out of the country was August 31st. So as the troops were preparing to do that, and they were kind of going underway, the Taliban was increasingly

gaining ground in the country. And then eventually they overrun the capital city of Kabul just this past weekend. So it's been a bit of a chaotic mess. And there's been a lot of images going around social media of just the chaos, especially at the airport where people were trying to evacuate. There's actually a USC-17 bomber that carries people. And as the plane was taking off, there's this horde of Afghans who are trying to get on the plane, even on the side of it, and just hang on. And so you see a lot of footage of this.

And there were actually some other videos that you can see. People, once the plane is in the air and has taken off, there's people falling off the plane. So quite a horrific scene in Afghanistan. And the situation has just been a complete mess. It's amazing. That really illustrates the dire situation that they believe themselves to be in once the Taliban takes over. Like it's either, you know, they know they're not making it out. It's either try and hang on to a literal airplane in the air, you know, 10, 20,000 feet above the ground,

or submit yourself to the Taliban and, you know, probably get beheaded on camera or your family get killed or other horrible things happen to them. And, you know, that's the calculation these people are making because of the dire situation they're in yeah and anecdotally there has been a lot of people saying that the taliban has been going around to these homes of you know either underground churches or um people who worked with american soldiers going to their doors knocking on them and saying we're going to be back when the americans are gotten uh with that threat just these evil smiles on their face. So, you know, to the extent that is happening, I don't know. But it is happening clearly from the people who are in trying to get out of the country. Well, and even we're seeing video of folks at the airport. And a lot of these videos are happening at the airport is that's, you know, their ticket out. But of families handing their children forward in line in an attempt to get them taken out of the country.

This is an incredible act that you're even willing to do that, just like you said, Brad. Pure desperation. Pure desperation, willing to part with your child for fear of their own life. Let's zero in on the Texas response here. But what have been some of Texas lawmakers' response to this withdrawal? So there have been a number of lawmakers, and I keep getting, I got some emails today, just some press releases from Congress members who are criticizing the Biden administration for the events that have happened. And so, you know, one of the recent ones that I just got this morning, uh, as we're

recording this podcast was from representative Brian Babin. Um, and, uh, he called it an unmitigated disaster, uh, saying quote, the events in Afghanistan over the past two weeks have demonstrated the Biden administration's incompetent leadership and destructive foreign policy, standing thousands of Americans and allies in a dire situation and weakening American standing in international stability. There's been a lot of that emphasis, especially on the Americans who are still in the country. There are, you know, several, I've heard numbers of up to like 100,000 Americans still in Afghanistan trying to get out. And so, you know, these lawmakers are looking at the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan, and they're not necessarily criticizing the policy to

withdraw, but rather the execution of that withdrawal and how Americans are still there in this chaos, in this kind of desperate situation. So we've seen a number of statements like that from congressmen, from Senator Ted Cruz, from Senator John Cornyn. And then in the state legislature, we have several lawmakers who have also criticized the Biden administration. And, you know, I think one of the most outspoken people about that has been State Representative Matt Schaefer from Tyler. He was actually in Afghanistan in 2010 as a U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander working there in Western Afghanistan. And so, you know, he has also been very critical of the Biden administration's withdrawal and especially the withdrawal in such of this manner. Now, have there been any Democrats that have been critical of the Biden administration?

Yes, there have been a number of Democrats who have spoken out. I believe the Wall Street Journal actually posted an article earlier this week, kind of detailing at the national level, a bunch of different Democrats who have voiced criticism of the Biden administration. In Texas, there hasn't been quite as much push criticism of the Biden administration. In Texas, there hasn't been quite as much pushback on the Biden administration from Democrats. There have been some representatives like Congressman Colin Allred and Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, who have released statements, basically not going as far as criticizing the Biden administration, but releasing statements on the situation in Afghanistan. One of the representatives who has spoken out against the administration has been Representative Vicente Gonzalez, who said on Twitter, there's no way to hide it.

The situation in Afghanistan is another shame on this administration. Withdrawal was never going to be easy, but it didn't need to come to this. The U.S. must do everything in its power to help our, but it didn't need to come to this. The U.S. must do everything in its power to help our partners and allies to safety and protect our national security. So that was what he said. So there has been some pushback, not necessarily broad from all the Democrats in Texas, but there has been some. And it is worth noting that Gonzalez is one of the members who is more willing to be critical of the Biden administration or federal Democrats writ large. I believe it was his race. There was actually a very close race last year.

It was kind of one of those surprises in the 2020 election that his congressional race was so close. His challenger is challenging him again. So there's definitely a competitive seat right there. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Daniel. can i add something on this issue um so we you know the past half dozen years we've seen a lot of people in america especially politics talk about how bad things are and how things have never been worse and um really infl uh, the horribleness of what's going on in this country. And this is a perfect reminder that things in other places are far worse. And we have it very

lucky here in this country. Um, you know, seeing people choosing to jump on the side of an airplane really puts in perspective, you know, the the the relative minuteness of the everyday problems we face today and i think if anything good is going to come out of this stuff it it's perspective and of that and that uh you know maybe tone down the rhetoric on things uh let's not all become henny pennies and screaming that the sky is falling on every little thing because in other places of the world the sky may be almost literally falling and that is something i hope we all take away from this absolutely well thank you brad um we're gonna pivot to more texas-based news here let's go back to the supreme court they are certainly you know earning their paychecks

here um with their rulings coming out this week but they issued a ruling on one of the cases concerning the arrest of texas house democrats of absent texas house democrats which case was this and how did the court rule so there's a couple cases going through on the arrest of house democrats this one is was issued before the 52 arrest warrants civil. This one was issued before the 52 civil arrest warrants were issued for those House Democrats that are still breaking quorum. And this, it's basically

just asking the question, does the House have the ability to compel attendance by arrest? And the Supreme Court, after an initial stay on a lower court's order, issued their fuller ruling voiding the lower court's order and saying, yes, the Texas House can do that. A couple passages from the decision. The legal question before this court concerns only whether the Texas Constitution gives the house of representatives, the authority to physically compel attendance of absent members. We conclude that it does. And we therefore direct the district court to withdraw the temporary

restraining order. Um, it's important also to note that they just, they said explicitly that the court, um, abused its own authority in issuing this, this order. And,

um, they went further and said, whatever one's views of the politics of the situation, it should be clear that an ex parte proceeding where one side is totally shut out of the process was an improper way to resolve matters of such significance. Article 3, Section 10 is one of the foundational constitutional rules governing the law-making process in Texas. Neither the passage of time nor the passions of a hotly contested

legislative dispute can change what it means. So that's the court coming down pretty hard, pretty decisively on this issue. And, you know, like I said, there have been 52 arrest warrants issued, but yet we have had zero arrests in any of them. And so we'll see if that happens. I'm not sure. As time goes on, as the corn break continues, lingers days and days, the willingness of House Republican leadership to actually do that may come to a tipping point, but to date it has not.

And it is worth noting that even issuing these civil arrest warrants, we're hearing and seeing that it is the House sergeants that are the ones going out there and conducting any sort of search for the members. There was a video put out by a local affiliate in Houston of John Rosenthal's front porch where a House sergeant approached this absent Democrat member's front porch and you know rang the doorbell the member was not home or did not answer the door whatever the case may be but it was the house sergeant it was not dps that was conducting these these searches now what was the reaction from both sides of the of the aisle on this issue and one more thing to add to that if these members are arrested they will not be facing criminal charges these are not criminal arrest warrants well they're literally just rounded up and brought back to the capital and if i could just add one note they they possibly they're not even at that point yet because the other day

a reporter asked jim murphy who's the chairman of the republican conference or caucus in the house if they would if to his knowledge they would be arresting people and i think if anyone's read in on this situation it's probably jim murphy and he said at this point it's just like a jury summons i think everyone's familiar with when you get a jury summons in the mail that doesn't mean a cop is looking for you it just means that you have been asked to appear and that there might be consequences down the line if you don't so i it's probably a fair characterization to say it's very soft enforcement in this phase yeah well we keep hearing from readers you know when are they

going to get arrested when are they going to jail when will they be in handcuffs and you know i don't know what method by which they'll be brought back to the capital what kind of level of force will be enacted but it's not this is an entirely different method by which to bring a member back to their constitutional duty this is a a different, you know, this is not somebody that's, you know, forcing or facing some sort of criminal charge. Yep. And so the reactions, a spokesman for Speaker Phelan told me shortly after the ruling came down, we are grateful to Attorney General Ken Paxton and his staff and to the Supreme

Court of Texas for protecting our state constitution and the rule of law with their decision. On the flip side, House Democrats have largely maintained their commitment to breaking quorum. There's some still in, some of the group is still in Washington, D.C., so that is out of the jurisdiction of any Texas law enforcement to go arrest. There are some, though, back in town. Representative Celia Israel, she's an Austin representative. She was back in town. She kind of said, I think they're bluffing.

What are they going to do? Arrest a woman of color. And she's contemplating, or did she run for mayor here in Austin? But she's contemplating. Yeah. I also saw that attorneys for the Democratic members have told them a run for mayor here in Austin, but she's contemplating. Yeah. Um, they, I also saw that attorneys for the democratic members have told them that if you are approached by a house sergeant or DPS or whomever is sent to go,

uh, you know, issue the civil arrest, uh, attorneys have told them don't comply. Um, tell them you're not going to comply and just kind of stand your ground so interesting we i kind of think the the political side of this is going to resolve it more than the

sort of legal side like once they've run out of political capital to remain elsewhere that is that is when you know the scales will tip and they'll decide to come back. When that is, I have no idea. But that is really, they believe that this is a political fight worth having and standing on. And so that is why they have yet to return to the Capitol. And we've seen a poll or two come out about this. And Democrats, you you know though some are supportive it's not the widespread inter-party support that you would expect and so we'll be

very interested to see how this affects any sort of elections but voters have very short memories and some are supportive of this maneuver so what kind of you know uh electoral consequence this might yield is completely you know know, undetermined. And we don't really know that it will, even if an election was held tomorrow, that it would do much, period. Yeah. And also the funding for the legislative, the legislature itself, that was extended a month through September. So once we get to the end of September, we'll see a lot of jockeying going on. People will start to get antsy again, as they did this month.

And so we don't know what they're going to do. But that might be a time when we see things actually start to happen again. Well, thank you, Bradley. Hayden, let's talk some more foreign policy. But tell us what the Remain in Mexico policy is and how many people are affected by it. The remain in Mexico policy is a policy that concerns remaining in Mexico. Sorry, I just, yeah, let's move on. President Trump's DHS instituted these migrant protection protocols as the official name for it back in February of 2019

to deter illegal immigration and to prevent the asylum system from being abused by bad actors. It more or less required individuals who are trying to get into the United States for economic reasons or to seek asylum to wait in Mexico while their claims are being considered in American immigration courts. And according to a memo that was distributed in June, which we'll talk about in a second, 68,000 people were required to stay in Mexico under this policy. And President Biden ended the policy in January of this year. He didn't formally end it, but he stopped accepting new enrollments into the program. And on June 1st, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo formally terminating the program and saying, we're not going to make people stay in Mexico while their claims are being processed.

In other words, they can stay in the United States or Texas or wherever they might be. And in February, he announced the full termination of the program and that he would begin processing applications for people to reenter the United States having been required to go back to Mexico. And since that decision was made, 11,200, about that many people had been readmitted into the United States between February and on June 1st, when Mayorkas announced that the program would be officially ended. So those are the numbers we're discussing. And that was the nature of the policy. It was one to help stem a the border crisis in 2019. And to, as Secretary Nielsen at the time, put it to incentivize people to arrive at ports of entry and to go to the proper process, and to prevent

people from coming to the border with children and saying we're here for asylum when they were there for other mischievous or criminal reasons. So that is the nature of the policy. Got it. Now tell us why this federal judge required its reinstatement. Well, it's important to note that this federal judge was appointed by Trump. So just to be fair, those are the politics behind this decision. And this is a federal judge in Am by Trump. So just to be fair, those are the politics behind this decision. And this is a federal judge in Amarillo. He said that the program violated the Administrative Procedures Act, which is the, I believe, the law that governs federal rulemaking. And the lawsuit over this policy began in April.

It was a lawsuit initiated by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. They both argued that it was arbitrary and capricious and that he should not have rescinded this program. They also argued that it was working and that DHS had found it to be effective. Therefore, it made no sense from a policy perspective to rescind it. So the federal judge agreed with their arguments. And it was a 53 page ruling. Those aren't all the arguments. But that is the essence of what he decided was that it was improper from a procedural standpoint and from a policy standpoint. Why is this important? Well, there were reports that the outgoing CBP chief who left this month has said that the terrorism risk is more or less as bad as it's been because he fears that there would be suspected or known terrorists infiltrating the border at levels that had never been seen before. And especially because of what has occurred in Afghanistan, it is more relevant than ever protecting the United States from terrorism.

And so when this remain in Mexico policy is re-implemented, unless an appeals court intervenes, then it could result in illegal crossings being suppressed. So there were 212,000 enforcement, 213,000 enforcement encounters in July. All of those aren't unique individuals. Some of those encounters are the same people trying multiple times to enter the border, but those are the volume, that is the volume of illegal crossings we are seeing. So if this policy is re-implemented, then it could reduce illegal crossings and it could also result in suspected terrorists being deterred from approaching the border. But also a skeptic would say that implementing this policy could result in people legitimately in need, being required to stay in in unhealthy conditions in Mexico when they could be in the United States. So

this judge had implemented a one week stay on his ruling to give the feds an opportunity to prepare an appeal, which I am 100%. Well, I won't say 100%, but I'm all but certain that they will fight to defend DHS's June 1 memo to try to rescind this program. And we will have to see what the appeals court says and whether this policy is in fact re-implemented. Well, thank you, Hayden, for that. Daniel, we had some redistricting data come out last week, and it was after the recording of this podcast. We were unable to talk about it, but let's talk about it now. You've been waiting for this. A lot of folks have been waiting for this.

Too long. Too long. Tell us what the big takeaways were. So the big takeaway was really not surprising to anybody who's been following the growth and population in texas i actually wrote a good article on this a little like in 2019 the beginning of 2019 which go look up population changes on our website you'll find it great article um can't stress enough how great yeah no it's really good it's people look at it and they're like this is so boring but if you look at it closely enough, it is just glorious.

But population growth has been shifting towards suburban counties. No surprise there. There has been continued population growth in urban counties, but it has been vastly outperformed in the suburban counterparts. There has also been some rural decline, which is not something new that has been happening for a long time now. And we're just continuing to see that, just this push toward the suburbs. I'm sure in 2020 that continued as well with the pandemic.

But, you know, as that was happening with the pandemic, that was after the census date when that's the date that they're looking for for redistricting. So anything after that will really appear in the next census in 2030. But we are seeing the population change before that in these suburban areas. One key example would be Collin County and Dallas County. You know, if you look at the up in McKinney, the Plano area, that's in Collin County, whereas the Dallas County is the urban area that has grown at a much slower rate than Collin County. And so looking at the numbers, it looks like Dallas County could potentially lose a state house district and Collin County could gain one

just because of that shift in population. And the proximity to each other too, right? Now tell us what the two state house and senate districts were that saw the largest increase. So looking at some other suburban areas in the state, the house district that actually gained the most population, I kind of tested my colleagues here and asked them what they thought. A lot of people said Sanford, which is in Collin County. I believe he ranked third. The second highest change of growth was in representative Jared Patterson's district in Denton County. And then you also had, um, the, the number one was actually over near Houston in Fort Bend County where Gary Gates, uh, the population, his district house House District 28, actually grew enormous.

And now it's like 100,000 population above the target, which is like around 200,000. So significant increase of growth there. And then for the Senate District, the Senate District that actually saw the highest growth was another part of the suburban part of the state that has seen enormous growth in the past 10 years and that would be cinder done a camel's district in the kind of the hill country area north of san antonio in that i-35 corridor along san antonio and austin you have hayes county and some other counties up in that area that have just boomed and so now her district is actually the most overpopulated over the ideal target population percent of districts. Yeah. Which a lot of these,

like you said, weren't surprising, but it's interesting to see the numbers in and of itself and to see places like Dallas County really not, it wasn't substantial decreases, but actually be able to potentially see, you know, district numbers to a neighboring county. Yeah, and another example of a county that could do that is also El Paso County. It's an urban county, but we saw not a lot of growth there. I think now, actually, McAllen down in the Rio Grande Valley is actually more populated, or the county with McAllen in it is more populated than El Paso County now. So we saw some big growth changes there. Thank you, Daniel, for that. We'll continue to monitor and I know how excited you were to

finally have some data to work through. Isaiah, let's talk more about education. Texas Education Agency recently released some numbers that measure how well schools or districts manage their money. First, explain what the FIRST ratings are. So FIRST is an acronym. It stands for the Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas. It is not an academic measurement. It doesn't measure student learning or performance or anything like that. It's meant to measure fiscal responsibility. And it takes into account things like debt and administrative pay and things like that. Another useful acronym to remember, the TA loves them. I hate them, but this one's actually useful as local education agencies or LEAs. All that

means are school districts and charters. District, okay, I'm not going to launch into a verbal debate. Anyway, LEA, just remember that. So LEAs of either kind can get an A, B, C, or F. It's actually pretty hard to get an F since the system is built to where a failing grade is supposed to signal very severe corruption or mismanagement. So out of over a thousand districts and 171 charters in the whole state, only 13 districts and eight charters got Fs. Now let's talk about the differences between charter schools and traditional districts here. Was there a clear talk about the differences between charter schools and traditional districts here. Was there a clear winner in these metrics between these two different types of schools? Not quite. It depends on how you look at the data. So, since the sample sizes are very different,

1,000 on one hand, 171 on the other, we'll have to compare percentages instead of absolute numbers. So, good news right off the top is that most LEAs of both kinds got A's. Great news. A far greater share of districts compared to charters got A's. Charters only surpass districts in B's. So what I mean by that is when you compare the share of charters and the share of districts for each grade, A, B, C, or F, charters only had a bigger share than districts in the B grade. So that means that districts had a greater share of A grades, but they also had a greater share of Fs. And this is when you're measuring in the percentage of total enrolled students. So what I mean by that is when you look at the student body of districts and of charter schools,

how many for each in percentages are going to say a failing school. So under that metric, more traditional districts are serving more students in failing schools than charters are in failing schools. But since there are eight out of 171 charters that are failing and 13 out of a thousand districts that are failing, there is a greater percentage of charter schools that are failing. You see what I mean? Yeah. But when you just look at the student body on its own, the percentage of, and also the number of students that go to failing traditional schools is greater than the percentage and number of students that are going to failing charter schools. So think of the total student enrollment in Texas is one big pie. That's the pie we're working with.

The slice for traditional districts that are failing is greater than charters that are failing. That's a significant metric. But it's also greater for a number of students that are going to an A-rated school. Right. So charters tend towards the middle, and districts tend more towards the extremes. But again, for Fs, we're working with very small percentages for both.

Yeah. Something to remember. Well, I think, you know, it's interesting because both political parties, and there are schisms in the political parties of, you know, who backs charter schools versus, you know, which members don't. But it's interesting that this data is not as easily digestible as a lot of folks would have you think when legislative debates are happening on the floor, right? It's not clear cut whether certain things charters are better at or public districts

are better at. It's just not as clear cut as a lot of folks think. Right. And just to kind of finish this up with, you know, what are the consequences of an F grade? Yeah. That's always useful to think about. Getting an f grade then allows the the tea the state to um after that they can appoint a monitor or conservator of the district so de soto where my mom and my brother used to teach yeah um they've got an f grade last year they have long suffered from financial mismanagement yeah and so um like in 2020 last year the tea appointed a conservator

to um take over basically take over the district's money management you know for pay for principals administrators and things like that so that's that's what happened to me to get an f grade is that can potentially take place afterward got it well isaiah thank you for covering that for us brad let's talk about the power grid. We seem to keep coming back to this issue. The blackouts happened in February and here we are in August. Man, I had to think about that for a second. Here we are in August. It is August, yes. Talking about it still. The House and the Senate, this was really the first issue, the House and the Senate, but heads over publicly at the very least during the legislative session. And it's still going on. Talk to us about

what's going on this week in terms of this entire issue in the House and the Senate warring. Yeah. And once again, it's over the financial fallout of the winter storm and the blackouts. The House and Senate largely remain pretty on the same page on the more physical reforms of the grid. issue, it concerns the securitization bill, which is a very technical word for just essentially government loans to companies that are in debt. And so you had a lot of companies find themselves underwater in costs that they couldn't pay because of how high the prices for electricity went during the period of scarcity during the event. And so the legislature approved up to $2.1 billion in these loans for the companies so they can kind of defray the costs across a longer period of time rather than having to stick their rate payers with high amounts of charges in the short run to stay afloat

so they don't go under, go bankrupt. And so this bubbled up this month when the PUC asked for input from industry stakeholders, legislators, whatever, anybody on how to prioritize these securitization loans for companies. And basically you have the divide centers on these companies that lost money, like I mentioned, some of them, they have sibling subsidiary companies underneath a larger corporation that made money. And so the question is, do we take that into account, you know, the larger financial portfolio of these companies, when judging on to whom to give these loans. And so that is where this current divide comes from.

Now, we have the two main players in this whole debacle are Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the head of the Senate, and State Rep Chris Patty, who's a chairman in the House. And they're the ones really talking about this and combating each other in terms of rhetoric. What are their positions on this pot of money so without getting way too technical because this issue is just way too technical itself um dan patrick is opposed to wants the puc to take that fight larger financial portfolio into account. That way, companies that, quote, made money off of during the event, the corporations, meaning that they aren't being given these taxpayer-funded loans. And so, Patty, meanwhile, believes that you should just focus on, you know, let's say the retail electric provider wing of Calpine, if they lost money,

which many of them did, then you should just take that into account. And so like that retail electric provider of Calpine gets at least some consideration for these loans. And like I said, it's up to $2.1 billion. So there's a cutoff there. But the decision on this will be made by the PUC. And they're actually meeting as we record, starting their meeting as we record right now on Thursday. They may make a decision. They may not.

I don't know. Where does the independent market monitor? It's a third-party group of economists that provide input on this electricity market. What do they say about the issue? Well, so the IMM is important because this is what they do. They watch the ERCOT market, which is an energy-only market. Basically, you pay for the amount you provide. You get paid for the amount you provide.

And so the prices are not set, and therefore this group, they monitor the market conditions and all this stuff that none of us can understand that they do. But Carrie Vivins, she's kind of at least the face of this IMM for ERCOT. She agrees with Patrick and says, such requests should be aggregated so that the requested financing amount nets among affiliated entities. If the total financing requested by all applicants exceeds the $2.1 billion gap on the amount eligible to be financed, then each entity that applies

should receive prorated portion, blah, blah, blah, blah. Basically, she's agreeing with Patrick that we should take all of the larger financial picture into accounts rather than just the one-dimensional ex-company lost money. Therefore, they at least should be considered for this loan. So, I don't know what's going to

happen. This seems like it's not going to go away. Patrick has much of the Senate behind him. Patty's been the face of this issue in the house he's carried all basically all the energy bills or the the grid bills and um they're you know still going at it and we'll see if it stops anytime soon thank you bradley we're going to stick with you now let's talk about the governor uh this week his office announced that he had tested positive for the

coronavirus um what are the details that's it that's the news great perfect done science still delivered they announced that his office announced that he like you said tested positive the governor is fully vaccinated they said he's asymptomatic and is taking uh regeneron i think that's how we pronounce it antibody treatment uh the statement they put out said the governor has been testing daily and today was the first positive test, probably since they started testing him daily back in March of 2020. Governor Abbott is fully vaccinated against COVID, in good health, and currently experiencing no symptoms. Everyone that the governor has been in close contact with today has been notified.

And that's pretty much where it lies. The governor put out a statement or a video shortly after this, basically saying the same stuff. And he seemed to be in good health. It didn't seem like, it seemed like the asymptomatic thing was 100% accurate. Not saying it's not, but he didn't seem to be feeling any side effects whatsoever. Absolutely. Well, thank you for covering that for us. Isaiah, we're coming back to you. Since we last discussed the sanctuary cities for the Unborn Initiative, they've added three new cities in Texas.

What are they? So they are Eastland, Leona, and Crawford. I'll forgive you for not knowing where Leona is because it's very small. You assume that I don't know where Leona is. You're correct. But you would assume so much about me. You know what they say about assuming. Yes, we all do.

I'm not going to say it. Yes, I actually don't. Okay. So, yeah, Leona is in East Texas. It's near Centerville in the same county, which is another recent city to join the initiative. And I looked into some history. It's kind of interesting. It's had a population wavering at most around 200 since the 1840s or so when it got passed up for the county seat spot by Centerville.

Wow. Which is now much more prosperous. Talk about population growth. Yeah. So it's a very little town. Crawford interests me because it's in McLennan County, which is where Waco is, meaning that's also where I-35 runs through.

Yeah. And it is the first town, I think, to be in a county in the I-35 corridor, which is a very urban stream of the state. Yeah. Crawford is not terribly populous. It might be under the average of all the sanctuary cities' populations. I don't know because I've never made that calculation but um that that interests me because for the most part these towns have populated or uh clustered i should say in the states eastern and western poles yeah there are a lot around tyler for example not tyler though and there are a lot around lubbock and there are a few sprinkled around big spring which also

actually is itself a sanctuary so um then you get this little dot near Waco. That's interesting to me. Kind of separate. Yeah, not clustered with the others. You may not know off the top of your head, but how many sanctuary cities, like Ballpark, are we at now in Texas? In Texas, it's 33. Oh, wow. There you go.

Well, thank you so much for covering that for us. Brad, we're going to come back to you. The Austin City Council is in the news again about ballot language. I'm shocked. Talk to us about what this lawsuit's over. So it's the second time the city has been sued this year over purported biased or deficient ballot language. This one concerns the police staffing slash refunding ballot uh, ballot initiative that save Austin now managed to get on the ballot. They collected, I think it was like 27,000 signatures,

more than enough to place it up for a vote for the, uh, for the voters. And, uh, the city council, once again, they're charged, they're tasked with setting the language that voters will read for the proposition on the ballot. And once again, they decided to make their own. And so rather than adopting the caption of the petition that was circulated, and they basically focused on this fiscal analysis that estimated it would cost this ballot proposition having to maintain a minimum level of staffing among Austin police. It estimated it would cost the city $271 million to $598 million over five years. And they put that on there. um they also mentioned 35 percent of uncommitted time which is just officers when they're um you know off when they're officially off duty going and um you know uh talk engaging with the community

and and uh you know building relationships there but save austin now objected that they didn't use the petition and also or the caption on the petition and that they kind of glossed over a few other things, such as the prioritizing minority training by foreign language requirements. And so rather than just like, you know, flat out skin color or other diversity metrics they use. And so they have sued the city of Austin. We'll see where this goes. The last time this happened, they secured kind of a minor victory. This was on the homeless petition and the city council basically said in their language that this would affect everybody and they said anybody would be would could be uh you know ticketed or whatever and the supreme court ruled that no not anybody only people that are you know violating the ordinance meaning camping in the

public um and so they had to issue a little bit of a change i don't know how forcefully the supreme court's going to come down on this but it must be resolved by september 11th so that printing of ballots can begin there's a hearing date set next week and we will see where this goes how quickly it goes but it will be on the ballot this november well, thank you, Bradley, for that. We'll continue to monitor all those happenings. Austin never has deficiency in news. That is for sure. Well, gentlemen, let's talk about some sort of fun topic here. I believe the winner of the fun topic, potential topic debate, which happened in our Google Doc, was useless talents.

What kind of useless talents do y'all have well mine is i have a grade a golem voice oh my gosh and i can't believe that's the one you're going with i mean what else would i go with i don't know it just is unreal it is it is really good and he's the most useless talent that i have okay well the most utility i get out of this is telling other people that i have it and that's about it it talent that I have. Okay, well, what would you want to... The most utility I get out of this is telling other people that I have it. And that's about it. It's your party trick? Yeah.

How does that go for you at parties? Really well, thanks for asking. Are you... What? I was going to make a plane landing in the sea joke, but I'm not going to. Yeah, that's a good idea. Tell us about...

Or not tell us about, just sample it for us if you don't mind. Oh, no. No. Not on the podcast. That's too accurate. I would really like you to. I'm not going to do that.

Well, here's the thing, Zay. I have headphones. I'm hearing everything y'all are doing on these mics. It would benefit me the least to have him do this, and yet I'm still asking, requesting it. You know how much crap I will get from people. I am not going to do that you said it on the pod i agree it's like it's like two when he does it in person a chill runs up my spine a chill runs up your spine i hear him i used to when i was a kid

my sister and i had bunk beds and she'd go to the bathroom in the middle of the night she was just a small child and i would wait until we were three years apart and i'd wait until she got back and she entered the dark room at like 2 a.m or whenever this was and i would i would use a golem voice and call her out by name and it would freak her out so she would go mckenzie are you there are you there and i would just say my golem voice and say you know despicable things just to freak her out and um it happened every night to the point where she told on me to her parents yeah i'm the best truly i'm a rock star as some would say um daniel what's your secret talent useless talent i have topped the high score on temple run that's a good one very good yeah how long did that take

you to do that i think the time that i did it it was the duration of the really boring movie gravity with uh sandra bullock you didn't? No, I thought it was really boring. It's so slow. It was a great movie to play Temple Run to. Oh my goodness. That's a resounding endorsement. I have seen Daniel play Temple Run and it's a sight to behold. He uses the force, it looks like.

He doesn't even look at the screen. He's just zipping around. He uses the force. Isaiah, what's yours? Gotta be reporting. Reporting. Useless talent yours? Gotta be reporting. Reporting. Useless talent. That's so true. I don't know.

I'm really blanking here. Yeah. Well, that's because I thought it would be more fruit. The other option for the fun topic was least favorite cookie out of a a list of cookies and one of the options there was oatmeal raisin that's the end of the discussion yeah that was not yes it is no well i thought this one would yield like a longer discussion more fruitful discussion and um i didn't actually think ahead you thought everyone else would pick up the slack for you yeah you want to go first hayden i think my useless talent would be You thought everyone else would pick up the slack for you? Yeah, you want to go first, Hayden?

I think my useless talent would be probably overanalyzing the plot of TV shows. Really? Or Netflix shows, yes. Overanalyzing it to the point where you actually are wrong? Well, I'm trying to make sense of things that really there's no meaning behind it there's nothing no hidden agenda or anything but i'm trying to like assign value to different things that happen in tv shows like one of my favorite shows ozark ozark is great yeah ozark's a good show i think

there's a new season coming maybe this year or next but i overanalyzed that overanalyzed house of cards a lot but it's a useless talent because you really don't need to know but you're a psychology guy right well that's my major yeah yeah so it probably just comes naturally there you go mine would be i can my dad know which i think i feel like a lot of people can do this but we can flop our hands like this yeah yeah we can basically basically your fingers can just go limp don't hold it up to the microphone thanks for demonstrating folks to know what i was talking about but i mean i can just one hand clap so like if i'm at a rodeo or something and i got a soda in one hand and i i can still clap you know how often are you one-handed

clapping at rodeos more often than one would think wow okay so what like twice never oh yeah anyways isaiah do you have a do you have one now that you had a few minutes yes i play the banjo that is not useless that is absolutely phenomenal but that's okay we'll still take it no i would say the mouth harp that is pretty useful if we're gonna pick up pick on an instrument here, that's the Uplay. It's definitely that. That is probably the most useless instrument I play. Yeah. I sampled it one time in electronic music class. And when you put those little recordings on a MIDI keyboard,

it just speeds it up to change the pitch. And so the highest one is like, you know. But then the lowest key, like A1 on the piano, it sounded like a UFO taking off. It was like, you know within the lowest key like a1 on the piano it sounded like a ufo taking off it was like oh you know i'll take it right for it it's a very useless instrument well on that note gentlemen uh thank you for all your contributions to this podcast and folks thanks for listening we will catch you next week thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News. We're

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