The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 22, 2025

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: 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.Trump-Favored Five-Seat GOP Gain Redistricting Map Passes Texas HouseNew Texas Congressional Map Substitute Adding Five GOP Seats Passes House CommitteeCongressman Chip Roy Launches Bid for Texas Attorney GeneralBriscoe CainStan LambertTexas House Democrats Return to Austin After Extended Quorum BreakTexas House Makes Quorum After Two Weeks Upon Democrats' Return to StateGrieving Camp Mystic Parents Testify on Flood Disaster Before Texas Senate CommitteePaxton Threatens to Revoke O'Rourke PAC's Charter for Allegedly 'Bribing' House Democrats to Break QuorumLt. Gov. Dan Patrick Again Confirms 2026 Re-election BidCornyn Trails Paxton by Five Points in 2026 Senate Primary Poll, O'Rourke Leads Democratic Pack5th Circuit Appeals Court Blocks West Texas A&M Drag Show BanFederal Judge Halts Required Classroom Display of Ten Commandments Donated to Texas Public Schools

Good morning and welcome to this edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup. I am Brad Johnson. I'm here with Cameron Abrams, I almost said Adroms, Cameron Abrams, and Mary Elise Cosbray. Welcome, guys. Thank you. How are you doing? I'm happy to be here. Are you?

Yeah, well, there's never a dull moment in the Texas legislature. Never more than now. I feel like you say that every episode. tagline but it's true it's always uh always interesting things going on uh this deal over the map has exploded into a global issue it seems like everyone's commenting on it and well we finally have some movement on it in the house and i don't know if it's truly global i don't think people in china care but the brits are talking about the brits are talking about maybe they should talk about it in China.

You know, this could impact it. Maybe this is just a Western world thing. Yeah. Maybe that might be it. Yeah, so the Texas House gave final passage yesterday to the map.

The map. The map to end all maps. The one big, beautiful map. Yeah, they did start calling it back. Yeah, Donald Trump said, that in a called it that in a true social post in which he also ripped my screenshot no credit no credit what the heck president trump come on now um you know we knew it was coming here we knew it was eventually going to get to this point and it finally did after a prolonged cornbreak two weeks

there was lots of build up to this oh yeah plenty plenty of build up we finally had the the fight on the floor and it was pretty lengthy yeah but ultimately the map passed along party lines 88 to 52 about 10 Democrats were absent for various reasons a few of them just didn't want to help Republicans meet quorum even though they had already met quorum but others had some health issues that they were dealing with so ultimately though this thing passed and right before we recorded the Senate committee on congressional redistricting voted the map out committee sent it to the floor we'll probably see that taken up

and passed tonight on Thursday night and then by Friday morning when this thing goes out it'll be either on its way to Abbott's desk or on Abbott's desk for signature and then the thing that has you know dragged this whole special session or two special sessions

to a screeching halt is it's done and passed yeah and they can move on to other business like Address and Flood Relief or the Star Test or the bathroom bill whatever it is and i know we're going to probably get into it but also abbott expanded the special session call yeah so uh the lawmakers can take up a number of other issues yeah and some interesting stuff he put on that call um there's no way they get all this done there's

no way they get all this done but um we've already uh seen some bills uh be talked about to address these additional issues that Abbott put on this expanded call. So it's going to bring about a larger discussion because one of those items being punishment and penalties for quorum breakers. And so that's going to bring up this quorum issue once again. Yeah. And notably on that, we've seen one bill by Representative Briscoe Kane, who we'll talk about also for a totally different reason, is it has majority support so far in the legislature. I don't know all the parameters of what it does, but it is a quorum-breaking penalty bill.

I'm also hearing about a censure resolution floating around among the Republicans that would need just majority support in order to pass that would induce penalties on, retroactive penalties on these quorum-breaking Democrats. things I'm hearing are like stripping seniority privileges and stripping vice-chairmanships. Now, I haven't seen the actual language, but that's what's being talked about,

it seems like, and we'll either see movement on that by the end of this week, by the end of today when this goes out Friday, or it will have died. But there's desire that we'll talk about the debate, but there's a lot of anger. Well, and from what I, if I remember, correctly uh there's desire to do something about the two-thirds quorum um uh requirement there

could be a constitutional amendment that's went it on yeah but that would require a hundred votes in the house and democrats are not going to support that i know but it's still interesting it's you know it's something that has caused a lot of issues and so they're going to have a debate about yeah yeah maybe i don't see that one going anywhere um but let's let's get back to the map yeah and uh so there was a different map put out this week it's mostly the same as what we talked about last week and what was voted on during the first special session but there are some tweaks the notable ones the biggest one was moving the ninth congressional district which is that Al Green seat that is heavily blue, that is moved to the western side of Harris County,

moving that from R-58% under our TPI to R-60, so it made it redder. And we, that's just shoring up that seat for Republicans. That is one of the gains that ours expect to get in the, That one they should get, regardless of who's on the ballot from that seat. The ones in South Texas are a bit iffier, where they're, especially in 28th Congressional District, where they are betting on the Hispanic shift continuing towards the GOP. There was, the other big change that I saw was El Paso. They put, there was argument in committees during the first special session about the,

Fort Bliss and the El Paso Airport being put into the Republican 23rd Congressional District, which is represented by Tony Gonzalez, who lives in San Antonio, instead of the 16th Congressional District, which is Veronica Escobars, which is an El Paso-centric district, wholly El Paso district. Democrats were pissed off about that, and they pushed hard to get it returned. and, you know, I think it's probably notable that two El Paso reps did not break quorum. At least Mayor Gonzalez did come back early, but she initially was not there in the chamber. But Joe Moody, the Speaker Pro Tem, he's one of the foremost El Paso reps. And he never broke quorum.

He was there in the chamber the whole time. So who knows if that had anything to do with it or not, but Republicans did take the feedback on that. and give that, you know, bone to Democrats on this. The other change was up in DFW, Northeast, Texas area. Nothing significant, but it moved Navarro County fully within Texas 6, which is, I think, Jake Elsie's district. So, minor tweaks. The general map stays the same.

Republicans still expect to pick up five seats with the passage of this. And, you know, as of right now, it's on the faster. to the governor's desk. Yeah, and I know we're going to get into this more, but the lead-up to the map passing with all the antics that were going on on the House floor and 24 hours ahead of that, even on the day of the vote in the debate, there was an increased amount of media attention.

There was protests going on. outside of the chamber. Lots of eyes were on this vote. You know, you could see the media coverage just surfing the internet. All sorts outlets from the Washington Post, New York Times, salon.com was covering this. So this is a really big deal. And we've been seeing the reactions from other state governors as well saying, game on. They're going to be doing something similar.

And we saw in California, we're posting. Republicans try to challenge, California Republicans challenged the California Supreme Court, which California Supreme Court rejected California Republicans. They're redistricting. They were trying to stop the redistricting impact that's responding to Texas. Yeah. So this is not just a battle of state legislatures. This is a battle of state Supreme Courts as well.

So this is a very complex issue. And it's going to have, it's so interesting that it's going to have truly an impact on how the country is governed at the federal level for the next decade. Well, it would be kind of hilarious if after all of this domino redistricting that we're probably going to see, the majority is still 218 to 217 for Republicans or Democrats next year. Well, I was thinking about this a little bit. Tell me if this is going to take us too far off track, but with how Texas is redrawn its map to

create more Republican districts, but also redder Republican districts. It could see a shift in the types of candidates that run in these primary races, where a purplish district might see more moderate candidates run. If a district is more solidly Republican, you could see more solidly Republican candidates, more conservative, more right-wing type of candidates run. And it had the possibility of getting that nomination for that seat. So we could see a shift in the type of candidate that is running for some of these seats as well, which if they end up being elected could shift how the federal government shifts their own policy with more members being on the edges of either the left or the right. Because as we've seen with Jasmine Crockett's district, they shored that up to be more

solidly Democrat. And so with these more deeper blue seats, you're going to see more deeper blue candidates. Now on the Crockett thing, I see a lot of nonsense on Twitter about how Jasmine Crockett, quote, lost her seat. No, she did not lose her seat. Now, her house is not in the new 30th congressional district, but that doesn't matter for Congress. You don't have to live in your district. Hell, you don't even have to live in the state. to run for a congressional district. You just have to be a resident of the state by the time you take office. Right.

It's pretty strange. But that's, so people, if you see something on Twitter that says Jasmine Crockett lost her seat, that's fooey. She will be in Congress next year. Now, the question is, does she run for her current seat, which is the 30th? Does she choose to move over to the 33rd and run in that one, which is currently held by Mark Vise? Do they swap seats? Who knows? Jasmine Crockett will be in Congress next year, unless she runs for Senate, which that's not looking likely right now.

So I just got to get on my soapbox there a bit. That's right. But I'll go through a bit of the debate. It was pretty part for the course of what we've seen in committee hearings that we talked about before. But generally, you know, Chairman Todd Hunter got up and gave a not quite typical Todd Hunter performance. I mean, it was a performance, which is typical of Todd Hunter. and he's very entertaining to watch Layout a Bill. I remember in the, which bill was that?

It was one of the power grid bills in 23. He gets up and he points out all the suits in the gallery. And he makes a joke about how it's like a lobbyist protection racket or something like that. Well, and he adorns the costume as well with the all-black suit. and he has the stack of papers with him at the front mic there, and he takes his glasses on and off when he's getting very serious. So it's all coordinated. You know, and it's very effective.

He is really great on the mic. He's a master at saying everything he wants to say and never slipping up about anything. Yeah. It's pretty impressive. Now, I did notice that he was getting a little more irritated than he usually does. during these these bill layouts

and he was hitting back pretty hard here and there you know first off he made the case again

that made the case again that's the the uh I'm totally blanking the districts were drawn on political

thank you yes I've said that so much apparently I knew where you're going yeah so he made that case that's the case

the case Republicans have been making And that's in line with Rucho, the Rucho Supreme Court decision. Right. He kept hitting that over and over again. Yep. The idea that we can, we as in a legislature can draw maps based on political performance and to increase our political hold on congressional delegations.

It's kind of a, I wrote a fourth reading about this, but it's kind of an affirmative defense to prosecution only in redistricting cases because they can say, no, we didn't draw it based on race. drew it based on who votes which way which really when it comes down to it that's why they're drawing lines they're not drawing lines to um you know make sure there are no black representatives right now the counter argument is that by drawing lines politically the um the product the byproduct of that is that fewer black representatives exist or what or what have you or sphinx yeah well we're seen. That's what the Democrats are arguing. The Democrats are arguing black and brown representation is being withdrawn by the political redrawing of the map. And the

Republicans counterargument is, well, we're seeing a shift in party affiliation and voting records, particularly among Hispanic voters who I've shifted to the Republican Party under the since Trump has entered the political scene so we're we're kind of seeing these two different arguments being offered one that the map is drawn strictly on political performance the other side saying no this map is being drawn in a quote racist way because it's going to remove representation by these minority coalitions in these districts well and in Republicans counter that, well, now we have two black majority CVAP citizen voting age population districts where we did before, and then two more Hispanic CVAP majority districts.

So you can see the kind of tango that's going on that's prefacing the legal fight that will come as soon as, as soon as Governor Abbott signs this map, there will be a legal fight. Well, and that was part of the strategy, if I'm correct in this, that the reason why there was lots of debate that was had on the floor and an allowance by Republicans to let Democrats really lobby a lot of that debate was because they wanted to get that on the record so there could be because they know this is going to be challenged in the court so they could get that on the record so when it is offered they can say we had this discussion yeah is that correct yeah basically yeah yeah the line of questioning was trying to get and it has been

since the committee hearing started, was trying to get Republicans to admit that they have considered race when drawing these maps. And Hunter's response is, no, political performance. Senator Phil King and the Senate has been less diligent, I'd say, about that. Although I'm sure he has his own reasons for making the arguments that he is. He's basically arguing the racial factors are secondary. The political performance is the top.

Todd Hunter won't even mention racial factors, other than citing what the statistics are of these new, these new congressional district breakdowns. But as the day went on, tension started heating up quite a bit. Democrats were sticking to their lines, and first of all, they filed a 12 amendments, each of which they ran the clock out on in questioning. Everything from striking the enactment clause to releasing the Epstein files. Yes, yes.

And Republicans tabled every single one or point of order them. So it went on like that for a while. We finished around, I think, six-ish, and we had the vote. And then the House adjourned. Actually, they voted on it like 5.15-ish the first time. Then they adjourned, came back, had the final vote, like 6-6-30-ish, which is something the House doesn't normally do, but they adjourned to take up a new legislative day, which I think means there's one fewer legislative.

of days as there are calendar days and what should have been the 30-day special session. I believe that's correct, but if I'm wrong there, somebody will correct me. So, ultimately, it passed. Todd Hunter shot back a couple times about y'all broke quorum, which, of course, that ended earlier this week. Mary Elise, you wrote a piece about the quorum officially being reinstated on Monday, Yeah. Tell us about why the Democrats decided to come back. Well, I think we talked about this on our last podcast, but the Texas Democratic Caucus, most of them announced that they had certain demands that had to be met for them to return to the Texas House.

And I believe there were two of those. And one was that California moves forward with its redistricting plans, which would be them full steam ahead on that right now. and that was already underway when they asked for that. And then the other one was that Governor Greg Abbott would indeed lose his first special session on Friday, that it would be signy die for the first special. And that did happen. That was something Governor Abbott had already announced. And so that kind of laid the groundwork, set the stage for them to return on Monday.

They did return on Monday, and it was this big moment where you see, I'm sure for people on the floor, you knew right away, okay, there's definitely a quorum here, but for the people watching the live stream, House Speaker Dustin Burroughs said, you know, we've reached a quorum after they did a record vote. Yeah, so they had announced earlier that morning that they would be returning. They labeled it as this victorious return because they said, look, we've defeated Governor Abbott's first special session. He wasn't able to get his items across right then. he did call another special session immediately after.

But they were noting, you know, we basically killed this first special. So kind of marketed that as this victorious return back to the lower chamber. And so there were 120 members that were present when the house gaveled in on Monday. And we saw everything just kind of moved at full speed after that. You know, we saw these bills that had been that died during the first special session that had not seen any movement after the Senate because of the quorum break. And then we saw those same bills were refiled and different bills were immediately heard in committee. There's some bills I've been following, like one just passed the, this is Senate Bill 11.

It has to do with the affirmative defense for human trafficking victims. And that one just passed out of its House committee this morning. So it's moving full steam ahead. Something interesting that House Speaker Burroughs said, I mean, of course, course he had some strong words for the members that returned. But for the most part, he tried to kind of strike this tone of reconciliation of saying, you know, like, they're back. Let's try to work together and move ahead with these priorities. He said, he noted that the house had been through a crazy two weeks. And he said, but this institution long predates us and will long

outlast each of us. Representatives come and go, issues rise and fall. But this body has endured wars, economic depressions, and quorum breaks dating back to the very first session. It will withstand this too and will remain as a chamber where the majority has the right to prevail and the minority has the right to be heard. So Monday really was kind of when everything, you know, we're able to meet quorum and not everything's just full steam ahead. I mean, we're talking about the map passed and it will only continue this way. And I think maybe Republican members will be moving with even more energy and intention on some of these bills now that we've met form yeah this we've mentioned this before but this redistricting fight has really brought

an uncanny level of unity within the caucuses whereas before they're fighting internally constantly and there's still some of that right but it it seems like you know there's a lot of talk earlier this session about the speaker's race being the end of in the fallout from the speaker's race being the end of a coalition style governing system in the Texas House of where you have a speaker getting votes from both the Republicans and the Democrats that hasn't panned out but this how personal this has become it at least seems like the conditions are closer to there than we've seen before for Republicans to unite behind a speaker, Democrats to unite in opposition to a speaker rather than splintering in a billion different ways. Now, there's a lot of time between now

and next session, but, you know, Burroughs is in the driver's seat to get the Republican caucus nomination, which didn't happen last time. And Democrats, you're starting to see Democratic members who were backing Burroughs splinter away from that. The one that sticks out to me on the floor yesterday was Vincent Perez, a freshman from El Paso. In his speech condemning the map, he said, quote, I can no longer support you for speaker.

And that, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, it seems this map has, the debate over the map has shifted from a debate over the, simply redrawing it to

it becoming extremely personal. Rediscerging is always personal. but it's not but it's not simply like you're Republican I'm a Democrat we're going to fight about this because I want more representation for my party

it's become personal where we're seeing Democrats are explicitly calling Republicans in the Texas legislature racist and it seems these personal attacks aren't just being batted away anymore they're saying if you really

mean that I don't know how we can still work together in this way because when they're making it personal, how else are they supposed to receive that? You know, so it's just a matter of, is this going to remain this fighting that's going on between Republicans and Democrats? Are they going to come to some sort of resolution on this and start working together, like on the flood bill stuff? Time has a way of healing most wounds. Yeah. But this has been a pretty nasty fight.

Yeah. And we'll see if the chamber recovers back to the way it was at the beginning of session or if we actually do see a new dynamic for the time being at least. Because ultimately still, the reason you have coalition style governing majorities is because you need a majority. And if you don't have a majority of your own party, you have to find them from somewhere else. And that just yields power sharing. Yeah. Well, that's why I think what's going to be interesting with the expanded special session call in terms of the punishments and penalties that are going to be addressed during the current special session is are we going to see a reignition of this fighting where Democrats are going to really fight hard about. trying to keep the status quo in terms of the current penalties that were agreed upon with

the Texas House rules and things of that nature. Or are they going to try and cozy up or rather are they going to really fight it out and are Republicans really going to fight to try and increase penalties, increase the types of punishments that are levied for quorum breaks? So we could see a whole other debate, you know, in a week or so over this stuff. I think we hit that nail on the head. Let's move on to another topic. I'm sure there will be a lot more to discuss with redistricting because this thing's not going away.

We're going to see, like I said, we're going to see a lawsuit as soon as the ink dries on the bill on Abbott's desk after he signs it. So TBD there. And really that was always where this was going. Yeah. A court fight. There was an announcement, a pretty big announcement for 2026 this morning. Congressman Chip Roy announced for Attorney General. He is now the fourth Republican to jump in that race,

our fourth Republican in that race. Currently, we saw John Bash jump in, then drop out of the race earlier on this year. Roy is a conservative fire brand, but he's also engaged in fights and picked fights with Republicans across the board. not he's gotten in spats with the president he's gotten in spats with house leadership especially more than anything else and various house leaderships but there's also been times where he says

we need to support the president you know so he picks his fights he is very strategic yeah he is not just slinging bombs everywhere he'll sling bombs when he feels it's necessary to sling bombs but he's also, you know, been one of the chief negotiators for, on behalf of the conservative flank of the caucus with leadership, you know, from what I've heard, because they know, like, yeah, they might not agree with him and they might dislike him on certain things. But when he says he wants something in exchange for a vote for this, you know, he's not moving the goalpost on you. Right. He's an honest negotiator on that. That's what I've heard from those on the inside. But this sets up an interesting dynamic.

First of all, he said in a press release to me this morning, it's been my honor to represent 21st Congressional District of Texas, the best part of the best state in the greatest country in the history of the world. That's quite a line there. I'm particularly proud of our work to deliver on President Trump's agenda and fight to drain the swamp. I could do it forever and be fulfilled professionally, but representatives should not be permanent.

He then talked about the Kerrville flooding and how that means. made him want to come back home more full time. He took a very aggressive approach in another section. Texas is under assault from open border politicians, radical leftists, and faceless foreign corporations that threaten our sovereignty, safety, and our way of life. It's time to draw the line in the sand. And then he says, finally, Texas has a long and proud tradition of rising to defend our homes, our freedom, and our communities. I'm running for Attorney General to carry on that legacy. So he jumps in this race. I think he's instantly the person with the highest name ID.

For sure. Especially because there was a poll that went out this morning. Pretty good timing that showed, it was from Texas Southern University. So of the three candidates, three candidates currently in a race, the ballot test was Joan Huffman at 12 points, Mays Middleton at 8, and Aaron writes at 7. Nobody above 13 points. Right. Nobody above 12 points there. 73% was undecided.

That leaves a lot of room, both for any of those candidates, but also someone new to jump in. And guess what? Chip Roy's jumping in now. It'll be interesting to see if we've seen anybody else. I've heard Eric Johnson is considering it. He's telling mayor of Dallas, he's telling donors up there that he's at least looking at it, if not preparing a run for AG. And I think this is the point where we now see this kind of become a free-for-all. But Roy jumps in.

He undoubtedly has the highest name ID because he's been. on the national stage for years now, since I think he got to Congress in 2019. He won the 2018 midterm there in Congressional District 21. But when you get into these dividing lines, it's pretty interesting because, first of all, every one of these candidates is going to claim to be the conservative choice, right? That's how you run in a Republican primary, but it's especially true in this. Yeah. And you've got multiple candidates with conservative bona fides to back up their claims.

Yeah. Maze Middleton, very conservative legislator in the House and the Senate. Aaron Wrights has been in the Trump administration, Paxton, eighth floor at the OIG office. And he's a conservative bomb thrower on social media. You have Roy, who's been quite obviously one of the more conservative legislators in the House for years now. Joan Huffman, I've heard, you know, some radio hosts kind of dismiss her as, oh, yeah, she's not that conservative. Obviously, it's open to do interpretation. I think it's fair to say she has less of a conservative firebrand record than these other guys.

Right. But she's got plenty to hang her hat on, too. So all these guys are trying to squeeze into this one lane. The question is, who can come out of it first, right? Yeah, and it'll be interesting. Is the Attorney General's race, you know, I'm still relatively new to Texas politics. Will we see, is this a race where we'll see the candidates get up on stage and debate the issues? Is that? Good question.

I don't know. That'd be kind of fun, I think. Yeah. I think, you know, the question always is with debates is, do the candidates feel like they have enough to gain or too much to lose to jump in in debate? That's why you never see Abbott debate a primary challenger. Why would he, right? But with a race so crowded. In an open seat, that's different, especially if you look at this polling, right?

Now, who knows where Roy fits in, what he polls initially on a ballot test, right? But I think it's possible, and that would be fun to watch a on-stage debate with all four of them. Open invitation, let's do it. The Texan hosts the AG, GOP-A-G race debate. I'd love that. And it's also going to be a great opportunity for all these candidates to do the media circuit. So we can really hear what they have to say on these individual issues. You know, it can be kind of hard to tease out how they feel about certain things when they're voting on very specific pieces of legislation or they might have worked as an aid to someone or they worked in a lower level position.

They don't really get to voice their opinion. but now that they're speaking on their own two feet, they are open to talking more generally about issues, I think that we'll provide some good insight for people to understand who these people are. Yeah, yeah, and there's going to be a lot of fighting over this. Because of the nature of the AG's office and the nature of politics today, none of them are going to hold back. They're all going to issue pretty firm broadsides against the others.

the rhetoric is going to be very heated. And there's also the past, past history of some of these candidates. Like Roy called for the impeachment of or the resignation of Attorney General Paxton after the whistleblowers went to the FBI in 2020. That's going to get brought up. It's already getting brought up. As soon as his name was mentioned, it's a possibility to run for this seat. Those in the Paxton camp brought that up.

Aaron Wrights is surely going to use that. Heck, he's tried to tie Mays Middleton donating to other AG candidates in 2022 in a similar fashion of him not being pro-Paxed enough. So that's going to be a theme. I guess the question here is, can Trump, first of all, does, not Trump, does Trump get in and endorse somebody or does he stay out? And then does Roy, can he distance himself enough from that Paxton history to, so it doesn't subsume his conservative credentials? Yeah, well, yeah, the calling for Paxton's step down in light of the impeachment trial is when it was Paxton's top aide in. Yeah, so it sets up an interesting dynamic there.

But then also, haven't we seen those that voted for impeachment, just members generally, when they ran for re-election, not really have that huge of an impact, would you say? It depends on the race. There were some that did, some that didn't. It's hard to judge based on the 24 election because there were so much going on in that primary. But there were some isolated instances of that, and then some that proved otherwise, right? So, I don't know. We'll see how it plays out, but this is going to be... And once the actual election going to be held, is it...

Early March. Early March. And in early March, is this going to be on the ballot with other races as well, right? And so I'm trying to think in terms of turnout. Oh, yeah. Right? Because obviously in presidential elections, huge turnout. But for midterms, not as huge.

And then especially when people are talking about certain statewide races, it's even smaller. Yeah. So it's really going to be about driving the turnout to vote, getting people to the votes, obviously, obviously. But in an attorney's general race like this, that's going to be very heated, it's going to be about really getting your supporters out there. This race is going to be absolutely bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. So more to come on that. I'll briefly touch on another interesting announcement that hasn't come out quite yet as we recorded, but it is, I'm told it's coming, and the paperwork has already been filed, so it's official enough. State Reprisco Kane is going to run for the new Texas 9th Congressional District, the one I mentioned earlier that stretches that is moved to the western part of Harris County. It also now includes, I didn't mention this, but one of the revision, The revision that made it slightly redder was they added Liberty County, and they took about, I think, some of Harris County. And so that made it a stronger red seat.

But Briscoe Kane, whose district is almost entirely encompassed within this district. It was like made for him, it seems. He's announcing he's going to run after almost a decade in the Texas House. You know, he's been in and out with leadership. He's been fully on the outs with the Freedom Caucus in the Mother's Day Massacre back in 2017. He's been on the Speaker's team in 2019, 21, and part of 23. And then this session, he's been on the outs entirely with Speaker Burroughs. So he's got an interesting pathway through the legislature there.

well another individual kind of like roy who's very strategic in the types of fights yeah you know what i would say that's a that's a pretty good comparison there those two in their respective bodies so we should have an announcement i don't have any quote from cane yet but we should have an announcement sometime today he'll be running for the ninth congressional district yeah mary lees you wrote a piece on a retirement in the texas house that is pretty notable. Give us the details of that. Yeah, maybe less high-profile than the last two you're just discussing, but state representative Stan Lambert announced that he's going to be closed in the chapter on his public service in the Texas House. So he's been representing

House District 76 since 2016, and he announced this morning, which is Thursday morning, that he would be retiring at the end of his, at the end of his current term. So he said, you know, he's after careful thought, careful consideration, he decided that he won't seek re-election and he plans to retire once his current term concludes. He said it's been one of the greatest honors of his life serving the people of District 71. He said, I've worked each day to serve with integrity, listen closely to the voices of my constituents, and champion the values and priorities that matter most to the big country. And one interesting quote he threw in there from President George. Bush was that public service is a noble calling and we need men and women of character to believe in their communities, in their states, and in their country. And then he said he's

profoundly grateful to have been able to answer that call. So, you know, he's been serving House District 76 since 2016, so for the past nine years. 71. Excuse me. 71. And he, you know, one of his more notable, moves was back in 2023. This is just one among a couple, but he co-sponsored this amendment in 23

that blocked a use of taxpayer dollars for school choice and I believe there were about 24 Republicans that voted for that amendment that he co-sponsored. And then he was actually formally recognized

by Abilene ISD. They gave him the Public Education Champion Award in 2023. So that's just one. highlight from his career. And then right as we were about to record this podcast, this is something Brad tweeted out. The Jay Hardaway announced that he will be running for Lambert's seat. He's a former Abilene City Councilman, and then he was a staffer for Representative Jody Erington, as well as Lambert, so former staffer there. And so he has filed the paperwork to run in Lambert's position, so we'll be watching that race. But

you know, Lambert received a whole lot of, I've been seeing messages on X saying, you know, thank you for your service since 2016. So he's officially going to retire, but not for a little bit here. He's still got to power through this special session and the end of his term. Also notable for Lambert is that he was one of the members targeted by Governor Abbott in 24 for his votes against ESAs. and Abbott won a lot of those races, but he did not defeat Lambert. Lambert staved that off. I think it was Liz Case that ran against him. That was a pretty notable fight.

And then another name that I just heard pop up for the seat is Abilene City Councilman Blaise Reagan. You know, that might yield the right flank versus a quote establishment clash that we see. see in so many of these races, but we'll see how that shakes out. Thank you, Mary Lees. I just want to mention something about establishment versus outsiders and stuff. It's an interesting thing to think about because you can run as either an establishment or an outsider candidate, obviously. But once you get into the legislature itself, you have to become one of those insiders

to get legislation passed. Unless you don't want to get legislation passed. And you just yell and scream. I know, but it sets up an interesting dynamic, you know, when running, like, I'm going to do all these things. But once I get in there, are you going to be able to actually do those things while remaining an outsider? You have to play the game to some degree to get anything you want done. Yeah. The question is how much and how much compromise you need to make.

And some people are better at it than others. but ultimately you get in there and you can see it from a lot of these freshmen in the house that came in and they were supposed to be these bomb throwers that were going to vote no on everything and that's not what happened. It's not what happened.

The natural pull of gravity pulls them that direction always. So Cameron, right now the House is voting on the flood response, disaster response bills. And there's things, I think it's like five or six that are on the slate. You wrote a piece earlier this week about the Senate side.

Give us a full picture, fuller picture of what the legislation looks like in the legislature generally, not just either chamber, but what it looks like members are going to do on this issue. Yeah. So like you mentioned, they're taking up a bunch of pieces of House legislation related to flood relief. They're doing that as we're recording this podcast. and in the Senate, though, earlier this week, they actually invited a bunch of the families whose children were taken during the July 4 flooding, and they relayed some very heart-wrenching stories about how they're sort of grappling with the pain of losing a child and very emotional testimony. There was multiple points during the hearing that

legislators were crying and it was it was powerful it really was hearing these stories many of the parents brought pictures of their children and yeah I'd encourage people to go read the story that's up on the site right now I include a lot of the things people were saying and many of them were calling for changes And a lot of them were putting blame on the camp, something we hadn't seen initially much, but we've seen a lot more recently. Yeah, and we saw that same sort of sentiment relayed when Representative Drew Darby laid out HB1 today. This is August 21st. He said the camp failed these girls, the county failed them, the River Authority failed them.

In a larger sense, their government filled them. And in some ways, I know I have filled them. I take this personally. So what a lot of the legislation is going to do is create greater oversight for these camps that are in these flood-prone areas, creating greater oversight for these river authorities, and creating greater access to data and real-time information. putting together a more consolidated top-down command structure. We heard over the many committee hearings that the patchwork system contributed to some of the issues that occurred when trying to address the issues.

So we're going to see a more consolidated form of disaster response. We're also seeing bills that were proposed and we're going to see pass that increase the number of sirens, whether it be the old school types of sirens that are put up on posts, but also improving the alerts that are sent out to people's cell phones. But it's sort of this plan to tackle both of those alert systems because as we've heard testified during these committee hearings is people turn the cell phones off when they go to sleep or they just ignore the messages so there needs to be a secondary alert system. So we're going to see some of that are also going to see greater oversight in terms of

the training that goes into the individuals who are actually responding to these disasters, also increasing the appropriations that are matching the FEMA response, but also to helping many of these emergency response agencies that we have in the state. So they're really tackling this at a lot of different angles. And it seems like this is, it doesn't seem like it is a bipartisan issue where we're going to see both Republicans and Democrats come together to try and fix a lot of these issues. So we're seeing that come onto the floor now. And we're, we're seeing that come onto the floor now and we're going to see many of these bills be passed rapidly and make its way through both chambers and they'll end up on governor abbessque very soon this is something that everyone in that

building knows is a must pass right for this special session and undoubtedly they will get the get something done we'll see if there's anything more they need to do after legislation gets implemented but who knows who knows on that end so mary lees coming to you next uh there was a poll that was pretty notable put out this week on the U.S. Senate race in Texas. Give us the rundown. Yeah, so there's this poll that was just released from Texas Southern University, and there were multiple really notable aspects of this survey, but I'd say maybe the top one would be it shows that the gap between Ken Paxson,

Texas Attorney General, and Senator John Cornyn, the gap between them is nearing a bit because the same poll from Texas Southern, I believe it was three months ago that they had this poll come out that showed the senator about nine points behind Paxton, and now it's showing him, I was showing Cornyn about five points behind Paxton, and this is in the GOP primary. So the survey was polling at 1,500, likely 26, 226 Republican primary voters, and then 1,500 likely 2026 Democratic primary voters. And they compared Congressman Wesley Hunt within it, Congressman Ronnie Jackson, who are also, they're both individuals who have kind of been flirting with the prospect of jumping in.

So they did a three-way matchup between Paxton, Cornyn, and Hunt. And in this, Hunt got 22% of the votes. and then Paxton had led with 35 and Cornyn 30. So Hunt was there at 22, below Cornyn at 30. And then for Jackson, they also did that three-way matchup, and he got 15% of the vote, and then Cornyn was 33, and then Paxton was 38. So Paxton taking the lead there.

And then it also compares, you know, Cornyn and Jackson, Cornyn got 43% of the vote, and Jackson was at 35%. And then when Jackson was compared against Paxton, he got 33%. And so this piece outlines all of those different matchups that they did between these different candidates. One interesting, another interesting aspect of this poll was they asked the respondents about how much a endorsement from President Donald Trump would impact their view of the candidates in this race, which we know is. You know, this is the hot topic right now with this race. The candidates are really hoping for an endorsement from front,

but he's still kind of holding that close to his chest. We're not sure which way he's going to go there. So this poll asked the voters, you know, how would this impact your view of the candidates? How likely would you be to vote for them if you saw that Trump endorsed them? And so 41% of the Republican respondents said that they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate if they had Trump's backing. So that's 41%.

that were saying, you know, if Trump backs this person, I'm more likely to support them. And then 17% said they'd be less likely to vote for the candidate if endorsed by Trump. And then 42% said it wouldn't have any sway on their vote, which is interesting. And so, we highlight in the piece kind of the back and forth between Paxton and Cornyn during this quorum break, you know, they've been both kind of utilizing the different things that have been happening during this corn break because it's been all sorts of lawsuits filed, ex-posts made. And so they've been kind of at each other's throats a bit. So we highlight that in this piece as well. So you can, it's a little bit of a more lengthy piece. We can go check out all the, uh, the different matchups

and the numbers there. A couple takeaways for me on that poll was, uh, first the on the potential third, well, I'll say elsewhere. So there was an Emerson poll on the, uh, that gauge, the two current candidates, Paxton and Cornyn, and that showed Cornyn actually up one, which is a total outlier from everything we've seen so far. I think Mary Lisa wrote in your newsletter last week that SLF, Senate Leadership Fund, was telling their donors that the average of all the polling had Paxton up 17 points. So that's, you know, I would take that more than I would trust, you know, this one outlier, Emerson poll. I also am told that. I also am told that the Emerson poll was paid for by the NRC, which is back in Cornyn.

So it doesn't make it totally bunk, but it definitely raises some eyebrows there, right? Yeah. So ultimately, though, Paxon is up in this race. The question is by how much. And this Texas Southern poll is interesting in that Cornyn has been hitting Paxon quite a bit lately. And if that is correct, then it has been working some. Yeah. And hasn't spent a bunch of money yet.

So Paxson, you know, hits on court and have largely been earned media over Twitter. A lot left to go. If it is just those two horses in this race, there's going to be so much money spent, so many punches thrown. Who knows where it ends up? Well, another one of these races, like we talked with the AG race, that a lot of bombs are going to be thrown, like you mentioned. But it also sets up an interesting opportunity to see where these, if these two candidates, want to face off in a debate to really see how different or maybe how similar they are on a bunch of things because it seems like Paxon has been really energizing the quote

unquote MAGA base for a number of years now. Corrin has been on the outs of that support coalition for a while but he's trying to cozy up to them recently and is he going to make some promises or say some things that are going to try and make himself more aligned with how the party has shifted over the past decade under Trump. So I'd love to see them, you know, fight it out on stage. That's always fun. I love debates. So if they could do that, I'd hope so. But I went to the, at the Capitol factory, John Corner was there doing a little fireside chat, talking about defense technology and, you know, the thing with the transitioning from a Senate or a state representative to a federal lawmaker is you're dealing with national

issues and global issues at that point. And so Cornyn has had a history of handling a lot of those that are in some sense opposed to how the base has wanted him to act on them. I know I'm talking about things like Ukraine. He was a supporter and then has kind of moved on his stance on that issue a bit. But we don't know how Paxton lands on many of these global issues or you know, we know how he feels about a lot of the national domestic issues. But when it comes to being a U.S. Senator, you're dealing with voting on legislation that's going to impact the United States standing around the world. So I'd love to hear how Paxson aligns himself on some of those issues. I think that, at least I care about that.

You don't really have to care about that as an attorney general, right? You know, the other takeaway that I had from this poll was that there is, if it, let's take this on its face, right? let's just say those numbers are correct. There is an incentive and a pretty good opportunity for Wesley Hunt to jump in, who has been running ads across the state and has been openly flirting with this potential run, though he hasn't jumped in yet.

And I can tell you for a fact, he is still very much considering it. They're kind of biding their time waiting to see what happens over the next couple months, but I would not be surprised at this point if Wesley Hunt jumps in. And equally, that poll, the, that poll is bad for Ronnie Jackson if he was looking to make a third candidate bid for this seat. A question going into this was, we talked about both of them, who has the better case to make, who has the better floor.

Wesley Hunt has the higher floor if he were to jump in this race than Ronnie Jackson does. So maybe we see polling that that contradicts that tomorrow or next week. But as of now, based on that, if we're going to see a third candidate, it seems to be Wesley Hunt that has the polling basis to justify a run. Another person who's very close to Trump as well. Both, both him and Jackson. I mean, Jackson was Trump's doctor, right? So, yeah, I mean, this is this race is just a suck up to Trump, which because you need the, you want the endorsement, right?

Who wouldn't want it? Yeah. So thank you Mary Lease, Cameron. And last one we're going to hit, Dan Patrick is running for re-election. He made it officially official. Yeah, because he said it before, but now he wants to be really clear. Yeah, so he said he's all in. He had a press conference where he was.

joined by a number of other Texas state senators where he said that he has announced five or six times and people don't believe him. And so he held another press conference. All the other senators endorsed him, each stepping to the mic, talking about the impact the lieutenant governor has had in moving conservative legislation forward. Each of those senators saying they're also running for re-election. So it was a big love fest. Yeah. And now it's officially official.

Dan Patrick is running in for lieutenant governor. And he's a force, you know. He'll get challenged, but, you know, he seems. Vicki Goodwin's running against him, but I don't see that much of a challenge. Patrick did announce in conjunction with the announcement that he's up on TV right now across the state with an ad. Yeah. And he's a monster fundraiser, so he has this...

Second-only Abbott, really. And then the other observation that I and somebody else had with this was basically a Patrick and Alan Blakemore, his consultant show of force in the Senate, how many of these candidates, both incumbents and incoming candidates, the three incoming ones that were there, were Dennis Paul, Lee Wom's Guns, and David Cook, all of whom have Blakemore as their consultant for this, it's a show of force of their control over the Senate. Right. And I don't think all of the incumbent senators there had Blakemore, have Blakemore as their consultant, but most of them do. So it just shows you who controls the Senate and very prolific at it.

So thank you, Cameron. Let's go on to tweeterie real quick. Mary Lease, let's start with you. What's going on with Cracker Barrel? Well, some might call it a rebrand, and some might call it the death of a company, but Cracker Barrel has kind of redesigned both inside of their stores, but also their logo. You know, Cracker Barrel has the man standing by the barrel, Cracker Barrel. But now it's just kind of this yellow blob that says Cracker Barrel, and people are really

upset about it. Even Governor Greg Abbott has been weighing in on the issue. As somebody, I saw some pictures of the inside of the restaurant and I didn't know what the big deal was. It's like, oh, it looks cute because I haven't been to one of these in a really long time. But when I saw it side by side, kind of the old mom and pop style that it was before, it was really tragic. And some people were comparing this to a similar Bud Light move when they had Dylan Mulvaney advertising and that plummeted their sales. So, yeah, that might be the end for Cracker Barrel. we'll see, but it's definitely drawn national attention.

It's particularly on X, but, yeah. It's a really rudimentary, it goes from a very rudimentary logo to an even more rudimentary logo. Yeah, well, at least they had the little guy with the barrel. They got rid of him. This is something that's happening to a lot of brands. They just really simplify their little, minimalize their logos and things. but it's the entire like mary least touched on it's the entire rebrand of the dining experience you know you used to go into a cracker barrel had that old time you feel everything's wood you could get stuff from the gift shop and things like that giant portions but it's you know it kind of went the way of McDonald's where they got rid of the crazy characters and the play playground in the restaurant and it made it really unique and now it looks like an Apple store

where you order a Big Mac at a kiosk you know so man it's he's millennials with the marketing degrees return to tradition Cameron over do you know I came across the story in the New York Post

this headline it had to click on it Missing Texas woman found living and lost quote African tribe in Scotland and so this woman she was reported missing by her family here in Texas and they found her living in Scotland where she has told the UK authorities obviously I'm not missing leave me alone I'm an adult not a helpless child she's with this group that says they

quote don't recognize local laws and it's this really like return to the land but like really returned to the land like they're wearing very traditional African garb and they're living in tents and they got the face paint in all this it's um quite baffling to be honest uh an African tribe in Scotland uh I encourage people to go check out the photos because it's a very interesting the look of these people so wow good for her that's it i'm going to go with a redistricting perhaps the most important redistricting take takeaway in this entire thing more important than anything else more important than the five seat five projected seat gain yeah the more important than the trump directive more

important than the California stuff. Wow, this must be big. This is big. If you look at the lines, the new lines under the new map, you go to the Texas Capitol and you zoom in, you zoom in, you zoom in,

you see Austin kind of carved up a bit. Okay. Which is something Democrats are making a case about. But the Texas Capitol is now in a Republican districts under this new map

it is not currently but more important than that there is a divide partisan divide in the proposed Republican district would be represented by a Republican is the cloak room

what that is right next to the Texas Capitol one of the most famous watering holes in capital politics yeah but on the other side of the district line is the chili parlor another fabled capital landing spot for right staffers and it's a great it's a great lunch place yeah this is this might so the Toledo war Toledo Ohio the Toledo war okay was the basis for

really the Michigan, Ohio State football rivalry. And it was a fight over both Michigan and Ohio wanted Toledo. Ohio won and they got Toledo and Michigan lost. And I use air quotes because I don't think that's the correct way to go about it. I think getting Toledo is a loss. And the Michigan got the upper peninsula. This strikes me like that. Wow.

This is the great Texas Chilettys, Texas, Chisholm. Cilley Parlor Cloak Room of 2026. Well, I think we need the cloakroom and the chili parlor to weigh in on their thoughts on the map. Yeah. If they like this. I didn't see them at the various committee hearings. They have an opportunity. This is just an inside joke about for people in the capital area that actually know and go to these places.

It is, looking at the line, Phil Jankowski of the Dallas Morning News tweeted out. It's just freaking hilarious that it stops right there. Yeah. So maybe we'll see who would that be? Is that Chip Roy's district that comes in? I'm surprised that wasn't brought up during floor debate. What? Is that I'm surprised that wasn't brought up during floor debate over the map?

Nobody mentioned it. I know. I know. Well, it was a bit too serious of a situation to bring that up. But there you go. The Great Divide, renewed. Maybe that's like the, it's the Texas version of the, it's the 48th parallel or the 46th parallel. I'm not sure. The, okay, the Mason-Dixon line. Yeah.

Insert whatever, you know, but that's what we're. Well, I really hope that when, for future elections, people start law. lobbying for the endorsement of either of these establishments. I think that'll go a long way towards winning an election. For sure. I agree. I agree. Well, that's what we got this week. Thank you all for joining.

And we'll catch you in another seven days. Sure will. 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 the Texan. 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 us an email to Editor at the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.