The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 4, 2023

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Texas flag hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/texas-flag-hat/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Ken Paxton’s attorneys filing a motion to dismiss 19 of the suspended attorney general’s 20 impeachment chargesThe potential endangered species designation that could hinder Gov. Greg Abbott’s Rio Grande buoy barrier systemOklahoma sending its National Guard troops to assist Texas with securing the southern borderThe Texas DPS having rescued over 900 children from human smuggling and trafficking through the southern borderParker County as a microcosm of the state’s 2024 Republican primary electionsThe beginning of the first of 21 election contests over Harris County’s 2022 general electionsA Title IX investigation into Garland ISD revealing “shockingly inadequate” compliance with student safety standardsThe ongoing conflict between Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and HISD Superintendent Mike MilesThe SMU graduate suing the university over its shift to online classes during the COVID-19 pandemicA poll of likely Houston voters showing crime as a top issue going in to the city’s mayoral electionA new law that prohibits hunting in river beds over concerns for private property rightsTexas having nearly $9,000 in local government debt for each resident of the stateThe $142 million Houston-based Medicare fraud scheme that ended in three arrests

Howdy y'all, senior reporter Hayden Sparks here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses Ken Paxton's attorneys filing a motion to dismiss 19 of the suspended attorney general's 20 impeachment charges. The potential endangered species designation that could hinder Governor Greg Abbott's Rio Grande buoy barrier system. Oklahoma sending its National Guard troops to assist Texas with securing the southern border. Texas DPS having rescued over 900 children from human smuggling and trafficking through the southern border. Parker County as a microcosm of the state's 2024 Republican primary elections. The beginning of the first of 21 election contests over Harris County's 2022 general elections, a Title IX investigation into

Garland ISDs revealing, quote, shockingly inadequate, end quote, compliance with student safety standards, the ongoing conflict between Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, the SMU graduate suing the university over its shift to online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. A poll of likely Houston voters showing crime as a top issue going into the city's mayoral election. A new law that prohibits hunting in riverbeds over concerns for private property rights. Texas having nearly $9,000 in local government debt for each resident of the state. And the $142 million Houston-based

Medicare fraud scheme that ended in three arrests. As always, if you have questions for our team, direct message us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy, y'all. Hayden Sparks here, senior reporter with The Texan, and I am here with Holly Hansen, Matt Stringer, Cameron Abrams, Rob Lausches, and Daniel Friend. We have a lot to get to today and lots of political happenings in the Lone Star State. And we're going to start off with Ken Paxton's attorneys filing a motion to dismiss 19 of his articles of impeachment. As you all know, suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton was impeached in May on 20 charges ranging from abusive office and constitutional bribery.

He was accused of dereliction of duty and misappropriating funds, among other charges. More recently, his attorneys filed a motion to dismiss 19 of those 20 articles of impeachment on account that he is charged with conduct committed before his most recent election, which they say is in violation of Texas law. Everyone involved in the case is under a gag order at this point in time because Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick feared that people making public comments about the case would possibly sway the jury, i.e. the senators in the Texas Senate who are in charge of trying this case. We are nearing the trial date. We are about one month out now. Ken Paxton's trial is scheduled for September 5th. Matt, we are coming to you. Governor Greg Abbott recently placed a buoy barrier system in the Rio

Grande to try to block illegal crossings between ports of entry and slow down illegal smuggling. The Biden administration has sued Texas to try to have the buoys removed and at the same time announced the attention of a rare river mussel to the endangered species list, and some are questioning if it was a politically motivated decision. Tell us more about that. That's right, Hayden. Almost at the same time, the Biden administration's Department of Justice brought legal challenges against Governor Greg Abbott's buoy barrier only in the Rio Grande, in particular, the two areas of river where Abbott is attempting to crack down on illegal border crossings with these buoy barriers. Presently, the Federal Registry is taking public comments for the next 60 days before they can add the two mussels to the endangered species list.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has indicated that the final addition can occur anywhere within a year after the public comment section closes. Once instated, it will give the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service strong control over anything that occurs in those parts of the river where the mussels are, particularly if it is deemed the activity will harm the mussels' habitat. Texas officials say this was a move to give Biden stronger legal standing in their challenge to Abbott's border security efforts. And we'll only add this reason to the list of reasons that the buoys must come down. Another recent example where the White House has been accused of using the Endangered Species Act to achieve political purposes rather than protect rare species is the listing of the sagebrush sand dunes lizard, which occurs in the oil fields of the Permian

Basin. Texas Congressman August Pfluger has accused Biden of using the listing of the lizard as a means to crack down on Texas oil and gas production. Can you tell us a little bit more about what could be the political implications of this? Well, as I kind of mentioned, whenever a species is listed as an endangered species, it gives the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service strong control over anything that has to do with changes done or things done in the species' natural habitat. In particular, whether or not those things might harm the habitat. Now, I think some of the speculation is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would have the latitude to simply say the buoy or the buoy barrier, uh, could harm the mussels habitat and therefore it must come down or, you know, um, it, at a minimum, it changes a relationship where,

uh, if you wanted to do something like a buoy barrier, you must get a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And they could simply, in their determination, say it'll harm the mussels and deny the permit. And that gives the Biden administration another legal footing in addition to the challenges that they have already brought, saying that buoys or other similar border barrier guards that Abbott is implementing is illegal. Thank you, Matt. We're going to stay on the border. Well, depends on which border you're thinking of, because we have two borders, the Red River and the Rio Grande, and other borders that we're not going to talk about today because they're not relevant. I'm kidding. But the Oklahoma National Guard is helping out the

state of Texas by sending 50 National Guard troops to the southern border to assist with Operation Lone Star. This is a deployment that was previously announced by Governor Kevin Stitt in Oklahoma in June. He cited President Biden's, quote, failure to secure and protect our nation, end quote. Kevin Stitt is among many governors who went with Governor Abbott to mission in October 2021 to show the Biden administration its objections to the way it's handling immigration and border security. Governor Stitt said in his June order, I believe it is in the best interests of Oklahoma and the nation to take decisive action to address the federal government's utter failure to secure our southern border, end quote.

Of course, Oklahoma is not the only state that has pitched in to help Texas with border security. States like Florida and New Hampshire have also sent National Guard troops to help out Texas with providing border security. Critics of this operation clearly say that it is unnecessary and that it has not been effective in reducing illegal immigration, but these governors are forming a united front to show their objections to the Biden administration's handling of border security. Matt, we're going to come back to you on another border-related story. Human trafficking and smuggling continues to play a major part of the border crisis, and recent statements by the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed some troubling data regarding minor victims they

have encountered. Tell us more about that. That's right, Hayden. And the story, I think, is an interesting segue from a little bit of some of the elements mentioned in the story you just covered. Our story highlights two recent cases revealed by the Department of Public Safety involving juveniles they've encountered during Operation Lone Star, which is the joint state police and National Guard operation that you just talked about, started by Governor Greg Abbott in March of 2021. During one traffic stop near Eagle Pass, which is on the border at the Rio Grande, they apprehended seven illegal aliens being smuggled from the

border to San Antonio, including two minor children. In another instance, DPS shared a heartbreaking image and story of a five-year-old girl from Honduras they encountered by herself in the desert outside Eagle Pass. She told troopers that she had come to find her mother, who was in the United States, but after doing some research, the Department of Public Safety said they found out her mother had passed away days earlier, but didn't give out more details. DPS shared the fact that since Operation Lone Star began, they've rescued over 900 children from human trafficking and smuggling. And I think it's important for our listeners and readers to understand the difference between these two terms. They're not synonymous and they have very important distinctions, just so you get a sense of how horrible the situation is. According to the definitions, human smuggling is when someone is simply paid to transport

or provide forged documents for someone to gain illegal entry into the country. Whereas human trafficking is basically, well, it's taking someone and using them for forced labor or for commercial sex exploitation purposes. Thanks for providing some of that clarification for us, Matt. And I think that highlights another interesting aspect of this in terms of the scope of the problem. Can you tell us more about what congressional studies have found regarding where unaccompanied minors fall in this border crisis?

So the Congressional Research Service did a study and they believed that unaccompanied minors, such as the example in the five-year-old Honduras girl that DPS recently encountered, are extremely prone to being victims of human smugglers and human traffickers. The statistic was somewhere around the 75% at one point of all unaccompanied minors showing up at the southern border have been victims of human trafficking and human smuggling. Just to give our readers and listeners a perspective, DHS data alone shows that in the month of June this year, they encountered 7,288 unaccompanied minors just in that month. And those are just the ones that federal authorities have encountered. That doesn't include state efforts.

That doesn't include ones that state or federal law enforcement were unable to encounter. A lot of people are smuggled or trafficked across the border and are never rescued by law enforcement. And I think that's an important statistic to keep in mind whenever we talk about these staggering numbers. It's not a complete number because there's no way law enforcement can catch everything. This story highlights just some of the work that the state of Texas is doing in the ongoing border crisis. And we try to highlight these important stories to show the seriousness of the situation, but also to try and tell some of the stories of heroism being displayed by Texas law enforcement during this terrible situation. I highly recommend our listeners and our readers to go check out the story and our other coverage of the ongoing border crisis.

Thank you, Matt, for keeping us updated on that important issue. We are going to go now to Rob, who is filling in for Brad, who's on vacation at the moment. Brad published an interesting story about some political dynamics in Parker County, and Rob is going to take care of that story for us. The Texas 2024 primary elections are next March, and campaigns are already heating up in Parker County. What's going on up there? Indeed, I will be doing Brad's stories this week. I just won't be doing them justice. I can't do them as well as Brad could himself. I'm sure you'll do a great job.

Oh, thank you. So Parker County is rated R84% by the Texas Partisan Index. So you know, it's a very Republican-leaning county. It is the largest population center in House District 60, which is currently being held by Republican Representative Glenn Rogers. But that doesn't mean that all the Republicans in the county support him. There are billboards across Parker County that read, Glenn Rogers joined 61 Democrats to impeach Ken Paxton, as Rogers was one of 60 Republicans that voted to impeach the attorney general. There were only 23 Republicans who voted against the impeachment. Rogers is also opposed to school choice measures like vouchers or education savings accounts, which are more popular with the conservative wing of the Texas GOP. So the billboards were put up there by Defend Texas Liberty, a group that was founded by former Representative Jonathan

Stickland. And the group has tried to primary other Republicans like Governor Greg Abbott and Representative Lynn Stuckey. It has also left mailers in the House districts of House Speaker Dade Phelan and Representative Andrew Murr, who is also the leader of the group in the Texas House that was pursuing the impeachment vote on Paxton. Rob, you just alluded to this, but this is not the first time that Defend Texas Liberty has made an appearance on the political stage. Can you tell us a little bit more about what they've had to do in the political scene? Indeed, I can. In 2020, one of the group's main funders, the Wilkes family, ran one of its own members, a man named John Francis, against Rogers. Rogers won by less than 700 votes, and he had to spend half a million dollars to stave off the challenge. Defend Texas Liberty itself didn't exist at the time, but it grew out of that campaign

apparatus from that election. And then in 2022, Rogers faced a challenge in Mike Olcott, founder of the Parker County Conservatives. Olcott also received support from Defend Texas Liberty. What do you think that tells us about the landscape in terms of next year's Republican primaries? Well, I could tell you what I think, but I'd rather tell you what Brad thinks because he's smarter than me. So because Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's gag order went into effect, preventing those involved from discussing Paxton's Senate impeachment trial. Rogers or before that went into effect, Rogers responded to the billboards on social media saying that defend Texas Liberty's main donors fail at every turn. As Rogers has survived the past couple of challenges to him.

It seems that the Paxton impeachment will continue to be a big deal for the Republican primaries as it currently is dividing the Republican Party in Texas into one side that believes the impeachment was legitimate and another side who believe it was either very rushed or that it was politically motivated. So the Parker County GOP Executive Committee recently passed a resolution in June condemning the impeachment by a vote of 23 to 3. A recent University of Texas poll found that between Republican voters, 31% thought that the impeachment was justified, 30% thought that it wasn't justified, and 39% had no opinion. So while it does matter to a lot of people, especially to grassroots activists and people politically connected, we're just going to have to see how much it impacts the whole going forward.

It's fascinating that that poll shows there's really no clear consensus about this impeachment at this time. Absolutely. You know, it's one of those things where if you're very involved in party politics, you probably have a very strong opinion. But if you don't vote in primaries, it might not be something that you've completely made up your mind. And that's the thing. The largest plurality hasn't even made up their mind yet, according to that poll. So we'll just have to see how that how that trial goes. It'll be very exciting to watch.

I'm sure a lot of people will be watching that trial very closely, not just to see what happens to Paxton, but so that they can make up their own minds as well. We're going to go now to Holly. Holly, it's good to have you on the podcast. Well, thanks for having me join today. Of course. You've been covering some pretty interesting election related coverage because the first of 21 pending election contest trials began in Houston this week. Who are the candidates in the courtroom this week? And can you briefly give us a rundown of the issues that led to these lawsuits in the first place? Sure. So this week, we started a trial for Republican Aaron Lunsford, who is suing, and they have to sue the winning candidate. So the lawsuit is technically against Tamika Craft, who's a Democrat who won, allegedly, the race for the 189th District Court, a civil court. The two are separated by a margin

of 2,743 votes of just over a million cast. So this week we saw opening statements and we've had witnesses on the stand every day. In the opening statements, the attorney for Aaron Lunsford, the Republican, described multiple issues, including problems with the ballot paper shortages, undersupply of ballot paper, voter ID not verified for mail ballot statements of residents not completed, problems with the handling of the two page ballot that we have here in Harris County. Incidentally, Harris County has probably one of the longest ballots in the country. There's a lot on there, so it does require these two pages. And he described what was happening there is the election workers were finding that the second page of the ballot wouldn't scan. And so they were supposed to spoil that ballot and put it in a

kind of a spoiled ballot envelope. But what they were doing, they found, is sometimes putting those spoiled ballots in an emergency chute to be counted. Sometimes they were reissuing the voters a new set of ballots, letting them re-vote, and then scanning that first page a second time. So there's some confusion there. He also discussed the fact that on election day, there was an emergency hearing. There was a civil rights group known as the Texas Organizing Project that filed a lawsuit on election day to extend the voting hours. Taylor described how the county's attorney, a man by the name of Jonathan Fonbon, and to clarify, I believe he's one of the assistant county attorneys. He's not the elected attorney, but he gave what may be

construed as incorrect info to the court. The court judge asked if the locations that had run out of ballot paper would be resupplied if she extended the hour. He told her that only two had run out of paper and they would have supplies shortly and it would be no problem. But then later in a subsequent hearing, admitted that that had not happened and not everyone was resupplied. Andy Taylor is the attorney for Aaron Lunsford. He describes the whole thing in a kind of metaphor that's kind of fun, but helps people understand. He uses a jelly bean metaphor. So he says there's a jar full of jelly beans and those are votes that were counted. He said there are jelly beans that should not be in the jar that are in the jar. He says there are jelly beans that are laying on the table that should be in the jar, but are left out. And jelly beans just on the floor there for people who just did not get to vote, even though they wanted to vote. So it's been kind of interesting to follow. I'm sorry that Brad's not here today, because he also used a baseball metaphor. And I

knew Brad would just be so excited about that. But he said, you know, this is equivalent to having the Astros go into another world championship and in the ninth inning being told we're out of baseball, so we can't play the game. It's always interesting to see the illustrations that trial attorneys come up with in the heat of battle in the courtroom. What were some of the more surprising revelations that you saw in the first few days of trial? Well, I think one of the surprising revelations was a witness who served as a precinct judge that's an election judge, runs the election site.

And she described calling for ballots, saying she was about to run out of ballots at 3 p.m. in the afternoon on election day. She testified that she was on hold for 30 minutes waiting to talk to someone about her need for additional ballots. She says that she was not resupplied until 10.15 p.m. that night. She says that at seven o'clock, when technically you cannot get in line to vote after seven o'clock. She said she had 72 people waiting in line at that time. And by the time the ballots arrived at 1015 in the evening, there were only six people who were willing to wait that long to cast their ballot. So, you know, that's one of

many of the interesting testimonies that took place this week. Another is that the county did not dispute the fact that they undersupplied a lot of these voting locations. So the state law stipulates that supplies need to be provided to a voting site that are equivalent to 125 percent of the voter turnout at the most recent corresponding elections. So, for example, if it's a presidential election, they have to look back at the last presidential election and see how many people voted at that polling place. So they have to provide enough supplies to provide that many people plus 25%. So the allegation that was made in court is that the county only supplied, say, 600 ballots or paper for 600 voters, I should say, to places that had processed twice that many in the most previous corresponding election. County didn't dispute that in court. They said that basically the law doesn't apply because in the last presidential election,

they were under the precinct voting system where you had to go to your own precinct to cast a ballot, but have since then moved to a county-wide voting system. So even though some of those locations are the exact same that they would have been under the old system. Voters could go to any polling site in the county to cast their ballot. So that was their argument for the reason that they don't have to comply with that law, that it doesn't count there. So that'll be interesting. I think that if nothing else, we'll see the state legislature look at that and maybe tighten up that law and clarify what is required as far as ballot supplies and so forth. The other thing that was interesting are some of the revelations about that election day hearing where the judge issued an order to

keep the polls open an extra hour. The judge issued that order, said that both parties were in agreement. That does not seem to be the case. Of course, the other issue I referred to just a moment ago is the county attorney representative misrepresented to the court whether or not they were able to resupply the voting locations. Just for listeners' information, the Supreme Court of Texas did come in later and stay that order and ask that those provisional ballots that were cast by voters who got in line after 7 p.m., that those be segregated. But it has left that issue as to whether or not those ballots are valid unresolved. And Andy Taylor, the attorney for the Republican side of things, has suggested to the judge that it is now in his court, if you will, to make a determination about whether or not those ballots are valid.

Holly, what did the defense have to say about all of this? Right. So they basically said that issues happen in all elections, that there's always going to be these issues, but that that is not enough to overturn an election. Their argument is that overturning the election would be disenfranchising voters. And the statement that one of the attorneys made, Haynes, said the sins of the election officials should not be visited upon the voter. By the same token, he also said in another portion of his opening argument is that the plaintiffs were trying to paint a misleading picture of mismanaged elections. So there's a little bit of an interesting contrast there. And we are continuing to be in court all this week and likely all of next week.

Thank you, Holly, for your diligence in covering this and for being our eyes on the courtroom this week. We really appreciate it. Of course. Cameron, we're going to come to you with some news that concerns public safety in our public schools. Garland ISD has been home to some controversy in the past. This is the newest one. Tell us about what happened with the Department of Education investigation. Yeah, so a compliance review of the district's handling of Title IX cases found multiple issues where they had not fully complied with Title IX resolution and investigative procedures. For context, Title IX is a federal

program which instructs education institutions how to carry out their educational programs in, quote, a non-discriminatory manner. The investigation was carried out by the Office of Civil Rights and found issues with Garland ISD and how they did not provide equitable responses and did not provide appropriate evidence in their investigations. Some of the cases I would ask our listeners to read the piece because they are quite shocking. I won't detail them here because they involve minors and some teachers as well. So they did find that they didn't notify both parties involved. This is during the investigation by the Office of Civil Rights. And when changes were happening or delays or new evidence was made available, Garland ISD was not following up with both of

the parties involved in these cases. Garland ISD did issue a statement on the report where they said the report from the Department of Ed was sensationalized and they disagreed with many of its findings. Sounds like Garland ISD had strong feelings about this report, but can you tell us what was the end result of this DOE investigation? Yeah, so the Office of Civil Rights and Garland ISD did come to an agreement that the district will take multiple steps to improve their Title IX review process, reporting, and training of administrators and teachers. Thank you, Cameron. We appreciate it. Holly, we're going to come back to you and talk about some more PubEd news. A war of words has erupted between Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner

and new Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles. What's the background leading up to this? So after a lengthy court battle that started in 2019 and some legislative tweaks to state law, the Texas Education Agency finally moved forward with a mandated intervention in the Houston School District due to chronically failing schools and violations of contract procurement and open meetings laws by the Board of Trustees. There have, in fact, been some indictments related to the activities that were going on in Houston ISD. It was tied up in the courts, but earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Texas cleared the way, and intervention began in June of this year. The TEA appointed a board of managers drawn from the

local community. They confirmed Mike Miles, who began implementing changes with a focus on student achievement in the worst schools. The changes have included eliminating quite a number of administrative positions, requiring all teachers and principals to reapply for their positions at these troubled schools. Incentive pay is involved. It allows those teachers to earn as much as $95,000 a year. But most recently, the controversy is over Miles' announcement that not only would librarians at those schools be moved, the libraries would be repurposed. And what they're going to do is use those for centers for students who are disruptive

in the classroom or need extra assistance. They're going to move them to the library where they will work in small groups or one-on-one with teaching coaches or teachers to help them catch up with the other students and also not disrupt the students who are in the classroom. Now, we said this is a war of words, but does Mayor Turner have any authority over the schools? And what has he said about all this? Right. So the mayor of Houston does not have any authority over the schools. And there are actually multiple school districts in the area. But he has been very vocal about this. And I believe he voted for the initial legislation incidentally introduced by Representative

Harold Dutton, who's been really vocal. He told us at our legislative preview that the Texan held last year or earlier this year that it was his idea to create this intervention. But Turner has been very opposed since the Supreme Court issued their ruling allowing the state to move forward with this intervention. He lambasted Mike Miles at a city council meeting last week for this issue of how he's going to repurpose those libraries. Miles responded with a letter that was public, and he asked the mayor to come and see the schools and invite him to come and visit the first week of school to see what they're doing and how they're handling these issues at these schools. Incidentally, some of these schools have not been able to meet minimum academic standards since 2011, hence the reason for the intervention. Turner rejected the invitation from Miles. He called it a gimmick and he said he would not participate in a photo op.

He had press conferences even before the intervention earlier this year, but he had another one on Monday. He included a lot of local elected officials and some pastors that included Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Representative Al Green, both from Houston in Congress. And, you know, they pretty much lambasted Miles. But just before that presser, Miles issued his own statement. And he said, I cannot and will not govern the state's largest school district by press conference or press release. The time for politics is over and we will not be distracted by intentional misinformation. I will work with anyone who is serious about improving the learning and life outcomes of HISD students. So it, you know,

it seems like Miles is initially tried to, you know, work with the mayor, but it sounds like he's a little frustrated with the PR campaign against what he's trying to do there in the schools. Thank you, Holly. Cameron, we're coming back to you. During 2020, we saw just about every university in the country shut down in-person learning and transition online. What's going on with this story and a former SMU student's claims? Yeah, like you said, SMU was one of those schools that transitioned to online learning during the lockdowns. A former student who graduated after the spring 2020 semester is suing to try and get a partial refund on his tuition because he says the school promised

on-campus classes but did not deliver on that process. Obviously, that's a tough case to get a refund on your tuition. What's his arguments in favor of bringing this lawsuit? Well, originally, he brought the suit on the grounds it was a breach of contract, but the district court initially ruled in favor of SMU. Well, the student appealed on the grounds that the Pandemic Liability Protection Act violates the retroactivity clause in the Texas Constitution. So, for some context, the Pandemic Liability Protection Act was signed in 2021 and provides liability protections to many institutions, including colleges, if they followed the safety protocols

during COVID-19. The lawsuit from the former student is arguing that the Texas Constitution does not allow the state legislature to institute retroactive laws. So what's next in this court case? Well, he'll get the opportunity to argue this claim in front of the Texas Supreme Court at the end of October. Thank you, Cameron. Holly, we're going to come back to you. There is a new survey out related to the upcoming mayoral election in Houston. Tell us more about that. Sure. That poll has been put out by the University of Houston's Hobby School and co-directed by Professor Mark Jones, a well-known political analyst in the state of Texas, very well respected.

The first report was released last week, and it covered the likely voters' preferences on candidates. And it found that it looks like it's a race, although there are 14 candidates announced at this point. It looks like a race between State Senator John Whitmire and Representative Sheila Jackson Lee and the others trailing far behind. This week's report covered more of the issues that Houstonians are concerned about. And among the top issues listed are crime, flooding, road and street conditions, and jobs in the economy. Interestingly enough, Black Democrats and Latino Democrats were more concerned than white Democrats about crime. Black Democrats, about 91% of them expressed concern over crime and 79% of the Latino Democrats. Blacks were also more concerned than any other group about affordable housing.

That clocked in at 72%. Most respondents were also opposed to the city and county's conversion of motor vehicle lanes to bike lanes. It's been interesting to watch both Mayor Turner and Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis have been big proponents of converting some of these motor vehicle lanes to bike lanes, including some that are right around Texas Southern University in Houston. And one of the city council members who represents that area, Carolyn Evan Shabazz, has kind of sparred with those two a little bit because she said that that's a real problem when they have sporting events and so forth and really adds to the traffic congestion that people put up with in the city of Houston.

Interestingly enough, while 52% of respondents said they had a favorable view of term limited Mayor Sylvester Turner, 53% said they thought the city was headed in the wrong direction. Interesting. Did this poll ask about any other issues other than the direction of the city? It did. It also asked the respondents a little bit about the possible 2024 U.S. Senate candidates. And next year, of course, we're going to see a race. Ted Cruz purportedly is running for re-election. Most Houstonians are not big fans of Democrat Colin Allred, and 34 percent had a positive view of state Senator Roland Gutierrez out of San Antonio. So, you know, among this blue city's voters, I think there's still probably a lot of jockeying for that Democrat nomination. Thank you, Holly. Hey, listeners, if you're enjoying our podcast, we invite you to subscribe to the texan.news.. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 a month. New subscribers

will get a free Texas flag hat with all sorts of color options to choose from. For more details, visit thetexan.news slash subscribe, or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Now let's jump back into chatting about the stories of the week. Matt, we're coming to you. Some outdoorsmen are saying that they were ambushed by a new law passed in the Texas legislature that clamps down on most forms of hunting and rivers. What are some of the details and what are both sides saying about this? Oh, that's right, Hayden. Did you like the pun on ambush? It made me chuckle, just not out loud. Senate Bill 1236 by Senator Pete Flores

was originally proposed to include one county, Lampasas, to an existing list of 10 counties where you cannot shoot a gun into or from a navigable riverbank. The reason for these laws passed in past years was that some landowners were having problems with poaching from people in boats on the river where their, say their ranch, bordered a river. Flores also compared rivers to public highways and said, since we don't allow people to shoot guns in highways, we shouldn't allow them to shoot guns from rivers. What changes to statute did the bill make?

So the bill has an interesting legislative history. At last minute, the bill, which originally applied to land passes alone, was changed when Senator Charles Perry proposed an amendment expanding the bill's application from the Lone County to apply to every navigable river statewide. This probably contributed to the reason that so many hunters now say they were unaware of the law being passed or ambushed. Functionally, the way the law works is after September 1st, when it goes into effect, you will not be allowed to shoot a firearm from a navigable river or into a river. However, there's a handful of exceptions. You still need to hunt with a shotgun as long as it's loaded with shot. Or I'm sorry, you can still hunt with a shotgun as long as it's loaded with shot. And you can still hunt alligators. Landowners can still shoot a venomous snake or a non-indigenous rodent as long as it is in a location

along adjacent to property that they own along the river, not just anywhere along the river. Now, hunting right advocates like the Lone Star Outdoors show are very upset about the new law saying it'll take a lot of hunters' favorite hunting spots off the list of places to hunt. For example, the Army Corps of Engineers lands along a lot of rivers in the state are some of the few popular public hunting lands, and their policies usually reflect exactly what the state hunting policies are. And in some of these areas, they have hundreds of yards of riverbeds that are prime public hunting spots that will no longer be an option unless you're hunting with a shotgun with birdshot. Also, lawmakers who supported the law, which it passed overwhelmingly in both chambers, say this was more of a property rights issue than a hunting issue. Now, the hunting rights advocates say it doesn't properly exempt landowners who might own a ranch that borders a significant portion of a navigable river from being able to hunt with all means

along the property that they own. One hunter reached out to me after reading our story and asked if he understood it correctly, if he could shoot a deer or a hog with buckshot from a shotgun, but not his AR-15, and asked me how that makes sense. Now, I had to remind him I just reported on the law. I didn't write the law, but it'll be interesting to see what kind of reactions there are from hunters as they learn about this law when the new fall hunting guidelines are released by Texas Parks and Wildlife in that classic little booklet that you get every fall. And more and more, we'll find out about this. So we'll keep an eye out and see what the ongoing reactions are to this new policy. Thank you, Matt. We're going to move to Rob now. Government debt is an issue at the federal, state, and local levels.

But how does Texas perform on this question? So there's over $8,800 in outstanding local debt for every Texan. And if you combine that with state debt, it reaches $10,800 per capita. Overall, Texas has about $280 billion in outstanding local and government debt, two thirds of which has to be paid back through tax collections, which is usually property tax collections, while the other third would be paid off with revenue collected from whatever it is that the debt's financing. While the number might seem high, it's actually lower than it was this time last year. In August 2022, outstanding local and state government debt stood at $417 billion, or around $14,000 per capita. What are Texans getting for all of this debt? So more than 70% of the tax-supported debt is either for education-related

capital expenditures or to refinance existing debt, while half of the revenue-supported debt is either for education-related capital expenditures or to refinance existing debt, while half of the revenue-supported debt is to refinance or refund existing debt. Regarding state debt, a lot of that is transportation and education-focused. For example, Public University Texas A&M has $5 billion in debt, and the University of Texas has $11 billion in debt. The state of Texas overall has $72 billion in unfunded liabilities between its seven pension systems, while local pensions, including the Texas municipal retirement system, have $7 billion in unfunded liabilities. We said at the beginning that this is a nationwide problem, but how does Texas compare to other states in this regard?

So Texas has the third highest amount of outstanding local and state debt in the nation. It's behind the first, which is California, which is about $13,000 of that debt per capita. I'm sorry, the second in the nation, California, over $13,000 per capita, and New York, which is almost $19,000 per capita. Texas is also in a bit of a unique position because it doesn't have a state income tax, which is why Texas property taxes end up being so much higher, as local governments will find ways to collect revenue. As Texas' population booms, which adds about 300,000 people per year, or the population of one Corpus Christi every year,

and that prompts localities to spend more money on infrastructure and the like, which means borrowing money, which means adding to the debt. In the May elections this year, voters approved $40.5 billion in new debt and rejected just $4.2 billion. Brad compiled a list of all of the bond propositions in Texas from the May election, so I highly suggest our listeners visit the texan.news and reads Brad's article to see what passed and what didn't. Thank you, Rob. We're going to wrap up our news segments this week with an interesting story about a nine-figure health care fraud scheme. Cameron, Medicaid and Medicare fraud has been happening for many years, but tell us about this new case because of the OAG's investigation and interesting details. Yeah, like you said,

the OAG's office and their Medicaid Fraud Control Unit made a series of arrests and seizures from a Houston-based company, Apollo MDX. Their involvement was $142 million in a healthcare fraud scheme where they would offer illegal kickbacks in order to purchase receipt information from marketers and orders for genetic testing from doctors. Interesting detail that you brought up. In addition to uncovering this fraud scheme, there was also a seizure of several sports cars, a sailboat, and three properties, totaling $7.1 million. And all of those item seized were funded by the illegal proceeds accrued from the Apollo MDX operation. Fascinating, not just for the fraud itself, but for some of the conspicuous spending

that went with it thank you cameron we're going to go now to some of our tweetery this week are we still saying tweetery or do we need to say x posts or whatever the x-ray an x-ray yeah i'd rather not i don't that sounds weird i don't want to say that right that's not bad i don't i don't know how we're going to stop saying Twitter and tweets. I think it's going to take a little bit of time. I think it's going to be like Facebook going to meta. Everyone's just going to keep saying Twitter. Yeah.

Well, Facebook kept the Facebook brand, right? Whereas Twitter seems to – or X seems to be trying to drop the Twitter brand. But I don't really know. We'll see how well that works out. I don't know. I'm going to play it safe and just say Twitter for now. Holly, let's start with you. What did you see on the social media platform this week? Sure. Well, I saw an interesting series of tweets from, and I think you guys know him. I'm not sure how to pronounce his last name. Is it Adam Lowy?

He's an attorney in the Austin area and I believe a Democrat, but, you know, is kind of moderate on some issues. But there's this back and forth going on with some other activists about Sean Theory, a state representative from the city of Houston. She drew a lot of flack for her vote on the child gender modification bill, ban bill. And she had given that very impassioned speech on the House floor explaining her vote that got a lot of attention. But it looks like there are some activists there planning to primary her and go after her. The accusation, though, that Adam Loewy and some of the others are making is that there are so-called, you know, what they're calling white progressives going after Sean and accusing her of, you know, being aligned with Republicans and being fed Republican talking points and things like that. And, you know, Sean is saying, pushing back and saying,

you know, I'm a black woman. I did my own research and this feels a little bit like it's a racist attack. And she's accusing these people of ignoring some other Democrats who occasionally align with the Republicans on different votes. So pretty interesting, dramatic exchange going on there as we speak. And be interesting to see what what comes out of that. Holly, I think theory has announced for reelection. Is that correct? Do you know? I believe so. I believe so. She has, you know, come under fire. There are a couple of Black Democrats out of Houston, Harold Dunn being another one, who do tend to be a little more, I wouldn't say conservative, but vote with Republicans on these things like the gender modification ban. You know, Thierry gave a really long speech on the House floor that day that got a lot of attention. It

was talked about in a number of different media outlets where she talked about doing her own research and looking into it and looking into the implications of so-called gender modification. I think at the Texan, we like to talk about what it really is, is basically a sex change surgery or procedures that are done to stop puberty or block puberty in young people and the science indicates that it does have some some permanent impact on that that person it is interesting and theories Dynamics with the rest of her Democratic colleagues will probably

continue to be a source of fascination in Texas politics Cameron let's go to you. What did you see on Twitter this week? Well, nothing that serious. I try and find stuff that doesn't really have to relate with politics all that much. A little bit of a lighter note? A little bit of levity here. And I saw, you know, we have a lot of college football fans here in our listener base base and of course they were excited when arch manning committed to ut and um if you guys don't know arch manning is the nephew of peyton and eli manning you guys know peyton and eli manning i'm familiar with the names okay Okay. Well, it was a huge deal. And another big deal in college football over the past few years was the name, image, and likeness where players could sell their name. They could lease their image to companies, and they could profit off it essentially. Well, Arch Manning, they sold a special edition one of one trading card and it sold for a hundred and two thousand dollars and well he's already like a mini celebrity

just because of his last name so um all the money went to charity so that you know that ties a little bow on the end it's a nice story yeah but i just thought it was interesting um i used to collect uh cards when i was younger baseball cards football cards um but i i would never i don't know a hundred and two thousand dollars for a trading card some people that's a lot yeah six figures for a trading card. That's a lot. Six figures for a trading card. Well, it's like a big industry now. People are actually purchasing sports cards as an investment. Kind of like you buy a stock. People are buying cards this way and trading them.

Interesting. Lots of money. Millions of dollars. Well, you're looking at a man who would not pay probably any amount of money for a trading card but that's definitely not six figures but to each their own matt let's go to you what did you see on twitter this week well i saw a combination of tweets just come out during the podcast today concerning the Alamo project between the general land office and the city of San Antonio. For those who don't know, or for those who might need a recap, there's been kind of an ongoing effort to try and reclaim some of the land around the Alamo in San Antonio and try and restore

some of the historic battleground area and also build a museum visitor center. With most of the officials being involved in the project, just saying that a lot of the city buildings that came up around the Alamo real close, just kind of takes away from the seriousness of the site. And that by reclaiming some of the land, which the city of San Antonio has given back some of the roadways for this project, those roads will be torn up and it'll be returned to,

you know, grassland like pasture, like what would have been back during the, the battle, et cetera, et cetera. And the state of Texas, they either bought or already owned most of the buildings around that they actually intended to tear down to help reclaim some of this area. But there was one holdout, and that was the building called Moses Roses. And there was a bit of a nasty back and forth that had been going on for a while between Moses Rosas and the general land office in San Antonio, where I guess essentially they weren't meeting the asking amount that he was asking for the building. And so the state of Texas essentially started threatening using eminent domain to take it

for what they wanted to pay for it. And Moses Rosas had been threatening to fight that and started sort of a grassroots groundswell movement against the use of eminent domain to force the contract. And long story short, I guess cooler heads prevailed and all sides were able to sit down at a table and all of the accounts, the that um you know there's dirt underneath their building that hadn't been touched for over 150 years and that if any artifacts are found uh that are worthy of displaying like in a museum the government will acknowledge uh by using museum labels that it came from property sold by their family's business. And, you know, Moses Rosas just kind of concluded saying that their prayer is that the Alamo battle

will always be remembered at this site as a brave battle for Texas independence and freedom, and that true Texans will always remember the Alamo. So positive notes from Mosadip and Sarosis, both Commissioner Buckingham, right, tweeting out, I'm happy to see an amicable resolution and look forward to preserving the significant memorial for Texas heritage. So I thought that was kind of a cool plurality of tweets announcing a conclusion of that legal issue. And now moving forward with

the big project to restore the Alamo battlegrounds and begin the construction of the Alamo Museum and Visitor Center. Thanks, Matt. Eminent domain stories do have a tendency to be emotional, but I'll really briefly mention a tweet that I saw from Patrick Zvitek, who is a prominent political reporter here in Texas. He was evidently either witnessed or was able to get a quote from Dan Cogdell, the attorney for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton, after he appeared in court this morning on his securities fraud case. Cogdell reportedly said, quote, If Ken prevails, we'll go forward. If Ken loses, that's a kill shot to his political career. So it opens the door to a resolution that's not open right now. Dismissal, settlement, resolution, who knows? End quote. I thought that was a fascinating survey by Paxton's own attorney

about the stakes in both his impeachment trial and his securities fraud case. Rob, we're going to go to you now. What did you see on Twitter this week? So what I saw on Twitter is, like I always like to do on these podcasts, is what's going on this day in history. So on this day in history in 1846, Abraham Lincoln was elected to a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the Whig Party. It was the only congressional seat he ever held. And I think that that's an important reminder that, you know, from 1847 to 1849, he was in the House. He later tried to get into the Senate against Frederick Douglass and not Frederick Douglass. I'm sorry, Stephen Douglass and failed.

And, you know, I think if you would have told him at this time that he was going to be president of the United States, he would have maybe not believed you. But it goes to show that, you know, even if you appear to fail or seems like with Lincoln, maybe just an obscure one off member of the House, you can go on to do great things. Although if you told Lincoln what he would have had to deal with as the president, I don't know if he would have necessarily loved the idea. It was a tragic ending. Although Lincoln is a story of how you can recover from political defeat because he lost many elections before he ascended to the presidency. Well, folks, thank you so much for listening to this week's edition. We're looking forward to having Mackenzie DeLulo and Brad Johnson back next week from vacation. It's been a privilege to host the podcast. Also special thanks to our extraordinary marketing

team, Daniel Friend and Maslin Jordan for all the things they do behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly. We appreciate our listeners and we'll see you next week for the Texans Weekly Roundup. 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,

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Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.