The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 9, 2024

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

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.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Kamala Harris Picks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as 2024 Democratic Running MateDemocratic Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg Backs Cruz in Senate Race'Google is a Monopolist,' D.C. District Court Judge RulesBexar GOP Alleges Democratic Candidate Changed Surname for Run in Hispanic-Majority DistrictTexas Education Agency Speaks on Reading Skills, Religious References in New CurriculumCollege Station Property Owners' Lawsuit Calls ETJ System ‘Regulation Without Representation’Carroll ISD Declares 'Impasse' With Department of Education Office of Civil Rights Over Harassment CasesBiden Administration to Appeal Ruling Against Federal LNG Export Application PauseD.C. Circuit Court Voids Texas LNG Project Approvals, Finding Flaw in Administrative ProcessElon Musk’s STEM-Focused ‘Ad Astra’ Children’s School to Open in Texas This Year

Elon Musk launching Ad Astra, which is going to be like a Montessori method private child school in Bastrop actually and Private child Excuse me, what? Private child, they're extra private with their personalize these children Well, it was extremely private because back in 2015 This school was actually started for just SpaceX employees. So it was extra private now it's just regular private. Well howdy folks and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Roundup. I'm Mackenzie

here with Brad and Cameron. Gentlemen welcome back to the pod. We are here and it is a Thursday. But I have a question for you. No, there was no follow-up to that. It's just a Thursday. Yes, but I do have a totally unrelated question. You've been in France. I have to know how many baguettes you have scarfed down. Baguettes and croissants you have scarfed down during your time in the country of the white flag.

See? Oh, my gosh. That's actually hilarious. And I also want to call you out for saying baguette as if it was a disease. A baguette. if it was a disease. A baguette. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not as cultured as you. Oh, yeah, that's what I was saying.

No, I'm just saying the disdain for the French is coming through, even when you talk about their baked goods. Their baked goods might be their one redeeming quality. We've had really great baguettes and really great croissants before we started recording you were making fun of me for probably already consuming plenty of both it's true i've had plenty of both we found our favorite place so far and um they do such high volume i was telling cam about this yesterday but they do such high volume that both the baguette and the croissant were still warm like they're baking fresh stuff constantly in the afternoon it was not like their morning batch that came out of the oven so unbelievably good

um and i really understand why people i i'm not a huge croissant person in the states like i don't really care for them if i go to a bakery i'm not picking them here i'll pick they're really delicious what's different about them how flaky they are definitely but they're like crunchy on the outside really really warm and soft on the inside and it's like a total it's like a good cookie but in croissant form like what makes a good cookie and we just don't have croissants like that in states that are that good and they're so buttery like they're so flavorful because of how much butter is in this thing not even heb it sounds to me like you haven't had a pillsbury dough boy you ohioan my god next thing you're gonna be like the bread's not as good as wonder bread that was like a treat on on saturday mornings the pillsbury uh cinnamon rolls

like perfectly cut i loved them yeah especially as kids like their perfect side they were just so fun yeah just another example of amer Americans doing another country's thing better than them. This is like, I feel being in France, like someone's going to hear this and throw me out of the country for being associated with this talk. Yeah, that's great. But gentlemen, thanks for joining the pod again. I appreciate it.

I know you're contractually obligated, but I'm going to thank you regardless because it makes Brad uncomfortable. I just don't have another response to it. I just thank you for joining the pod i'm just here so i don't get fined that was a reference i appreciate more ways than one cameron thank you um well let's jump into the news shall we cameron big news big presidential news this week it seems like we're getting that basically every week at this point. It's that time of year again, that time of cycle again. Kamala Harris has chosen her running mate.

Tell us about it. Yeah, so Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her vice presidential running mate for 2024. It sort of came down to Walls and Josh Shapiro, who is the Pennsylvania governor, but in the end, Harris ended up choosing Tim Walls. In the announcement, Harris wrote, quote, as a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his. He is a former high school teacher, and Walls was actually first elected governor in 2018 and won re-election in 2022, and he was a

member of the Army National Guard. He also served in the United States House of Representatives in 2006 and was re-elected for another five terms. And there's been quite a lot of reactions, as is expected in this hyper-polarized cycle that we're in. And we saw Texas Governor Greg Abbott call the pair the most dangerous presidential ticket ever. He went on to say, quote, he let cities in his state burn down. She helped bail out the arsonists. She supports free health care to illegal immigrants. He signed laws giving state services to them both. Both provide magnets for more illegal immigration.

In the days following, I'm sure if people have been following the story, there's been lots of discussions about Walls and his Army National Guard service and some of his more progressive social policies that he's helped implemented in Minnesota. If people are interested in that, you can, I don't highlight that in the piece, but it's been floating around everywhere on social media. So, but this is just an interesting development in the Harris campaign for 2024. We are yet to see if there is going to be a vice presidential debate that's going to happen in the coming weeks, but I think that might be very interesting to see because they've sort of positioned Walls as a blue-collar Midwesterner and how that would match up against Jd vance who has sort of occupied

that same territory but for the republicans as the vice presidential pick so uh if they end up debating i'll be looking forward to that but no date is set as of yet i love almost well i love them both but the vice presidential debates tend to be my favorite in any presidential cycle. It just feels like the gloves are off a bit more. It's pretty fun. You don't have to look presidential. Exactly. You can just throw hammocks.

The bar is a little lower, but the stakes feel as high. It's really interesting. Not that the presidential debates do any sort of service to attempting to be presidential these days. But regardless, I feel like the bar for the vice presidential tickets are pretty low. Well, I think if I'll add just one more thing. In years past and most of the time when we think of a vice presidential pick, it's in the hopes that whatever state they are representative of, whether it be a senator or a governor, it's going to help secure that state for the president. especially with Vance, being that if Trump is elected, this is his last term as president, and it's essentially anointing Vance in some sense as being the successor. So how much involvement he will have in policy or running the cabinet, whatever it may be. I think that's an interesting dynamic to pay attention to

as to why Vance was chosen. But then also for Walls, Kamala, in her time as vice president, you know, she has to carry a lot of the successes and failures of a Biden presidency, whichever way you look at it. She has to own up to that. But she also doesn't have a lot of policy initiatives that she's implemented that she can run on herself. So maybe her choosing Walz, who has been a very successful governor in Minnesota, whatever you think of the policies, but he's been able to make a lot of changes in the state. So just by the fact of, is she going to, is she going to be using him and his successes in the state to help bolster her policy initiatives that she hopes to implement?

Like, look at Minnesota, if you like that, that's coming to the white house sort of thing i'm not sure but i just think it's two very interesting picks um because minnesota is it really a swing state anymore no no so um you got i'm trying to i don't know if it's ever been well i'm just trying to wrap my mind around like why would you choose wallace over someone like shapiro yeah where pennsylvania is a swing state. Right. Both picks seem to be more governing type picks. And that's not to say that they hurt electorally. They just might not help as much as certainly Shapiro would in Pennsylvania.

But, you know, both have had pretty good rollouts. You know, there's been a lot of talk about J.D. Vance failing his rollout. Maybe there were a couple bumpy moments, but I'm not seeing the same take about him being a dumpster fire of a candidate on the trail. I don't think that's the case. He may not be passing with flying colors, but he seems to be doing fine. And Wallace will probably do fine too. These are, I think, pretty think pretty low stakes picks generally um even though they especially harris might have left some electoral

benefit on the table but yes just interesting what do you think mac about the pick yeah i i agree with y'all as far as the state dynamic goes i think it's interesting watching the response on social media, which obviously is such a microcosm of the states, but it still is interesting and I think worth noting how it's received on social media. And very quickly you have like, you know, the Gen Z Democrats being really excited. Mom and dad are running on the ticket, right? That's like the approach, right? That people are kind of taken is that there's, yes, this guy has certainly moved very progressive policies down the line. But I think he also has appeal as like a Midwestern dad. And that's really interesting to watch. as this unfolds and as the campaigns continued on the line, how much that image can remain intact when you have policy debates and policy fights being discussed, and he has a very clear record to back up.

I don't think they'll run from that record, but it certainly does. It's very interesting to watch that be part of the discussion while also being coined as a Midwestern dad. So I'll be interested to watch. It'll be very fascinating. Yeah, I'll just end with this one thing. I'll be interested to see if the mainstream media or even surrogates on social media or commentators can continue to drive the narrative of this Midwestern dad slash mom ticket, you know, keeping up this hype, this meme-ification, essentially, of the candidates. And if that is going to actually resonate and drive these younger voters

to the polls, I'm just not sure. It's something I'll definitely be paying attention to. Ultimately, it's going to come down to the two at the top of the tickets. Yeah. I mean, that's just flat out not the case. It's the nature of the beast. These two, yeah, the two V picks are kind of window dressing. True. They're not totally inconsequential, but when it comes to Trump v. Harris, the load is on those two, and it will be the whole way. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Cam, thanks for that fun discussion. As always, gentlemen, Brad, we're coming to you. There was a very notable endorsement in the U.S. Senate race this week, and Holly Hansen covered it, but you're going to cover it for her on this

podcast. What happened? Yeah, it was a fascinating development. When you step back and think about it, probably not too surprising, but it is quite notable. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, crossed party lines to endorse Senator Ted Cruz, citing the incumbent senator's work on public safety issues. She said, quote, My constituents hate crime and expect the government to keep them safe from criminals. They deserve protection, but our country's laws and policies don't always work to that end. I'm endorsing Senator Ted Cruz because he has taken action at

a time when Americans want solutions, not excuses about why Democrats and Republicans won't work together. She went on to specifically mention the Justice for Jocelyn Act that they kind of rolled out, I think it was last week, maybe the week before, but pretty recently. That's, of course, about in response to the murder, rape and murder of Jocelyn Nungere. I think she was a 12-year-old in Houston at the hands of two illegal immigrants, I believe both from Venezuela.

They had been caught and released with GPS tracking monitors on them that then were removed. So the legislation aims to address that and trying to keep individuals like that in holding longer or, you know, just in perpetuity if they're going to jail that kind of thing so um but the political impact of this Cruz has been trying to roll out this Democrats for Cruz initiative um Aug is by far the most notable endorsement for Cruz from Democratic officials he got a lot. He rolled out eight others, and they're all local level officials. But it's another instance of what we're seeing in the Senate race of a bipartisan off. Both Cruz and Allred are running to the middle and trying to flex their bipartisan bona fides. This is another

example of Cruz doing that. I mean, it's clear the reason why it's an election tactic. For Allred, obviously, he wants to move to the middle as the state is majority Republican. Meanwhile Cruz you know he had that tough fight in 2018 this is his first time on the ballot since then and he's been he has a reputation of you know rock-ribbed conservative you know willing to shut down the government things like that and he he sees the threat of at least a viable, viably moderate candidate or opponent in Allred. I'm sure he would quibble with how moderate Allred actually is, but that's the positioning, the messaging that Allred's campaign is taking. So he's trying to

match that. Of the AUG endorsement, Cruz said, I am proud to announce the newest members of the Democrats for Cruz Coalition. These leaders deeply understand Texans' needs and values, and they know that Colin Allred's radical progressive policies, whether on the border, public safety, or economy, will push Texas back, not forward. One other notable fact of this is that AUG and Cruz, the night they announced the endorsement, I think it was Wednesday,

they were on Sean Hannity's Fox News show together. So they're pushing this pretty hard, and I'm sure we'll see some kind of advertisements along these lines. Lots of dynamics at play in this Senate race, but this is a very interesting addition. And certainly i do recommend folks go and read the article holly hansen is covered not only the county at large but specifically the dynamics in harris county with the district attorney the challenger in the primary the election everything um and these bail policies specifically that they're referencing here. So lots to cover and discuss.

Just one thing I want to ask, because you've done a lot of reporting on polling. Yeah. And you're saying this is a race for the middle. Is that indicating that the polling is closer than we might think it is? Or, like, what do those numbers show us? Is it, like... Yeah, I think you could safely assume that. You know, I had the...

I think we talked about it last week or the week before, the newsletter on what the polling is actually showing. You know, among registered voters, it cruises up double digits. Among likely voters, it looks to be much closer. That varies a bit, you know, five, six points to, you know, almost virtually a dead heat. So yeah, I think you can assume that. And the Cruz team is clearly taking this challenge seriously. You know, this is not –

Mack, who is the Democratic nominee for governor in 18? In 18, Lupe Valdez? Lupe Valdez, yeah, who was kind of a non-entity as a candidate. And obviously that was Greg Abbott, different official. But this is not a situation like that. Like, they are taking this race seriously. All Red's team legitimately believes they can make a run at Cruz. And I think that's mainly why we're seeing both of them push to the middle.

Cruz isn't labeling himself a moderate like Allred is, but he's focusing more on, hey, I can reach across the aisle even though I'm not in the middle and get things done with Democrats. Okay. And, you know, playing on the dysfunction of Congress or at least, at the very least, the perceived dysfunction. I mean, it's pretty clear there's dysfunction, but at the most charitable, it's at least perceived, right?

Yeah. So that's how I see it. And, you know, I think that's a pretty good indication of where these candidates think the internal polling actually, what it actually shows. Okay. Because right now what I'm talking about is just public polling from, you know, places like UT and University of Houston and a couple others. But, yeah, I'm sure the internal polls show a competitive race. How close it is, that may vary. Okay. Yeah, we'll keep an eye on it for sure.

And Brad, thanks for covering that for Holly. We appreciate it. Cameron, we're coming down to you. A judge concluded that Google had created an illegal monopoly with its search engine function. Tell us about this case. Yeah, this was a very interesting case that came out this week. A U.S. District Court judge ruled that Google violated federal antitrust law, creating an illegal monopoly with both its search engine, like you mentioned, but also text advertising. And the violation

was in regard to the Sherman Act or the Sherman Antitrust Act. And the judge in this case was pretty clear in their ruling saying here, quote, Google is a monopolist and has created as one to maintain its monopoly further the judge wrote that Google holds quote monopoly power over the market for general search services and that quote Google has exercised its monopoly power by charging super competitive prices first for general search text ads. That conduct has allowed Google to earn monopoly profits. So this goes all the way back to 2020 when Ken Paxton announced he was involved with a number of other states to launch an initial lawsuit against Google saying Google's anti-competitive business strategies have disrupted the competitive

process, reduced consumer choice, and stifled innovation. So we are yet to see what is going to be the fallout from this ruling because there is going to be appeals coming out, I'm sure. Google did put out a pretty lengthy statement in response to this ruling and saying, as this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use. I include the full statement in the article if people want to check it out on the texan.news. But I think the main takeaway is there's going to be quite a bit of appeals from Google because of this ruling. So we're really not sure what the fallout is going to be. Is Google going to be forced to break up or is there going to be fines levied at them? Not sure yet. Still lots of developments to come.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Cam, thanks for following just another big tech case that we're following here in Texas. I appreciate it. As do our listeners. Bradley, one of the most competitive races in Texas, had its fair share of drama this week. Tell us what happened. The Bexar County GOP announced it is considering filing a lawsuit that challenged Democratic nominee for House District 118, Christian Carranza's ballot eligibility in that race. She is, of course, running against State Rep. John Lujan, a Republican who's been in the office, I think, since special election in 21, when Leo Pacheco retired after the corn break.

And so this lawsuit alleges that she changed her name from, last name from Thompson to Carranza. And this potential lawsuit is not, the Bexar County GOP is alleging this. They haven't filed anything yet. But basically they're saying that she did this for election purposes. Just a point of clarification for me. Yeah. She legally changed her name or she just crossed out her name and wrote Carranza? Well, yes. It's not clear?

So, I mean, both. Oh, okay. So the, quote, damning piece of evidence that the Bayer GOP put out was this voter registration form in which she had put Thompson and then crossed it out and put Carranza above it. There's also, I've seen a picture of a filing to change her name from Thompson to Carranza in January of 23. Okay. And the voter registration file comes after that. So she had written Thompson and then put Carranza. I don't know what the circumstances surrounding that are. But then you have because it's like a process McKenzie yes this right you know

to change in your last name it's it can get complicated right right so there's another document that shows in 2020 when she was working for the DCCC that she was paid the Karanza was paid under the name Christian Thompson while working as a staffer. Also, the year before that, a political article talking about staff changes and staff hires for the Julian Castro presidential campaign mentions Carranza by the name Carranza. So it's clear as mud. It's clear as mud. It's clear as mud.

And so the Bayer GOP says Carranza changed her name less than a year before she filed for office. Legally, that is accurate. Legally speaking, in terms of when she changed her name in the court of law. The timing is political, and even her Democrat opponent from the primary publicized her name change in one of his mailers. That happened, and so that was a bit of an issue in the primary, but now it's getting blown up even more. The GOP said they aren't pulling the trigger on a lawsuit yet they're basically that their their lawyer is exploring the possibility of filing a lawsuit um i don't know if that'll

do anything if it'll come of anything but they're at least trying to make it a political issue in this campaign um it's just it's just odd you know it's a weird thing. It's like... Right. So, yeah, it is very... It's a strange situation. People change their names all the time. Yeah, and the fact she's being referred to as Thompson in some cases and Carranza in other cases. And it's not like a linear timeline here where it changed at one point. It's like at one sure

she was called karanza and thompson yeah she was called both yeah um now what she said about it was that uh basically she's been going by karanza professionally for a decade and even though legally her name was thompson she said i take my last name from my single mother who raised me, not my absent father. This frivolous lawsuit from the Bexar County Republican Party demonstrates their disregard for women and what it takes to raise a family. You know, I don't know if people are actually going to care about this. Obviously, the Democratic voters didn't really care at all. Maybe it backfires a bit, but for the Republicans, politically, that's possible. I mean, Carranza's been making the media rounds and getting a lot of airtime because of this.

I don't know how well that plays. Also, it might work for him if she is successfully labeled as basically a carpetbagger who wanted to try to look more hispanic to run for office here in this hispanic majority district ultimately i think it probably just peters out and doesn't so much this brings to mind something that going back to the first thing we talked about with the vice presidents um the candidates there's been accusations levied at jd vance because vance isn't his actual well given last name what's his given last name bowman he was born james donald bowman and i'm looking at looking at Wikipedia right here because I found out about this. So I looked into it just a little bit. His parents divorced and he was adopted, changed his last name,

removed his father's name, but he retained the JD part of his name. And then as he was raised by his grandparents, he then changed his last name again to reflect who he's being raised by. So it's just interesting where two cases happening at the same time of people changing their last names. Well, I think a bigger example of this was the criticism levied at Beto O'Rourke, both in his Senate run and in his governor run. His name is Robert Francis O'Rourke, and you hear a lot of Republicans just refer to him as that, but he goes by Beto. And, you know, it's what the Bayer GOP and, frankly, Lujan's team is trying to tap into here, basically label her a female version of a Rourke. So I don't see this playing much at all.

Certainly I don't think a lawsuit will work, but I don't think a judge is going to take that out of voters' hands. Mack? I will say, too, that you can either, in campaigns, you can play this well and folks will buy into it, or you can experience major voter fatigue with voters saying, this is frivolous this is ridiculous quit sending me mailers about this this doesn't matter and i don't care right and or it could go the exact other way is like hey i'm a hispanic voter in the district and this is uh she tried to do this to relate more to me that's not cool either right it all depends on how it's marketed but you run that risk when you take up little things like this. And whether or not it's little is up for debate. But when you

take up things, when you take up issues like this that are a little bit more personal in campaigns, you run the risk of fatiguing voters with a lot of mailers or discussions or op-eds or just media aimed at you, trying to get your, trying to get you on their side, especially in a swing district, right? So this could totally backfire or it could be a win, but the campaigns should be, if they're doing their jobs, very tuned in to that and back off if it starts to no longer be the case. But, of course, if it's a legal situation, that's different, right? You have to go through all the proper channels to make that happen. But as far as messaging goes, that's kind of how it could play either way.

Yeah. This is a very competitive race. I mean, this district is rated even by our TPI. Also, Carranza is formidable. She way out-raised Lujan in the July semi-annual fundraising period. Part of that, I think, is Republican money was largely going to the primary and runoff situations. Money will come in for Lujan. I think as we're talking here today, or it may have been Wednesday, one of the two, Lujan had a pretty star-studded fundraiser with a very star-studded host committee there.

Finally got it out, including Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz and a few congressmen. Okay. I think Speaker Phelan's on it. So former Speaker Strauss is on it as well. The money's going to come in for him, and this is going to be a fight all the way to the end. And this issue is something luhan and those in his camp hope gives him you know that's just slight edge necessary to pull

him across the line campaigns looking just for every little thing they can sort of poke and prod at right yeah maybe it works maybe it works i don't know and that's where there's polling and trying to figure out what actually resonates with voters, right? It's going to be very interesting. But, Brad, thanks for that. And certainly a race that we're checking out all the time leading up to the general. I'd encourage folks to go check out the War Room on our website at thetexan.news for all the insights on those fundraising numbers that Brad mentioned, polling, articles on all sorts of races. So all found in one place. A great resource as we head closer and closer to November.

Bradley, thank you. Cameron, coming to you, you talked with the Texas Education Agency about some of their new curriculum offerings. You've written about this a few times because it's a lot, a lot. There's a lot to cover here. So tell us about your latest piece. Yeah, like you mentioned, we've written about this extensively. Actually, a couple months ago, I had a chance to talk with the Commissioner

Mike Marath about this new curriculum rollout and offering. So there's been, and other outlets have reported on this as well. There's lots of information, but what I wanted to focus on was the questions concerning the religious topics that are discussed in some of these course materials, because that was a sort of tipping point for a lot of other outlets that were reporting on this saying, oh, this is a step too far. It's enveloping religion too much in some of the curriculum. So I wanted to take an opportunity to dive in and talk with some people at the TEA about the what and the why for including mentions of religion or theology, whether it be the Bible or other religious faiths. So just a bit of background for people is this is a set of state-owned instructional material, and it was actually part of a process that was passed under a house bill. And when I was talking

with TEA, they really emphasized that this isn't something they just spun up out of nowhere. This has been something they've been piloting and testing for quite a long time, going back all the way to 2020. And they've actually had just about 400 districts that were piloting some of these materials in some sort of capacity, whether it be an entire district or just a few classrooms. And they said they've heard back from advisory boards, educators, parents, subject matter experts, all in a way to take that feedback and help improve the curriculum over the years of piloting they've done on this. So like I mentioned, the religion

aspects have been really at the forefront of this conversation. So first what I did is if you go to the website that is hosting a lot of this content for review by parents and educators, it will actually say in the program review guide, I'll just read verbatim here from it, quote, the study of reading language arts gives students access to rich texts that further their understanding of our society, including our history, economy, and culture. Rich texts are interspersed throughout this product for that purpose, and they periodically include content that comes from different religious traditions, including various monotheistic and polytheistic faiths around the world. So they mention that fact up front, so people aren't surprised if teachers are going through

lesson plans or superintendents going through a lesson plan, they're like, are you mentioning the book of Daniel here or something? So they really stayed up front. And when I talked with the TEA about this, they made sure to mention that it's just a fraction of the curriculum. And it's really there to emphasize the historical events and the relevance for the Western canon of literature that helps drive American culture. And so one of the things that I've highlighted in other pieces, and TEA actually brought up on their own, was there's an example in like grade five where they actually have a lesson about Martin Luther King Jr.'s letters from Birmingham jail and in that letter it's about law and order and it includes religious inspiration law and justice and things of that like that and what the TEA told me is that the reason why they would include

things maybe in grade two or even kindergarten that have mentions of religious texts or religious themes is so that when students get to grade five, they already have a baseline of knowledge of some of those references. So when they are reading the letter for Birmingham jail, it's not something new. They already understand why those references are there and why would Martin Luther King make references to the book of Daniel or the Sermon on the Mount or even other theological references. So it's a very structured curriculum, the way they drew this up, very complex. And I did my best to break it down for everyone. I've included lots of references for people if they're interested. I'll just leave it, this section.

I know I've gone on for a while, but I want to leave people with this. When I talked with the TEA, they said they understand student success is a long game. And with this curriculum, it is going to be pushing students what not just in exploring culture and society with different historical references but also with understanding the full scope of the western tradition whether it be reading melville or reading greek philosophy right so what they were trying what they're trying to do is raise the level that they believe students can get to and really push them in understanding that, you know, students are capable of understanding more than maybe they were previously understood to get to a certain level. So it's a long piece. I hope people check it out.

It's lots of information. So it's on the Texan, of course. It's on the Texan. Go read it, people. Cam, thank you. And definitely go read the series of articles that Cameron has published on this. It's worth going and checking it all out because there's a lot to discuss a lot reported and cameron breaks it all down with no hyperbole at all so it's great um cam thank you brad coming to you two brazos county property owners are hoping to topple an entire regulatory scheme with a lawsuit tell us about this crazy story so it's a very interesting lawsuit shana elliott and lawrence cali live outside the

city limits of College Station, but within the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction known as an ETJ. ETJs are lands that fall explicitly outside the limits of locality but still must follow municipal ordinances. The pair of plaintiffs want to build or modify their driveways and install portable signs advertisement on their properties. That's come up against problems with some city ordinances, either about having to pay fees or the way in which they install a driveway, what limits there are on where you can place signs or the driveway itself, things like that. But they're making the case, this is regulation without representation. We don't get a vote in the city, but we still must pay its fees and follow its regulations. We also don't get to take advantage of its services. So they're basically making the same,

along the lines of the same case the Colonials did about taxation when they're without representation. In fact, it's invoked in the petition before the Supreme Court in this case. So they're suing this college station, city council, the mayor, and its city manager over this. Now there's the case right now, it's kind of at a preliminary stage where they're fighting over whether the case can even be heard by a court. They're not even really talking about the merits yet, even though they get into addressing the merits in each of their respective briefs on whether, you know, this does violate a part of the constitution, not only a part of the constitution, but a part of the bill of rights of the Constitution, Article I, Section 2, and that basically mandates the state have a Republican form of government

and that be the only form of government within the state. And if the logical application of that is that, you know, people should not be taxed or regulated on something they have no say in. So that's the premise that Elliott and Kalki are putting out there. Now, of course, they just want to be able to put up their driveways and install the signs as they please. However, those representing them, which is the conservative think tank, Texas Public Policy Foundation, has something bigger in mind. They want to see this entire ETJ system thrown in the trash bin, basically. So the city, though, they object, saying the practical and political consequences of potentially declaring these ordinances unconstitutional, it could cause a whole domino effect toppling a lot more

than just ETJ systems. So that's part of the argument that the – it's kind of a slippery slope argument that the city is making. Before we even get there, though, they're arguing about whether this is a political question or something the courts can even take up. It is a political question that's left to the executive branch and the legislative branch and not something the courts can argue about. I have a whole section of the piece on that if that tickles your fancy on reading. But the other aspect of this is that legislation passed last session, Senate Bill 2038.

It provides – it saw a problem with these ETJs, and instead of doing away with them or something like – or making these places just totally unincorporated at all, instead they decided to allow property owners a way to get out of the ETJ by petitioning or through a vote. And one of the arguments the city makes in this is that, well, first of all, there's no enforcement being made against them. The petitioners object and say, well well it could be at any time so that's still a

problem but to they say the city says that Senate bill 2038 allows these landowners a remedy for this problem now it's pretty it's kind of hypocritical because College Station City Council passed a resolution during the debate over this issue in this lawsuit, early stages of it, calling the 2038 unconstitutional because it's basically usurping the right of self-government of the city itself. And during that same meeting that they did that, they also rejected six of these petitions to get out of their ETJ. So they're trying to have their cake and eat it too on this. Maybe it works, I don't know, legally speaking. But the district court ruled in favor of the city saying that dismissing this saying that they can't even

consider it because it's a political question we'll see what the Supreme Court says but it's it's an interesting legal fight and there's a lot of bobs and weaves in these these legal arguments they're making and you know it it affects policy it uses policy and probably will affect something we see next session too yeah i'll have to check this out this seems very interesting i was it's very interesting but i will real quick brad before we move on like can you give a quick brief history of etjs before we have to move on yes so etjs were created to set guidelines around the annexation annexation bum rush of the mid-20 miles past the city's specific boundaries.

And so anyone that falls within that can fall within this. And basically it was set up with the idea that eventually these areas would be annexed by the city. In some cases it hasn't, though, like this case. So if TBBF gets what they want out of this and the Texas Supreme Court basically declares this entire system unconstitutional, that's going to cause a really large effect on what regulations people are living under in terms of these things like changing on a dime. You know, one day if this happens, you might be subject to college stations, driveway ordinances the next day you might. But, you know, there's also probably more significant implications there

in terms of bigger regulations that people would apply to people that all of a sudden wouldn't. Probably some unintended consequences too too as there always are but um yeah it's a fascinating issue and um i'm not going to get into it here because it would take too long to explain but there's a there's another wrinkle to this from a legal perspective on declaring a part of the bill of Rights entirely political and saying the judiciary can't weigh in on it. So that's another case TPPF makes there. We'll get into that at a different time.

But Brad, thank you. And definitely go read his piece. There's lots to dive into there. Yeah, I already have a ton of questions about that. Cameron, I'm literally going to stop you. We need to count how many times in podcast Brad and I get into skirmishes and Cameron says, just one more thing. We need to start counting and keeping track

because whoever does more of either thing, maybe, I don't know, we'll have to come up with some sort of reward or something. I don't know. I need to think about how this would work. But those are our things. Cam, Carol ISD, a district we talk a lot about. Both you and Kim Roberts have covered this. But this is certainly a district that we've covered for a long time.

The district says it's at an impasse with the U.S. Department of Education regarding investigations into the district. Tell us about it. Yeah, they put out an announcement talking about this stalemate that they have with the U.S. Department of Education regarding investigations into the district. Tell us about it. Yeah, they put out an announcement talking about this stalemate that they have with the U.S. Department of Education and their Office of Civil Rights following investigations into multiple cases of, quote, student-to-student harassment. I'll read here from President Cam Bryan a statement saying, quote, after thorough review, we have concluded that our district has complied with the law in each case. For that reason, we have declared an impasse in the negotiations and look forward to defending the district at all levels of this process. And Carroll ISD actually

produced in an act of transparency with the public, a timeline of events for these different cases. I won't go into all these cases here. I do that in the piece, but they include just allegations concerning different harassment, whether all just verbal harassment between students. There is no involvement with staff in any of these cases. That was very clear in the information that was provided. And the really crux here of the issue between Carroll ISD and the Office of Civil Rights is that Carol ISD is they were asked to sign on to a document by the office of civil rights but Carol ISD was requesting to see the reports of the

investigation and the OCR was saying no we're not going to turn that over so they are finding themselves at a point where they can't come to any sort of reconciliation on that point. If there's more information that comes out, if either side takes a step in a direction of either complying or, you know, even further cementing their position, I'm sure we will have a follow-up story on that, but that's sort of where things are at. Absolutely complicated, but Cam, thanks for breaking it down for us. We appreciate it. Bradley, LNG, it was a big week in LNG news. What do we got in Texas going on? So the Biden administration has chosen to appeal the previous court opinion that hit pause on the administration's pause

on LNG export applications, a lot of pauses there. And it wasn't clear that they were going to do this because the Fifth Circuit's not a very friendly venue for them, especially on energy issues, and frankly, neither is probably the Supreme Court. The other factor here is that they have declared, they being the Biden administration, have declared that by like March next year, this pause will be in the rearview mirror. So what the purpose exactly is of appealing this, I'm not exactly sure. They've got to have some reason for it maybe it's just to prove a point um but uh yes so they are they're going to appeal a preliminary injunction which was the pause on the pause uh to the fifth circuit and of course

louisiana texas i think like 13 other red states have all filed suits against this and were successful initially. Although that case itself still hasn't considered the full merits of the arguments. This is just a preliminary injunction. But overall, you know, I thought it was kind of surprising that they did this. But yeah, they have to have some sort of reason for it. Yeah. So in a kind of related case, let's talk about LNG again. A federal court ruled against two RGV Rio Grande Valley LNG projects.

And LNG, liquefied natural gas, I don't know who said that, but that's worth noting as well. What are the deeds there? Yeah, obviously LNG is a huge commodity for Texas exporting, especially as the reason this is globally significant is the war in Ukraine has caused countries to spurn the use of Russian natural gas, which was their previous supplier. And so now the U.S. and significantly Texas has kind of filled the gap. This court decision was the bigger of the two, I think, court update. Project approvals for two LNG export facilities in a pipeline in Texas' Rio Grande Valley have been voided by the D.C.

Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the agency overseeing them failed to sufficiently update environmental impact statements. It's a very procedural decision. I mean, the decision itself is not really all that procedural, but what it's ruling on is a procedural flaw that they have found. It's finding that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, when it approved two Cameron County projects back in 2019, they did not follow through sufficiently on the environmental assessments. And so that's probably going to get appealed, I very much assume. One of the two companies told me, Texas LNGNG told me that they're considering that.

I would guess they probably will do that. But you could also have FERC expedite approval while fixing the problem, and that would kind of solve it. The suit originates from the city of Port Isabel, the Sierra Club, and other plaintiffs, alleging that these regulators did not appropriately take into account certain environmental concerns. And this court ruling says, yes, that is true, although it doesn't go as far as these plaintiffs would want because it doesn't rule on whether these facilities themselves cause enough environmental harm to justify nixing them entirely this is just a kind of a speed bump along the line so but it is it's a significant

speed bump and that's gonna cause delay on these two projects. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brad, thanks for your coverage. We appreciate it as always. Issues very important to Texas and to Texans. Cam, we have like a few minutes or like a few seconds here. I want you to give a quick update on this really kind of cool development. You know, Elon Musk just keeps on moving more and more of his projects to Texas. And this is a different, a very different one.

So launching a new school here in Texas. Tell us about it. Yeah. Elon Musk launching Ad Astra, which is going to be like a Montessori method, private child school in Bastrop, actually. And it's already.

Private child. Excuse me. What? Private child. They're, they're, they're extra private with their well it was extremely private because back in 2015 this school was actually started for just spacex employees so it was extra private now it's just regular private. But they're accepting applications, and it's open for children ages 3 through 9. And what's interesting is it's going to focus on STEM education, and it says on the application website, or rather the admissions website,

that it's going to be based on merit so as we've seen elon musk really emphasizing that in a lot of his you know communications online and other businesses doing it again here with uh his private children school so just a little interesting update for people and not to be confused with the university that he that musk also plans on launching in i believe in texas so um he's got a lot of projects but fun it's elon musk that's what he's known for thank you thank you thank you um okay so let's move on to the tweetery section here cam your our first story was about the the vp pick uh for the democrats i'm gonna go with you here to lead us off as a our first story or first twitter he is relating to that yeah uh came across an interesting story

um here from steve kornacki i'm sure people are tuned in on election night they know who he is basically he's the guy that for nbc election guru, wears the white shirt, rolls up the sleeves, has the screen, and is pointing and knows all the stats about the individual counties and percentages. It's almost a performance. He's pretty good at it. He's very good, and it's a very interesting perspective that he wrote about here. The headline being, Tim Walz's election results do not show a clear blue collar boost. And what's interesting is in this article highlights, I'll read verbatim here, Walz won his 2022 reelection bid 52% to 44% over his Republican foe. That's virtually the same

as the 52-45 margin Joe Biden carried the state by in 2020. And further into the piece, Kornacki points that the metro region of Minneapolis is what really drove Walz to his reelection in 2022, not the blue collar counties surrounding the Metro. So as we were talking about earlier, you know, blue collar dad, Midwestern persona, but what really carried him in his reelection bid was the metropolitan city, you know, deep blue area um so i just thought that is a little interesting wrinkle you know to sort of throw out there which makes sense you know the democrats too i mean that that that tracks but it is it is very interesting and i think um we'll see so much analysis coming out after the cp pick and it's like it really is like parsing through so much information right now. That's really interesting, Cam.

Thanks for bringing it up. Bradley, what you got? Oh, I know what you got here. Yeah, I call it fundraiser gate. Whoa! Yeah. It caused quite a storm on the Twitters this week in the tech sledge world. Representative Nate Schatzlein, a fundraiser invite of his got pushed out,

and it is in mid-September at the Austin Club, and a lot of members have fundraisers there constantly. But what's notable here is who's on the host committee very interesting and it is worth noting up front shatzline is among the four members of the house gop caucus that has been incredibly critical of speaker phelan um he voted shatzline voted impeachment. He voted against Speaker Phelan at the beginning of session last year as a freshman. That was the first vote he took. And so he's part of this group that's really anti-House leadership right now. And that group, of course, after the primaries is going to grow significantly.

But who's on his host committee? Interesting to see Texans forans for lawsuit reform is on it uh former speaker dennis bonin whoa then you have uh gardner pate who is who was until recently you know gardner pate is i have no clue until recently is governor abbott's chief of staff oh you'll have to go lobby so that's interesting um then you have well-known names in the lobby world like buddy jones of hilco uh daniel hodge i think hodge was abbott's chief of staff i believe a long time ago he's been in the lobby for a while. But it's interesting seeing the lobby get behind Schatzlein here for this fundraiser. Generally, the lobby pays a lot of people a lot of money because they want all their stuff to pass, right?

But they also do engage in some of these internal fights, picking sides sometimes, some more than others. Obviously, TLR put a lot of strife, uh, in the Twitter world and had, if I might say, you know, one of my best tweets I've had in a while, it sparked that, um, the, uh, the four horsemen of the text ledge comment comments section that's how i labeled it because looking at the comments in this tweet uh by luke macias that posted this fundraiser invite there was a lot of just totally different takes from all over the place people who would usually be aligned having different um totally different arguments one guy said what the heck is Bonin doing on this list not a good look for Nate Schatzlein coming from a you know more hard right perspective then you got one of the

illustrious anonymous accounts in tech in the techged world, Mr. Speaker. LMAO, how in TF are you bragging about one of your SHTT caucus guys? That's the acronym they use for that group of four. Read into it what you will. Caucus guys taking money from the people you've been attacking all decade. Then you have another guy say wow TLR and Bonin helping the good guys things are changing

rapidly well can I can I ask does this mean anything that TLR these individuals are you know at this fundraiser does it really you ask well as let's say you know nothing about texas politics and you just laid all that out does this mean something good something bad for the way people are positioning themselves in terms of are they trying to bring people together or what's happening here? I think part of it is this group, Harrison, Schatzlein, Tenderholt, and Toth, they have more political capital than they did earlier. They're the ringleaders of this growing group of anti-leadership members. And there's going to be 20, 25, maybe up to 30, depending on who joins,

members who take the contract with Texas, right, who sign that. And this shows, this fundraiser shows that Schatzlein, even though he is one of the ringleaders of that, is not being locked out of at least some lobby money. On the other hand, you know, lobbyists want their stuff passed. And so they're going to give money to whoever, generally. Could this indicate that this group of, let's say, outsiders that were really rebellious, let's say, in the Texas House, they've sort of gained some momentum? This might indicate they're gaining some momentum. Yeah, they have more political capital than they did before.

Absolutely. I will say, too, it might be surprising for – yeah, I have so much to say about this but i think this goes to show too that obviously my disclaimer would be that there are political wins at play here that have been at play for a year year and a half now that are that make this particularly surprising right impeachment namely being one of them and the speaker primary being another huge elephant in that room um so obviously that's partially why this is so surprising. But I'll say that, Brad, to your point earlier that I want to expound upon, lobbyists care about issues specifically, right? They care about the issues of the clients they represent. And a lot of lobbyists

work for one organization that has a very specific set of issues they care about. TLR, you know, is one right there that has a very specific set of issues that they care about. TLR, you know, is one right there that has a very specific set of issues that they care about. If you vote along their lines and you are supportive of their priorities, even if you are a bomb-throwing conservative, whatever definition or whoever's definition that tends to be, or on the other end of the political spectrum too, you're still most likely going to get their support. I think that'd be surprising to a lot of folks. The lobby really just cares about your vote at the end of the day, typically, right? And it's very surprising sometimes to see who is sponsoring a lot of these fundraising lunches, a lot of these different events during campaign season, it's very

notable. And that's why these letters go out on Twitter. That's why people are watching these kinds of things. And I think this was a particularly interesting one. But that's typically how it works, right? Is if you just are supportive of their issues, they will come out in support of you, even if you're not, quote unquote, friendly with the austin people whoever those people are right there's kind of two groups of lawmakers um in that regard those who distance themselves from austin the lobby special interest groups but publicly um and those who are uh more reticent to do so right and regardless the lobby doesn't necessarily care too much about that positioning if you are supportive of their issues. Yeah, totally. So this won't be the last example we see of this.

And I don't think Schatzlein has a particularly big re-election fight, but it's possible. But yeah, things are changing. But it's interesting. The question is how much are they changing? Opinions will differ. I know. And I'm curious. Yeah, there's so much there that we could go into,

but it's very interesting regardless. Quickly, I'm going to give an update on the Olympics before we go out and let everyone get back to their day and get our cameras a little bit of break from overheating. But the Olympics, the Sen, E sen e coli what's the update we heard that a belgian swimmer uh got e coli and then was therefore disqualified or unable to participate um in a race that they trained so long for and therefore disqualifying their team team from being able to participate in their Olympic dreams. Horrible.

And so a lot of folks were laying blame at the feet of the Paris officials who planned this event. Turns out it was a virus. She got tested for E. coli and it came back as a virus. So it was not E. coli. But regardless, we're seeing more and more people who go and swim in the Seine for their events at the Olympics come out sick. Whether or not it's E. coli, we're seeing more and more people come out sick. So not fun. We got reports of two more athletes who are sick with something. It's no good. So even though no confirmed instances of E. coli and no confirmed ties to those athletes, you know, receiving their bug from the river. It is suspicious that a lot of these athletes falling ill are the ones competing

in the Seine. So I'll keep an eye out. Also, I got to walk by where this was all happening, where the events are happening by the Seine. It's very, very interesting. It's in the middle of the city, right across from the louvre where they're competing and they have these crazy grandstands set up so folks can watch the events it's fascinating um yeah it's very interesting so i'll keep you updated but we're almost at the end of the olympics i'd be remiss if that was not my twittery for this week this is my final metal count at some point what's that we need a final metal count from you at some point totally we can do that i'll do that next week um the u.s and china are neck and neck

right now for golds if i'm not mistaken so the u.s is definitely winning the overall metal count but the golds are obviously prestigious so we'll keep an eye on that okay folks thank you so much for listening in on another episode of our weekly roundup and we'll catch you next week thank you to everyone for listening if you enjoy our show rate and review us on apple podcast 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 I thought you were saying...

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