The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - December 11, 2020

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the reporters discuss a proposal for Texas to secede from the US, a lawsuit filed by the attorney general over the presidential election, details given from state officials about the coronavirus vaccine rollout, a trip taken by the Austin mayor violating his own COVID-19 recommendations, a bill filed to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying, the lieutenant governor’s proposed new Senate rules, and the legislative budget board setting a spending increase cap.

Howdy folks, and welcome to another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup. This is reporter Daniel Friend filling in from Kinsey Taylor. In this week's news, we discuss Representative Kyle Biederman's legislative proposal for a referendum for Texas to secede from the United States. Attorney General Ken Paxton files a lawsuit against four other states over the presidential election. Officials from the Department of State Health Services gives more detail about the coronavirus vaccine rollout.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler takes a trip to the Cabo against his own COVID recommendations. Thank you for tuning in. Welcome, folks, to another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup. I am here taking the place of Mackenzie Taylor, our editor, who sadly cannot be with us this week. But we've got Brad Johnson and Isaiah Mitchell on, as well as myself, Daniel Friend. How are you guys doing? I'm doing well. Just well? Yeah, I mean, you know, who doesn't miss McKenzie?

May she rest. Yeah. This is a good point. Okay. Fred? I'm great. I'm making my triumphant return to the podcast. Like, uh, Cincinnati's returning to tend to his farms.

I am returning to tend to my byline. Yeah. Yeah. Mattis returning to tend to his farms. I am returning to tend to my byline. Yeah. Yeah. Because definitely Ohio, I'm sure, was like basically receiving a monarchy. You know what? The analogy fits. Okay.

Yeah. Only mildly, but it does. It works. So the Great White North was a good escape. It was. Yeah. And there was a lot of white there was snow on the ground which is something that uh you know texans down here are not really that familiar with yeah i saw winston was very happy about it though he was he was prancing around like a reindeer like he had never seen the stuff before so So yeah, he enjoyed it. He had a good time. Well, that is great. You know, it's always nice to see the other 50 states.

Of course, there are some people who would say that Texas should be separate from the 50 states. Here, there's a little bit of that going on. Isaiah, you wrote about a bill that someone had filed. Yes, I did. You want to tell us about that? All right. So Kyle Biederman actually hasn't filed it yet. At the time I wrote the piece, I noted that and I linked to the little page that the legislature includes bills filed today.

I checked it again. I'm still not seeing anything from him as we record. Maybe it will change by the time this recording comes out. But what he did do was swear on Facebook to file a bill that would allow a referendum to secede. So in his own words, he said the federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans. That is why I am committing to file of this bill? Like, you know, if it passes, does that mean Texas is now its own country? Right. And the short answer to that question is no. If this bill passes, what it would do is allow Texans, well, it would allow the state to hold a referendum vote. So then, you know, the citizenry at large could vote on whether or not we want to secede. Might you brand it Tegxit?

We might. Oh, okay. And Biederman has. Oh. Yeah. It is, in fact, modeled in part, tags it? We might. Oh, okay. And Biederman has. Oh. Yeah. It is, in fact, modeled in part, it seems, after Brexit. A lot of that analysis has to wait until filing. I don't think he's filed anything yet.

I searched his name just now in the site for this session, and it's coming up blank. So maybe he'll get around to it and file in a whole bunch at once. There's like 800 or something bills in there right now, and his name is absent. But he has sworn to file this bill, and it's modeled after England's process, or the UK, Britain, whatever those redcoats are called. And yeah, he hashtagged it, tags it. And like their process, which I think is still going on, this wouldn't just automatically pluck us out of the rest of the country. It would just give us a chance to vote. That vote might be no.

If it's yes, then other obstacles would probably rear their heads in the process. So who knows? This is a first step towards potential secession that hasn't even quite happened yet because he hasn't filed it yet. Now, I haven't lived in Texas my whole life, but I know this isn't the first time that somebody has talked about this, right? Right, yeah. I mean, the Texas nationalist movement is a fairly large group with a fairly populous list of followers.

And State Rep. James White filed a version of what biederman says he will file in 2013 but it didn't include the referendum which is the important part white's version in 2013 simply reasserted the sovereignty of texas under the 10th amendment so um it optimists from the nationalist movement saw that as kind of laying the groundwork, but it didn't include the referendum, and that's what Biederman is focused on. Now, did Biederman talk about, you know, the constitutional authority behind this? You know, there's been debate in the past, even with Lincoln in the secession during the Civil War, there's questions about the

constitutionality of secession. Have they touched on that at all? Yeah. Naturally, people expect the Tenth Amendment to be the federal authority for this kind of action. And Biederman mentioned the Texas Constitution, namely Sections 1 and 2 of Article one so section one reads that texas is a free and independent state subject only to the constitution of the united states and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity perpetuity perpetuity there you go perpetuity of the union depend on the preservation of the right of local self-government unimpaired all the states and section two is a little bit more exciting because um it guarantees the right of the citizenry to change or even abolish the state government so um it's that exact word citizens have the right to

alter reform or abolish their government in such manners they may think expedient nice okay is there anything else that we did not go over that is important that you'd like to bring up? Well, for one, this is not exactly a fringe idea in the Republican Party, depending on how you define that, you know, what, what their platform says, and what the politicians actually do in the legislative body itself are two very different things. But the 65th plank of the GOP of Texas platform includes secession. So the language is a little bit different from the bill that has been, you know,

forwarded by the Texas nationalist movement that, you know, they hope will, will mirror Biedermerman's in some way. But, um, secession is in the official platform of the Republican party of Texas. Okay. I did not know that. That is very fascinating. Do you think that even though there is this support from the Republican party, obviously, and a report from support from other Republicans like Biederman and the, the, uh, Texas nationalists. Um, what, what are you, what's the likelihood of this actually going through? Um, even if it was brought to a

referendum, do you think there's, there's a chance this would happen? If it were brought to a referendum with the majority of Texas votes to secede? Yeah. i don't know what i can say is that more people than one would think would vote to secede you know like what happened in brexit yeah nobody was expecting that and uh you know obviously what happened happened it's like uh it's like one of those movies that gets like a 13 from critics on on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 90-something from the audience. Yes. You know, up in the intelligentsia, this idea is just, you know, so far away and unthinkable to certain experts. But it has a lot of popularity.

You know, there's not another organization like the Texas Nationalist Movement elsewhere in the country that has as many members, I think. So you're saying there's a chance. I am saying there is a chance. If secession were to succeed anywhere, it would probably be here. That's a fair point. Speaking of that, I have a quick story about secession. Oh, yeah. I was listening to another podcast this week.

It is called Wise About Texas. It is run by Justice Ken Wise. He's a justice on the 14th Court of Appeals. And he has this history podcast. And he's starting to rev it back up after campaign season's now done because he was running for reelection. But his episode this week was about the free state of Van Zandt and Van Zandt County up in East Texas for a time for a very short time after the Civil War. They were their own state. Well, frankly, their own country, because they seceded both from Texas and the United States.

And they managed to fend off the Union Army, the cavalry, when they came down to try and suppress the uprising because it's a very wooded area and the cavalry was not able to move as well as in an open field. And so the people of Van Zandt county actually held them off and um you know there was a skirmish and they managed to emerge victorious and so as soon as they um as soon as they technically won that battle they went back to the county seat i think it's canton if i remember correctly and uh they partied but they partied so much that they were so inebriated by the time the Union came back around, the Union cavalry, and they got beat handily there. And thus ended the free state of Van Zandt. Wow. So, tragic.

So, what you're saying is that if Biederman's bill does not succeed, a referendum does not pass, there's a possibility that van zandt might succeed yeah i don't think so anymore no well it's in their legal tradition there is precedent for it yeah it would make for a great movie right yes yes it would you know maybe starring matthew mcconaughey oh yeah yeah the free state of van zandt there you go nice so yeah that's my texas history tidbit shout out to justice ken wise Wise for the informative podcast. Yes. We love some good Texas history. Yep.

Now, Texas is also making some other history at the moment. They filed a lawsuit that's gotten, or Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit that has gotten a lot of traction in national media. You wrote about that with Kim. Brad, do you want to give us the highlights of that? Yeah. So, Texas has filed the latest lawsuit about the election. This is against four states, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, over their judicial and executive issued changes to election procedures. Now, it's very technical. Essentially, the premise of the lawsuit is that these states did not go through the proper channels of their state legislatures to issue

these changes to election procedure. Now, the changes that were made vary from state to state. Even Texas, they did something like this with Governor Abbott's unilateral extension of early voting a week. That was not issued by the state legislature and state code specifically limits it otherwise. So, you know, because of coronavirus, this kind of thing happened throughout the country in pretty much every state. I'm not aware of one that didn't, but I haven't looked at every state specifically. And so, Texas is filing suit alleging that these changes were illegitimate and therefore the election is illegitimate and how to apportion the electors, the delegates should be left to the state legislatures to decide, which is an option under the Constitution and every state constitution. But, you know, odds are it's pretty unlikely to emerge victorious.

Okay, okay. Now, there has been a lot of people responding to it. Different lawmakers have responded different ways. You know, who are the people that are supporting this? Who are the people that are opposing this? What does that kind of look like? There's basically three categories. There are those that are like attorney general Paxton who are gung ho about the case itself, like the merits of the case. Donald Trump himself, he tweeted support for it and his campaign intervened in the suit. Therefore they're, they're joining the suit. And he is the one of any of them, of anybody that has, you know,

specific injury in the case, which is something you have to prove in order for your case to be heard. You know, Texas, for example, is alleging that their votes are affected by other states votes and therefore they have injury to claim as well. But Trump being the candidate that lost, at least right now lost, he would be the one that has the most injury to claim in this process. Now, various attorneys general of different states had also, you know, announced their support specifically, you know, when we published this piece yesterday, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri, each of their attorneys general all, you know, said that they either would join the case if and when it came to that, or that they were friendly to the idea. Texas Governor Greg Abbott was, I would put him in more of a more middle ground position.

Now, he was supportive of the effort in general, but he did not go as far as to say, to claim, to side specifically with the merits of the case. He said, you know, the lawsuit tries to accelerate the process, providing certainty and clarity about the entire election process. The United States of America needs that. Basically saying that this challenge should be heard. And his endorsement kind of stopped there. People that have been in opposition, I would say the third section of reaction to this

includes all the attorneys general of those four states that are being challenged. Now, three of them are Democrats. One of them, though, Georgia's, is a Republican. And they are all saying that this is not a valid challenge. First of all, because Texas is another state challenging the election procedures of different states themselves within those states. And, you know, does Texas have the authority to do that? Does it open up the door for other states to specifically challenge, you know, oil and gas policy within Texas because Texas's oil and gas industry, you know, kind of fuels the rest of the country or most of the rest of the country.

Would this set precedent for like California to sue Texas for, you know, they're in comparison to California, you know, lacks energy regulations, things like that. Uh, Chip Roy, a Republican Congressman, he was one that specifically cited that reason, um, as why he's opposing this lawsuit. Now he kind of echoed Abbott and said that this, you know, this, any potential fraud needs to be hammered out and, um, you know, evaluated for what it is. But then he would not jump on board with Attorney General Paxton's case, mainly because out of concerns over, you know, what this does to Texas's sovereignty as its own state in relation to other states. John Cornyn, Republican senator in Texas, also, it was not as detailed of an opposition as Representative Roy's,

but he basically had the same sentiments that this would cause a lot of unintended consequences. And Representative Kay Granger as well, I know she was one that came out pretty forcefully, certainly more so than the others against the lawsuit. Um, you know, that's generally been the reactions to this case, three, you know, somewhat specific, uh, categories. Okay. Now the case you said does have to deal with, um, you know, Texas questioning the legality of the other States, uh, changes to their own elections because of things outside of the legislature that changed the election laws in those states or the election regulations. How does that relate to another story that you covered prior to the election with the GOP suing the state of Texas? So that was one of the things I alluded to earlier with Texas changing its own law, specifically through executive order, that was the early voting one.

I believe Texas GOP Chair Allen West joined with Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and a couple of GOP state senators challenging the extension. You know, if I haven't belabored the point, what Abbott did was just expand or extend the early voting time period a week longer than normally is normally about two weeks. I don't know if it's exactly that, but he extended another week to three weeks. And so they challenged it and they were not successful. The Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court ruled against them. And there's a lot of people pointing out that Texas itself would be liable under this lawsuit. And that was a very legitimate concern. And oddly enough, Governor Abbott, beyond what I read earlier, what I listed off earlier about his statement, he has not really issued us anything in more detail about the case itself. Because, I mean, I think it's safe to assume because of that fact, you know, that it opens a lot of doors

that are very concerning, despite what you think about potential fraud in the election. And, you know, I don't think the governor wants to kind of eat crow, I suppose, on this issue. Now, a couple updates that happened today. I listed some of them off with some reactions, but more substantive updates. There were six states that officially joined the, they intervened in the lawsuit, kind of like the Trump campaign did, although they would fall into the same category as Texas, whereas Trump has more standing for injury himself, because he, as I said, he is the candidate. But those states were Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah. So, you know, this is a developing situation. We'll see what the United States Supreme Court comes up with, whether they just strike it down out of hand

or whether they actually hear the case. Regardless, you know, we're up against a time crunch and the, I forget the term of the day, but Tuesday was the last day that states can confirm their electors. And, you know, we had something we'd have to see something totally. I hate using this word, but unprecedented. It would be. It's thrown around too much. But in this case, it is accurate. Yes.

This unprecedented year, you know, because things have never been worse. But, yeah, so we'll see what the Supreme Court does. And odds are they probably balk at it. At least that's kind of the sense I'm getting from legal circles. But, you know, who knows? Crazier things have happened. Yeah. Well, thank you for keeping us up to date on that.

We'll see what happens with that um also i think i saw today that president trump also said that if it does go to the supreme court he actually wants ted cruz to argue the case before interesting well ted cruz did did nominate himself or volunteer i suppose that's the term to uh um to argue the case that was in front of, that was detailed specifically towards, uh, Pennsylvania that the Supreme court rejected. They did not decide to move forward with that case. And, you know, I think that from what I understand, the, the arguments made about specific fraud instances of fraud is largely the same across all of these different lawsuits.

You know, it's just of the thing that changes is who's challenging, who is claiming standing and who is claiming injury on these things. So if Ted Cruz does that, he has done that many times before he was, I believe solicitor general for texas i know he has tried cases in front of the supreme court before um so you know that would be quite an interesting uh string of things for texas yeah yeah it's definitely interesting you know texas

was not by any means a swing state in the presidential election but the news is happening here anyways yep so that's that's fun um some but the news is happening here anyways. Yep, that is true. So that's fun. Some other news that is happening this week that I wrote about was dealing with the coronavirus vaccines. The several officials from the Department of State Health Services testified before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, gave a little bit more information about what they're expecting in terms of the vaccine, when that's going to roll out and whatnot. Some more details are in my

article, but the gist of it is that the vaccinations, they're going to start coming in this month, kind of at a slow pace. And then over the next few months, they're going to see more and more vaccinations continue to be distributed to the state, both from the first one from Pfizer and then the other vaccinations that are in progress right now, like from Moderna. I think Johnson & Johnson is also working on one and a few other companies as well. So we're beginning to see that

coming over the next few months. In the meantime, they're saying that we still need to continue with the same precautions that we've been doing for the past six, nine months i don't know how long it's been not much of an update in that regard yeah not much of an update um you know the department of state health services commissioner john hellerstedt uh said that he said the masks are basically like a vaccine that you wear on your face um so that was an interesting comment that he gave. And yeah, just...

That's an odd way to frame it. Yeah. But okay. There we go. So that's what's happening with the vaccines. Yeah. We're getting, what was it, at least last I remember was 1.4 million doses. Yeah, so Pfizer has, or there's so many organizations going on right

now one of the government organizations the cdc that's the one that i was trying to think of approved or allotted texas 1.4 million doses from pfizer um and so those will begin coming in at the end of next week actually beginning the week of the 14th. And now the FDA still has to approve the vaccine. They haven't done that yet as of the recording of this podcast. It might come the day that this podcast is released. It might come next week. They're trying to get an emergency authorization use granted by the FDA. Now, one thing to note that the Pfizer vaccine, the U vaccine the US was not quick at committing to

buying for a vaccine that hadn't even been created yet and so other European countries kind of beat us to the punch on buying vaccines from Pfizer so now we're kind of at the back of the line the US was able to secure I believe 100 million doses. Texas this month is getting 1.4 million of those. And then the other future doses won't really be able to come until several months down the road.

So there's a little bit of delays there. But U.S. officials are not really worried about it because the Moderna vaccine is also very far along in the progress. And they expect to have that done fairly quickly as well. Something interesting about that one in particular that, you know, I saw a piece on earlier this week, it's just kind of a testament to how impressively efficient, you know, the society we live in is coming up with these technological innovations so the moderna vaccine um thanks to this new mrna technology they mapped the code for it in two days you know typically something that takes forever um at least historically to do now obviously they didn't pump out the vaccine in two days. They still had to test it,

but the one that, that eventually worked, um, or at least, you know, the one that's closest to, uh, being issued by the FDA, um, you know, that only took them two days to come up with that. That's a groundbreaking technological innovation. The medical technologies have developed so much and even just the past few years um and you know i've talked to some medical friends and whatnot and they are very excited for the future technological advances that are going to really pave the way for some amazing stuff that'll happen um some also scary questions that you have to ask um especially when you start getting into like stuff with crisper and and things with some interesting science stuff

crisp is a big can of worms yes yeah uh yeah there's there's a lot of can of worms out there uh one of the other ones can of worms that we was opened this week had to do with a, I guess it was last week maybe, a local official who made some recommendations for coronavirus orders and what you should do. And then it turns out that he wasn't actually following that. Do you want to give us some more details on that? Yeah. Last Wednesday, our illustrious mayor, Steve Adler, celebrated his daughter's wedding and hosted it at a hotel in Austin. And then the day after that, took a vacation with seven others to Mexico. And that would be a pretty innocuous thing for a father to do in celebration of his daughter's wedding, except that on Wednesday, last Wednesday, he posted a video that he takes week-daily. That's a word. I looked it up. Every weekday.

It's his got-a-minute video, and among other things, he gives updates on on the coronavirus and he advised residents to stay home and said that social engagements in the evening had been driving numbers up. And, um, he said this after hosting a banquet for 20 the night before and, uh, The night being the evening. Yes. Yeah. Just clarifying that. Yeah. Night and evening being synonymous. And,onymous. And then the day that he posted the video, you know, having taken a plane to Mexico with others to party it up. So, especially since he didn't clarify that he himself was on vacation and assumedly meant for that to not be known, he took a lot of flack for that after this came out.

And the story broke around the time that early voting started beginning. So, um, it, it was not timely for Adler, but, um, he says in the video, we think it's social engagements in the evening. We're looking at occupancy limits in restaurants. Nobody wants to go there. Maybe we could just do it voluntarily asking people to spend more time at home. The thrust is that our numbers are increasing and everybody has to be aware of that. And we need to stay home if you can

do everything you can to try to keep the numbers down. This is not the time to relax. Do you have some examples of lawmakers, officials who have kind of responded to his actions? Yes. A couple of Democrats, obviously mostly Republicans, the mayor of Dallas, former Democratic Texas ledge member, Eric Johnson, posted a link to some story that mentioned Adler's trip on Twitter, among other politicians that had flouted their own guidelines. And he said, for the record, I spent Thanksgiving inside my house in Dallas with my wife and our two kids with whom I live year round. So distancing himself from this kind of phenomenon. There was a former Democrat candidate for Texas House District 106, Jennifer Skidonenko,

who chatted Adler on Twitter saying, thanks for this Adler. Haven't seen my own son since February and my dad canceled his annual trip to come see us, but got to jog out your super-duper important wedding and vacation. Probably the most eye-catching Republican critique of Adler came frominites to stay home as he jets off to cabo while our small businesses are closing left and right and she later released a statement calling on adler to resign and uh wouldn't you know it he agreed immediately and resigned really no Really? No. He's still the mayor. I was like, how did I miss that? He's still mayor. Let me make sure I have the facts straight.

Steve Adler, the mayor of Austin, tells people that they should not engage in social activities, especially in the evening. He engages in social activities in the evening, celebrates a wedding, takes a trip to Cabo. Does everything that he tells everybody not to do. Someone tells him to resign and he doesn't resign. That's the gist of it? That's the gist of it. Another good thing that's important to note is that the city of Austin's own safety guidelines, which we linked in the article, include as a high-risk activity traveling outside one's own community for gatherings and events. And I'm no geographer, but Mexico and Austin are not quite in the same community. I mean, yes, it depends on how you define community, I suppose.

That's fair, yeah. Because, you know, as humans, our community is everyone. It's a very beautiful thing. You know, I did notice a lot of people were sharing this story on social media. Lots of people are outraged about this. Lots of people made kind of similar references to, you know, I saw similar references back in 2016 when President Trump announced that he was running for president. Everybody looked at that and they pointed back to a Simpsons episode where Donald Trump announced that he was running for

president and they're like this is a prophecy and now people are pointing to another episode of The Simpsons were you did you see that yes I did I'm a big Simpson's mayor Quimbley is that his name quimby quimby yeah um a walking parody of any kennedy like any kennedy he's just all of them rolled up to whichever is convenient but uh yeah he's like he's standing in front of some curtain saying like all residents need to stay home now or something like you know i don't remember verbatim and then uh this jamaican guy walks by with a steel drum, and it zooms out to show that he's on a beach in the Caribbean.

And, yeah, another prophecy fulfilled by the Simpsons. I do think it's important to mention that he did apologize, and he acknowledged his wrongdoing. Now, you know, that only goes so far when you are, you know, violating your own order that is destroying people's businesses. But, you know, there are a lot of instances where politicians in these situations do not even apologize. So that is at least something. Yes.

And to his credit, he said that at the banquet, people took precautions. They wore masks and there were temperature tests, I believe, some kind of testing, either that or just plain old COVID testing to make sure that, you know, they were they were clean before they came in. So so kudos to Adler for that. It's a low bar, such a low bar that a Keebler elf could clear it. Indeed. Indeed, Brad indeed Brad oh my goodness well um so you know you have that some city shenanigans going on you've got other people that uh complain about other types of city shenanigans there's been lots of talk about cities that are paying uh lobbyists to go on behalf of them, not just cities, but any local government or government entities hiring lobbyists, and there's been some pushback on that.

Brad, you've covered that quite a bit, and there's been a little bit more development on that this week. Can you give us some details? Yeah, so that is the issue of taxpayer-funded lobbying. First of all, it's a Texas GOP priority, legislative priority. It was last session. This was the effort that kind of died in the wee hours of session last time around because it was essentially given a poison pill. You know, that's a federal legislative term, but effectively that's what happened here.

A Republican, I should kind of give an idea of what it is first. So the ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying, it would prohibit cities, counties, other political subdivisions from paying with public dollars lobbyists to go and push whatever legislation it is they want in the Texas legislature. And so, those who want to ban it want to put that in statute. And so, last time though, it was in the House. It passed through the Senate first. And it was authored by Senator Bob Hall and got through the senate went to the house

got to the house floor and then the amendment process went down and um the uh the amendment was that was put forward that would succeeded essentially and it was um suggested by representative trent ashby of Lufkin, Republican, what it would have done and did do was exempt all but 20 of Texas's counties, basically exempting anyone, any county that is below $250,000, or not dollars, people in population. And that exempted nearly know nearly all of texas's counties obviously texas is very urban in some places and very rural and others and um you know it has 254 counties and most of them do not reach 200 250 000 population so this succeeded to get put into

the bill that rep maize middleton was sponsoring from the senate and middleton essentially said you know this kills the bill um this makes it nolan void at least in terms of his and senator hall's intentions for it and so he um you know advocated that they vote against it and i believe he voted it himself because he wanted to include every county. And one of the arguments against such a measure or for limiting it to more urban counties is that these counties, especially the ones, the more rural ones, lower population, they have less

funding and therefore their elected officials, uh, make less money and don't have either the, the funding to, um, you know, take a day off and go lobby themselves or, you know, testify on a bill or something, or go meet with legislators themselves which is something they're constitutionally allowed to do and um you know it's in the the um the bill of rights the first bill of rights um the right to petition your government and um it should be noted also that that is what the authors of this this uh measure want to have happen more is the elected officials themselves to go rather than sending lobbyists, um, or paying lobbyists to do it that are already in Austin. And so, um, these, the argument is that these lower population counties do not have the funding,

the means to, you know, send their legislators up, um, or for representatives of the county itself to take a day off and head up to Austin. You know, obviously Texas is big geographically, various places it takes longer to get to Austin than others. You know, the argument is that it just makes it more difficult for them to be able to advocate their priorities to the legislators as opposed to the city of Austin. Now, the city of Austin itself, even in the same city that the legislator, the same city that the Capitol is in, they are vehemently against it. They were pushing back against this measure. But the update is that Representative Mays Middleton and Senator Bob Hall have each filed legislation. I haven't seen Senator Hall's actual bill text itself, so I don't know if it's exactly the same.

I'm assuming it is almost exactly the same because it is kind of a coordinated effort between the two. And so those bills will be in the discussion for the session when it starts in January. Okay. So you gave us a little bit of the arguments that they're kind of making. What are the arguments that Republicans who are opposed to this, who introduced the amendment last time to kind of kill it, what are their arguments against it? Well, that would be more of the rule issue that I alluded to. The people that would be for it, like Middleton and Hall, their argument is that these cities, counties, other political subdivisions are hiring lobbyists to advocate against

the interests of their own taxpayers. And they frame it in terms of uh you know finance issues itself but it doesn't just uh contend with those but um you know they say they to raise their taxes that is uh that is what these cities and counties are paying lobbyists to do and that's the crux of their their opposition to it and like i said they want the local officials to do, to be the ones to come and do this application. Um, you know, people that are not registered lobbyists. And so the bills themselves, they would prohibit, um, they would prohibit cities, counties, any political subdivision from financing with public dollars lobbying. Now, it also, the other aspect of this is it would prohibit cities and counties and other political subdivisions from paying dues to an organization that then pays lobbyists.

And it would prohibit those organizations from using those public dollars paid by the city or the county or whatever it is to, you know, hire lobbyists. Another argument against this kind of measure. And this is one I specifically put in the piece that basically it's going to happen anyway. And these localities would just create new positions that are not explicitly lobbyists. Now that I haven't explored too terribly deeply because it requires diving into code and what does, eventually you'll get to, what does a comma mean here and that kind of thing.

But that is the general gist of what, some portion of this opposition. And they see no point in putting something in code if it's just going to happen anyway. And there's some merit to that, certainly. Essentially, we have to balance's some merit to that. Certainly. Um, it's essentially, it's, you know, we get to balance pros and cons of this. And, uh, you know, obviously Middleton and Hall believe it's on balance, a positive and the Texas municipal league, which is one of those organizations that's constantly cited that hires lobbyists and receives dues from these localities.

They represent all cities. Um, they would be in the opposition. Do you know how partisan this bill is? Are there any Democrats who are supporting Middleton and Hall? It's pretty much straight down party lines. If anything, it's Republicans going the other way. I haven't seen any Democrat that is supportive of the effort by Middleton and Hall. But there are certainly a number of Republicans, as I mentioned. Trent Ashby, I'm guessing, would also try and put the same amendment in.

But, however, there has been a lot more ground support before we even get to session than there was last time. I forget how many it was, but it was a list of numerous state reps that signed this pledge to pass taxpayer-funded lobbying. Just off the top of my head, one of them was Representative Dustin Burroughs. Obviously, Middleton and Hall were on that, even though Hall's a Senator. Um, notably the two SD30 candidates were, um, were also on it and then both Drew Springer and, uh, Shelly Luther. Um, you know, I don't know all the details of this. I can't remember all the details, but if I remember correctly, Springer supported that kind of poison pill, pill um that was put into the bill last time um that was as i mentioned

uh issued by trent ashby and so but they're both campaigning for sd30 right now and if springer obviously if springer wins he would be in the senate for the coming legislature and not the house if he loses he'll still be in the House. So both of them have signed their names onto that. And my assessment, general assessment, is there's more appetite to pass this into law. But I wouldn't count out an effort to try and do the same thing that happened last time. And speaking of the SD30 candidates, Shelley Luther and Drew Springer, that election is underway now. Early voting has begun.

The election day is on December 19th, a week from Saturday. And there's been some news in that lately. Now, there was something that was a little bit tangentially related to it in that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick actually sent out a press release kind of asking the candidates a question and saying, I'm going, Patrick said, I'm going to propose a rule change that would drop the threshold needed to bring votes to the Senate floor from 19 to 18. Do you guys support that now the reasoning behind that of course was because republicans lost a seat with pete flores has lost this election and so now their majority has fallen below the super majority or the three-fifths needed with 19 members um so patrick and that would be to avoid filibuster. Yeah. And so if you go back to 2013, you would have needed two-thirds. Senators would have needed two-thirds to bring a bill to the floor, similar to what happens in the U.S. Senate with some different rules there,

where you need more support than just a majority, which makes it a little bit more difficult for things to pass um because you know if there are you just need more support for it yeah um now in 2015 after patrick was first elected to the position he pushed for a rule change that happened to drop it from the two-thirds rule to the three-fifths rule, from 21 votes to 19 votes. Now that's going to change. It's probably going to change, assuming it's the Senate. It would be the fraction there.

I'm trying to do it in my head. Yeah, it's four-sevenths. Four-sevenths, ooh. Yes. So you just keep doing that. That's nice and easy to conceptualize. In a few more years, it's going to be the five-ninths rule. Yeah. In a few more years, it's going to be the five ninths rule.

But yeah, so that's a rule that he has kind of come out in support of. So that's going to probably make it easier for Republicans to pass bills, assuming that goes through, which I don't know why it wouldn't, why Republicans would not support that. I would think that they need just a majority to do the rule changes. But again, I'm kind of new to— This was a topic last session. Actually, my first day on the job, this kind of came to a head in the Senate. The lieutenant governor had been talking about for days doing exactly what he just mentioned, and that was with 18 Republican senators. He got in this fight with Republican Senator Kel Seliger, who is from out in West Texas, and it was over Senate Bill 2, one half of the marquee accomplishments from the 86 legislature. And essentially, Seliger was objecting to one aspect of the bill and he was filibustering. And he gave this speech about, you know, voicing his concerns about whatever it was in the bill.

I can't exactly remember. he relented after a very forceful promise from the Lieutenant Governor that if you keep this up, I'm going to, they called it the nuclear, use the nuclear option. And as I said, he relented and that didn't happen. He eventually voted for SB2, but that was an exciting first day on the job. And especially knowing now all the context that I do and then that I didn't, seeing it play out once again is not really that surprising. Yeah, it's a very interesting thing. It'll be interesting how Session plays out, and this will be the start of it.

There's another thing going on in Texas with a right-to-work lawsuit that you're working on an article right now, Isaiah. Do you want to give us some details about that juicy story? Yes. As you mentioned, I'm working on it now as we record hasn't been published yet. So this is uncut news that you're seeing, you know, totally hearing, totally pure. And oh, yeah, I don't think you can see on a podcast.

That's that's a fair point. But an airport worker at Austin Bergstrom is suing a United Airlines union because the union requires him to opt out of paying for their political activity instead of seeking his affirmative consent first. Very interesting. So can you give us a little bit more context of what he's arguing this under? I know there was a recent ruling in the Supreme Court a couple years ago that's kind of relevant, right? Yes, there is. The confusing thing about this case is that there are a lot of things that seem like

they should be illegal or the central part of the conflict, and they aren't. Mainly, that Texas is a right-to-work state, but it is still legal for this union to collect mandatory fees from people who aren't members, which is interesting. And the reason why this is legal is because there's a federal law from 1926 that has evolved since then called the Railway Labor Act. And this authorizes unions in the railroad industry and the airline industry to strike these deals with management

that include mandatory union payments from all employees whether or not they're members so to get hired a business that has struck such a deal with unions in these industries under this law employees would have to pay to these unions even if they don't join because the law is federal this overrides texas right to work law so in all other industries, you don't have to do this. But for railroads and airlines, this federal law applies. And this worker named Arthur Baisley still has to pay these fees to the union. His problem is that the union is collecting fees in part for collective bargaining, but also for political activity. And on top of that, the union is collecting these fees automatically and asking him to opt out.

What Baisley and his team want is a system in which the union seeks his consent before collecting the money instead of taking the money first and then, you know, setting up the system to where if he fails out all the proper forms, he can opt out. With a limited time, right? That's also part of the suit. Yes. That there's only a limited opt-out window. That's correct, yeah. There's a limited window of time in which he can fill out all the right papers and everything and opt out of the system. So what he wants in this case is to have the union seek his consent instead of opting out.

I was fixing to say that the overturning of the Railway Labor Act in general is not what he wants, but I'm sure that'd be convenient for him. But the main point is that the fact that this union can collect mandatory fees is legal. Whether or not union can collect mandatory fees is legal whether or not they can collect mandatory fees above and beyond what they need for collective bargaining purposes which is to say for political activity that's what's being contested here along with the fact that um you know the way that they collect it whether or not they take first and ask questions later or or the other way around another notable um difference here between this and Janus, which is the Supreme Court precedent that he cites,

at least in the press release that I read, is that Janus was a public worker. And obviously this guy is a private worker, private company worker. So I'm not sure if that will actually play out in any substance in this case. But it's something to keep an eye on. And I know Janice was in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin had passed a law prohibiting collective bargaining by public workers. That was the thing that, you know, resulted in the Capitol being barnstormed by mobs. And, um, then governor Scott Walker was, uh, they, they tried to recall him and he, um, he, he won that race again. Um, but you know, this, it's somewhat similar to theme to Janice, but, um, I, at least in my opinion, as someone of a layman on legal stuff,

you know, that divide between public and private is something that the court is going to have to really contend with. Yeah, I should probably get into the explanations of these Supreme Court cases. So the union, to give credit to their argument, it's the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, abbreviated IAM. The union argues that the First Amendment does not apply to their agreement with United Airlines, and thus their opt-out system does not violate the law. And for legal support, they're depending on a 1961 Supreme Court case, the International Association of Machinists versus Street.

And then the court ruled essentially that opt-out systems, the one that they're using today are legal. And so in the ruling from that 1961 case, it says, dissent is not to be presumed. It must be affirmatively made known to the union by the dissenting employee. And like you pointed out, Baisley and his team are defending, or excuse me me depending on a case called janice versus afscme and the relevant part of that ruling from 2018 comes from the fact that the court ruled the first amendment requires a union to get employees affirmative consent before taking their money for political activity and to your point about the difference between you know public and private organizations brad um if you look through the briefs, which I, you know, with the allowance of the editor, we'll link in the bottom of the article, they link Janice to the public sphere with another ruling,

Shea v. something. I don't have it in front of me now, but, you know but that'll be linked in the article. And relevant from that case is the decision that the First Amendment can't apply to industries under the Railway Labor Act, which is to say airline and railroads. So there'll be a little bit more detail about that in the article. But that's the link that they're hoping to use to bridge the gap between Janus and this case. Very interesting. I look forward to reading the rest of your article. People will be able to find that on our website. Thank you so much for doing that. Brad, one last subject that you wrote about regarding the Texas Legislative Budget Board's uh recent actions can you give us the details on that yeah so the legislative budget board is a body made up of mostly the highest um you know officials in in the in texas the governor is not included but of the legislative officials so like the

speaker of the house um the the president of the senate, the President of the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor, and then various high-ranking official or representatives. And they basically set the tone fiscally for the session. And so the action they took on November 30th was to limit spending increases for the general revenue expenditures to 7%. Now it's down a little bit from about a 10% increase from last session that they implemented. In their remarks, which were very brief, there wasn't much to pull from, but they limited it because of the pandemic and obviously the fiscal constraints that has presented going into the next session that will undoubtedly be a very big theme to the session itself. But yeah, a 7% spending increase cap. Now, that doesn't mean that that is what the legislature will decide to spend. There very well may be some drop off there. For example,

that 10% um, increase from the 85th legislature to the 86th. Um, that was, they didn't spend every dime, every dime of that. They elected not to a portion or appropriate 1.5 billion of the permitted, um, permitted dollar amount increase and so um they will not be locked into that seven percent but i would be hard pressed to believe they do not come close to that so that's the gist of it very fun very fun indeed all the budget stuff that nobody likes to yeah hear about because it's so dang boring, but important.

I think people, it's important, but people would rather spend their time watching TV. Just binge watching the latest shows on Netflix. Guys, what are your favorite TV shows? I think Isaiah really wants to expound on this one first. I think I'm staring at his favorite TV show right now. Yes. Yeah. My friend Lutfi got me a whole bunch of King of the Hill stickers. I think I'm staring at his favorite TV show right now. Yes. Yeah. My friend Lutfi

got me a whole bunch of King of the Hill stickers. I put them all on my laptop for my birthday last month. I think I've probably got 40 King of the Hill

stickers papering my laptop right now. Would you call yourself a fanatic? I would. Okay. Yes. My whole family,

we're all King of the Hill fans. On long road trips, my brother and I used to have King of the Hill trivia competitions On long road trips, my brother and I used to have King of the Hill trivia competitions with each other. And who would win? That's not important. But I don't know if it's my favorite show of all time.

It's definitely my favorite animated show among the Simpsons family. Shows in that category, I think King of the Hill has got to take the blue ribbon there. Though I really dig the Simpsons. They're really funny. King of the Hill is just to take the blue ribbon there. Though I really dig The Simpsons. They're really funny. King of the Hill is just such a perfect slice of life, though. Yeah.

Do they make as good of predictions as The Simpsons? I haven't really watched either. But, you know, with what we talked about earlier with Trump and Adler, like those predictions, does King of the Hill make some good predictions like that? Yes. This is not at all planned, by the way, the prediction thing. But there's an episode from, you know, 90-something, where one of the main characters, Con Sivanusenphone, who's from Laos, is trying to get his daughter, who is in her early teens, into some kind of college prep summer program for, I think, Princeton, one of the Ivy League schools. And they don't accept her because she's Asian.

And they have too many Asian American students going there. And this exact lawsuit happened, what was it, Brad? Like last year, two years ago? A couple years ago, yeah. Yeah. And so- With Harvard, right? That we're talking about?

Yeah. Yeah. Like 18 years after the episode aired. But- Literally the exact same thing. I saw that and I thought, well, this isn't news. This happened to Connie Soufanous and phone and like,

you know, 2000 or something, 1999. It's almost as if they saw affirmative action playing out like that. Yeah. It was a clear trajectory, but, uh,

but yeah, so there's that. Um, I'm trying to think of other ones. That's a good one though. That is a good one. If I think of any more, I there's that. I'm trying to think of other ones. That's a good one, though. That is a good one. If I think of any more, I'll tell you. I see one sticker on your laptop that always sticks out to me.

Bobby with a, I can't tell if it's a cigarette in his mouth, and he's just smoking away, and he's, what, like 12 in the show? Yeah, there's this episode where Bobby and his friend Joseph from across the street find, I think, like, just like a little roach of a cigarette or something, like a little stub of a cigarette in a dumpster or whatever. Anyway, they smoke a cigarette and they get found out by Hank, Bobby's dad. And so Hank, as punishment, makes Bobby smoke a whole carton of cigarettes, thinking that this will turn him off from cigarettes.

But in the process, Hank smells it, and he starts smoking. He used to be a smoker. So he starts smoking again. He gets Bobby addicted to smoking. Oh, dear. Then he gets Peggy addicted to smoking. And the whole family gets hooked on smoking.

And they have to, like, Hank and Bobby go to this, you know, some group for, you know, to quit smoking. And the guy running it says to Bobby, like, you know, it is so encouraging that you could be here with your dad. And then it's revealed that Bobby is the one that, you know, the meeting is for since he got hooked on smoking. And then they're like, you, you know, you let your son smoke a carton of cigarettes. And Hank's like, I didn't let him, I made him. But that's a legendary episode. Glad I picked that one then. Daniel, what's your favorite?

You know, I honestly do not watch a lot of TV. Um, you know, the, the last TV show that I really was a big fan of was person of interest. That was cool. On show on TV several years ago. Um, it was actually written by Christopher Nolan's brother, Jonathan Nolan produced by him. Um, very fascinating way of,

uh, asking how cameras are spying on us it was it was fun um right now though i am watching through the latest season of mandalorian i'm by no means a star wars nerd but i'm enjoying it all the same okay okay do you get all the references since you're not not at all i watch it with some friends and they're able to fill me in on a lot of the important details and the references that I go way over my head. Well, I second that. I love The Mandalorian, and I am a Star Wars nerd. It was one of the first movies I watched with my dad showed me when I got to the age where I could start watching movies that my dad was interested in. And that was of the more PG-rated types of those movies.

You know, like Animal House, that would not be a PG-rated movie. But anyway, I digress. One of my favorites is Psych. Oh, yes. That one is good. And I really enjoy how it knows exactly what it is and it's not afraid to be it. It's a play off The Mentalist, even though it started before that. But they constantly reference The Mentalist and make fun of it and make fun of themselves.

Maybe The Mentalist was trying to make a serious version of Psych. That could be it. I think that could be it. In terms of animated shows, I'm a big South Park fan. And I love South Park because it makes fun of everything and everyone. And that's something the world desperately needs right now in a world that takes itself far too seriously. So those would be my two.

Yeah. Great. Well, gentlemen, any last words? Isaiah, this is from Michelle. Would you call yourself the king of the hill? Hmm. That'd be quite a title to take on myself. You know, I think Jesus said something in John, like,

if I testify on my own behalf, then, you know, I'm not telling the truth. So, in short, if one of y'all wants to call me King of the Hill, I'd be cool with it. I think that would make me Hank, just because when the title sequence comes on and we see the King of the Hill words on the screen, Hank's face is in the center of the picture. He's kind of the main character. I don't know how much I relate to Hank. I really relate to lucky my family disagrees and they say i'm more of a dale but um i always found that i had most in common with lucky a kind of a minor character voiced by tom petty may he rest in peace like mckenzie who's not with us right now

but um so yeah i don't think i'm hank i don't think i could be the king of the hill okay i'm gonna pretend that I understood even a modicum of what you just said. He said he wants to be lucky. That's all I got. Okay. Are you feeling lucky? You feeling lucky, punk? Do you?

I'm sorry. You got me talking about it. It's been fun. It'll be fun later. It'll be more fun when McKenzie's here and we can give her grief, right? I second that. Cool. Well, talk to you all later. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News.

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