The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - December 2, 2022

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/  Or get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup 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:Houston’s hours-late boil water notice prompting a “diagnostic review” from the mayorA Wood County constable accused of unjustly ordering his canine to bite a suspectThe El Paso DA resigning amid criticism and court hearings over her management of casesLt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priorities and proposals for the upcoming legislative sessionA Texas congressman writing a letter to Elon Musk asking for evidence of political censorshipBusiness taxes as something to watch when the Legislature reconvenes next yearTexas’ arguments in the Supreme Court against Biden’s immigration enforcement policiesState Sen. John Whitmire announcing his run to be Houston’s next mayorTwo Houston-area defendants sentenced for defrauding federal business relief programsA south Texas Senate candidate requesting a recount after a razor-thin raceOne reporter’s dive into the homeless camps that dot the City of AustinERCOT finalizing its market redesigns as Texas approaches winter

Happy, happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses Houston's hours-late boil water notice prompting a diagnostic review from the mayor. A Wood County constable accused of unjustly ordering his canine to bite a suspect. The El Paso DA resigning amid criticism in court hearings over her management of cases. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's priorities and proposals for the upcoming legislative session. A Texas congressman writing a letter to Elon Musk asking for evidence of political censorship. Business taxes as something to watch when the legislature reconvenes next year. Texas's arguments in the Supreme Court against Biden's immigration enforcement policies.

State Senator John Whitmire announcing his run to be Houston's next mayor, two Houston-area defendants sentenced for defrauding federal business relief programs, a South Texas Senate candidate requesting a recount after a razor-thin race, one reporter's dive into the homeless camps that dot the city of Austin, and ERCOT finalizing its market redesigns as Texas approaches winter. As always, if you have questions, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with

Rob, with Hayden, with Holly,lly and with matt we've got a pretty good crew here brad is off traipsing out in west texas matt he's kind of in your neck of the woods today so he will not be joining us on this episode but we have a lot of news to get into regardless um so holly we're gonna start off with you we're so glad when you can join the pod and chat with our listeners and chat with us and update on what's going on in Harris County. Houston made national news earlier this week over a citywide water issue. What happened that led to that interruption? Well, Sunday morning, a water treatment and delivery facility went down. Initially, there was this kind of rush to blame the power grid. But as it turned out, the problem was with city equipment. There seems to be a transformer failure inside a city-owned and maintained facility for water

treatment and delivery. Reportedly, there was also a backup transformer, and that failed too. So consequently, you had a dramatic water pressure drop in a short period of time. And it dropped below regulatory standards, and then even below what is termed the emergency standard. The problem with low pressure is that there are no leaks in the delivery system. In fact, we know these leaks cost the city millions of dollars in revenue every year. And without that pressure pushing the water out, you get a backflow sometimes that can introduce contaminants

into the water supply. So it was a potentially dangerous situation. Theoretically, state standards would have triggered a water boil notice, but the city hesitated because the pressure drop had been temporary. They say it lasted about 30 minutes or so. Reportedly, this happened between 10 and 1130 Sunday morning, but they did not communicate with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, known as TCEQ, until about 330 in the afternoon. And it wasn't until that evening that they decided they had to issue that water boil notice. My gosh. So after that decision to issue the notice, why did the city receive so much criticism? Well, what upset a lot of the public was that the notice was sent after 7 p.m. and only to people who had subscribed to the city's email notification service. And then later, between 10 and 10.30, some of those who had subscribed to the text notifications got a notice, but they never activated the emergency alert

system. And some people found out on Twitter. Others did not find out until Monday morning when many of the local school districts, including Houston ISD, or largest, announced that schools would remain closed. So then you had parents and families scrambling to figure out what to do with their children on that morning. So there was a lot of consternation about how the public was notified. Happily, we did not have a serious contamination of the water system, and they were able to lift the boil notice, but a lot of finger pointing in the aftermath here. Yeah, so talk to us about that aftermath.

What has it been like after this was this whole debacle went down? Right. So Mayor Sylvester Turner called for a diagnostic investigation that will include what triggered the problem and how the communications were handled. And then at this week's city council meeting, there was discussion of adding to the amount of money the city will spend next year. I believe they doubled the amount of money they'll spend in repairing broken water pipes and some of the infrastructure there. But the other issue that has not been discussed so much in city council is, you know, the initial equipment failure, that transformer that went down, and then the backup that went down that caused this problem to begin with. There was some discussion after Winterstone URI in 2021 because backup generators that

should have kept water flowing despite the freeze did not work. They failed in that instance. The city has never really provided information as to why, whether it was shoddy maintenance or what have you. Former council member Greg Travis has been out publicly this week reminding people of that problem and that he had worked with Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher to obtain funding for generators and equipment that would have kept those facilities going, but there really hasn't been any response to that. Now, the city's utility director has said that the

generators would not have helped this week, but there's still a lot of questions about what actually happened and whether or not the city has the proper infrastructure in place to keep things going in case of an emergency like this. The other thing that's happening is that there are some people calling for someone to be fired over what happened. Schools were closed for two days in a row. They were able to lift that Boyle notice, but it was a huge disruption for, you know, the nation's fourth largest city over, you know, some transformer failures. So a lot of questions remaining, and I think we'll continue to hear about this for a while. Harris County in the news again.

What else is new? Holly, thanks for your coverage. Hayden, we're coming to you. An East Texas law enforcement officer is facing criminal charges. Tell us about Wood County Constable Kelly Smith. Constable Kelly Smith was indicted by a grand jury in East Texas on Thursday, November 10 at the federal courthouse in Tyler. He is charged with one count of deprivation of rights under color of law after an individual, Robert Evans, accused him of inappropriately directing his police dog to bite the suspect during an altercation while he was trying to arrest Evans. The grand jury indicted

him with a crime that carries a penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison. And of course, when a law enforcement officer or anyone acting on behalf of the government oppresses an individual or violates their rights, that can be considered a federal crime. So that's why he's facing a federal indictment. Kelly is 46 years old, and he is accused of committing this crime in July of this year. And one of the attorneys, however, representing him, told a local media outlet that the suspect he was trying to subdue was being violent, and that he only suffered an injury that required three stitches during the altercation. He stated, the attorney, Cody Skipper, stated that Smith suffered injuries that included a broken finger and an injury to his knee. And now the government is using

Robert Evans as the primary witness against Smith in this deprivation of rights case. So his attorney provided a pretty strong defense of his client in the media. Give us some background on a notable member of Smith's defense team. The other lawyer representing Smith or the other one that was reported is Toby Shook, who was a high-profile prosecutor in North Texas and was even the Republican nominee for a Dallas County district attorney in 2006. He has prosecuted many of the most high profile criminals in the DFW area, including several members of the Texas Seven, which was a group of prisoners who escaped the Texas Department of Corrections in the year 2000, and then proceeded to murder a

police officer during an armed robbery in Irving on Christmas Eve 2000. The state of Texas ultimately executed four members of the Texas 7, and then two are on death row still awaiting execution. The seventh member committed suicide before he could be arrested. But that is just a small portion of Shook's resume. Needless to say, the federal government has a formidable opponent in Shook. Whoever represents the federal government, whatever prosecutors represent this charge against Smith will have a very strong, strong opponent representing Smith and Toby Shook. Certainly. Thank you, Hayden, for that coverage. Rob, we're coming to you. The El Paso district attorney resigned on Monday Rosales was elected in 2020, but in September 2022, a judge approved a petition for her removal due to accused mishandling of cases. Her office has allowed hundreds of cases to be dismissed. If I recall correctly, the number is around 1,000 because the office did not file criminal charges within 180 days of arrest, is required by texas law so her office is also uh tasked with

prosecuting the 2019 el paso walmart shooting that killed 23 people uh however her critics say that she isn't doing enough to prosecute the case and a another judge actually had to issue a gag order against uh the office of the da because uh ros said, I believe in a statement to press that she was hoping the trial would be in summer 2023. However, the trial has already been scheduled for, uh, January, 2024. So a judge had to say, you know, I'm issuing a gag order on this because, you know, you can't go around saying that you want a different court date than what's already been scheduled. So there's all sorts of stuff happening there. Wow.

Was there anything else she was supposed to do this week? So yes, she was actually supposed to appear in court on both Monday and Wednesday. So she was supposed to appear in court on Monday for a hearing to allow some of her defense counsel in this case for her removal to withdraw from the case. So those attorneys were those attorneys are looking to withdraw from defending her against removal. However, Rosales did not show up on Monday. She was also supposed to appear in a hearing on Wednesday to determine whether or not her office violated the Walmart shooting gag order. There are claims that a representative of her office, a local municipal attorney,

actually impersonated a widow of a shooting victim to leak information to the media and threatened the victim's family with, uh, supposed claims that he had snipers everywhere. And so therefore the victim's family should not betray him. So people claim that this, um, judge is, is working for or with, uh, Rosales. So, you know, he might have had access to a victim's or her or his widow's phone in order to impersonate them and send emails to the press. So it's pretty crazy stuff. So she was supposed to show up on Wednesday to determine if the gag order had been violated. And she did not show up yesterday. So the judge now has said that she has to show up to a hearing today on Thursday afternoon or risks arrest if she doesn't to get her to show up. So, you know, we're going to see what happens. We don't know if she resigned only because of these hearings happening this week, but she hasn't shown up to her two hearings that she was supposed to show up to. So we'll see if she shows up today. Wow. Well, thank you so much for that coverage, Rob. It'll be interesting to see what happens. And if we need to, there will be an update to an article or a new article. We'll certainly keep you guys looped in on what's going on out in El

Paso. So in lieu of Brad, usually he appears on the podcast in his little grumpy demeanor. But today you have Rob and I, and we are so sunny and so ready to provide a little bit of information on these stories. Now, we will not be able to do them justice. We may have sunny dispositions, but we will not be able to do them justice in the way that Brad would. We will try our best to honor it, though. So this week, the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, unveiled his list of legislative priorities for the 2023 legislative session. We are not that far away. We're like 40-something, 41 odd days out from the legislative session.

40 days. Okay. Everything's fine. We're going to get it all done and we're going to be prepped and it's going to be awesome. I'm excited, actually, for a session to start. I just screamed a little. What's that, Matt? I just screamed a little. Well, thank you for muting yourself. We have to get for a point and get caught up on.

I know. There's a lot to do between now and then. And Matt will be moving on to Austin. So that's top of his list. I'm getting married in between now and then. So there's a lot going on in our team. Regardless, it's exciting and we're ready to be on the floor of the House and the Senate watching everything that's going on. It'll be a delight and an honor to do so.

But let's talk about this list that the lieutenant governor talked about. Property tax is certainly at the top of Patrick's priority list. He said so on Wednesday at this press conference. And he laid out some items to accomplish that. And there was a very broad list of priorities that went along with that. It is extensive. I'd encourage folks to go to the texan.news to read all of them. I'm going to mention a few today that particularly

stuck out to me that would be a little bit interesting. But honestly, most of them were very interesting. So make sure to go to the texan.news and read about the lieutenant governor's priorities. For context, usually the leaders of both chambers, both respective leaders for the House and the Senate and the Texas legislature, roll out their priorities at the beginning of session. And they sometimes have similarities and sometimes they're very different. And so we'll be watching how this all breaks down, not to mention the governor will come out and say what his emergency items are. He talks a lot ahead of the session, kind of detailing what he expects legislators to accomplish and what he wants them to focus on. So there are a lot of competing interests in this regard. And the fact that they're all

Republicans does not mean that they will agree on everything. So fascinating to watch. Make sure to keep your eye on that. And we'll certainly be breaking down the differences between the priorities of the big three, the speaker, lieutenant governor, and the governor. A couple of Patrick's in specific that caught my eye was raising the standard homestead exemption, which was raised last year already to $40,000, expanding business personal property tax exemption to at least $100,000, building more natural gas power plants for the state's main grid, creating a 10-year minimum sentence for those who use a firearm in a crime i thought that was fascinating um codifying a mechanism to recall district attorneys and judges so local officials who facilitate and release the release of a criminal on bond who then goes out uh to commit another

crime very reminiscent of what we're seeing in some of these big cities here in texas particularly in harris county as holly h has covered extensively. Adding more funding to border security, increasing teacher salaries, and he also mentioned the 13th check for retired teachers. This is a direct quote, empower parents by giving them a voice in their children's education. So a nod to school choice, but in specific as to what that actually would look like in the Senate. Adding to school safety funding, again, after Uvalde legislators and state leaders have talked a lot about what school safety looks like on the Republican side and Democrats have talked extensively about gun control. Reforming tenure in higher education institutions.

Now, back in February, Patrick called for a phased out the phasing out of tenure for professors deemed to have taught critical race theory inspired ideas. And at one point he even said, look, the chancellors won't say this publicly, but I'll tell you what they told me. We'd love to get rid of some of these folks, but can't because of tenure. After he floated that idea, Dade Phelan, the Texas House speaker, objected and came out saying, I can just tell you in my time talking to folks at UT, they'll tell you it's hard to recruit conservative professors without tenure. So we're already seeing a break in ideas there from the speaker and the lieutenant governor patrick also mentioned restoring the penalty for voter fraud to a felony and ensuring timely counting of votes and review

of machines two issues that have been top of mind for republicans especially again harris county after there's been issues in harris county And after last year, the Election Integrity Act of 2021 was passed by Republicans and caused Democrats to flee the state. So fascinating to watch how this will all break down once the legislature convenes in 2023, January. But I'm excited to see it. I think we all are and we'll be following very closely what's happening at the Capitol. Matt, we are now going to come to you. Censorship by social media and big tech has been a hot topic in Texas politics. And recently, a Texas congressman has reached out to the new Twitter owner, Elon Musk, who's also a Texas resident now, and asked him to help Congress investigate federal interference with political speech. Talk to us about your piece.

That's right, Mackenzie. And I must say, Brad better watch out because you did a really good job telling his story. I just fist pumped. Setting a standard I'll have to live up to. So everybody has been aware of Elon Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter. And since his acquisition, he's been on a bit of a free speech crusade. He's unblocked numerous conservative political figures like former President Donald Trump and Jordan Peterson, and as well as my favorite and shameless plug, the Babylon Bee, which just brings highlights to my day. But with his announcement that Twitter was complicit in suppressing stories to influence

elections and his announcement of releasing more pending evidence regarding that, it caught the attention of Texas Congressman August Pfluger from the 11th Congressional District, and Congressman Pfluger wrote a letter to Musk asking him to bring evidence of federal influence through the social media giant to Congress. Specifically, Pfluger wrote about how federal authorities worked with Facebook and Twitter to suppress a story regarding President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and his infamous laptop, which allegedly contained evidence that both father and son were receiving funds from foreign countries like Ukraine and China. Fluger pointed out that the story was suppressed prior to the 2020 presidential election. Now, some two years later, even

corporate media outlets like CBS are publishing stories that corroborate the New York Post's original story on the issue. to Congress to investigate any kind of relationship or influence that the federal government had through the social media giant to suppress political viewpoints. Republicans take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January after managing to ink out a narrow majority in the November elections. Kind of an interesting thing about this whole saga is whenever you look at the entire scope of things, it's just interesting how many issues this saga ties into from big tech influencing elections, which was the basis that resulted in Texas lawmakers passing House Bill 20. That was the prohibition on the discrimination of political viewpoints by social media outlets to the impeachment by Democrats, former President Donald Trump, when Trump called on Ukraine to expose information regarding to the Biden's business dealings. And that was in direct relationship to this controversy that Pfluger pointed out in his letter to Musk.

So it'll be interesting to see how this continues to unfold, what all kinds of side stories that this impacts. And we'll be keeping an eye on it going forward. Absolutely. Well, Matt, thanks for your coverage of that issue. We appreciate it. Rob, we're going to come to you now as you are going to help me out here in covering some of Brad's stories from the week as he plays hooky. He's not actually playing hooky. He's looking at the grid and some of the weatherization efforts that have been made out of the state. So it's very fascinating stuff.

And we give him props for that. But, Rob, why don't you talk to us about this piece Brad wrote this week,, uh, on business taxes as something that should be watched when the legislature convenes next year. Indeed. Well, it's definitely the most exciting part of all legislative policies, business taxes. However, you know, it is something to watch, right? You know, as, as Brad wrote in his piece, property taxes are a really big issue in Texas right now, where like everybody pays property taxes. Well, people who have property pay property taxes, but business taxes sort of slip under the radar if you're not like running a business, right? But a new report from the tax foundation puts Texas at 13th best in the nation for having like a business friendly tax climate. Um, it's not number one because of certain things involving like the taxes that it puts on business. For example, it's gross receipts tax and it's unemployment insurance tax sort of bring it down a little in the rankings. Um, for example, uh, Florida is number four in their ranking and like California and New Jersey are at like the absolute bottom. Uh, so Texas has really high property taxes and this is already like a big issue for the upcoming legislative session, right? Like Greg Abbott wants to use part of the $27 billion budget surplus to buy down property taxes.

You know, it's certainly been a big thing. Others have called for eliminating the school maintenance and operations tax, which is the biggest component of property tax bills. So property taxes are definitely going to be a big issue, but there's also looking at reform from people like Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan about how to reduce business taxes to make Texas an even more business-friendly climate. This is something, if you look at Greg Abbott's Twitter, he constantly likes to emphasize how good for business Texas is, how Texas is adding jobs. He wants Texas to have that reputation of the place where you can go and just start a business, right? So this is something that

matters to him. And Texas ranks 47th out of 50 on corporate taxes, according to the Tax Foundation, because of our retail, wholesale, and sales taxes. We don't have an income tax in Texas, but we do have a sales tax, which covers a lot of stuff. And this is part of the reason why we have such a big budget surplus in the first place, because of our sales taxes with inflation rising, this leads... Sorry, I could talk if I try really hard. Because of consumption taxes like sales taxes, with inflation rising and making the prices of good rise, this state is bringing in just a ton of consumption taxes. Yeah. But yeah, so business personal property taxes are also on the property that businesses own.

And Abbott and Phelan want to take a stab at reducing this overall to make Texas even more business friendly. That's absolutely right. Well, thanks for your coverage of that. In lieu of Brad, we appreciate you making sure our listeners are informed. Speaking of listeners, hey guys, if you're enjoying our podcast, subscribe to The Texan right now while you're listening. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep doing our jobs. When you subscribe, you'll get access to all our stories as soon as they're published, so that you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription

is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month. And we brought back that fan favorite merch item. New subscribers will get a free Fake News Stops Here mug, by far a most popular item of all time. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Now let's jump back to our coverage. Hayden, a familiar showdown between Texas and the federal government took place at the nation's high court. What is this dispute between the U.S. government and Texas? Well, on Tuesday, Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone and U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Preligar went to bat at the U.S. Supreme Court over the federal government's deportation

guidelines. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security in September of 2021 published guidelines that provide for prioritizing deportations based on things like measurable public safety risk or national security risk. The federal government contends that these guidelines are necessary to preserve the limited resources that Congress has allocated for the DHS to pursue deportations and removals. However, Texas says that illegal immigration is causing a cost to the state and that the U.S. government should step up its game, and the DHS is obligated under the law to pursue removal and deportation to the greatest extent possible. Prelogar argued that it is not practical for the state or for the federal government to pursue each and every case and that it would create what she called an unyielding mandate, and that there are only 6,000 officers on the ground available to pursue deportation and removal and to apprehend illegal immigrants,

and there are something in the neighborhood of 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. So it would be an extreme stretch of resources. And she also stated that it would, quote, scramble enforcement efforts on the ground. So Prelegard was defending the federal government's prioritization of only these select types of cases where there has been a serious crime committed. But Stone highlighted that there have been cases where individuals have had detainer paperwork on them, and then that paperwork was removed, and then they went on to be arrested again on suspicion of crimes like human trafficking. So while Stone did not accept the argument that it is not a harm to the states, and he highlighted the fiscal cost to Texas as well, and the fact that Texas has most of the southern border with Mexico, and Customs and Border Protection reported that there were 1.5 million encounters

with illegal immigrants at Texas Border Patrol sectors during fiscal year 2022. And much of this debate was hashed out in the arguments over the Remain in Mexico policy. As I was listening to this oral argument, I was getting deja vu a little bit because this is some of the same material that they went over when they were arguing over remain in Mexico, which the Supreme Court decided could be struck down this year. And Prelegar was doing her best to argue around the fact that this federal law that calls on the U.S. government to arrest and remove illegal immigrants does use the word shall, but she cited what she called the basic principles of discretionary enforcement, and those should serve as the backdrop of this law that, while it does use the word shall, has to take other things into account. But Stone contended that because the word shall is there, that that is clearly an indication of a mandatory action that the law requires the DHS to take. So lots of different arguments. They also argued about standing, whether Texas even has a right to bring this lawsuit. And Prelegar said that if Texas is given standing in this case,

that it's opening the floodgate for states to just sue if they don't like a policy and then find a federal judge that is likely to strike it down. Whereas Stone is saying that because there are these concrete fiscal problems that are being caused to the state, that the state has a valid theory of injury, so to speak, to pursue a lawsuit against the federal government. So those are just some of the issues that were hashed out on Tuesday in the Supreme Court. Certainly. In terms of how this might look going forward, what did justices say or how did they show their hand at all about how they may decide this case?

Well, Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts, said that he expressed that he was more inclined to the view that it's not the Supreme Court's job to hash out the practicality of enforcing a particular law. And it's instead the court's job to say what the law is and then let Congress and the executive branch sort it out. So he seemed to favor that perspective, which would be something that is more favorable to Stone in the state of Texas. However, Justice Kagan seemed like she was skeptical of the idea that Texas has suffered harm because of illegal immigration. And she called the cost to the idea that Texas has suffered harm because of illegal immigration. And she called the cost to the state of Texas speculative. So an interesting word choice from a judge sitting in Washington, D.C., not necessarily on the ground, on the border.

I think most people, even if they don't agree with some of the things that Republicans propose in response, I think most people would agree that there's a cost of illegal immigration to local border communities and even the state of Texas. So Kagan did not seem to accept that argument. I imagine that this might be a case where it falls along ideological lines with the conservative justices siding with Texas and the more liberal justices siding with the federal government. Although that was not the case in the Remain in Mexico policy. So a decision could be made in June of next year. Okay. Well, Hayden, thank you for your coverage.

Holly, we are coming back to you. Houston's mayoral and city council elections to run for mayor for quite some time, but this was the kind of formal launch of his campaign. There was a big event down at the Post Oak Hotel in Houston owned by Tillman Fertitta, who is also the owner of the Houston Rockets for you sports fans. Sorry, Brad's not here. So he can be very excited about that. But it was an interesting launch. It was attended by people from both the right and the left. The host committee was quite lengthy and included people like former state rep Dan Huberty, a Republican, as well as some Democrat leaders, Boris Miles was there, District Attorney Kim Ogg. So you really saw this kind of bipartisan gathering there as Whitmire took the stage. Now, Whitmire brings a lot of experience and statesmanship to this campaign. He's been in the state legislature, I believe, since the 1970s in the Senate, since the 1980s. He has this kind of unofficial moniker of Dean of the Senate because he's the longest serving current member of the Senate. He sat on

the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice for years. And he has not been afraid to challenge members of his own party here in Houston, Harris County over the past year over public safety issues. And he did talk about some of those issues during his campaign speech on Tuesday night. You know, he said he wasn't going to, basically, he wasn't going to quibble or fight with local leaders, but he said there's essentially no denying that there's a crime issue in Houston, Harris County. But he suggested that, or he said, we are not New York or Chicago, we fix our problems. And his campaign slogan unveiled Tuesday night was also Fix Houston. Along with talking

about crime, he talked about some of the other issues in Houston, Harris County, and really touted his ability to work with people on the other side of the aisle. At one point, he talked about working with Republican leadership and said to the crowd, Houstonians, who do you want calling the governor in the middle of the night when Houston needs resources? And that was kind of a poke at the current leadership where you have the current mayor, Sylvester Turner, and the Harris County Judge, Lena Hidalgo, often sparring with state leadership and having this very contentious relationship. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out in Houston. Yeah, absolutely. Especially considering the Harris County judge race and how close that was

between Hidalgo and Alex Delmaral-Mealer. Fascinating to watch, particularly in that we just saw a very tight margin there. And of course, the city limits of Houston are different than Harris County, different voters. But watching a Democrat kind of appeal to both sides there with some more broad issues that might be of interest to both sides of the aisle was very interesting. Who are the other prominent candidates who've announced? Certainly. So the other, I think, top name candidate is former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, who was also part of the Democrat state leadership prior to being appointed to Harris County Clerk's position in 2020. He did preside over that very controversial 2020 general election in Harris County. He's raised quite a bit of money, but he probably represents that more far left progressive

movement within the Democrat Party. And we do see a conflict here in Houston, Harris County, within the Democrat Party over the more progressive side and what you might call the more moderate Democrats. Using that term lightly, I'd say moderate on criminal justice issues, still interested in reforms, but definitely opposed to the practice of releasing repeat violent offenders and some of these other things. So there's that interesting conflict there. Another candidate is a former city council member by the name of Amanda Edwards,

also a little more on the left there, and an attorney by the name of Lee Kaplan. These races tend to be crowded in the last two election cycles for Houston mayor. The race did go to a runoff. And my guess is we'd probably see that happen again next year, depending on what happens. Was Amanda Edwards also the person who ran against John Corr, entered the Senate primary? That is correct. Yes, yes, you are correct. That is a significant factor. But I don't see her as being as strong a candidate in the local race as Chris Hollins and, of course, Senator Whitmire. Yeah, fascinating. So obviously, as a longtime member of the Senate, Whitmire reports a lot of campaign cash. How does that apply to his mayoral campaign

and how does it compare to other candidates? Yeah, so he sits on a pretty significant campaign war chest of about $9.7 million. But the city has its own imposed contribution limits. And so he will not be able to transfer all of that to his mayoral campaign. When Sylvester Turner made that jump from the state legislature to run for city council, or excuse me, for Houston mayor, he was able to permit or able to transfer the first $5,000 per donation in his state account to his mayoral campaign. So they're, I believe, going to apply some sort of formula to Senator Whitmire's cash, and we don't yet know how much of that will transfer. Chris Hollins has raised about $1.1 million for his race since announcing last spring.

Then Amanda Edwards and attorney Lee Kaplan have both raised just under a million dollars. And I believe Kaplan, part of his finances come from a personal loan to himself. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, in the Harris County judges race, we saw Alexandra Del Moral-Miller raise a significant amount of campaign cash, unprecedented for a county judges race, but that was not sufficient to put her over the top. So, you know, having a lot of money is not necessarily going to win the campaign. Got it. Well, Holly, thank you for your coverage. Hayden, let's talk COVID fraud. It's a beat that you've somehow just commandeered and it's become something that you often write about. What punishments did a federal judge hand down in this pandemic fraud case? Probably one of the more bizarre consequences of the pandemic and the government's response to the pandemic was all of the fraud that went with it and all of the scams about vaccines and small business relief, financial relief. And these two defendants from the Houston area received lengthy prison sentences connected to a scam that they orchestrated to fool people into giving them their small business information or other personal identifying information. And they then used that information to file for fraudulent grants from the Small Business Administration. 47-year-old Clifton Pape, after pleading guilty to wire fraud, was sentenced to 121 months.

We joke around here that the only two things that are measured in months are baby's ages and federal prison sentences. And so that comes out to a little bit over 10 years in prison. And 59-year-old Sally Young received a 66-month sentence, which is five years, six months behind bars. And both of them pleaded guilty in May of this year. They will also have to pay $3.7 million and other penalties. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they don't have $3.7 million. So that's probably symbolic. And then they'll have to forfeit $681,000 in illegal proceeds. Again, I'm going to take an educated guess that those proceeds have been spent or most of them have been. So they ultimately stole about $1.3 million in small business grants. These were grants that went with an application for an economic injury disaster payment from the SBA, which at the time, even if you did not receive or even if you were not approved for these small business loans, you could still get the grant if

you had a business with 10 or more employees. And they would, of course, say that these businesses on whose behalf they were filing had 10 employees. And then they collected another $700,000 or so in fraudulent service fees that they charged through this bogus telemarketing business. So they're off to federal prison for a pretty substantial swindling of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the feds through these programs that were designed to help people recover or stay afloat economically during the pandemic. Wow. What were some other notable aspects of this case?

Well, it's always fun to pick apart how these fraudsters spend the money that they steal from the feds. And they went to a spa and resort in San Antonio. The more bizarre one, though, is Pape actually spent part of the proceeds to pay his speeding ticket that he received in Cut and Shoot, Texas. What a name. Yeah, what a town name. But those are not the most outrageous stories. You've had people spend their fraud money on strip clubs, on Lamborghinis, wake boats, all kinds of different bizarre vacations that people have taken. So these two are just one, a couple of many people that have fraudulently taken advantage of COVID-19 era relief programs. Absolutely. Thank you, Hayden. Matt, we are coming to you. The November election left a very close margin

between contenders for a very formidable South Texas Senate race. Now Republican Adam Hinojosa has filed for a recount. Give us those details. With incumbent Democrat Senator Eddie Lucio retiring,

his Senate District 27 seat in the Texas Senate saw two contenders facing off in November for his South Texas coastal district. opponent, Morgan LaMantia, who led with just 0.19% of the vote after Election Day this past month. This led Hinoza to announce that he is requesting a recount after consulting with his supporters, saying that there are enough honest mistakes in recounting the mail-in paper ballots in three counties, it could overturn the race. LaMantia issued a statement regarding to his announcement to seek recount, embracing his right to do so, and took the opportunity to also reiterate her election day results and celebrate that narrow lead that she presently holds. The Senate District 27 race was one of the closest races in the Texas legislature even before Election Day, which statistics showed it was, while it was going to be a close race, it did slightly favor Democrats. The district has always been a South Texas coastal race with or district with with two counties that include the Rio Grande border with Mexico. And then it runs up towards Corpus Christi and includes all or part of eight counties. While the district has always favored Democrats for a very, very long time,

Genosa did point out after his election night results that even if he doesn't ultimately win, coming so, so close is still a significant victory for Republicans that have always been behind in that area. Certainly. Well, Matt, thanks for your coverage on that issue. We'll keep an eye on what goes on there. Kind of rare for a recount to result in anything crazy, but regardless, still very newsworthy and we'll keep an eye. I'm going to chat a little bit here about another piece from our very own Brad Johnson. He wrote a great piece on the homeless camps in Austin. He covers that issue extensively. And the policies have really changed. He was able to shadow a local who has been documenting and searching for these camps throughout the city, particularly in light of the new, relatively more stringent policies that

voters have supported in recent years. I'll go ahead and just read this excerpt because I love how it starts. And I think he did a great job at telling this story. So I'm just going to read directly from this piece here from Brad Johnson. There's a different world under the trees, canoping Austin's creek beds. Behind the Fiesta grocery store off I-35 South is a microcosm of the city's underbelly, a makeshift neighborhood not of houses but of tents, tarps, and wooden pallets. That underbelly became Austin's face to the nation three years ago when the city council repealed its homeless camping and line restrictions, allowing unregulated squatting on all public grounds with limited exceptions,

including City Hall. Encampments sprouted up on Austin's boulevards and under its overpasses. Conflict between the city's homeless population and average citizens populated the news, and voters of the progressive city eventually had enough. They reinstated the ban in a citywide referendum by a near 20-point margin. After a delayed reinforcement of the ban, the problem seemed to go away. Rather, it just became harder to see. Over a year and a half removed from that vote, Austin's homeless problem remains as persistent as ever. The difference is the encampments must be searched for, rather than presenting themselves on the city's doorstep. certainly worth checking out. There's also a photo story up on our site. I don't think it's, again, the homeless problem is not as easily seen from downtown, but fascinating to watch that this population just kind of moved into the forest of the city. And the conversations had with these folks and with locals is definitely worth checking out. And like I said, the photo story is also awesome and gives just a great picture of what actually is going on here in Austin. Worth a read. Make

sure to go to thetexan.news and shout out to Brad on that story. It was very awesome. Rob, why don't you wrap us up here on this pod as we talk about the last piece of content here about ERCOT finalizing its market redesigns as Texas approaches winter. Another piece from Brad Johnson. Indeed, Brad always does a great job of covering the power grid and energy issues in Texas. And this week he wrote a piece about ERCOT is finalizing its market redesigns that they started to plan out after the 2021 winter storm and blackouts as a result of that. So the CEO of ERCOT, Pablo Vegas,. So the CEO of Aircot, Pablo Vegas,

spoke with the chairman of the Public Utility Commission, Peter Lake, at a press conference on Tuesday concerning the grid's readiness for the winter. They emphasized that Texas is growing by about 300,000 people every year or about one Corpus Christi every year. And they plan to have nearly 90,000 megawatts of energy available for the winter, which should be enough if things go according to plan. Of their projected scenarios, only one of them predicts load shedding, which is their term for forced blackouts when they're trying to, you know, get people off the get, you know, reduce the load on the grid, reduce the strain there. Um, that one projected

scenario, the most dire one would require basically more energy usage than what we set in the all time peak this summer. So it's not particularly likely, um, wind power will provide more energy than solar is projected in the winter as winter in winter. Wind tends to do better than solar, whereas, you know, in the summer, wind underperformed a lot. But solar was a significant source of energy there. The Vegas and Lake also emphasize that there has been a lack of development in thermal generation, which is, you know, when you heat something up to make energy like what you do with fossil fuels like coal or nuclear power. Compared to renewables that are being supported with friendly subsidies, they say that without more thermal energy, it's going to be harder to bolster the grid. But the agency is really close to finalizing its new plan in the wake of the winter storm and blackout.

So we'll see. Hopefully, everything will probably go fine this winter. But that's what we got to hope for. I like it. Thanks for covering that for us, folks. We're going to turn to our Twittery section here and talk a little bit about things that caught our eye on Twitter this week. Hayden, I'm going to put you on the spot and start with you. Where are you putting me on the spot?

Starting with me. Well, I was trying to buy you a little bit more time because you were leaning back in your chair to get to the mic so i was just trying to do that thank you that's very kind you're welcome i don't know why this video made me laugh but it's confrontations between reporters and politicians always they're funny they're funny because it's just the two groups that america hates the most going to bat against one another and i just usually hate each other a lot too they hate each other and america hates them although i think polling says that people hate the media a little bit more than they hate politicians so i think we might be winning anyway uh she uh the fox news reporter confronted Elizabeth Warren and asked her about Elon Musk.

And at first, she just dismissed her. And she was like, oh, I think Elon Musk is doing just fine. And then she just turns on her heel and walks off. And the reporter follows her and goes, but, but, but. And then just keeps asking her questions. And then so finally, Warren stops and turns back and then says something a little bit more articulate. It was like, nobody should go into a dark room and decide who expresses what viewpoint. It was a little bit bizarre because that's kind of the whole argument that Elon Musk has been making all along.

But it's funny to me how at first she was just like, oh, I don't care about this. This is dumb. And she turns around and walks off. And then she catches her a few feet down the hallway and she stops and makes an effort to answer her question. It just amused me that at first she didn't care

and then she's almost conceited. Okay, fine. I'll answer your stupid question. But politicians do that a lot. They'll ignore at first and then something the reporter says will pique their interest and they'll turn back around and answer the question oh that's so it reminds me which for no reason because this confrontation is totally different but it reminds me of um when the paxton stuff the controversies were at its height and uh

i think it was maggie glenn from kxan was like uh found paxton i think it was the airport and we're just like running after him with the mic and um like paxton hadn't been seen for a long time and it like it was and she's a like she's a tv reporter she's very composed when you see her and it was kind of fun to see her and like this other role she's like chasing down the attorney general with the mic it was pretty fun yeah um well fascinating thank you for that um holly what about you what did you see this week on twitter oh i was interested in a conversation i saw about houston metro that's been in the news off and on over the years about whether or not it's profitable. And I know a lot of other urban centers have looked at this. And Bill King is an attorney. He's former mayor of Kima, Texas. He ran for Houston mayor twice. So he's pretty knowledgeable and is really great at crunching

the numbers. But in this discussion, he pointed out that the fares that they charge only cover about 20% of the costs for running Houston Metro, which includes both bus lines and some rail. And he said that a lot of those people who are riding are not paying, they're non-paying riders. And even if everyone did pay, it would still not come anywhere near breaking even. He said, and then if they raised the fares to pay for the cost of service, no one would write it. So his point is, it's not a business.

It's essentially a social program. And his real question is, is it the most efficient model to provide the service? So this is kind of an interesting conversation as we talk about what's good investment. And certainly the city thinks that they would like to push more towards that Vision Zero where there's fewer cars and narrowing streets and so forth and actually not trying to address congestion through more roadway and infrastructure, but through using mass transit and pushing more of the public to use that. Is Vision Zero, that's the program that specifically talks about just entirely eliminating traffic deaths, correct?

Yes, yes. And you see that, you know, not just in progressive centers like Houston and Harris County, you see it, you know, even on the state level, some of the state transportation officials talking about Vision Zero and this idea that we can completely eliminate traffic deaths by, you know, whatever pick a year, 2030, 2040, 2050. But to get there is the question, you know, the devil's in the details. And it seems like it mostly means getting people out of their vehicles, which I think is a tough fight here in the state of Texas. Absolutely. With a state like this, it's going to be, yeah, just like you said, a tough order. And Houston being as sprawling as it is, I can't imagine the difficulty there. Yes. Another great tweet recently, I forget who said it, but he said,

you have no idea how big Houston is. It takes an hour to get from Houston to Houston, which is a pretty good way to put it. Oh, that's rich. Takes an hour to get anywhere Houston to Houston which is a pretty good way to put it takes an hour to get anywhere so oh that's really good um well good one Holly I liked that last bit particularly that made me laugh a lot harder than I have all day um Matt did you see anything on Twitter this week or are we skipping you this week well at first I was gonna skip but I did see something last night that uh i'm kind of a sucker for it's not political whatsoever but um bring it on i think it's real but quaint by an amateur photographer of his picture of planet mars and i just thought it was really

really cool uh it showed this huge ice cap on the North pole of Mars, which I didn't really realize there was as much ice on there and it was just, and I looked at the account and everything like that. It looked pretty legit. So I just thought it was pretty cool. I tweeted, I retweeted it last night so you can go check it out if you want to see it. Nice. Well, I love everything space. So, you know, that's pretty cool. Okay. Have you been to see it nice well i love everything space so you know that's pretty cool okay have you been to nasa in houston i have not but i really really really want to go you gotta go you should go mad it's pretty cool yeah rob we'll go this next year actually i want

to take a trip down to um starbase oh yeah that'd be awesome well once you move to austin you'll be a little closer to all that so i'm saying saying just hurry up and get down here already. Oh, my God. before the November election. If you want to know more about his platform, make sure to go to our podcast. We have an interview with him there that Hayden conducted. It was great. But he released a statement this week. I think it was on Wednesday, basically saying that he has now reached out to every single one of my, here's his quote, every sitting, every one of my sitting Republican colleagues and have been encouraged at the number who tell me they think we need new leadership in the Texas House. Now, the speakership's interesting in Texas. I mean, just in general, any sort of body, this is how it works primarily, where they're elected by their fellow members. They're campaigning not to the people of Texas, but to their fellow

legislators. And that's a small body. So he's got 148 members. I'm not counting Phelan because I assume Phelan is not going to vote for Tony Tenderholt. I think you're probably safe in assuming that. Yeah, I think they're both going to vote for themselves there. But regardless, this is I mean, he has a constituency of 148, basically, that he's campaigning toward. And he said that many of his colleagues also communicated that they fear the current speaker and has the democrats votes locked down and doesn't need many republicans to win they also express their fear that phelan and his team will punish anyone who votes against him which has been a big message of tinderhold since he entered the race um he says that he won't hold

it against them regardless of how they vote but But I'm committed, more committed than ever to ensuring that we have a choice for conservative leadership in the Texas House. It's very interesting to watch this kind of go on. I don't think there's been a ton of hubbub about his speakership. We haven't heard much from other members about it. We'll see what happens. But interesting nonetheless to see him campaigning out there and talking to folks about his candidacy. Okay, guys, I've been waiting for this day. Fun topic today. What are you guys looking forward to this Christmas season? I can talk now about Christmas without hearing it. Crazy criticisms from people like particularly Holly and Brad, who just rain on my parade when I'm just excited for Christmas. But now Thanksgiving's

over. It is officially December. I don't have anything like y'all. Y'all can't hate on my parade when I'm just excited for Christmas. But now Thanksgiving's over. It is officially December. I don't have anything like y'all. Y'all can't hate on my life now. Well, since Brad's not here, do I need to fill in and rain on your Christmas parade? To be the curmudgeon? Oh, no. No, it's properly Christmas season now.

You're totally in the green to go with the Christmas celebration. Thank you, Holly. You posted about it on Slack, didn't you? Oh, 100%. Yeah, something like you just said, finally, I can celebrate Christmas without being harassed for it or something. I think it was Thanksgiving Day or the day before Thanksgiving. And I did the math. I said this many hours until I can celebrate Christmas without being harassed. Yeah. I love Thanksgiving for the record. I think it is. It's just a wonderful holiday. But I also think like the pairing of Thanksgiving and Christmas is part

of what makes like the holidays special because they're both so special and being able to kind of celebrate both in tandem is is fun for me. Like it makes it feel more like Thanksgiving if I also have Christmas on my mind a little bit. I am glad that Thanksgiving and Christmas are back to back, especially this year, because I did not get to go to the family reunion because I was in bed with 103 degree fever. So I'm glad that we have a holiday right around the corner

where we get to celebrate again so that I get a second chance. Oh, amen. I feel so bad about that. Hayden's sniffling and I'm like, what's going on? He's like, Mackenzie, I was just sick. I was like, oh yeah, that's right. Okay, but Christmas,

what are you looking forward to this Christmas season? I'm not talking even about Christmas day, but like, for example, my fiance and I went to Mozart's, which is this coffee shop in Austin the other day. And Mozart's has this huge christmas light show every year and you actually have to like get a ticket now to go which is so crazy but it's so fun it's like put to music it's like it was just a fun you can get hot chocolate at their little stand and they have

like different kinds of hot chocolate it's just very christmassy um he was wearing like shorts and a t-shirt and i was determined to wear a winter coat and i did was the weather we looked like we were in two separate appropriate like for a winter coat uh i mean i'm cold all the time okay but it was i was pushing it a little y'all probably looked like an odd couple we looked like like i had one um like environment that i was in and he looked like he was an entirely other yeah climate it was very weird um but it was funny at one point he had like a sweatshirt and he took off the sweatshirt like he was just literally in a shorts and shorts it was wild you're over there bundled up like an eskimo i was with my hot chocolate like forcing it to be winter um okay but that that's like one

fun christmas thing was mozart's with the christ light show. What about you? Do you all have something that you look forward to each year, Hayden, that you are excited to do? I like walking around at the mall during Christmas. I don't know why that's so fun for me, but we did a little bit when I was home for Thanksgiving. And I'm looking forward to doing it again. To me, it's fun because obviously they always decorate the mall. And there aren't many indoor malls left. And so the ones that have survived have really gone all out. And the mall in Tyler is usually pretty good.

But that's fun for me. Everything being Christmassy at the mall and just other places. Even if I'm not buying anything, it's fun for me to get a hot chocolate and walk around the mall or outlet stores. Going to some sort of retail place where there's Christmas decor or just a hubbub. We went to Central Market the other day and even central market was like so christmassy and their product their christmas products were out and they were playing christmas music it was just i get it like it's very fun um and all the things that that the employees do to you know make it fun to work and while we're on the topic be nice to hourly workers during the

christmas season seriously just be nice to hourly workers it's Christmas season. Seriously, just be nice to hourly workers. It's so true. Because Christmas season is the craziest, most chaotic season in any kind of hourly job or retail job. So just be nice to all the hourly workers out there. One of my best friends is a Starbucks manager. And Christmas is her favorite time of year. She's just as much of a christmas net as i am and she like the horror story she tells me about how christmas has been

ruined by people it's so sad like it is so sad honestly some people just feel nauseous as the holidays get closer because it's um i didn't work in in retail long enough to get this feeling every year, but some people talk about how they dread the holidays because it's just so chaotic. And that's sad to me. It's so sad. I have to say, I didn't work retail, but I did work at a gym in high school. And let me tell you, November, December is pretty nice. But when January hits, oh boy, it was absolutely wild it is it is really it's it's it's a bit worrying almost but everyone feels fat and guilty and they join the gym they're new year's resolutions

guilty i was gonna say like peppermint hot chocolate is something i'm looking forward to i don't really drink hot chocolate ever but like i do like it and you know putting like the peppermint in it and everything is really good um i also it's reminded me what y'all are talking about of a fond christmas memory my freshman year of school we had a guy in our dorm who would starting december just walk into people's rooms with his bluetooth speaker and play mariah carey's all i want for christmas is you at absolute volume enough to make like the room feel like it was shaking. Oh, my gosh. It was a very fond memory.

So, I don't know. Joelle, if you're listening to this, thank you for making Christmas fun. I love that. That's awesome. Holly or Matt, what about you guys? Yeah, I love the music of Christmas, not Mariah Carey. And I absolutely hate Wham's Last Christmas is the worst thing on the planet, in my opinion. But I like a lot of different kinds of music. And I

especially like some of the things that are offered during the Christmas season, the Advent season. And so a friend and I are going to a performance of early music. I love Renaissance and medieval music. I studied medieval history in college. And then, of course, love to have my kids home for Christmas. My youngest son is a college student up in Michigan, so it'll be great to see him. And that's something I'm really looking forward to. That's awesome. Oh, I love that.

What about you, Matt? Well, I guess one of the things I like the most about the Christmas season is I like the Vince Giraldi piano oh yes good stuff yes so that's

that's probably my favorite Christmas music my favorite Christmas memory is I worked in my family's fine jewelry store for a number of years. And every year it was very predictable on Christmas Eve, whenever it'd come around until about closing time or after closing time. And we'd stay open just a little bit longer. And there was always some guy that would show up and gently pull on the door to see if it's unlocked and poke his head in and say is it still open can i get something oh my gosh it's like come on in he's like oh thank god

i'm gonna be in so much trouble that's hilarious it's like valent's Day. Super jewelers to the rescue. Well, your family did him and the other gentleman you're talking about just a very big service. That's awesome. Well, folks, we so appreciate you listening to us blather about each and every week. And we will catch you next week on our edition of the Weekly Rent-Up Podcast. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.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 an email to editor at the texan.news.

We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.