The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - December 20, 2024

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Texas Electors Cast Presidential Ballots for Donald Trump and J.D. VanceRobert Roberson Issued Second Subpoena to Appear at House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee HearingHouse Bill Seeks to Clarify Legality Surrounding Texas Abortion LawCanyon ISD Removes the Bible From School Libraries, Citing Law Targeting ‘Sexually Explicit’ MaterialAmarillo Conservative Donor Starts $20 Million Fund to Target 2026 Primary and General ElectionNew 'Make Texans Healthy Again' Initiative Launches Advocacy CampaignFort Worth Aircraft Manufacturer Awarded First Tax Abatement Under New State LawElon Musk Requests Election to Incorporate 'Starbase' CityTrump Calls on Republicans to 'Eliminate Daylight Saving Time'

Bradley, coming back to you. Okay. Are you ready? I am as ready as I'll ever be. Okay, that's nice. So Brad, comma, the first tax abatement award has been announced under a new state law. Who is receiving it? Question mark.

That was the most insufferable way for you to begin that segment. If you're trying to build tape for like a future career in television broadcasting, that's when you got to cut. that's when you got to cut. That's when you got to cut. It reminds me of Anchorman where he's literally reading everything. Oh, wait. On that note about broadcasting and whatever, I want to say last week. Broadcasting.

Oh, the broadcast. The podcast. What is this, like the nightly news? Howdy, folks. Actually, Merry Christmas, folks. We are just a few days out from Christmas. It's our last weekly roundup before Christmas, which is wild to think about. I'm here with Cameron, Brad, and Mary Elise. And before we started rolling, we were talking ad nauseum, for better or for worse, about our favorite reality shows.

And it did spark some lively discussion. Now, of course, now that the cameras are rolling and the mics are turned on, that lively discussion will be probably a little less lively, as it always tends to be when I try and start small talk at the beginning of this podcast. What's your favorite reality TV show? You are absolutely correct. We were having a very lively discussion. Thank you. A lot of things were shared, a of revealing details about about your family about about some things that will remain secrets yes in the office we're involved but i would say true life on mtv i haven't even heard

you mention that in the entire well i had to. Well, I had to pull one out. What is that? If you guys remember, this was like a... I never watch MTV. I don't know why. Walk in the shoes of a person that has a crazy addiction or has a crazy lifestyle or something or the other. Like hoarders? Kind of like that, but that would just be like a single episode. Okay.

Yeah. That's not like it at all. You ever watch My Strange Addiction? I know about it. I've never seen it. I would see the commercials for it, and I would get freaked out as a kid. I was like, oh, I don't want to know about this. I saw the one where a guy was in a relationship with his car,

and I was like, all right, that's it. I'm never watching this again. Or you sent me that clip like multiple times. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous ridiculous put that guy in the institution geez okay so what's it called true life it's an old old mtv show okay yeah got it mary lease i'm very excited for you to share yeah yeah it's definitely british baking show i used to spend as a kid every saturday morning i think it was on every saturday watching pbs british baking show i used to spend as a kid every saturday morning i think it was on every saturday watching pbs british baking show is that the great british baking show or is this different i think it's that's probably great british okay

see i'm only familiar with the netflix version yes for sure yeah lots of pressure lots of pressure but it's also hilarious they one of the hosts, Nigel, the guy with the. Long black hair. Yeah. Yeah. He was my favorite. I think that, what is it, the signature challenge where they give you very vague instructions about how to make something, Mary Lisa, you know what I'm talking about, where it's like

a traditional baked good that they don't tell you. Like, it may be so traditional and so niche that you don't, you haven't even heard about it before. And they don't tell you like you may be so traditional and so niche that you don't you haven't even heard about it before and they don't tell you how long to bake it for they just kind of give you very vague instructions and see whose comes out the best you have no picture of what it will look like they'll be like crisscross the dough over it and it's so interesting to see what comes out and oftentimes it's like pretty good they're all just like home bakers but that's the that's the most interesting thing. It's like these are not professionally trained bakers or anything.

And they usually have professional lives outside of baking. Yeah. It's like I'm an accountant, but I also bake their ovens. I also dedicate, you know, a large portion of my time to how to intricately weave this dough into this structure structure and it's like why for what actually i remember when i was in eighth grade my history teacher said that his wife had been one of the bakers on the show at one point that's like celebrity status yeah and she's a teacher like on the side that's so cool yeah would you be good at that show mary least you bake i do bake um i'm not the best baker but i do enjoy it so probably wouldn't do very well but

i would enjoy it but it'd be fun yeah oh that's awesome yeah bradley what's your favorite reality tv show gotta go with extreme makeover home edition such a good choice oh ty what's his name pennington pennington yeah i hate that i know that it's exciting to watch didn't he have some legal troubles oh did he i don't know actually i feel like everyone the best part of that show look at that i don't want to disparage his name once the family leaves and they just bring in the construction crew and they just take sledgehammers to the entire house just ripping everything out just no care for anything i always like seeing the obviously really cool i watched as a kid mostly uh the really cool designs they did for whoever the yeah the male child was yeah

just whole jungle gym we we put an entire baseball field yeah right i always look at my mom be like can we do that We put an entire baseball field in. Yeah, right, right. I would look at my mom and be like, can we do that? Hell no. I would always watch it and wonder what the property tax is or, like, the mortgage. Like, I would just worry about the cost after. Oh, yeah. That's what I would always worry about.

Oh, my gosh. Always? You worried about that as a child? 100%. What? Does that surprise you at all? There's no way you thought about that as a kid yes i did you thought about the property taxes mortgage yes i did no way this is probably like 12 13 i'm fully aware that you guys bringing this up just made me think of pimp my ride with exhibit

do you remember that i've never seen it you've they would take these junker cars and, like, trick them out, but, like, to extreme levels. Like, we put a fish tank in your trunk sort of thing. But so people would get back to their car and have these reactions like, oh, my gosh, this is so cool. But then you start to find out like stories are written like the cars will be undriveable and people would go into debt oh my god trying to maintain these cars i guess that's the maintenance is what i would think about too it's just like

the maintenance on these properties has to be insane after extreme makeover home edition right like that's a jungle gym in a child's room crazy like that may not require that much maintenance but a baseball field but yeah i'm trying to resell that house also pennington seems to be pretty i don't know this is just wikipedia he had a dui in 2007 that's it that's pretty standard for it's pretty let's just let that one yeah um my favorite is survivor no question I think it's the best reality show of all time. I think it goes without saying, being that it's been on 40-something seasons at this point. I've seen most of those seasons.

I love Survivor. Would you do it? Yes. Now, I say that, and I know that as soon as I get there and I don't have food available, y'all know how I get. I would be so mad all the time. What would be so mad all the time would you what what would be your tactics would you try and be like the leader no absolutely not oh okay unless you like a very

very rarely does the leader ever win right um unless they're like the most likable person in the world and they're able to not make people feel like they're being led which is a very hard thing to do i'd probably just be really nice and unassuming okay and be so you're not taking on the boston rob persona i love that you mentioned boston rob i would not be taking on the boss no but boston rob is the kind of person that can care you know pull that carries a show but um i would try to win with a much more a core team that is like like, very small, that they're the only people who know that I am having any play in the game. I get that. We could go on for hours here.

We could go on for hours. It's been seven minutes. But Survivor is, I think, the best reality show of all time. I don't think there's any question about that. Well, guys, should we get into the news? Let's do it. Okay. Bradley.

The Electoral College in Texas, the delegation here, officially gave its ballots to Donald Trump this week, president-elect. How did it go? Smoothly. Great. Is that all? That's it. Perfect.

Cameron. No, they cast their 40 electoral votes officially for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, the Republicans, who will take the White House and whatever house the vice president lives in next year. I'm going to look that up. This process, of course, plays out every four years and required by the Constitution. It's less, I guess, impactful or important than it was many moons ago when the Electoral College was either not tied to a candidate specifically and voters, the electors could choose whoever. And also back when you were actually voting on the ballot for the electors, not for the candidates. So now it's very streamlined.

It's very straightforward. There's also not the surrounding, you know, conflict that there was in 2020. Yeah, I think people are more familiar now with the Electoral College process post-2020. Well, you want to know a funny story about that? Tell me. So our own Matt Stringer presided over the Electoral College in 2020 before he worked for us. Did you know this, Cameron? Yeah. Okay. He got made fun of by Jimmy Fallon, right? Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon's not the kind, it's a little bit different. Yeah, Jimmy Fall bit different. Kimmel's the one that will. He's the jerk, yeah.

Matt was on. We all have a vendetta against Jimmy Kimmel just because of this. Yeah. There are plenty of reasons to have a vendetta. Okay, I'm just saying, just because of this. Come on, Matt. No, never mind. So, yeah, Matt did that, and he went viral. And so there's video floating around somewhere on YouTube, I'm sure, and he went viral.

And so there's video floating around somewhere on YouTube, I'm sure, of our Matt Stringer doing his thing. I'll also say, if anyone listening to this ever gets a chance to take Matt Stringer out to lunch and just hear about the nine lives this man has lived, there are like nine lives. He was in a freaking movie. He was in No Country for Old Men. And there's another one, too. There was another one? Yes, it's like two big West Texas film movies. It's No Country for Old Men. And there's another one, too. There was another one? Yes. It's like two big West Texas film movies.

It's No Country for Old Men, and there's another one. Wow. It's like another huge. It's a very similar type of. Anyway, I'll ask him. Keep going. I'm sorry. But take Matt Stringer to lunch.

Yes, do it. Guy is entertaining as heck. So this happened. It went smoothly. There were 40 electors. You have one for each congressional district, 38 in Texas, and then two at large for each Senate seat. And yeah, no fanfare or fireworks at all. But I think what's interesting about this is how it's changed over the years. Because like I alluded to to it first went from either state

legislatures are appointing these electors or they're being elected on ballot by voters specifically when the country was founded they were not bound to candidates and then after the election of 1800, that threw a bunch of chaos into the system because you had, I think, the third-place candidate throw their support behind one of the candidates. And that was the very nasty race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. So they changed it up. They added the 12th Amendment into the Constitution. Things then progressed from there.

During the 1820s, things changed a bit, and then substantially more in the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. And it varied by state, but it was kind of all over the place but certainly a lot different than what we have today they Texas adopted it adopted what's known as the short ballot where you vote actually for the presidential candidate in 1931 and there were some legal fights about it, so a delayed implementation of that until 1944. But now, since then, we have exactly what we recognize on the ballot today,

where you're casting a vote for the candidate of your choosing. Obviously, Texas has been bright red presidential-wise ever since Ronald Reagan first won the White House. No Democrat has really sniffed the Texas vote since then. Was it Reagan's first? Do you know if it's Reagan's first election? It was. It was in 1980. Because the second was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, landslide of all time.

He lost, what, one state in Minnesota or something? Crazy, yeah. He lost what one state Minnesota yeah Jimmy Carter won, Texas in 76 and then the state flipped and has not flipped since so Just kind of a run-of-the-mill process at this point especially because Texas is not Really a battleground at the top of the ticket and statewide. It's also not The winner-take-all system changes things quite a bit. You're not having competing electors. Everyone's unified behind the candidate that selected them. Well, how do you become one of these officers who actually casts the ballot for the electoral

college? Well, the campaigns select you, and usually in tandem with the Republican or the Democratic Party, the political party you're with. I think they might get appointed at the convention, at the state convention. I think so. I'm not positive. But I would encourage folks to, Brad published the list of all the names in his article. These are a lot of folks that are very familiar to folks involved in Texas politics.

So these are like SREC members, local activists, staffers at the Capitol, former RPT chairman. Like there are a lot of different people who are very recognizable on this list. And it usually is just in tandem with the party process that these folks are involved. But certainly if you're interested, I'd encourage folks to go look up that process because it is very much within reach to become an elector. I'm sure it varies by state. There's probably some variation, but generally that's how it is. Yeah, there you go. Bradley, thank you.

Cameron, coming to you. The case concerning death row inmate Robert Roberson has another development. Give us the update. So there has been a second subpoena issued to have Robert Roberson appear before the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. And this is significant because there were questions concerning him providing testimony in person previously when the first subpoena was issued. And he did not end up providing in-person testimony or testimony over Zoom, which was offered. You know, there's lots of concerns regarding, you know, having a death row inmate appear in person at the Texas Capitol and the security concerns with that and

just the process of transferring someone who's on death row. So we don't know as of now if the in-person testimony will take place, but this is significant for a another reason is because there was recently a Supreme Court of Texas decision, or rather an opinion that was issued that explained there was still enough time between the issuing of the Supreme Court opinion and the scheduled date of the execution, which is said to take place in January, for a subpoena to be issued, as long as the subpoena did not interfere with that execution date. Because if anyone has been following the story, Roberson was scheduled to be executed in October, but there was an unprecedented legal maneuver with the first subpoena that was issued.

Actually unprecedented, too. Actually unprecedented too. Actually unprecedented that essentially delayed the execution due to the question of separation of powers between the three branches of our Texas legislature. You know, we have the House and the Senate, we have the judicial branch, and we have the executive. And so that's still going to continue to be debated. But as of right now, the Supreme Court has said, the Supreme Court of Texas has said the subpoena can be issued as long as it doesn't interfere with the execution. They are set to have this committee hearing

on the 20th, the day of the release of this podcast. So I am sure we'll have some updates for people once we have more information. Speaking of more information, I have more information from our Matthew Stringer. Okay. Are you all ready for this? I was in There Will Be Blood, and my name is in the credits next to Daniel Day-Lewis.

Next to him? That's what he said. It must be at some point in terms of chronological. Yeah, exactly, something like that. I'm going to call it next to him that's what he said must be at some point like in order of chronological yeah exactly something like that next to him and matt says dad gave texas talking lessons to josh brolin and no country for old men because he's also in that movie yeah josh it's my first movie because he currently has been in three at least was dancer texas pop 81 i don't know what that is probably straight to VHS. I was an extra at the bus station scene.

The other two, blockbusters. Dancer Texas Pop 81, not so sure. 1998 film. Matt was here. He's not here to defend himself. Or I have to keep looking at the name of the movie because it does not roll off the tongue. Dancer Texas Pop 81. And what's the third one?

No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood. Classics. It's a high school movie. I'm telling you, take Matt Stringer to lunch. That's the moral of the story. That's from his hot air balloon endeavor. Yeah. Didn't he start a hot air balloon company or something?

I don't know yeah he's he's done man's enigma he is well-rounded human being um cameron thank you mary lease coming to you my dear state representative ann johnson filed a bill related to abortion laws in texas tell us about it yes so state representative ann johnson filed Bill 1493, and it was to ensure medically necessary exceptions for Texas's abortion laws by clarifying health care providers' liability when they're performing these abortions for various motivations, different reasons. It's also titled The Life of the Mother Act, and it lists three different situations that it's seeking to clarify the health care provider's liability or lack thereof for.

So it's ectopic pregnancies, a pre-viable premature rupture of membranes, or any other complication that the doctor has diagnosed has a substantial likelihood of causing serious bodily injury for the mother. Johnson posted on X introducing this bill, House Bill 1493. She said Texas women were robbed of their freedom. Some were even robbed of their lives. I just filed HB 1493 to ensure medically necessary exceptions for this dangerous abortion ban. And while Johnson did not specify exactly which Texas law she's seeking to clarify, it's helpful, most likely, to note that Texas's abortion trigger ban, which became effective 30 days after the United States Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, it prohibits electively aborting a pre-born child from the moment of conception forward, and it does allow for exceptions in situations when a life-threatening physical condition

aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places a female at risk of death. And Johnson also added that current Texas law threatens doctors with jail time for providing abortion care. This was something she posted on X upon introduction to the bill. She said, even when a mother's life is on the line, HB 1493 will clarify Doctors' Abilities Act in critical health emergencies. Something we reported on recently is that the most recent data from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission indicated that 113 medical necessity or life health exception abortions were performed in Texas in the 21

months, almost two years following the return of Roe v. Wade. And the Texas Medical Board addressed this recently. They issued a statement addressing a few different things, but they confirmed that none of those 113 cases resulted in disciplinary action for those healthcare providers. So this will, um, House Bill 1493, we'll see it unfold at the 89th legislative session, um, and hopefully get some clarity around it, what exactly it's targeting and exactly what it's seeking to clarify. Absolutely. And this is completely unrelated to this bill, but Ann Johnson, she's a Democrat from Houston, was at the forefront of a lot of the Ken Paxton impeachment efforts in the House. So if you follow the legislature and you're like, Ann Johnson name sounds familiar, that's kind of most recently what she's been at the mic for in the legislature. So

very interesting stuff. Mary Lee, thanks for covering that for us cameron pretty breaking story here that uh you've been working on this morning um thursday morning a texas school district has banned the quote full text of the bible from being in school libraries purportedly due to compliance with hb 900 or the reader act tell us about it so there was an email that came out from Canyon Independent School District and their superintendent Daryl Flushes. Flusha? I'm not sure how to actually say it. It's an odd last name. Flush. But he writes that quote standard for library content prohibits books that have one instance of sexual content. Therefore, HB 900 doesn't allow numerous books, including the full text of the Bible,

to be available in the school library. And the Texan was able to confirm the authenticity of this email. And so the email is quite extensive. I put big block quotes just so everyone knows what the email says. I put that in the article that will be published this morning. And for those who have heard of the Reader Act or are familiar with HB 900, I'll just give a little bit of detail here. Preventing children from accessing certain materials in public school libraries by prohibiting library vendors from selling library material rated, quote, sexually explicit. It became effective last year, and the law required vendors to perform a, quote, contextual analysis of their own materials to determine their level of appropriateness. And obviously with a piece of legislation like this it's gonna be a bit controversial. There

was lots of debate about it during the session. There's been a number of legal challenges to this law but it is in effect at this point. And after the news came out of this email, the author of HB 900, Rep. Jared Patterson, he wrote in response that, quote, the Bible is the most important and most read book in history, and removing it does a grave injustice to the students in your care and Patterson also clarified that the Bible and other religious texts are protected under HB 900. so uh the Texan here we did reach out to this superintendent to clarify why this decision was made we have yet to hear back but if we do we'll make sure to update

the story and update our readers. Absolutely. And Cameron, you talked about it, but this is important too to remember why this bill was brought forth in the first place. There was concern over some of these library books in school libraries that were found in a myriad of different school libraries across Texas. Continues to be found. Like there's a number of, just because there's, this is a question across the country regarding what constitutes community standards related to sexually explicit content. It's, this law is based upon the Miller test, which is a case out of California decades ago. And if it sounds vague in the way I explained it, it is. And it requires some subjective analysis.

That's why within HB 900, it does clarify. There has been bills filed for the upcoming session to further clarify what constitutes this contextual analysis, what constitutes sexually explicit. So we will continue to have updates with legislation to further clarify some of these big aspects of the law. So this is a story that's going to be ongoing. and two if folks are curious as to uh the text of these kinds of books i'd encourage folks to go read past stories that you've written just so that they can see the kind of material that was being targeted by this bill because it is um and it's the name it's your own peril but certainly um well the titles of these books are the ones people are

familiar with things like boys not bluequeer, those sorts of things. That was really the intended target for this piece of legislation. So like how you started this off, this is sort of a breaking big story, is because there were rumblings and mentions during the legislative session about the Bible and some of the stories that might be in there. And so this is sort of the first iteration we've seen of actually a school district removing the Bible from a school library. So we'll see what comes of it. If there's a reaction, I'm sure there will be from Kenyon ISD, but as of right now um so sort of up in the air well and we we saw representative patterson file a bill to kind of supplement the reader act right

for next session uh in light of the court cases right court ruling against it so maybe we see something um another bill filed or an amendment tacked on about this specifically? Maybe Representative Patterson thinks it's already clear. I don't know. He thinks it's clear as it's written right now in his press release. He goes into some of the education code and subsections that would allow for the Bible and other religious texts to remain in schools. But like you mentioned, if there is going to be additional clarification needed, we're probably going to see future legislation.

Maybe it's not needed, but maybe they do it anyway just to cover all their bases, right? Which is how this often works, right? Lawmaking is not a perfect process. This is often how this works. And no matter how clear something appears to be legally, it still has to withstand court challenges, which we've seen over and over again at the HB 900. And so there's just a lot at play here. And during session, it'll be interesting to see how that is tackled.

Yeah. Well, Cameron, thank you. And I definitely encourage folks to go read your past coverage on this and your story right now. It's a very interesting development. That's right. Thank you, Cameron. Bradley, coming to you. We got some answers this week on a mysterious text that had been sent out to members ahead of a reform group meeting ahead of a speaker vote.

Walk us through this debacle. So back in September, we talked about this quite a bit, a group of members who were opposed to Dade Phelan calling themselves the Reform Group, wanting various changes to the way the house operates. They coalesced at a barbecue joint. Do we know which one? It was County Line Barbecue. Do we know what they ordered? Was was it catered brisket i don't know okay barbecue sauce yes or no on the brisket yeah i don't know my buddy made brisket and yelled at me when i put barbecue sauce on it one time maybe he just needs to make a better brisket you're gonna send this clip to him i do um anyway so there was at that meeting there was a text that was sent out.

I tweeted it out. It basically said, you know, do your job here. Don't worry about backlash because there is the largest political fund in Texas politics ever created. They're ready to be behind you. And there was a lot of speculation about who the heck that is you know people suggested Dan Patrick people suggested the artist formerly known as defend Texas Liberty now it's

Texans United for conservative majority the Tim Dunn funded group some people suggested Abbott TLR just because of because of the sheer amount of war chests that they have. Well, we kind of got an answer on who it was this week when Alex Fairley, a healthcare businessman and conservative mega-donor from Amarillo, launched a new group called, a new fund called the Texas Republican Leadership Fund. He said he's going to put $20 million of his own money in it. They're not taking donations from anyone else, at least right now, based on press release. And the purpose, as he laid out, is to target the 2026 elections,

both Republicans in the primary and then democrats um as he said to try and make thing make the body more conservative make probably the texas house but not just that uh the senate any any other offices but mainly state legislative offices more conservative he said quote i hope the messaging doesn't end up being about me. The focus needs to be about how important it is for Texas Republicans to get the speaker selection process right so we end up with an unencumbered

speaker. The release also stated, out of this was created this week with the Texas Ethics Commission, quote, out of concern that the Texas House still lacks a united Republican majority and follows Governor Greg Abbott's recent call for the speaker to be chosen

by a majority of Republican representatives in accordance with the Republican caucus rules. Of course, there was the walkout at the Republican caucus vote on December 7th, followed by David Cook ended up winning that endorsement for Speaker Dustin Burroughs, followed that, and he was part of the walkout. He declared victory, said, I have 76 votes. We saw votes, Republican members and one Democratic member who were on his list of 76 since, say, I didn't agree to be on this or that i'm no longer in that camp so it's developing situation but now we see this massive fund come in 20 million dollars that's a lot of money and um i i can't imagine putting that much money in one lump sum

into a political um you know, but whatever. It's just an astounding amount. But this is another example of how much this supposedly internal fight over the gavel, how it's been typically in the past, is now a fully-fledged public fight. And we see it playing out on social media and text messages. We see this basically proxy war between donors, Republican donors. Fairly is very much now involved in that. Has been, but especially now.

This thing is an all-encompassing brawl politically over control of the world of Republicanism in the state right this is not just a party thing this is everyone who considers themselves in the republican sphere fighting over control and direction of this majority coalition and did mention, is this the first time Farrelly's gotten involved so publicly in Texas politics or has he been involved in the past? Where'd he come from? Yeah, he's been involved previously, nothing to this level, right? Okay. He made donations to various members in this primary. Okay. He made some donations in the 22 primary but not nearly as much. He's been

focused mainly on Amarillo. And my first brush with him how I first got to know him was he sued the city of Amarillo over a debt

maneuver they did where city voters had rejected general obligation bonds to build a new civic center. And two years later, the council basically approved these tax anticipation notes, which is like a bridge loan to get you from point A to point B between revenues to fund this project. It's never been used before for a capital project. So he sued and won. That was his first foray into Texas politics that I remember. Both the Texas House and the Texas Senate brought him in to talk for committee hearings.

What business is he in? Healthcare. Healthcare. Yeah. I think he's got his hands in a lot of stuff, so I don't know exactly how to limit it, but the healthcare industry. Okay.

And then, you know, most notably, he financed a substantial amount of the campaign for his daughter, Caroline, who is now a representative-elect in House District 87 in the House. So he went from kind of dipping his toe in the water to cannonballing. Yeah. And now even more so with this $20 million. Well, you mentioned the tax issue that he initially jumped into is there any other issues you think he

could potentially you know get involved with you know is because if he's getting so involved with the speakers race with this big body what are his policy yeah what are the question with a lot of these guys like any big down is there any inclination that you have that there's other policy issues you can um well with this specifically it looks to be about control of the house and the speakership the gavel right which is the question right which obviously that will determine a lot policy-wise or could yeah um i mean i know there's a lot of talk about pharmacy benefit managers and there's vote in D.C. going on, I think, this week about that. I don't know if that applies to him.

Well, because I'm just trying to think like, you know, money comes into it doesn't just have to be fairly in the speaker's race. It's any big money donor and any politician. They want to be rewarded, essentially. There's an aim. They want a certain out a certain angle certain outcome why else would you put in money on anything right even if you're a candidate and you have a 50 donation from somebody they have they have a name too right it's the nature of the beast yeah um that's why it's not just out of the goodness of their

heart like even if it's just we need a different speaker well that's different because like is it out of the goodness of – it could be too, right? Like somebody writing a check to somebody. It's not just. I know. They're not just – I'm thinking about like a little grandma.

I love it, writing a check. Yeah. So he has come on the scene strong and fast, and it's going to be something to watch for years to come. He gave $700,000 to David Covey in Phelan's primary. That's a lot of money, too. A lot of money. Yeah.

And he's willing to spend it. And he's clearly looking for a brawl, and he's getting it. And we'll see how things go in the speakers race and then leading up to the next primary. But now you have another multi-multi-million dollar force in this realm, and Texas was not lacking in those before, and now there's another one. Yeah, absolutely. We'll keep an eye on it.

It'll be interesting to watch how Representative Elect fairly navigates this session as well. That'll be fun. And she's young. So young, yeah. 25. Ran a very impressive campaign. It'll be fun to watch come January. Okay, Cameron, coming to you.

A new health and wellness project has launched in Texas. Sounds with a familiar name, mind you. Very familiar name. People know of Make America Healthy Again, really driven by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We now have Make Texans Healthy Again. This is a new project started by political consultant Travis McCormick. He wrote the motivation for this new project is to make Texans healthier so they rely less on the system, reducing costs, and easing the burden on providers. And I got a chance to speak with Travis a little bit. And right now, there's no specific policy aims in terms of introducing pieces of legislation. This is more about just getting the

name out about this future initiative and trying to get like-minded individuals together to try and move forward this idea of making Texans healthy again. I'd encourage if people are interested in this new project, there's a website with all sorts of health statistics and issues with the food system. I'm sure everyone's aware now if they've been paying attention to politics at all. It's a big talking point about the issues with America's health. So it's just a more focused campaign here in Texas and should be interesting to see what happens in the future with it. Yeah, and in the legislative session, what kind of advocacy work they'll do, and it'll be very interesting. Cameron, thank you.

Bradley, coming back to you. Okay. Are you ready? I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Okay, that's nice. Brad, the first tax abatement. Also okay i need to i need to air this out brad wrote this question down for me okay and he said brad comma the first tax what is this like the nightly news

this is really funny so So Brad, comma. The first tax abatement award has been announced under a new state law. Who is receiving it? Question mark. That was the most insufferable way for you to begin that segment. If you're trying to build tape for like a future career in television broadcasting, that's when you got to cut. That's when you got to cut.

It reminds me of Anchorman where he's literally reading everything. Oh, wait. On that note about broadcasting and whatever, I want to say last week. Broadcasting. Oh, the broadcast. The podcast. Milo, it's okay. I want to say that last week my mic unplugged.

And so that's why the audio was so bad for me last week. I've gotten a few tweets about people have tweeted at me, said a few things about a couple emails. We're so sorry. We did the absolute best we could to recover. But there was no real way to go back and rerecord an hour's worth of banter and everything. So we're sorry for how rough it sounded last week.

I'm sorry that my voice was as grating as it was if it isn't already grating. And it was just horrible. So as a heads up, that's what happened. And so going forward, we are checking like 17 billion times to make sure. Well, for our dedicated podcast listeners, if you don't ever have to want to worry about mic issues or listening, they can buy tickets. Cameron, please tell us more to

our kickoff event there are a few left just a tiny bit yeah so go to the website buy your tickets for their our kickoff event January 28th January 28 here in Austin here in Austin that's. We have banners on the website. You can click on them, check the tickets, everything. Maslin's very happy for us remembering to plug in. But, yes, absolutely. And the mic was plugged in when we started recording last week, I also want to say. The mic was fully plugged in.

At some point, it became unplugged. Maybe the dog's in the room. We don't know. It could have been me being absent-minded, which I tend to be occasionally. Well, yeah. That's an understatement. Shall I get to the segment now? Brad, comma, talk to us about these tax abatements, period.

Okay. You did this to yourself. So Bell Textron Incorporated will receive the first property tax abatement under the state's new law that replaced the former program known as Chapter 313. The aerospace manufacturing firm builds helicopters and aircraft parts. It's headquartered in Fort Worth. In tandem with the award, Bell Textron will expand its aircraft manufacturing operations with a new facility, part of which will supply the U.S. Army's future long-range

assault aircraft program. That's a mouthful. The new facility will be constructed in Denton County. It's projected to create 400 new jobs and reach a total investment of $429 million. The abatement, I believe a 10-year-long abatement, which is a reduction in the taxable value of one's property, is worth 50% of the new plant's property value with Northwest ISD. This new program, because it replaced Chapter 313, is associated with school district property taxes. There are abatements or similar awards for both cities and counties. They can give under, I think, Chapter 312. But 313 was the one that got all the controversy for a large number of reasons, not just because ISDs account for not just the largest share

but the majority share of property tax bills in the state. So Governor Abbott and a few other officials alongside Bell Textron, CEO, announced this at their facility, I believe in Fort Worth, and had all the pomp and circumstance that these press conferences usually do about economic development. Well, I'm looking at some of these prototype aircraft that are going to be a part of this program. They look very cool, very interesting. You know, there's been a lot of focus on streamlining our future military. Someone like Pete Hegseth being nominated. on streamlining our future military. Someone like Pete Hegseth being nominated,

he's spoken a lot about that issue. So yeah, the future of Warcraft here in Texas. That's the idea. That's really nice. What's the new law now? Oh my God. You're really breaking the fourth wall. Yes, I will tell you what the new law is. I would really like to know about the new law.

Yeah, would you like to know? I really would. Yeah. It's called the Texas Jobs Energy Technology and Innovation Act, known as JEDI. Whoever comes up with these acronyms. Even the READER Act, impressive that they could get READER. But then you have like marylise what was the one in fourth reading i was just trying to remember the this one was

way too much with the the face act wasn't the take it down it was a take it down act let me look yeah yeah let me know when you got it because i want to it's just absurd whoever came up with that. Was it in fourth reading or the 40? The 40. The 40. Okay. Let's see. Okay, I have it. So it's TAKEITDOWN, all caps, but it stands for Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks.

Okay, when you said the TAKEITDOWN Act, I thought that was what made up the acronym, maybe plus a couple other words. No, it's like all caps take it oh my gosh yeah impressive that's wild we need to shut down these acronym making exploits until we can figure out what the heck is going on well until we can figure out what the heck is going on? Is that a question? It just didn't make much sense. Okay Brad what's about this new law? Oh my god. Grants 50% abatements for a period of 10 years in school districts and this was a huge fight last session in 23. Chapter 313 was allowed to sunset after the 21 session because nobody could come to an agreement on how to either renew it or refashion it.

So they let it die, and a big reason was renewable companies especially who which did not generate many permanent jobs you know they'd have on their application one created job or two sometimes not they were just flowing in getting these three one three agreements candy. It was just all over the place. And that causes issues locally and property taxes paid. Now, it brings property taxes paid where they might not otherwise have been, but it also, because of the abatement, it lasts 10 years and you see the property tax burden shifted elsewhere for the time being until that expires.

Also, you throw in the grid discussion where the increase, the influx of renewable power has been caused by the production tax credit largely, which is a federal thing. But then you had these local tax breaks, like in 313. And so those, especially on the more conservative side, say that adding more and more renewable power doesn't help the grid. It actually hurts it in times of high stress, benefits aside. So that was all part of the debates, and it just kind of, they reached an impasse, and they couldn't agree on anything. So they let it die.

And they came back and did this new bill last session, and the focus was to try and bring in really large investments for manufacturing, critical infrastructure, other things like that. So technology grants and They gave both the governor and the comptroller more ability to veto these these applications because that was another problem with three one three basically, it was just a deal between ISD and the The company getting it and the comptroller didn't have much ability to say, this is fatuous, we shouldn't have this. This one, this version does allow that. So we're seeing a lot fewer applications being made. Right now, I think there's 12 in the queue. This one has been approved now. Only one has been given

a negative recommendation by the comptroller. So you have that increases but i don't know it's overall it's a much more tailored program focused on larger investments that can't carry a lot more jobs okay that's what i was going to ask is like what is like one of the more important factors that is going to have an application be approved or yeah struck down well jobs created it has like a tiered system where based on the size of the county that you're in and the size of the investment you have a job minimum job requirement to get this and it's not small it's not one job right yeah i think the lowest level is 50 probably um so yeah and governor abbott said about this this new advanced manufacturing facility is the first project under Texas' new JEDI program.

This program is part of our broader strategy to build a better prepared and better paid workforce by encouraging companies like Bell to expand manufacturing in Texas. This brings up something that kind of a, something I bring up all the time. And all of this investment and population growth, business growth, prosperity flowing in the state comes at a cost. And so the state's going to have to figure out what to do, not only on, like, water and power, but just congestion on roads, all this stuff. And it's actually something we'll be talking about in one of the panels at our event. on water and power, but just congestion on roads, all this stuff. And it's actually something we'll be talking about in one of the panels at our event.

Buy tickets. Well, I just think stories like this are just emblematic of the complex system that we live in. Politicians, they say, I'm going to bring more jobs to whatever district. And we're like yeah or when it comes to the energy grid oh they just care about turning on their light switch and the lights turn on but there's all this stuff that goes on in the background and how incredibly complicated with applications and how to manage water and land rights, property tax. It's so complicated. And it's a lot of what's legislated.

That's not spicy or fun to watch during the session, but a lot of this is decided. Just so at the end of the day, someone has a job to go to every day, and when they get home, their lights turn on, and their faucet runs water. So, yeah, it's always fascinating to hear brad lay out all that stuff it's interesting it's a lot of behind the scenes yeah that makes one of you people bradley thank you cameron let's talk about starbase a little bit more spicy

okay of a topic walk us through what's new in starbase well elon elon you know he's making waves right now elon elon mus Elon Musk. Oh, okay. The billionaire? Yes. Richest man in the world? He's not just Trump's best friend. He's like an adopted Trump at this point. He's like hanging out with all the kids. And he's making a lot of waves right now because of his work with Doge and his fights right now going on with the CR in Congress. But bringing it back to Texas, he has moved X, he's moved Tesla, he's moved SpaceX. Now he actually wants to create a town based upon his SpaceX headquarters.

And so he's submitted a letter in an effort to incorporate a portion of Cameron County into a new town. And he wrote in this letter, quote, SpaceX is proud to play a major role in South Texas and Cameron County communities, which are home to thousands of our employees with several hundred living at Starbase. So just a really interesting move here. You know, the tycoon that is Elon Musk with all of his businesses, and now he's fully into Republican politics and wants to make his own town. So just an interesting story. He's always spinning a few plates. Yeah. Yeah, he's always got a few things going on. He's also, like, a top-rated, like, video game player.

Like, some... Are you serious? Yeah. Do you ever sleep? No one knows. Maybe he's just mainlining Red Bull. I don't know. Mainlining Red Bull.

Mainlining something else. Oh, my gosh. Both of you are ridiculous. Well, Cameron, thank you. Yeah. Let's end with a very interesting daylight saving time story. Well, I know everyone's upset when the time changes and you get up and it's dark and you get home and it's dark. It's like, where did the sun go? I've been in the office all day.

Especially when we have no windows well you need your vitamin d it's an important uh it it's an important vitamin and mineral and you get it through sunlight and that's good to know i'm just teasing well you can you can take you can take exogenous vitamin d i take it both, I want to say, have said very good vocabulary words throughout this podcast. Impressive vocabulary words. Thanks. I take vitamin D every morning. That is the least surprising thing I've heard today. Along with a number of other supplements.

Steroids. Steroids, Cameron? No TRT yet. Maybe once I hit 40. You sound like my husband. Back to the story. Okay. The ongoing effort to end daylight savings time has gained new wind with the leader of the next presidential administration expressing his support.

That's Donald Trump. He posted on Truth Social that he wants to work with Republicans to eliminate daylight savings time. And there's been bills filed to do this before. There's been bills filed in the Texas legislature attempting to do this. All have failed. And just for some background here, from the U.S. Department of Transportation, they write, states may choose to exempt themselves from observing daylight savings time by state law. States do not have the authority to choose to be on permanent daylight savings time. So there's actually a bill filed right now, Senate Bill 64, to eliminate daylight savings time here in texas so

uh filed by a democrat too right yeah is it actually eliminating it or adopting it full the bill proposes observing standard time year round and authorizes a statewide referendum to allow voters to choose right we're supposed to be objective on this podcast. I do not get into political fights. But this is one where I have to get involved. You're going to see Brad picketing. My meaningless opinion. There's all sorts of different signs.

He's just going to be holding a sign that's just a big sun. I cannot stand getting home and it's dark afterward. If it's dark in the morning, that's fine. But getting dark in the morning, that's fine. Right. But getting dark at 530, no. We need daylight saving time. I'm with you.

If I have, I think I have the. And we are saying it correctly. It's not savings time. It's saving time. Yeah. Right? Well, this was a debate in the office. Is the S necessary when saying daylight saving or savings?

I think it's colloquially used. I don't think it's proper. So now he's using big words. Oh, my. So one of the bills filed last session, I think Trent Ashby filed it, and probably a senator too, but I think it was Paul Bencourt as well. But it would have given voters the choice between adopting one or the other on the ballot. And I just want to see the multi-million dollar bruising campaign, marketing campaign from both sides go at each

other for six months over this. I think that would be very interesting. Yeah, it would be very interesting. Well, that's something we'll be watching and it's very it's always something that's talked about each legislative session this issue has a very dedicated group of activists behind it folks care deeply about daylight saving time and it's abolishment but I will be interested to see if there's any traction that's gained because of the president elects and former president and president elect's support for the issue well maybe we'll see the save the sun campaign or something maybe we'll see brad heading up the committee yeah okay camera thank you guys we have tweetery to get to um and marie lee has been approximately well we've already moved on and he said what are you

waiting for also if at any point you hear little doggy noises, I have a creature in my lap who keeps deciding to get up right next to the mic and like lick his chops. So if you hear little dog noises, that is what is going on. Mary Lisa, it has been a while since we chatted with you. So why don't you go first with the Twitter-y section? Okay. Well, I think this is something that might end up impacting us all. But I saw that it says the largest Amazon strike in history is occurring right now. At Christmastime? Yeah.

Oh, boy. I think it's begun today. So it's the Teamsters Union has launched the largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history. So it's really interesting so we'll see um this is probably gonna affect some christmas shopping oh dear that's very good for me to know i haven't my mom probably won't listen to this podcast she listens to some but i don't think she'll listen because by the time she this one's out i will be with her so hopefully i can control the situation i bought her like a like a fake tree. You know one of those four foot tall fake trees?

She wanted one and it was on her list, so I got it for her. And it's definitely one of the last things I ordered and ordered it like two days ago. So if the strike affects the tree's delivery, I might also pick it. Amazon. Yeah. I know. We got two protesters at the table. I also just really am excited to wrap a tree.

Like that's going to be a task. You're going to wrap it? I have to disguise it somehow. Get a really big bag. I could get a really big bag. But you know a really big bag, you know where I'd find one? Amazon. Yeah.

So we'll have to see go to home depot maybe maybe it'll be in a box it'll probably be just in a box anyways so i can just wrap the box wrap the box it's easy what's in the box okay um seven well that's really good to know mary elise thank you for enlightening me on this and the rest of us no problem um cameron you probably already knew about the amazon strike i haven't i haven't been on twitter oh well what do you got for us well oh you didn't see yours we started off uh the podcast talking about reality tv well i have another topic related to that. Paris Hilton, you know, she had her own reality TV series with some other. One of the Richies.

Yeah. Nicole Richie. I think you're right. I'm just impressed with your cultural knowledge sometimes, Cameron, really, truly. sometimes can't really truly well she has become a huge advocate for um some issues on capitol hill and she's been in washington dc um lobbying for some of these efforts, she was questioned about if she sees herself as being a future elected official. And she said, quote, I can maybe see that happening. So if Donald Trump paved the way for reality TV stars to become president, maybe next is Paris Hilton. wow I do have you guys heard uh because she's made a lot of waves recently because obviously she has an image a crazy image teenage Paris Hilton 20

something year old Paris Hilton doing all sorts of wacky crazy things but I think now she's like 40 she is it was a while to think about, but I think she's in her 40s. And her voice, like have you guys heard about her voice? So she has that high, I could not do an impression of it to save my life, but it's a high-pitched, very blonde-type sounding voice that she'll do. It's like the whole brand that she's had. And apparently that's not her real voice at all. And she's come out lately on

interviews and she just sounds like a normal woman and everyone's like what she's like yeah i just wanted to make money she was like i just wanted to go you know be famous and the voice was a character i played and it worked and yes it worked she became one of the most famous people of the 2000s have you ever seen the the meme of her where she's up like this and she's got a shirt that says, stop being poor? Yes. It's unreal. One of my favorites.

The number of cultural moments that that woman has provided us. I just saw another one where she's got a luggage scooter that she's riding. Oh, she was riding around on. It looks ridiculous, but perfect for paris hilton yeah she also came out and said she's never had botox or plastic surgery really yeah and but i think it's actually legit because in her house she has like a whole skincare room and like doctors that will be there then like you know if you have the money for that who needs botox you know yeah it's pretty wild i saw that her team someone ran across her at the capitol and um i saw that they were saying her team brings around

they have like this fan for pictures and like a big light they shine so like when news people come up they'll kind of like gently be blowing the fan and her hair is kind of just elegantly um waving in the wind blowing in the in the wind. That's amazing. As you guys were talking, I was Googling because I had remembered in the deep recesses of my mind something about Paris Hilton in this documentary that I watched about this fake billionaire named Joe Lowe. Are you guys familiar with this?

People need to go check out this documentary the guy's name he's a malay he reported at the time a malaysian financier joe load j-h-o-l-o-w and he pretended to be a billionaire who fooled celebrities into thinking he was one of the richest men in the world like like a crazy billionaires what's that like a fire fest of billionaires yeah yeah i into thinking he was one of the richest men in the world. Like crazy. Like a fire fest of billionaires. What's that? Like a fire fest of billionaires. Yeah. A billionaire.

Yeah. I watched this documentary probably a couple years ago, and he had run around and partied with Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio, but it was all fake. I see the bling thing too, like when Paris Hilton got robbed. That was the whole thing. Oh, yeah. Anyway, well, we talked when Paris Hilton got robbed. That was the whole thing. Oh, yeah. Anyway, well, we talked about Paris Hilton for like five full minutes.

But, Cameron, thank you. Well, maybe Paris Hilton will put us one day. Bradley, what you got? This one's actually quite funny. Yeah, I got – we get ridiculous pitches via email from PR firms. And I got one the other day that was absolutely ridiculous. Although not quite the one that said, quote, Texas is the most catfish state in the country.

I think I'm not right about that. Like fake dating? I guess, yeah. Catfishing? But this one reads, Brad, do you want to interview a reformed Nigerian scammer and a romance scam victim? I don't know if those are two different people. Maybe they are. I don't know.

And would make me assume that it is the same person. Yeah. A new study found online scams are surging this holiday season in state and state Texas numbers. Someone needs an editor. Come on. This is ridiculous. Number two in the nation, losing a record $1.02 billion last year. Inboxes and social media feeds are being flooded with online scams exploiting pain points that arise during the holidays. This includes big discounts on gifts,

preying on lonely people with romance scams, and offering time-sensitive investment opportunities. Reverse search company Social Catfish released a study on the state of online scams in 2024. Yada, yada, yada. So this is a real thing. Like, there are, so there's parts of YouTube that are just people who actually take the calls from these scammers and then scam the scammers. This was an even bigger scam, or maybe more successful would be more accurate.

Scam in like 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Like, our parents would all get these calls and they'd be like, really? This is crazy. Yeah. I mean, I still get emails from the Ethiopian prince who wants to hand me half of his fortune. One of these days I'm going to take him up on it. I can't believe you denied him all this time. But heck yeah, I want to do the interview, right?

Why not? It's a great story. Can you think of a reason not to, Cameron? I can't. Approved. Nice. Go do it. I'm going to cite a tweet from our own Holly Hansen.

Inbox, never a dull day. Precinct 4 Constable in Harris County. Deputies, find a loose piggy seeking owner. This is a spotted, adorable, Mary Lisa, I don't know if you've seen the tweet. I saw it. Cute little pig wow like an adore like i'm not one to think pigs are particularly adorable and this is an adorable

little spotted piggy now i don't know if it's actually little this could be a giant creature weighing 100 pounds or more i don't know but in the picture it's cute just wandering around well people keep like the teacup pigs as pets yes right i don't know i don't think that's an indoor pig you know there's indoor dogs outdoor dogs indoor cats outdoor yeah do they have is there the same personality for pigs good question i think because a lot of them do have like supposedly i've never met an indoor pig but dog-like personalities which is why they're kept indoors. Right.

But I'd say, why not just get a dog? That may cause a couple angry emails to come my way, but, you know, I'm willing to risk it. You're not playing fetch with the pig. I think you can. Oh, really? I think you can, yeah. I think you can.

Or you could just get a five pound Little squirrel creature Let him run around The mic He really is interested in the mic I don't know why Well guys, Merry Christmas Merry Christmas

Merry Chrysler Merry Christmas On that note, folks Thanks for listening And we'll catch you next week for a year in review pod. Bye. We already recorded. Yeah, it's done.

It's banked. Bye, y'all. 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 us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.